Celtic Warriors

[Henchman]

I don't mean to complain but I feel that VI gives these bare nippled, face painted Celtic Warriors way too much credit. I find them unrealistically difficult to kill.

This is what happened:

Playing the vikings only a few years into the campaign I sent a band of vikings to raid the picts. I had 3 units of viking landsmen and one unit of Thralls. 280 brave vikings all together. The picts were defending with one unit of royal bodyguards (mounted) and one unit of Celtic Warriors. That's 120 men.

When the battle began I charged the 100 Celtic Warriors head on with everything I had expecting a quick victory. I should mention that I marched them slowly into positon first before charging to keep them fresh. Two minutes into the carnage (what seemed like an eternity) I had killed only 12 of these celtic warriors while loosing about 80 of my own, and the casualty count was beginning to increase exponentially. Soon, my Gereral fell and the surviving vikings (about 60 of them) made a run for it. The pict cavalry did not once engage in the battle, they stayed at a safe distance throughout the whole battle... So my 280 higly motivated vikings got their butts handed to them by 100 Celtic warriors... The shame... The battle ended with 256 of my men killed or captured, and 34 enemy killed. It was a slaughter.

So what is the story with these uber warriors? Are they supposed to be that hard to beat? What tactics should you use to defeat them? Is there a particular unit I should use to go against them?

Help would be appreciated

[Knight_Yellow]

Your men sound like they sucked valour wise.

And the enemies men sound like they were L33t valour wise.


Ie.

If a Valour 0 bunch of vikings charge head on without flanking a unit of

Valour 4-5 Celtic warriors they will all get raped.

sounds like you tried to invade and either there King was the horse unit or one of his sons.

that would explain the Valour of the Celts.

[Henchman]

Yes, come to think of it, the royal bodyguards was the pict king himself...

To be honest, I never give valor much thought when going into any battle. My simpleton tactics are mainly focused on having an overwhwelming force, but it looks like I may have to change my strategy...

Thanks for the quick reply.

[RZST]

im currently playing welsh campaign.
omfg, those celtic warriors are my heroes, at about valor4 with weapon2...omfg, add welsh longbowmen..omfg RAPE

[Ludens]

Celtic warriors have a good attack and come in large numbers, but they have poor morale and low armour. That is a double liability. The best way to kill them is from a distance. Their poor morale will mean that if you keep some pressure on them, they will soon break.
I must assume that your Celts had high valour (either intrinsic or from their general), because this makes their morale and defence better, off setting their low armour somewhat. But they would be just as vulnerable to missiles, because valour does not improve a unit's armour.

If you are ignoring valour then you are indeed missing something. Valour increases the unit stats tremendously and less experienced units get scared when they face an army of crack troops. You can see the valour of your own and enemy units by counting the number of small banners they are carrying. My guess is that that unit of Celtic warriors would have carried an awful lot of them.

[Ironside]

If I remember correct there's a unit of celtic warriors that starts the campaign with valor 3 and I've seen them get secret pride several times, giving them valour 5. Add to that 1-2 valour thanks to the king and you've gotten a god-like unit. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

I've lost 150 viking huscarls against one unit of militia sergs once (it was the mercian general that starts with mighty warrior) and I flanked them.

[Nowake]

You can always use archers against them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-toff.gif

[Seven.the.Hun]

celtic warriors? are they really that tough? they havent stood out much so far as i've seen, definetly a valour thing

[Lacker]

Take it from a Scot.....YES http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

[Henchman]

Things have gone much better for me since I started paying attention to each units valor. Thanks for bringing the imnportance of this up. However, I just wrapped up another raid involving some Welsh Celtic Warriors, and these guys had a valor of 0. No kings around this time, just some peasants. I ened up beating them eventually, but they still gave my 3 units of viking landsmen (valor 2,2 & 1) one hell of a beating. By the time the Celtic Warriors started to retreat, I barely had enough troops left to take care of the remaining peasants who were sneaking up on my left flank.

...I need to invest in some archers...

[mercian billman]

When I played with the Vikings I never had any trouble against Celtic Warriors. Of course all of my raiding parties were led by kings/princes, and I started off by attacking the weaker rebel provinces to gain valour.

[econ21]

I was shocked to find Celtic warriors decimate a unit of armoured spearmen on expert. I naively expected by mailed men to walk over those half naked boyos.

Crikey - I just looked at the numbers. Celtic warriors are essentially Highlanders with 2/3 more men in unit. Definitely scarey. Dirt cheap too. I thought they would resemble Slav warriors in stats, as they do graphically but they have a +5 attack compared to the +0 attack of the Slavs http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

They are slightly inferior to Viking Landsmen in stats(they'd be striking at +4 against them whereas the Landsmen come strike back at +6) but the difference in the unit sizes should pretty much even it out.

[Sociopsychoactive]

Celtic warriors are great units, but have two main weaknesses.

They are swordmen, so they are RUBBISH against armoured/high defence cavalry, the initial charge of a royal unit (on default unit sizes so 20 men) can kill 10-20 of them, then the royals will usually kill 30 or so more before finally dying, depending on valour and such. If the celtics go up against a spear unit they will kill, crush and destroy them, even armoured spear, but if you need to pin them then armoured spear will rpobably hold the longest.

The other weakness is arrows, as already stated they have almost no armour, and without upgrades a good volley of arrows can kill ten men.

So, archers archers archers, same as you should be doing against beserkers, then when they reach you either cavalry charge into the front, or pin with armoured spear (normal spear will last only seconds) and cavalry into the rear for an almost guarenteed rout. Their low moral and none-existant armour means it is well worth pinning them and shooting them full of holes, even if you do lose some to freindly fire you will kill far more of theirs, and the moral penalty will mean thay last alot less time.

[ichi]

I have found that playing as the Welsh, for example, by building Celtics in a province with a good armorer and keeping them with a high valor General I can really do well, even against Vikings and Saxons.

ichi

[Lord Rom]

In any campaign Archers are a high priority for me. The arrows replenish after each battle...dead soldiers have to be replaced.
Rom

[Nowake]

I won't go into details, but the fault of CA in the game is that it didn't made them tougher.