I thought that defense skill was ignored by ranged weapons. Or is he having them go into melee after they run out of ammo?

Quote Originally Posted by Ramses II CP
The advantage you're noting is the improvement to their defense 'skill.' Still, if you were the archers with the chevrons every time then you were also taking advantage of the well known 'the AI Just Sucks' exploit, wherein the AI makes incredibly foolish decisions in the middle of battle, like readjusting it's position in the midst of a archer fight, causing it's men to fire fewer volleys and take far more losses.

Run it again with yourself as the no chevron archers an equal number of times and, though the defense skill will still help the AI, I'm willing to bet you'll get better results with the weak archers than the AI does.