Varangian Guard...wtf is wrong with there attack??

[Andrei]

IN kingdoms I've played as all factions(Crusades speaking here) and when i've played the byzantines...well lets say that i got a shock...how the heck does a unit have something like 19 attack and 5 or 6 charge? i mean yeah they are shock troopers but come on fresh out of the barracks and they have 19 attack!!!!!!! Is this normal?? (by the way in vanilla version they were no that efficent and cost effective now they are fixed they smash to pulp any who stands in there way )

[Rhyfelwyr]

The animations of any 2-handed axe unit mean they rely on a very strong attack to keep any sort of usefulness. If they do the proper charge animation and do not just run into the enemy, then they can have nearly the effect of a cavalry charge. If they don't, they'll get minced nearly as quickly as bogged down cavalry.

Its beatiful when a 2-h charge works though. Even with Mutatawi'a or Woodsmen the whole enemy front line will just disappear.

I used to think they were rubbish because I never made sure they charged properly, but I sorted that when playing as the Danes with their Norse Axemen...

[Duke Bart]

Yeah just think of them as cavalry w/o the horses, Fantastic when they charge properly but when they get bogged down then things go bad

[PrestigeX]

I always found 2-hander infantry to be pretty usefull
especially playing as Scotland because their Highland Nobles allow you to get Swordsmith Guilds very quickly, and because they are in true scottish Fashion - cheeeeaaap!!

Varangian guard are okay but when playing as Byzantium you tend to face a lot of HA and CAV armies (turks, hungary, russia, poland, mongols) or you fight the crossbow and artiller heavy armies of Milan, Venice or HRE..
Varangian guard are too expensive and i've found they lose a lot of numbers when faced by the firepower of the enemy - unless ur lucky and happen to fight an HRE stack of Town guards and Spearmen lol - MAsSacre

[lancelot]

I thought there was a bug in the 2 handed attack animations in vanilla MTW2. Has this been fixed?

[FactionHeir]

Only against cavalry. They remain useless (unless charging) against infantry.

[ataribaby]

They seem to be better at fighting spearmen than other spearmen. For instance, I'll always include some billmen in an early English stack in order to counter enemy spears; particularly Armoured Sarges. The billmen can be left to chew through spear units fine without having to charge in and out of melee.

There seems to be some two-hander improvement with Kingdoms and the Retrofit. Although what this improvement is precisely I couldn't say.

[FactionHeir]

Probably because the defense of all units across the board is lower, meaning their high attack has an even higher chance of killing, if the animation were successful.