What is the best Halbardier and why?

[The_678]

I am just wondering which is the best out of Halbardiers, Billmen and Swiss Halbardiers. I am always hearing people raving about how good the Billmen are but after looking at their stats it seems all they have on the regular Halbs are speed, 1 attack, and morale. Their armour is crap in comparison.

So out of the three who is best and why?
Also why are Billmen so raved about?

p.s. I know that JHI and CFK are also Halbardier units but they are not readily available and clearly dominant over the others.

[Sociopsychoactive]

Swiss halbardiers really shine for me, at least over normal halbardiers. If your really that bothered about armour, then swiss armoured halbardiers are the answer

I found the normals to be to slow to flant, to poor moral to hold the line and not good enough attack to take on horses, despite the good morale. If they had stood and fought they would have ripped the enemy to shreds, but they often rout in the initial charge.

Swiss have better morale, comparable stats and better speed, meaning they can flank the horsies while they are engaging your spear line, and hack em to iddy biddy bits.

Billmen are good, but I didnl;t find them that great. They lacked the follow through for me, while they hold the line well they don;t do much in the actual killing, and are useless in the desert. Swiss are alot more versatile, and can fullfill more roles than the others.

[kawligia]

Billmen and Swiss halbs are very similar. The Billmen cost 300, have 2 morale and can be built with only a castle. The Swiss cost 375 have 6 morale but require a citadel. If you can make up for the lower morale with churches, a good general, etc. then the billmen are a little better because they cost less and have lower requirements. However all things being equal the Swiss are a little bitter, but it's nothing really to worry about...

BUT, swiss halbs can only be built in Switzerland. Billmen on the other hand can be built anywhere. I like to scap my swords and spears and lead an army of halbs units when the time comes. It will take a long time to build up forces like that with only one provence pumping them out. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

I really don't care for regular halbs, because if you look at them sternly they will soil their armor. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-inquisitive.gif And their attack value is low.

[ichi]

Swiss Halbs just need to be V1 to hold well against cavalry.

ichi

[Sociopsychoactive]

The other main adaantage of swiss halbardiers is that they are available to anyone, I think even the muslims get them, all you have to do is take adn build up switzerland. I played with the byzantines, and their lack of anti-cav is a big disadvantage late in the game, not matter how good the armour and weapon upgrades normal spearmen just don't cut it, the answer? Swiss halbards

I thought billmen were English only? Or do the english just get them cheaper? I'm positive their catholic only and I never got them as the spanish...

[gaijinalways]

Billmen can be built by other factions, I believe it depends on the province. I find Halbs to be too slow, billmen can be brought to the fore of the battle quicker. Billmen are not great for killing (except cavs, get some higher valor billmen and they'll go to town), but they can hold their own or at least slow down invading troops. Ideally use them for flanking (even cavs) as they hit hard from behind.

Of course, the armor rating on halbs makes them survive, but as a few posts already mentioned, who cares if they live if they often rout?

[fruitfly]

Normal Halbs really need as many morale-boosting buildings as you can get to make them truly effective, but due to their poor speed I generally only use them to defend the flanks of my army.

Billmen are a significant improvement, and being able to train them in Mercia with a starting valour of 2 is a bonus.

Personally though, I prefer the Swiss units. If I'm campaigning in the desert in high or late, Swiss halberdiers will make up the bulk of my infantry assuming I hold Switzerland and am able to build them. Their speed and lack of armour really make a difference there. They'll butcher any cavalry they come across and make a mess of most enemy infantry units too, especially AUM and Saracen infantry, leaving your cavalry free to rout the enemy archers.

Swiss halbs are also the perfect anti-Mongol unit, especially if you hide a couple of them in a forest.

The only drawbacks with region-specific units such as the Swiss ones are that you can only train one of them at a time and that you can't give them weapon upgrades.

If you trained Billmen in Mercia and then gave them weapon upgrades somewhere like Navarre or Sweden they'd be a better unit overall.

[cutepuppy]

The pros and cons for those three units are (imho):

halbs:
pro: very high defense and armour (less susceptible to arrow fire), buildable by any catholic faction and Russians+Novgorod
con: slow, low morale, low attack, tires very fast in desert

swiss halbs:
pro: fast, high morale, can be build by any faction, tires very slow in desert
con: susceptible to arrow fire, only in Switzerland, most expensive of the three, no weapon upgrades possible

Billmen:
pro: easy to build with a starting valour of 2 (mercia +1, master spearmaker +1), which makes them slightly better than v0 JHI, cheapest of the 3, can be used in the desert
con: english only, quite low morale.

My conclusion is: if you're playing an English campaign or MP, certainly choose for the billmen. If you have the choice between halbs and swiss halbs, choose the swiss in MP, while in campaign it depends on the purpose, but I would tend towards normal halbs.

just my 2 cents.

[Nelson]

They all get an anti-armor bonus too, right?

Since I routinely build churches and monasteries to pacify the population the base morale of halbardiers is usually decent. Any army they serve in will have a good commander too so ultimately morale is not a problem. I find halbs to be useful troops all around. They are slow but tough when they get where they're going.

[Kulgan]

About the morale, if you have +2 valour billmen from mercia they'll have a +4 morale equalling the swiss halberdiers?

And the possbility to give them the shiny swords shouldn't be underestimated, after all you can only put 16 units on the field.
10 bad units will beat 5 good units, but when you have 16 good units the other guy can't use 32.