The Song of the Bow.
This here guide is supposed to perhaps inspire, guide or help you. There are people much more well-versed in EB than I, but I still think that I might have something to contribute on the matter. Horse-Archers I know next to nothing of, so this is merely built on my experience with Romans and Germans in EB. For though the bows of the Romans has become significantly less lethal than in Vanilla, they still pack some punch and can help you greatly to win your battles if used correctly. Personally I never have an army without 2- 4 missile units in them, whether or not it is ahistoric, it is not as if the AI behaves historically. For used as described here, archers can have a disproportionate effect on the outcome of the battle for their relatively small number. An effect that does not go down by adding more and more, for Archers are no good on their own, only as Combined Arms with infantry and cavalry will they work. But then they work well!
That was by Arthur Conan Doyle and I heartily recommend the book it is from, “The White Company”.What of the bow?
The bow was made in England:
Of true wood, of yew-wood,
The wood of English bows;
So men who are free
Love the old yew-tree
And the land where the yew-tree grows.
What of the cord?
The cord was made in England:
A rough cord, a tough cord,
A cord that bowmen love;
And so we will sing
Of the hempen string
And the land where the cord was wove.
What of the shaft?
The shaft was cut in England:
A long shaft, a strong shaft,
Barbed and trim and true;
So we'll drink all together
To the grey goose-feather
And the land where the grey goose flew.
What of the mark?
Ah, seek it not in England,
A bold mark, our old mark
Is waiting over-sea.
When the strings harp in chorus,
And the lion flag is o'er us,
It is there that our mark will be.
What of the men?
The men were bred in England:
The bowmen--the yeomen,
The lads of dale and fell.
Here's to you--and to you!
To the hearts that are true
And the land where the true hearts dwell.
Now for our use of the bow, which might make us as expert as these English bowyers were…
Archers can generally be divided in two sorts; crap archers and good archers, each has its use. Of course you want the good ones, but if you find yourself stuck with the crap ones, knowing how to best employ can still help swing the battle your way.
Crap archers are Toxotai, Skutjonez and Sotaroas, there are probably more, but as I have never played the eastern factions I am unfamiliar with their units. It seems to me that most of theirs belong in the second group, being…
Good archers: These are Medininkas, Numidian Archers, Syrian Archers (? I think), Persian and Heavy Persian archers and most of all the scary Toxotai Kretakoi. The latter is the reason I made an unhistorical early Roman invasion of Crete in my last campaigns, I wanted those Cretan Machineguns…
Again there are probably more, but these are the ones I know.
We start with the good archers and assume they are the most numerous.
Usually I line up my Toxotai Kretakoi behind my infantry, their range enables them to hit enemy missile troops before these themselves get into range and hiding behind the infantry keeps them from being ridden down or need to flee if an enemy gets too near. You can thus take off Skirmish mode and fire uninterrupted by running away and rain down volley after volley on the enemy. Medininkas are tough in melee as well, so them I often have in the front line with Skirmish mode off as well. I want to lay down uninterrupted covering fire, not spend time running about.
Now, the Vanilla advisor would repeat 100+ times that you could weaken the enemy centre with missiles and then push through with a charge. I never found or find this to work. What I do instead is to prioritise my targets, what you want to take out with archers is the low-armour-high –lethality units of your enemy. These will often be enemy archers and slingers (especially HAs) that are covered from your cavalry, or elite units with little armour such as Falxmen, Galatian Wild Men, Gallic Swordsmen and German Slagonez and Wargonez. Especially you want to target “Scare” units such as Wargonez, Gaesetai, etc (or Eles with flaming arrows, but that is so rare I will not include it here, I am long-winded enough as it is).
If none of these are around or your cavalry can ride down enemy slingers and archers with no interference from nasty pointy things, what you want to target is enemy infantry and cavalry that you can actually harm. Never waste shots on heavily armoured enemies except in the circumstances I describe below where you want to push their morale over the Breaking Threshold. Medium phalanxes and hoplites are targets, but others are better, you will form an idea by trying. I cannot recall the specific order in which I take down enemies except on the battlefield and it changes with the situation.
Low priority targets are enemy skirmishers with javelins (except if you deploy Eles yourself) and heavily armoured units. Archers, even the formidable Toxitai Kretakoi that inevitably kill between 1 and 2½ times their own number each battle I do, are not AP, shooting at heavily armoured opponents if other targets are present is a waste and should be punished accordingly by a more difficult battle. Slingers are another story, they have AP, but are still more effective against less armoured opponents.
Ideally you would flank the enemy with archers to your left so they could shoot from the non-shield side, but that is only really possible in Bridge Battles- and there you can cut down up to 30 % of the enemy force on the bridge. Instead in normal battles, you just pick your targets and lay down fire, whittling them away.
-If you attack and the enemy has few missile troops, wait till almost finished before you charge your infantry and cavalry in. If he has many missile troops, charge in ASAP and use flaming arrows on your archers from the moment the infantry impacts, as described below.
-If you defend, well… you will not get the chance to use up all ammo before contact, but fear not, your archers can still attrit an advancing enemy or his supporting missile troops. Thus still saving your infantry some blood.
Now, we assume you have fired most of your ammo and is ready to enter Phase Two of the battle, the main charge, with flanking, etc. At this point (right after contact) you pick some wavering enemy units (look for those scared by “Scare” units, attritioned badly or Exhausted) or one or more enemy units thinking that “Defeat is a Certainty”, then open up on them with flaming arrows. This will often cause them to Rout and you can shift targets, often the Routing unit’s neighbouring unit will get second thoughts of the sensibility of this battle when their friends flee and a volley of flaming arrows might be just the thing to break them and make them join their friends’ “tactical retreat”. Then you shift to the next, etc, soon the entire enemy line is routing, though often if you have done right you have run out of ammo before this happens.
Defending is the same, pick a wavering enemy unit and fire burning arrows at it.
Crap archers are employed much as “Phase Two” of good archers. Basically you shoot only 30- 50 % of their arrows before charging, if any. The trick is that Good archers can be a dangerous weapon on its own with the rest acting like support for much of the battle (a bit like US artillery in WWII), before shifting to the infantry as the main killer and the archers as support. While Bad arcjers is mainly support, for flaming arrows scare equally much whether it is a reluctant hunter dragged from his native woods to wage war with his bow or a professional Cretan with years of campaigning behind him (and a feathered bed…), firing them. So if you have Toxotai or Sotaroas or Skutjonez, charge the enemy and let flames scare their waverers.
Do this and your archer, despite being relatively few in number, will have a disproportionate effect on the outcome of the battle.
That is the long-winded, but basic guide to archery in EB. At least as I see it, there are probably refinement that others can add and I probably even use some without thinking about it, but this is what I could come up with fast between 00.10 and 01.32 Saturday night while waiting for my ferret to burn off energy so I can sleep…
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