Everybody’s favorite free-to-play concoction Clash of Clans (Free) has just received its first significant update of the new year. Well, it seems like everybody’s favorite anyway if the top grossing charts are any indication. This thing has been dominating on that chart since last summer, and shows no signs of slowing down. Today’s update should help ensure it keeps up its forward momentum going.

The big ticket items in this latest update are two new Hero units, the Barbarian King and Archer Queen. These units are immortal, so they cannot die they just simply go to sleep, but they’ll cost you quite a bit to unlock them. The other big item is a new resource, Dark Elixir. The Dark Elixir is formed from fossilized Black Dragon bones (whoa, cool) and is required in order to recruit the two new Hero units and to upgrade their abilities. It’s a rare resource apparently, so good luck getting your hands on some.

The rest of this update is filled with many tweaks, like additional upgrade levels for certain items and weapons and changes to some of their attributes, and a new way to track how valuable your individual clan members are. This update also removes all the holiday and winter stuff introduced in the last update. At long last it’s stopped snowing! If you’re a Clash of Clan‘er then head on over to the App Store and check out the new update, and hit up our forums where you can interact with other fans of the game.