Archer

[Armeniacus]

Why are the archers so good in battle? I mean when l or the AL use archers in battle then we can easily win the battle. All we have to do is to shoot arrows then everyone will die. Can you do the archers less effective in battle?

[Maion Maroneios]

I believe we have a problem here. First of all, what difficulty are you playing? Secodnly, what faction are you playing? If you're playing the Sweboz, for example, it's only natural a hail of arrows is going to hit those half-naked dudes of theirs. Just for the record of it, arrows tend to be lethal when hitting a target. Especially when that target is not wearing any kind of armour, or a good shield.

Maion

[Armeniacus]

1) l am playing the faction Aedui

2) l don't know

[Fluvius Camillus]

1) l am playing the faction Aedui

2) l don't know

Trousers dont really block arrows, also a bare six pack neither does... Try getting the heavy troops or charge the enemy archers with you general/other cavalry.. Dont get your general killed though!:sweatdrop:

[Maion Maroneios]

1) l am playing the faction Aedui

2) l don't know
You've inversed your points. Plus, the Aedui are Barbaroi. Showing off bare-chasted doesn't help against arrows as well. So you see, it's natural you get so many casualties when someone used archers against you.

My advice: First of all, stop trying to convince the EB team about having to tweak the game to your own likeness, because they won't. Not until you provide solid evidence that supports your claims, instead of threads like this where you whine about "faults" you see in the game.

Now, about the archers problem. The best way to counter them, would be with slingers. Their range is greater (at least from wetsern archers), they have more ammo and they are wider-spread (meaning more hard to hit). Also, never forget to have a solid cavalry wing with you. Use fast cavalry and utilize hit-and-run tactics to drive away enemy archers and skirmishers in general. Or, another thing you could do, is hide in woods, or charge at an enemy very fast to prevent casualties from projectiles.

Maion

[Armeniacus]

Okay:egypt:

[anubis88]

Also, who's AL, and how does it,he or she use archers?:smash:

[Apázlinemjó]

Also, who's AL, and how does it,he or she use archers?:smash:

Look at the AL topic, you will understand. :dizzy2:

[Spearman]

Would those be the Roman archers you were looking for in a previous thread? :inquisitive: Just saying, if your gonna spam the forums with pointless threads about archers try and give us a little more substance.


1) l am playing the faction Aedui

2) l don't know


1) Use celtic archers/slingers to counter

2) I honestly think that you would be happier with vanilla RTW, perhaps BI.

3) at least you came up with a little more thoughtful title!

Where's MarcusAurilius and his magical thread lock wand?:rtwno:

[athanaric]

https://www.europabarbarorum.com/i/units/aedui/aedui_leuceepos.gif

Leuce Epos. These guys are your friends when you face archers, Armeniacus. Don't forget though that most "barbarian" archers carry spears for melee.

[Mulceber]

Would those be the Roman archers you were looking for in a previous thread?

Just thought I'd point out that technically, the Romani do have archers: Cohors Sagittariorvm Levantinorvm

https://www.europabarbarorum.com/i/units/romani/roman_archer_auxilia.gif -M

[Maion Maroneios]

If you take a look at his posts, you'll see he does mention them. He rather wanted factional archers to be implemented into the game, not late-period auxillia troops.

Maion

[Watchman]

Not sure how well it works in practice, but might be worth a try to just forget the tactical niceties and CHARRRRRRRRRRRRGE like a proper barbarian warrior. After all, those guys in shirts and pants come in *large* blocks, move very fast, and tend to have pretty good stamina... as the Greeks also figured out, one of the better moves you can pull when faced with superior firepower is getting in close ASAP to mix it up mano y mano.

[Maion Maroneios]

as the Greeks also figured out, one of the better moves you can pull when faced with superior firepower is getting in close ASAP to mix it up mano y mano.
Ah, yes... The good 'ol days of the Persian Wars *nostalgic*

Maion

[Macilrille]

Counter against archers

1. wear armour. Few archers are AP, so get some armoured units.
2. run them down with cavalry or even fast light infantry- as long as they run, they do no damage shooting.
3. Charge
4. Kill them with Slingers

[Scud]

Few archers are AP, so get some armoured units.

Are there actually any archers which have the armour piercing ability? Wouldn't the lack of AP apply to all archers in game, unless I am mistaken. :|

[soup_alex]

Are there actually any archers which have the armour piercing ability? Wouldn't the lack of AP apply to all archers in game, unless I am mistaken. :|

You're right, as far as I know. Although there's a bit of variety in ammunition, range and attack, there aren't any archers with AP bows.
Some javelins are AP (particularly Iberi and Romani), and obviously all slings are AP.


Counter against archers

1. wear armour. Few archers are AP, so get some armoured units.
2. run them down with cavalry or even fast light infantry- as long as they run, they do no damage shooting.

This applies to all archers, except perhaps Numidians, whose secondary weapon (club) is sometimes even more deadly than their arrows. If you see these b*stards, don't charge them with your best, most heavily-armoured troops!

[Watchman]

No archers with AP, sorry. The closest candidate for one was the Caucasians (who Xenophon described as using very tall, powerful bows and large heavy arrows the Greeks reused javelins, that apparently had a fairly easy time punching through shields and armour), but when it was asked if they should thus be given AP there was much going pale of face and rising of hair at the implications...

Well, think about it; the Hai would probably end up pretty monstrous if their baseline peasant archer dished out AP arrows at those attack values they have.

[satalexton]

Those arrows are indeed monsterous, they make such wonderful additions to the Makedonian Taxis...

[vartan]

Oh, how those Hai archer-peasants rain down hell upon the enemy! :2thumbsup:

[Nachtmeister]

Counter against archers

1. wear armour. Few archers are AP, so get some armoured units.
2. run them down with cavalry or even fast light infantry- as long as they run, they do no damage shooting.
3. Charge
4. Kill them with Slingers

This is interesting - I usually use archers (among other things) as a counter-unit against slingers and find them to be very effective...
As in "kill some of them at range so that every subsequent volley of them will do less damage because fewer men can shoot fewer projectiles".

[/Bean\]

I find archers to be a fine compliment to my armies. I use slingers as my AP and long range slingers, and always stick my archers behind my infantry line on flaming arrows. Works well to down the spirits of the entire enemy army, not just those fired upon.

[Macilrille]

<3 Cretan Archers, nothing like them in the Roman setup...

[Celtic_Punk]

1-2 units of cretans, plus 2-3 units of slingers, and then add your hoplites. unbeatable.

even if the stupid makedonian charges with his cavalry, just focus all firepower on him and he'll be dead in no time.

[Nachtmeister]

1-2 units of cretans, plus 2-3 units of slingers, and then add your hoplites. unbeatable.

even if the stupid makedonian charges with his cavalry, just focus all firepower on him and he'll be dead in no time.


Not unbeatable in Mikra Asia no more... Thureophoroi with hippeis xystophoroi is what you need there... Archers are then suddenly degraded from a battle turning unit to a specialist support unit.

[athanaric]

This is interesting - I usually use archers (among other things) as a counter-unit against slingers and find them to be very effective...
As in "kill some of them at range so that every subsequent volley of them will do less damage because fewer men can shoot fewer projectiles".

I found foot archers to be effective against slingers, who are in turn effective against HAs. Against armoured steppe nobles your Rhodian Slingers should be more useful than archers.

[Macilrille]

I just noticed a nice detail.

I had a Roman army facing off with some Gauls, unwashed, longhaired, moustached Averni spearmen. I got an Accensi om their R Flank, a Celtic Slinger (Gauls wishing to be civilised of course, romanisation spreads as I write), and a Cretan Archer in front.

The poor Gauls withered under this barrage, but I had the chance to soom on to them and was amazed.

The Creatan Archers' arrows stuck in the ground. I loved it. Pincushion, it looked so cool and nice and ... REAL:beam:

[Maion Maroneios]

1-2 units of cretans, plus 2-3 units of slingers, and then add your hoplites. unbeatable.

even if the stupid makedonian charges with his cavalry, just focus all firepower on him and he'll be dead in no time.
Nice going dude! Why don't you make the rest of your army missiles as well, with a couple of Rhodioi and some Eastern archers for added flavour? Cheating? Nah... :no::thumbsdown:

Maion

[/Bean\]

Oh no! Maion doesn't like the secret to defeating the armies of Makedon being openly spread on the Org! Run, little children, run!:ahh:

[Nachtmeister]

No he's right - it simply is not very representative of what was normally fielded by the southern Greek city-states... It's a bit like a Roman fullstack of extraordinarii or a Qarthadastim fullstack with more than one unit of elephants. Dedicated missile units should be the exception in a Greek army - something like 1-3 units total. Especially when fighting in Hellas proper. Of course, Bosphoran warfare is an entirely different matter.
Most of the missile damage in a mainland Greek army should come from skirmishers, not long-range units. Decreasing the numbers of / baiting hetairoi with slingers is fine - but just hammering them into oblivion before they can reach the front line is just a plain abuse of the game engine imo.

[Watchman]

Eh, I dunno... the Greeks did that to each other a few times after all, when slingers lucked out and found a static cavalry target that due to the tactical situation wasn't able to counterattack. One of those major Thebans vs. Spartans matches included a little sideshow like that, IIRC.

[geala]

Haven't the Indian longbowmen the ap stat? One of the few who really deserves it btw.

[Cute Wolf]

hindus does use longbows, but they use rather common, only a lot larger arrows... while the english longbows use special shaped arrows...

[Nachtmeister]

hindus does use longbows, but they use rather common, only a lot larger arrows... while the english longbows use special shaped arrows...

Yes - the truly battle-winning innovation about late pre-musketeer British armies was the bodkin arrow, not just the longbow.

Indian longbowmen do have the AP-attribute - but it is applied in melee, not in ranged combat.
Actually, they are by far more lethal in melee than otherwise - they will win a 1on1 head-on melee fight against Baktrian somatophylakes strategou but they will lose to well micro-managed persian archer-spearmen in a missile fight because they have neither shield nor armor. At least that is how things went in my last Baktrian campaign.

[Watchman]

Dedicated armour-piercing arrowheads weren't exactly a new invention you know. (I know of Stone Age slate arrowheads whose shape would actually serve well in that role...) Plus, different types of armour demand differend types of penetrating heads - what works really well against mail is more or less useless on, say, scale.

Christ. Between the Samurai, the Mongols, the Legions and the English longbowmen, it's a toss-up who gets the most undeserved hype from people who don't know what they're talking about.

[Nachtmeister]

Christ. Between the Samurai, the Mongols, the Legions and the English longbowmen, it's a toss-up who gets the most undeserved hype from people who don't know what they're talking about.

Sorry to have irritated you, but I thought the bodkin arrow was somewhat *new* because it could - with the right trajectory and armor not being impractically heavy - even pierce plate armor...?
(Also, not-just-iron-but-steel tip <> stone/slate tip.)
If so, an arrow that is capable of piercing plate should neither have trouble piercing scale nor mail...
If not so - please elaborate; if I do not know what I am talking about I would very much like to know the next best, this being what I was talking about.

[Watchman]

The Wiki article on the bodkin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodkin_point) mentions that insofar as can be determined the things actually weren't of steel. No surprise there, as the "needle" profile was very much designes to go through the links of mail rather than deal with solid-surfaced armour (arrowheads designed for use against those AFAIK tended towards rather more "massive" form far less prone to snapping or bending).

Plate couldn't really be reliably penetrated by arrows even at point-blank range, and in any case such distances were unacceptably short for field battles - since at that point the mounted knight was virtually atop the archer anyway, a situation to be avoided if at all possible. And this was the early stuff; the later iterations couldn't always be penetrated by firearms at muzzle-to-plate range, and bounced heavy lances at full tilt no problem...

OTOH, the Ottomans apparently got good mileage out of their composite-bow archers aboard war galleys; in a boarding action they could normally pour arrows into the enemy ranks more or less at will, the close-combat shock troops in the way keeping the foe from reaching them in order to retaliate.

[Hax]

Christ. Between the Samurai, the Mongols, the Legions and the English longbowmen, it's a toss-up who gets the most undeserved hype from people who don't know what they're talking about.

It's samurai, I'm afraid. Because Japan is like, totally awesome and the best country evar. /sarcasm

No personal offense to anyone Japanese, I just dislike hypes. This coming from someone that practices two Japanese martial arts

[Nachtmeister]

Ahhh, now suddenly I have an epiphany about the german phrase
"der ist ja nicht ganz schussecht"
Literally "that one is not quite shot-proof", meaning (not quite) "mentally sane" in the modern phrase.
A distinction must be made between the german "echt" (lit. "real" as in "genuine" and, closer to the mark, "true")
and english "proof" (lit. "dicht", but literally translating "dicht" back into english yields "dense" in the physical sense...).
The "echt/true" stems from the practise of literally testing plate armor at muzzle-to-plate-range before issuing it/putting it on display/whatever in order to sell "schuss-echt" armor at much higher prices. IIRC, it was normally a privilege of the highest members of aristocracy to wear such armor.
Museum exhibits of the armor suits of diverse royals of this period bear the mark/dent where this "test-bullet" hit them.
... But that was a long time after the invention of the bodkin arrow.
You are right of course, the most common metal armor against which this arrow type was first used would have been mail.


Oh and BTW here's a quote from that Wiki reference:

Bodkins did, however, have greater ability to pierce mail armour than broadheads, and historical accounts do speak of bodkin arrows fired from close range piercing plate armour. It must also be noted that modern tests have failed to fire a bodkin arrow through reproduction plate armour, however these tests failed to take into account impurities and weaknesses that would have been found in medieval armour.
Ok, "close range" is not further specified, but in my previous post I did not mean "tank armor". Still, "close range" might come down to "arm's length" or something similar - thus, you are right anyway.

Thank you for responding to my question.

[Cute Wolf]

Anyway... I try to give the hindus ap attribute in ranged combat, and they start mowing down cohors reformata...

[antisocialmunky]

Lol, cohors reformata suck enough already.

[Macilrille]

Dedicated armour-piercing arrowheads weren't exactly a new invention you know. (I know of Stone Age slate arrowheads whose shape would actually serve well in that role...) Plus, different types of armour demand differend types of penetrating heads - what works really well against mail is more or less useless on, say, scale.

Christ. Between the Samurai, the Mongols, the Legions and the English longbowmen, it's a toss-up who gets the most undeserved hype from people who don't know what they're talking about.

You forgot the Vikings!!!

The thing is that I can rant for hours in detail on many subjects militarily historical, and you would all be bored to death. Thus in non-academic debates, brevity is best. Which unfortunately can be misconstrued as ignorance.

Anyway, Vikings pwn all ;-)

[Hax]

This thread has run its course, I think.

Samurai are still better, though

[Watchman]

You forgot the Vikings!!!Not really. I find myself having to NERD RAEG at fanbois over the ones I listed far more often that the Vikings in teh internets. Not that it doesn't happen too, but it it's far rarer.

[Macilrille]

Oh!!! I better do something about that ;-)

Apart from that Hax, you are wrong cause this thread never had a course.