Sword/Shield carrying Archers?

I'm very much interested in producing a unit as the title describes.

In general, basic terms (for the moment) I want to have a Roman troop, like a Hastati, or such, but instead of carrying a sword around in his basic combat stance, I want a bow.


Thus, they run around with Shields and bows, put the shield in the ground and then fire from behind said shield (imagine Pavils from MTW) or at least fire with the shield. Then, when melee combat is engaged they could engage with a sword and shield.

If this is possible, could someone please give me either an example of how to do this, or do it themselves?

I've messed with the Desc_model_battle and Export_desc_unit stats, but have messed up several times and have not been able to suceed (maybe because I haven't read the readmes..) Prefer learning things by hand, or, heh, computer mouse clicking! Yet, haven't had the time to do such yet.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

I think (though I am a noob so only going on hearsay) that we're stuck with what current skeletons that animations hang on can do until someone cracks
a skeleton modder-this may have been done of course!
You'd need a new animation/skeleton to handle the actions you describe unless using the existing bowmen one as primary and secondary on fs_swordsman.
Then a modded skin to show shield with a bowman when holding sword. That means editing .cas files.
So as I understand it it is possible to mod to show skin you want from .cas file
(add shield) and use existing anims.
a start might be to swap the primary and secondary attacks and see if you get (descr_unit and model_battle files) swordsmen deployed who swap to bows for secondary attack.