Favorite unit(s)

[nara shikamaru]

I asked this in the Main Hall for MTW, and thought it wouldn't hurt ask here. Basically which unit is the one that you love the most? Doesn't matter if they are from vanilla RTW, or a mod.

For me my fav unit, after i got them were armoured elephants. Why?? well 1st this was during a campaign as Carthage, 2nd the romans, who i thought i left for dead, didn't actuall kill them off just severely drained, came back with avengence agaunst me, well they beat me out out Caralis and Thapsus, but the following year about 206 B.C., i think might have been later though, i was going over all of my towns which basically went from the iberian all the way to the Egyptians, and saw that Carthage could make armoured elephants, and decided to make a few units, and by the time the romans made it to Carthage they had a big surprise waiting for them. My elephants owned there little Roman butts, though it was a tough fight, I doubt i would've won without them.

So yeah, who is your fave, and how did it come to be? a battle? or they just looked so darn cool on the battlefield?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

In R:TW I liked the Roman Legionary Cohorts. They were the middle range of the Roman unit roster, not being to expensive yet still being extremely powerful and versatile with their missile weapon and their hand-to-hand sword attack. Even better they were very well armoured, able to beat off most blows with their huge shield and robust Lorica Segmenta. However, I do find that their simply weakness is their overpoweringness which removes the fun from the battles - legions didn't win all the time!

[King of Kings]

my favourite are Cataphracts they look cool and got great armour rating.Praetorian Cavalry once again they look cool and are really good.

[Dexter]

1. Roman Legionary Cohorts - ROMA INVICTA * specially the Julii - red *
2. Archer auxilia - can kill werry effectively, and fight hand to hand if needed
3. Auxilia - can hold the line, kill cav very easy, good infantry
4. Roman CAV - Horses !!!
5. Praetorian CAV - THANKS - who sad they did not have them 2000 years ago ?

only the firtst 3 are necesary to beat anny enemy ...

like greek armored hoplites ... to bad spartans don`t have the same helmets ...

From mods .. did not play that much

[Fate]

In vanilla RTW one fo my favourite units was the head hurlers for the brits, though not too realistic, they had great bonuses and it was a fun way to kill your enemies.
I also loved the Falxmen, Balaeric slingers, Cilician pirates and cretan archers.

[Caliburn]

Sarmatian mercenaries, Chreesshan Archers and Mercenary Hoplites formed my most effective armies as I played as Rome, and especially Sarmatians are cool.

I did like Levy Pikemen, as they were a phalanx unit you could lose with hehe.

Ellies and cats and silver and gold whatnots are nice, but I never used them too much as replenishing them can become too much of a chore (well, same goes with Sarmatians), and never used the chariots by principle. And Roman heavy type cavalry is too über for my tastes.

Have to still go back and play as some HA nation.

[redriver]

German berserkers.. these guys are just insane.. the only inf. that can stop 'em is urban chohort.. they are lotsa fun and very different from any other foot unit :D

[professorspatula]

Barbarian peasants. With the right temples and weapon/armour upgrades, they are an unstoppable force!! Well, until they meet a large disciplined army and then they're like lambs to the slaughter. I'll never forget the time I sent an army full of 3 chevron peasants and a couple of Night raider units for backup deep into Gaul territory. They absolutely slaughtered a fairly large Gaul army - including the king, then tried to capture a large Gaul settlement. It was there that they eventually met their deaths, although they killed another couple of Gaulish family members beforehand. One day I shall once more command a large Barbarian peasant army and capture Rome. The legionaries shall fall and be cut down when the barbarian peasant storm arrives in Roman lands.

http://www.disko.co.uk/images/misc/rtw/armyofpeasants1.jpg
http://www.disko.co.uk/images/misc/rtw/armyofpeasants4.jpg
http://www.disko.co.uk/images/misc/rtw/armyofpeasants5.jpg

[LuckyDog Trojan]

professorspatula: Now you've done it! You just had to go there didn't you?

Your seditious talk serves as a platform of hope for all of the peasants & slaves in the Rome: Total War world. Now, the rest of us, as bona-fide family members of good gentry and stock of our respective factions, will have to do deal with increased rebel excursions thanks to your (dare I say?) rebel-rousing speech.

You should be ridden to the edge of the frontier and banned from the kingdom forever.

And furthermore... .... oh... ugh... never mind. Gotta' go. I see smoke rising in the distance. Looks like my vineyards are on fire. No doubt a disturbance caused by those 'not worthy of being in the same rooms with me' peasants & REBELS! :surrender2: ~:thumb:

[YENKO]

Onagers. Yes, i know, they are meant to knock down walls and gates. But, when i start to field post-Marian armies consisted of legionary cohorts, archery auxilia and legionary cavalry, the enemy more and more try to take advantage of the terrain, forcing me to chase them all around the battlefield. I hate that. They want to hold that little dirt mound? Well, they can have it. When my onagers and archer auxilia are finished with unloading their ammo, usually, very little is left over for my legionaries and my cavalry to kill. Not to mention the shattered morale after all those fire pots.If they, instead, are forced to attack me, even better.The sooner the better.And, i tried to build a fort in a strategic location. I putted in 6 heavy onagers, some archers and some legionary cohorts. When attacked, those 12 machines littered the battlefield with charred bodies. Lots and lots of burned chariots. Take that. Enjoyed greatly at smashing one by one all those Egyptian army-stacks hehe. One lone Roman fort in the middle of Egypt :)
Plus, while i am out there and i have few onagers with me, why not trash and loot a town or three, just to make me feel superior lol??


Question: in your oppinion, are velites/cav. auxilia using well their spot in your 20-spot stack? Would you prefer to have another unit of archers instead of velites??
Y.

[rvg]

Seleucid Armored Elephants. There's something utterly cool about a bunch of Greeks in wearing large floppy hats while riding fully barded elephants.

[mightilyoats]

Question: in your oppinion, are velites/cav. auxilia using well their spot in your 20-spot stack? Would you prefer to have another unit of archers instead of velites??
Y.

I would use cav auxilia, because they can chase down routing enemy or flank light infantry. Plus they are quick... But I will replace them with normal cavalry if I can.

Velites to me is just not worth it. I would replace with archers.

I do admit that these two units can do allot of damage to an enemy, but they just don't have enough ammo...

[Poulp']

Onagers,
because mine are labelled KFC, Killed n' Fried Commander

[Stuperman]

Question: in your oppinion, are velites/cav. auxilia using well their spot in your 20-spot stack? Would you prefer to have another unit of archers instead of velites??
Y.

What I like to do is line my Velites up 2 men deep, as wide as my front line (usually 2 unites, sometimes 3), at perfect pila/pilum (don't konw which is plural)range and turn off skirmish. When the emeny army hits the velities, the cohorts/hastati/princepes rip them to shread with pilas, yes you lose a lot of velities, but they are cheap. and ofcourse I have archers behind my line.

[Celt Centurion]

This seems to be totally determined by which faction you are, but when playing Roman factions, I find myself quite capable of fighting any enemy with a stack consisting of about 6 - 8 Legionary Cohorts, 4 Archer Auxilia, and 6 Roman Cavalry. The catch of course is to have them with foundry quality armor. If I can get them upgraded at a large temple of Vulcan, so much the better, but with the stack described, I am usually successful.

As Egypt, Pharaoh's Bowmen and Pharaoh's Guards, with the equivalent armor. I still need to learn to use Egyptian Cavalry units as they tend to take really bad beatings. Of course, when I take on Egyptian Cavalry, I tend to give them really bad beatings as well.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

[Celt Centurion]

Really good points there Yenko. I'm just now beginning to appreciate the way that onagers knock down holes in walls. My problem with them is that inside of walled cities, they are quite useless. I used to always have one or two units inside a city, but they tend to do more damage to my own walls than to the enemy. Then of course, they tend to clean my own archers off the wall as well. I still keep trying to find a place to put them, but as yet, my onagers are better off set at my town square with Fire at Will disabled. They are great on the offense though.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion



Onagers. Yes, i know, they are meant to knock down walls and gates. But, when i start to field post-Marian armies consisted of legionary cohorts, archery auxilia and legionary cavalry, the enemy more and more try to take advantage of the terrain, forcing me to chase them all around the battlefield. I hate that. They want to hold that little dirt mound? Well, they can have it. When my onagers and archer auxilia are finished with unloading their ammo, usually, very little is left over for my legionaries and my cavalry to kill. Not to mention the shattered morale after all those fire pots.If they, instead, are forced to attack me, even better.The sooner the better.And, i tried to build a fort in a strategic location. I putted in 6 heavy onagers, some archers and some legionary cohorts. When attacked, those 12 machines littered the battlefield with charred bodies. Lots and lots of burned chariots. Take that. Enjoyed greatly at smashing one by one all those Egyptian army-stacks hehe. One lone Roman fort in the middle of Egypt :)
Plus, while i am out there and i have few onagers with me, why not trash and loot a town or three, just to make me feel superior lol??


Question: in your oppinion, are velites/cav. auxilia using well their spot in your 20-spot stack? Would you prefer to have another unit of archers instead of velites??
Y.

[Caliburn]

In my opinion, Onagers give too much of an edge to the player, especially when the AI was defending. But then again, there are many such things in the game, such as the Chariot Archers (even when toned down from 1.0), much of the Roman cavalry units, and of course Elephants. After all, all of those things can be taken care of pretty easily, but the AI never does anyway. Not that I don't enjoy my golden Heavy Onagers wiping out 75 % of a Cataphract Archers unit eller a unit of Silver Shield Pikemen.

[Caliburn]

Great tactic, by the way, YENKO, with the Velites soaking up enemy charges. Especially good before the Marius event, as Triarii never REALLY have time to be a part of the army. I used to do the same with Byzantine Archers in the old Medieval, saved the somewhat fragile Byz infantry from getting a booboo from a heavy cavalry charge, never even occurred to me I could do the same with Velites. I bet it works well Post-Marius, but it's allright, the spear auxilia guys dominate the field all by themselves, my legions need only seldom step in and give the decisive blow, actually they're more like super heavy velites in a supportive role :laugh4:.

[LuckyDog Trojan]

Celt Centurion: Agreed. Onagers inside city walls are extremely limited at best and do little good. If you have the room and are deployed at just the right spot, you can hammer away at an incoming seige tower and occasionally knock one out. But the opportunity doesn't seem to present itself very often.

In the open field, however, I love onagers - especially when I'm outnumbered and on the defensive. I like to deploy on the highest ground and as far away from the attacking enemy as possible. (Come and get it - the onager crews are serving free barbecue). Caliburn is right about the 'advantage' - but - the way I see it, the inaccuracies of the onager flaming fireballs helps to level the playing field.

Having 3 or 4 onagers with your city-assault armies negates the time required for the construction of seige equipment.

[mightilyoats]

My only real problem with onagers (any siege units) is that they give a huge penalty to your army's moving points. That said, in battle, they are nice to behold. They are the best defence against elephants and scythed chariots. There is nothing like watching the enemy's shock units destroying its own army.

[Cody900]

Barbarian peasants. With the right temples and weapon/armour upgrades, they are an unstoppable force!! Well, until they meet a large disciplined army and then they're like lambs to the slaughter. I'll never forget the time I sent an army full of 3 chevron peasants and a couple of Night raider units for backup deep into Gaul territory. They absolutely slaughtered a fairly large Gaul army - including the king, then tried to capture a large Gaul settlement. It was there that they eventually met their deaths, although they killed another couple of Gaulish family members beforehand. One day I shall once more command a large Barbarian peasant army and capture Rome. The legionaries shall fall and be cut down when the barbarian peasant storm arrives in Roman lands.

~Laughs~ I only just today played a game, 161 Spartans against 35,000 odd peasants. Sorry, but your peasants lost. :(

161 Sparts getting 30,167 kills is a nice ole heroic victory.

[mightilyoats]

~Laughs~ I only just today played a game, 161 Spartans against 35,000 odd peasants. Sorry, but your peasants lost. :(

161 Sparts getting 30,167 kills is a nice ole heroic victory.

~Laughs as well~

I must try that, just for kicks... Did you by any chance defend some narrow passage way? :sneaky:

[LuckyDog Trojan]

~Laughs as well~

I must try that, just for kicks... Did you by any chance defend some narrow passage way? :sneaky:

You Spartans and your slow-moving phalanx are no match for my 'Great Balls of Fire' Onager brigade! ~:cheers:

~Laughs as well AND laughs last~

[MerlinusCDXX]

Pontic General cav, they remind me of Gold armor/weapon Jinettes from the ole MTW