Originally Posted by
Empirate
IMO Arbalesters are better than Longbows for their main job: Delivering withering missile fire. They have the same range, but far better killing power; Londbows are armor-piercing, but not very effectively so. Arbalesters are far better at destroying armored units. On the other hand, they need thrice as long to reload. Pavise Arbalesters, moreover, are slow to get around the battlefield. Still, while Longbowmen will on average kill only two men or so out of a regiment of heavy foot (per volley), you can rely on the Arbalesters to kill five or six, sometimes even a dozen in one volley. This delivers a far greater shock to the regiment than being whittled down slowly over time, especially when you concentrate fire by many regiments of Arbalesters. The faster reload time of Longbowmen means they can fill the air with arrows, leaving the target no time to breathe, but it also means they run out of ammo far more quickly. Arbalesters can keep shooting the whole time even in drawn-out battles that involve a lot of missile dueling or maneuvering for position. Arbalesters are also better armored, so they cannot easily be destroyed/routed by a cavalry charge; Longbowmen are quite vulnerable to this. But Longbowmen make much better flankers: Their melee attack is decent enough, and they have armor-piercing axes for close combat. This makes them valuable even once their ammo is gone.
You should probably employ both troops in your armies, e. g. two regiments of Longbowmen, two of Arbalesters. Arbalesters deliver steady killing power against heavy armor, while Longbowmen quickly destroy lightly armored or unarmored targets. Both combined can keep up the fire and thus undermine the morale of a single target unit very quickly. Once their arrows are spent, the Longbowmen can be deployed as a flanking reserve, while the Arbalesters keep shooting.
Also try to keep in mind what kind of troops the enemy has. Against lightly armored enemies, especially in the deserts, Longbows reign supreme. Against knights and Men-at-Arms, and especially in the rain, Arbalesters are unbeatable. Against moving targets, Arbalesters are better because of the flat trajectory of their bolts, but against stationary targets (--> bridge battles) Longbowmen are very good.
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