Billmen of Chivalric sergeants?

[Jeroen Hill]

Billmen or Chivalric sergeants?
Both have a good defence but Billmen are so strong versus armoured troops and mounted troops. However, for some reason I still have doubts.

I use spear units to draw a line of defence in front of my archers. This line could be attacked by mounted troops or infantry so I need something that does good against both.

So, Billmen or Chivalric sergeants?

[Devastatin Dave]

Man I love my billmen, they can hack any unit into fertalizer. I really like to use them in combination with men-at-arms. I usually throw out a screen with archers, the enemy closes in on the archers, the archers fall back and I charge with my men at arms. When the enemy is engaged with my men at arms, I wheel the biimen to the flanks and shred the enemy Boy the gore is pleasing. Then my archers can pepper any enemy that attempts to jump into the frey Man I love this game http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[Jeroen Hill]

You see I'm trying to build a basic army. Till now it consited of 1 longbow unit, 1 men at arms unit and 1 chivalric sergeants unit. All with max men. These tiny armies hold provinces. My invasion or support armies contain way more men but still using the same concept. The sergeants are tough, defend good but their attack sucks. They can hold of an enemy, but can not destroy one.

[Devastatin Dave]

It also depends on how aggressive you are. If you love to charge and go head on, billmen are the key. If you like to have the enemy come to you, even if you are on the offensive you can still get the enemy to come at you, then the sergeants are the group for you. It really depends on your tactics. I'm comfortable with Billman because I usually cordinate my attack for a hit all at once strategy. I manuver around to where I atleast expose one of the opponents flank or behind. Then I charge all at once. With your long bowmen, I would use sergeants. Tehy can pin down the enemy, and you can shoot into the frey. Only do this if your troops have armo bonuses though.

[NinjaKilla]

Dont chiv serg have 100 men per unit while billmen have 60? I would have thought that billmen had a high upkeep too, thought thats a guess.

[Musashi]

Interestingly enough, I use the let them come to me tactic, but I still prefer billmen because with them I can leave the men at arms at home since the billmen are good both offensively and defensively (And with their armor piercing ability they take out infantry better than MAA)

-Musashi

[Cooperman]

Use a combination of both, mercian produced billmen with their valor bonus can hack an army to bits in no time especially in flanking attacks, but they are vulnerable to missile fire so have chivalric sergeants with their shields holding the center and taking the brunt of enemy attacks.

[DojoRat]

I would go with Billmen, especially since Mercia gives you a bonus. The other day I was caught off gaurd by the Italians but my Billmen held the line against their light Inf and more importantly killed their royal heir general without breaking a sweat. This was lucky but I've never seen a spear unit do that, chivalric or otherwise.

[Musashi]

That's because Billmen aren't a spear unit, they're a polearm unit like Halberdiers or Militia Sergeants, they have armor piercing weapons and tear other infantry apart as well as holding well against cav charges.

-Musashi

[DojoRat]

Yes, Billmen don't carry spears. If they did we would call them aaah spearmen.

[Jeroen Hill]

Quote[/b] (daveinkorea @ Dec. 20 2002,11:59)]It also depends on how aggressive you are. If you love to charge and go head on, billmen are the key. If you like to have the enemy come to you, even if you are on the offensive you can still get the enemy to come at you, then the sergeants are the group for you. It really depends on your tactics. I'm comfortable with Billman because I usually cordinate my attack for a hit all at once strategy. I manuver around to where I atleast expose one of the opponents flank or behind. Then I charge all at once. With your long bowmen, I would use sergeants. Tehy can pin down the enemy, and you can shoot into the frey. Only do this if your troops have armo bonuses though.
I'm a defensive guy. Even if I invade, I'll position on the high ground and sent out a small unit of longbows to skirmish and draw the enemy into the field of fire of my other 5 longbow units.

Billmen have 120 men here, sergeants have 200. Depends on your settings. I play everything to the max.

[Stormer]

well billman being my favorite unit id have to choose billman http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Stormer

[HopAlongBunny]

Go for both http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Billmen are awesome They chop most anything to tiny bits; Chiv's have numbers so they're kinda nice as a holding unit.

You have to support the spears with something and Billmen fill that role very well Besides being a great unit you can get the valour bonus cranking them out in Mercia-always a nice benefit.

ps. having them means you can forget about lesser supports like fmaa and cmaa

[Syterion]

I like Billmen better, but that is only because I am attack-oriented in battles. Basically, my plan is like this:

1.Secure higher ground
2.Lure enemy to come to you with horse archers
3. Hold them with Chivalric Seargents
4. Then flank them like crazy with horse archers/Billmen.

I'm a flanking madman. When I play as HRE, I only use Royal and Chivalric Kinghts, and some infantry. Then I flank a lot. That's my whole strategy of MTW. If I can't flank them I fatigue them and try to rout them.

[FesterShinetop]

As I am a careful/defensive player I usually go for the sergeants. But sometimes I use both.

[Hasek]

When facing larger armies I like to field atleast one holder unit that charges a part of the enemy battle battle line (a unit with high def and valor normally sergeants) while my archers target a unit to either side of my holders this tactic normally seperates an an army in two leaving the larger chunck of the enemy facing my stalwart sergeants and the other smaller part left to be chewed into nothing by my more offensive units. Works well as English or Danes the offensive units being Billmen/Knights and Vikings/FMAA respectively cheers

But as for which I like better, they both have there uses and it depends on what your using em for Cheers http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Jeroen Hill]

I actually solved my problems.

The billmen do well against all troops but specially against mounted ones. The diffirence between billmen and chivalric sergeants when facing heavy armoured infantry is not much and thus I chose for the billmen.

However, I have the feeling that chivalric sergeants are a bit more, say less dedicated. Billmen units have a higher valour for me as well since I build them in Mercia.

But the chivalric sergeants have an excellent charge and attack. Bear in mind that sometimes when facing loads of enemy troops, the best defence is the offence. Specially if you stand on higher ground. Thus a charge by my center chivalric sergeants is devastating.

Here's what I did. As mentioned before, my armies consist of 4 longbow units, 3 chivalric sergeant units, 3 billmen units and 3 chivalric men-at-arms units.

My positioning looks sort of like this:
The 4 longbow units (480) form a double line. In front of them, the 3 chivalric sergeant units (600) form 1 solid line extending beyond the longbows to make sure longbows dont get harmed. In front of the sergeants stands 1 solid line of 3 billmen units (360 men). The 3 chivalric units (360) make a stand on the flanks and rear of the main body since they're fairly fast and though, they can quickly engage if my body gets flanked. My 80 chivalric knights stand way to the side of my main body and dont do much besides of picking on solo units and when the all troops engage, they position a long line behind the enemy in case of routing troops. They also pick on enemy heavy cavalry.