Best wall warriors

Just wondering who are the guys you choose to storm forts. Usually I send in a merc followed by my galatikioi tindanotae (galatian WILD MEN). i've also tried using galatikioi kuarothoroi (galatian heavy spearmen) but these seem to be very fragile for such a vaunted assault unit with stats like that. Plus that issue with never using their swords, too.

Are the gaesatae/galatikoi tindanotae the best possible wall stormers? I cannot imagine any better with that combination of lethality, frightening enemy infantry, stamina, defense, and attack.... the casse 2-handed sword users actually might be up there too, i wonder who would win in a fight between the them and the wild men.

So, what is the best unit or unit type in your opinion? And if the best isn't available to your faction, what units do you like to use to storm walls?

the hellenic shock troops work very well... I usually use the Thorakitai

On the rare chance I attack a walled city, I send in a unit that I'm not afraid to have completely wiped out. :sweatdrop:

I usually send in a merc, then follow up with my standard infantry after they have nearly been wiped out.

Gaesatae cannot be used to their full potential on walls, because units on walls do not rout. They fight to the death. Therefore, their frighten_infantry attribute is not as valuable as it is on the ground.

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Originally Posted by TWFanatic

Gaesatae cannot be used to their full potential on walls, because units on walls do not rout. They fight to the death. Therefore, their frighten_infantry attribute is not as valuable as it is on the ground.

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gaesatae are good for the morale drop because once they get to "routing" the enemies are done for without any chance

once they get to "fighting to the death" however the enemies are worthless, beyond the point of no return, and are like lambs led to the slaughter (some even offing themselves! hilarious little addition by the TW folks) - and you can capture gateways and towers even if there physically an enemy RIGHT there - if they rout, they do not even maintain possession.

Maybe units like the walking tanks of AS, lusotan, and the goidilic tribes are the best for wall battles as the fighting dynamics are very different on walls than on the ground, probably a extremely heavy spearman type unit like these could take walls with little to no casualties due to the way the units position themselves when fighting on the walls.

totally right man, when a unit fights to the death on a wall, it puts up no fight, and gets cut to pieces. as for sending in men when one unit is almost wiped out, id wait until the first unit IS wiped out: surely a routing unit would simply demoralise any incoming troops?

I prefer the historical favorite of treachery and sapping to slugfests. You can repair stone walls within a season on the relative cheap, but refitting your most elite and expensive assault infantry means long marches back to a large enough MIC and a usually huge down payment.

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Originally Posted by Severian Huizi

I prefer the historical favorite of treachery and sapping to slugfests. You can repair stone walls within a season on the relative cheap, but refitting your most elite and expensive assault infantry means long marches back to a large enough MIC and a usually huge down payment.

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yeah also when there are several phalanx units in a city, i tend to starve their asses instead of wasting my units fighting them on the narrow streets or the cheat-square.

When you desperatly need to get into something fortified, call for the Samnite Miltes. In my Epeirote and Roman campaigns they are always ahead of asaults. Due to their heavy armour they also suffer only comparable few casualties what allows them to gain experince very fast and become even more lethal.

My instinct is to use something celtic, preferably with a load of armour.

I find Agrianes decent for chopping people up on walls too.

I imagine elite legionnaires from later Roman armies would be decent but I haven't had the patience to get them yet.

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Originally Posted by MarcusAureliusAntoninus

On the rare chance I attack a walled city, I send in a unit that I'm not afraid to have completely wiped out. :sweatdrop:

I usually send in a merc, then follow up with my standard infantry after they have nearly been wiped out.

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well said

As has been said before, though, completly wiped out is probably better.

Personaly I use whatever is avalible, provided it isn't palaganitai (excpet maybe pantodapoi, with their AP) or skirmishers.

I find samnite heavies useful for wall taking playing karthadastim as they seem not to take many casualties. Once I sent a unit of mak hypaspistai up a siege tower without realising there was a team of sappers directly behind them. I only noticed when their numbers went from 50 to 3 in a matter of seconds.

How about those Thracian Elite inf, falx puppies? I'll be trying them soon, one unit per army for my Mak and AS campaigns, their anti armour stats chew through heavy inf nicely.

I've done surprisingly well with Drapani on walls.
I'd expected them to get chewed up in a dragging close-quarters melee but well they got this big two handed sharp thingie that chops through armour rather well...

I had one of them come up behind an AS Argyraspide unit that had been giving a Komatai unit a roughing up & within about 2mins they'd chopped down those Argyraspides to the last & that without breaking them too.
Facing towards the Komatai, the Argys were being attacked from the rear & almost all fell to the first stroke so never got a chance to fight back :2thumbsup:

In defense at a ladder head they are positively devilish.
Had a unit dice a full unit of Thorakitai Argys coming out of a siege tower too.

Haven't yet had much opportunity to use the Rhomphias on walls but should be at least as good as the Drapani.

To me, for walls you want preferably well armoured guys with armour piercing sword/axe.
Never used them but the Samnite Heavies are quite possibly about the best available.

I've even found plain old Peltasts to be pretty decent on walls.

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as for sending in men when one unit is almost wiped out, id wait until the first unit IS wiped out: surely a routing unit would simply demoralise any incoming troops?

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Only do this if you want to lose the fight.
Its all about taking & holding the full width of the wall so that you can get reinforcements up un-hindered by the defenders.
Let the beach-head unit get wiped out without reinforcement & you gotta start again with taking heavy casualties.
Much better to send up the elite heavy first & reinforce with whatever else you have available than round the other way.

I would do it slightly different. First get a unit you don't mind being wiped out but which should be able to hold it for a while. Such as Hoplitai (who in all of a sudden become actually quite good soliders for the bucks for this kind of job...). Whatever you choose as long as it isn't phalangitai..

Then quickly follow up with the rest of your army; and always make sure to attack with mulitple piece of siege equipment at a time - thereby deviding the casualties over multiple units and limitting the casualties somewhat. At least this will make it easier to reinforce your troops on the walls more quickly (more ways up) and will allow your units to hold their ground more easily.

Oh and of course: put guard mode on.

Who needs wall fighting units when you can take any city by shamelss AI exploiting :evil: Just deploy somewhere and start the battle, then send one unit with a tower around to a side of the settlement, and let it attack a wall section. Then you can move it around and take every tower except those closest around the gate closest to where you deployed. After taking the walls, you can use your missile troops up there to kill any enemies which try to cover the gatehouses you took over, and when the often single unit that covers your gatehouse is dead or routing, you can just send in the rest of your army through that gate house. The enemy units are by then still on the same wall sections where they started, but now go down and run to the town center. You can take your time and go to the town center destroying one enemy unit at the time with missile troops or similar.

This exploit makes stone wall assaults easier than wooden wall assaults, in many cases.

...which is a good reason to maintain the siege instead of assaulting when coming up against stone walls.

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Originally Posted by Rodion Romanovich

...which is a good reason to maintain the siege instead of assaulting when coming up against stone walls.

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I have to agree....

I'm tired of rolling the dice on these bloody assaults. I've now changed my overall strategy. I moved the southern roman army immediately to beseige Taras without a general. I also up-arm the northern roman army and send them south to beseige Rhegion by turn 4. The turn before the defender have to sally or die, I bring down a general to oversee the battles. I up arm the southern army in Taras and instead of dealing with the Punii, I keep weak garrisons in the south. I switch both armies to the north to leapfrog Segesta, Bononita, Patavium, and Insubramrog. So far I've very few losses and it seems to go fairly quick. This way the defenders never get to defend.

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Oh and of course: put guard mode on.

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Argh, what?
Good way to have your guys back into the enemy & get slaughtered.

Agree Classical Hoplites can be pretty handy for getting the foothold on the wall, problem is they don't actually do much killing & better infantry finds it hard to get past them to do the killing until the Hoplites have been all but wiped out.

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Who needs wall fighting units when you can take any city by shamelss AI exploiting

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Me. I love assaults because I duke it out the hard way.

On a side note, when AI sallies, they tend to keep running back and forth between the town square (to top up their morale with the cheat) and the field.
So when their main line routs, I always send all cavalry i have through their gates (when it opens to let in the routing scum), and take the square with little effort :beam:

edit: although with stone walls and the acid drops from the gate, i usually prefer sending in a unit i don't care about (merc scum)

Basilikon Agema: ap swords + 14 armor
With phalanx mode off they are IMO the best EB elite infantry unit.