Favorite/Least Favorite Bodyguards

What is your favorite family member type? What is your least favorite? Why?


My favorite would probably have to be the Saka Generals, followed VERY closely by the Eastern Generals, like the Hayasdan. I just really have a thing for super heavy cavalry, and the Sakas are the best of both worlds, able to shoot amazingly high attack power arrows and still charge home and melee. However, the Eastern Generals use maces, and I *DO* love me some maces and axes.


My least favorite, hands down, without a doubt, is the Casse Generals. I just CANNOT use these guys. Their javelins seem rather weak to me, and I can never resist the urge to charge home with them which ALWAYS results in my General being one of the first of the bodyguard to die. I don't understand why other Generals seem nigh-invulnerable, always being the last to die, and the Casse Generals are the first. That said, I do appreciate the fear factor they have on nearby infantry.


Honorable mentions include: Hetaroi bodyguards, Baktrian bodyguards.

Parthian bodyguards and Koinon Hellenon bodyguard hoplites are my favorites, since they're both very effective. It's amazing what those guys can do, but I like the hoplites a lot because they're the only footmen that I know of that count as bodyguards.

As for least favorite, I would have to go with the Hetairoi, not out of any special dislike toward the unit, but because every greek faction has them, and fighting them gets old after a while.

Casse generals suck. While I'm sure that watching dozens of chariots crashing into each other would be awesome, pitting Cidanh against anything results in mass chariot slaughter. They are only ever good for a routing charge, and using them in sieges will cause a shortage of FMs. I once lost my entire family after I made the mistake of sending them into the settlement I was attacking.

I have no favorite bodyguard, although the Baktrian Basilike Ile look badass.

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Originally Posted by desert

Casse generals suck. While I'm sure that watching dozens of chariots crashing into each other would be awesome, pitting Cidanh against anything results in mass chariot slaughter. They are only ever good for a routing charge, and using them in sieges will cause a shortage of FMs. I once lost my entire family after I made the mistake of sending them into the settlement I was attacking.

I have no favorite bodyguard, although the Baktrian Basilike Ile look badass.

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Casse generals don't suck, they're just not designed to be used in melee. They grant morale penalties to the enemy, and have a good supply of javelins. If you use them in combat, drive them through the enemy troops instead of just attacking. This creates gaps which you can exploit by following up with your infantry.

With that said, compared to other generals they do suck.

I love Pahlava and Saka FMs. Those are the best in combat, and they look awesome. Romani are probably the worst, being horrible in combat and not nearly as cool-looking as the others.

For me it would easily be the Saba bodyguard but sadly I am normally to paranoid of losing my general to let them fight many battles.

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Originally Posted by Zradha Pahlavan

I like the hoplites a lot because they're the only footmen that I know of that count as bodyguards.

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The Sweboz bodyguards are dismounted as well...which I prefer of the two because they have spears and swords (and not just spears, like the greeks), i.e excellent against both cavalry and infantry.

My least favorite bodyguard is the Getai Bodyguard. Although mounted, their stats are too weak and they ride in a loose formation, making their charge not as powerful as other mounted bodyguards.

My favorite bodyguard unit are either the Pontic/Hayasdan bodyguard, or the Pahvala/Saka Rauka one. With heavy armed and armoured ranged cavalry, you want to grab as many adopted family members as possible!

Favourite: - Basilike Ile Baktrion

Least favourite: - Equites Romani

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Originally Posted by Jaertecken

The Sweboz bodyguards are dismounted as well...which I prefer of the two because they have spears and swords (and not just spears, like the greeks), i.e excellent against both cavalry and infantry.

My least favorite bodyguard is the Getai Bodyguard. Although mounted, their stats are too weak and they ride in a loose formation, making their charge not as powerful as other mounted bodyguards.

My favorite bodyguard unit are either the Pontic/Hayasdan bodyguard, or the Pahvala/Saka Rauka one. With heavy armed and armoured ranged cavalry, you want to grab as many adopted family members as possible!

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They fixed the Getai Bodyguard thing in 1.1 I think.

Their defensive stats are 30 like Hetaroi now, but their charge is lower.


Oh and I love the Saka Bodyguards too.

I just wish you could recruit them, both early and late.

Saba bodyguards are also not mounted and actually, much like the Voloix units during my Romani campaign, I've found that they're not only surprisingly effective, but that the idea that the general in such a unit dies more quickly than a mounted general appears to be a myth... :yes:

Those Hayasdan bodyguards are vicious. I once had an enemy unit of them sandwiched between my Hetairoi, a phalanx, and some thureophoroi, and it still took about 3 minutes of constant attacks to kill them all. So they get my vote.

My least favorite would be the Casse chariots. Don't get me wrong, they're useful troops, they're just not as straightforward as I'd like.

I really really hate chariot bodyguards. they are good in open fields, but that is it, it is horrible in forests, or cities. practically useless.

I can't decide between heavy cavalry or infantry bodyguards. they are both good.

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Originally Posted by Hax

Favourite: - Basilike Ile Baktrion

Least favourite: - Equites Romani

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i concur

Favorite: old Carthaginian
Least Favorite: new Carthaginian

same guy, worse charge

favorite : Casse chariots (they can rout whole hordes of enemies on their own)

least favorite : Saba, your generals just die too quickly.

I'd have to say the Pahlavan one, followed closely by the ... err... oh wait, the Casse use wagons instead of actual chariots. Yeah, the Pahlavan one.

The Baktrian one is nice as well, but I'm not a fan of face masks.

As for my least favorite, probably the Hetairoi. They're so boring, I mean how many times haven't you seen something Greek? and they're all identical, and there's tons of family members everywhere, and ugh...

Judging the bodyguards from the context of their faction, my vote would go for the Sweboz: They are the only well armoured unit that you'll have for most of the game (save for occasional regionals in conquered territories). The other factions are able to recruit units that are similar to their bodyguards from their factional barracks. For example, Greek factions can recruit a lot of shock cavalry and don't need to stack many FMs in their armies to prefrom that role.

For the same reason I wouldn't call the Equites Consulares the most useless: they are good (not "very good", leave alone "excellent"), but you get a unit for free that you need on the field and for what you otherwise have to pay a lot recruiting a similar unit from Roman barracks (Equites Romani).

My least favorite would be the Casse chariots. Regardless on how good you are in using chariots, they still remain an auxiliary unit tacticaly and not "desperatly needed" in any situation. You cannot use three or four of them to clean an enemy town's square on their own, what you could do with Sweboz or KH FMs, nor can you use three or four of them crash the enemy line in an open battle, what even Equites Consulares or Brihentin are able to do. Chariots are not able to fight more or less on their own in any situation, what is in particular problematic in the early game, when your army is small and FMs should play an important part in every battle.

Gg, seems no one like Casse bodyguards.
Well I won't break the tradition and say that I hate them as well.
The juiciest bodyguard for me is Baktrian ones, old and new, those gorgeous cloth and decoration and palm tree and masks. Plus they are pretty decent in combat too.

I'm sorry I cant vote for Baktrians because they always get destroyed by my Saka (see AAR).

My fave is obv the Saka ones, though they're all great.

And, I also hate the Casse bodyguards. Can't beat 2-4 times their number like the others.

My selections seem depressingly avarage: my favorite are the Pahlavan bodyguards and least favorite are the Casse chariots.

I despise the Casse bodyguards as well. They can't fight worth a damn, and giving morale penalties to an AI that already sucks badly enough as it is just isn't much fun IMO.

I actually like the Koinon Hellenon bodyguard quite a bit, they aren't mounted, just heavy, powerful hoplites that saved the day quite a few times in my finally doomed (thanks to the Alex.exe) KH campaign.

Why was your KH campaign doomed? CTDs?

What year did you quit?

I personally like the Saka bodyguards, although I haven't played them yet in a campaign. They have the bows and spears, which makes them very versatile as well as pretty good stats. The Hellenestic Somatophylakes Strategou are also pretty good.

So what's all of this talk abut Casse bodyguards? I personally perceive them as being the weakest bodyguards around, since they are practically useless. They are few in number, don't have enough javelin men to be effective missile unit, and they can't really pursue routing units, and they suck at melee. Their charge, although being something like 50, has almost no effect. Most importantly, they have no scythes, which means they cannot just run through infantry or slaughter cavalry. I even had a cattle when I attached a 1 gold chevron, 64-men Casse chariot bodyguard with my 30-man 2 experience Romani bodyguard and annihilated all of them in exactly 10 seconds! While losing absolutely none of my horsemen! What exactly are those chariots used for anyway!?

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Originally Posted by desert

Why was your KH campaign doomed? CTDs?

What year did you quit?

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Was playing it with the Alex.exe, which makes the strategic AI brutally efficient compared to vanilla RTW. I ended up totally hemmed in by Rome in the west (who liked sending in armies made up mainly of principes, triarii, and pedites extraordinarii), and the menace that Pontos became in the east (they annhilated the Seleukids and stretch up into Parthian lands). I was eventually just worn down from both sides, and unable to decisively win one way or the other since I was always having to defend a second front while attacking on the other one. It really was awesome, first time I've ever lost (or even come close to losing) a TW campaign since Medieval 1.

Oh. I'm playing a KH campaign on Alex.exe as well. I thought that maybe you had been ahead of me in the game and encountered some fatal CTDs.

That said, I don't really see much difference between Rome.exe and Alex.exe AI, except that Alex AI does extremely retarded things less frequently. That and the recruiting of mercenaries and retraining.

Then again, I probably just don't remember what things were like before Alex anymore.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Very off-topic, but I want to rant a little.
I once lost as Baktria because in 260 BC a Seleukid FM was wandering through Baktria, nothing out of the ordinary really, and then the next turn he attacked Baktra, and suddenly had a huge army made of every single mercenary unit in the region. Not even 6 FMs were enough to stop him.

In another campaign, I was obliterated by that super-elite army in Noricum, but inflicted some losses on them. I began to assemble a new army, but when my spy entered the area, somehow all of those elite units were back on full strength. I decided to retreat and wait for someone else to conquer them. I have seen several Roman and Epirot full stacks enter the region, but they never come out, and the Noricum defenders are always at full strength...

Sorry for hijacking the thread.

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I personally like the Saka bodyguards, although I haven't played them yet in a campaign. They have the bows and spears, which makes them very versatile as well as pretty good stats. The Hellenestic Somatophylakes Strategou are also pretty good.

So what's all of this talk abut Casse bodyguards? I personally perceive them as being the weakest bodyguards around, since they are practically useless. They are few in number, don't have enough javelin men to be effective missile unit, and they can't really pursue routing units, and they suck at melee. Their charge, although being something like 50, has almost no effect. Most importantly, they have no scythes, which means they cannot just run through infantry or slaughter cavalry. I even had a cattle when I attached a 1 gold chevron, 64-men Casse chariot bodyguard with my 30-man 2 experience Romani bodyguard and annihilated all of them in exactly 10 seconds! While losing absolutely none of my horsemen! What exactly are those chariots used for anyway!?

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I know exactly what you mean. Couldn't beat 3-5 units of skirmishers with the chariot dudes. And I lost my only settlement because of it.

"Bodyguard, lolwut? They can't beat skirmishers? Forget it! I'll take Brihentin, please."

-Aedui general, when choosing bodyguards

Hey now, you're being unfair!

Haven't you seen how easily Cidainh destroy Apeleutheroi? :laugh4:

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Originally Posted by desert

Hey now, you're being unfair!

Haven't you seen how easily Cidainh destroy Apeleutheroi? :laugh4:

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They don't, actually. They die. take it from me. :wall:

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Originally Posted by desert

Oh. I'm playing a KH campaign on Alex.exe as well. I thought that maybe you had been ahead of me in the game and encountered some fatal CTDs.

That said, I don't really see much difference between Rome.exe and Alex.exe AI, except that Alex AI does extremely retarded things less frequently. That and the recruiting of mercenaries and retraining.

Then again, I probably just don't remember what things were like before Alex anymore.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Very off-topic, but I want to rant a little.
I once lost as Baktria because in 260 BC a Seleukid FM was wandering through Baktria, nothing out of the ordinary really, and then the next turn he attacked Baktra, and suddenly had a huge army made of every single mercenary unit in the region. Not even 6 FMs were enough to stop him.

In another campaign, I was obliterated by that super-elite army in Noricum, but inflicted some losses on them. I began to assemble a new army, but when my spy entered the area, somehow all of those elite units were back on full strength. I decided to retreat and wait for someone else to conquer them. I have seen several Roman and Epirot full stacks enter the region, but they never come out, and the Noricum defenders are always at full strength...

Sorry for hijacking the thread.

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It wasn't actually brilliant or anything, just efficient... Creating large, powerful armies (instead of large, skirmisher and reserve filled armies, or 3 unit "armies") and just sending in masses of them is what eventually wore me down. Granted, I was destroying the AI in the battles, until finally the sheer mass of numbers just drove me back city by city until my only real, powerful strongholds were Athens in Greece and Syracuse in the mediterranean. Once those each fell, I "roleplayed" that the few cities I had left (a terribly depleted Sparta included) would have just gone right back to the old city-state system and happily kissed the Romani boots that would stomp through their cities within the next few years- I just didn't want to keep hitting end turn over and over to see it finally happen, so ended the thing.

I guess I am the only one who likes looking at my Roman FM bodyguards' white horses.

Most favourite: Hetairoi Kataphraktoi (Baktrian Late Bodyguards), for obvious reasons.

Least favourite: Saba bodyguards. They are just lame and weak in comparison to others.

Maion