Shield Wall

I tend to use the unit the stratch it out and make a sort front line icing on my heavy cohorts....
if they are then attact by cavalry their impact is maximum.
I usually use them in the centre and on the wings, the wings horsemen try to outflank you, and in the centre the opposing general usually tries to break though

So far my experience of the shield wall has been limited to the Goths (mainly goth spearmen) and when trying to block fords with spearmen in shield wall formation, I found they tend to be quite tenacious defenders, but that they tended to lose formation quite quickly, and end up interspersed with the attackers. Could anyone provide input on the following questions about the formation, please?

-Does overlapping/stacking multiple shield wall / non shield wall units in a small area detract from the effectiveness of the individual units?

-Do soldiers still benefit from shield wall bonuses if they move out of the wall, or are separated from their comrades by the press of battle?

Hi Lobosolitario,
Lining up a large amount of shield wall units can only detract from the effectiveness if a large amount of enemy units are coming towards your troops in shield wall. Although it allows for better defence - especially against charges, it, compacting the units together, causes the unit's area to be smaller causing flanking to be easier, especially by cavalry troops.

I'm not totally sure about your second question, yet I would think so. I have done some testing, in EB, with the shield wall formation with the BI.exe, and I have found that the moment I removed the men from the shield wall their death rate increased drastically and I started to lose. However, I may be wrong.

Hope this helps you, cheers!

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Originally Posted by Viking

My shield walls are usually broken, and the units massacred. I might be using it wrong, but for me it looks like a pretty useless formation.

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Have you upgraded your units at an Armorer, or better yet, at a foundry? If you have troops out there in a shield wall, but have not upgraded their armor, and the other fellow has brought all of his units recently upgraded from a foundry, then you probably will get massacred.

Check your armor, (or lack of it) go to the nearest settlement where you are equipped to retrain and obtain it, and that will probably help.

I don't know how many times I lost superior number armies against much smaller ones, until I noticed that they had armor, and most of mine didn't.

I hope this helped you Viking.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion