Varangian Guards

[Rnold]

Worth the money and time?
i tend to say they're not.
anyone?
How about Byz Cav and Pronaia Allagion?

[maroule]

I tend to look at www.totalwarassembly.com for comments on specific units, you'll find interesting opinions there (esp on Varanguians)

[Rnold]

thnx maroule,
cool site.

[Dorkus]

What really kills them, imo, is the production time.

They're not bad units, but with byz inf coming in 100 man units and one year, they're just not worth it. I've seen tests where they actually LOSE to a lot of the units (e.g. chiv sergeants) that equal valor byz inf can beat.

In the time you spend producing/teching up to var guard, you could build two upgraded byz inf or katak that will prove FAR more effective on the battlefield.

Maybe they'll get better after the armor piercing bug is fixed....

Oh, and regarding byz cav and pro al... I don't like byz cav. Their missiles do way too little damage, and while they have decent stats, they aren't decent enough to make up for their lousy charge bonus.

Pro al are overpriced and inferior to katak in just about every way (speed is big, obviously, but you can use steppe cav for chasing archers, routers), but they're ok if you produce them in Nicea. Otherwise, my opinion is that they're a waste. Compare them (475 florins) to katak (400 florins):

Katak
3 atk, 5 def, 7 arm, 8 charge

Pro Al
4 atk, 3 def, 5 arm, 6 charge

So you get 1 atk, but lose 2 defense, 2 armor, and 2 charge!!!

Imo, another one of those units that needs rebalancing......

[This message has been edited by Dorkus (edited 10-18-2002).]

[Rosacrux]

Varangians? One of the toughest creepers in this game. They are absolutely worth the money, but I wouldn't say the same about the time... 2 bloody turns... well, you got to build them in advance, before tough times occur.

Pronoiai Allagion: Tough and relatively fast, but they go down way too easy to live up to their stats and the alleged fame as the top-notch heavy cavalry unit of the byzantines.

The best units the byzs have is their byz cavalry. Not to mention the awesome infantry.

[Kraxis]

Yes, Varangians are great in SP, but be careful im MP with them. V2 AUM can face them off for 100 florins less.

Byzantine Cavalry is my favourite unit I guess, much cheaper than Boyars and only -2 in charge and def.
Don't be afraid to commit them to melee, they will handle all but heavy cav and spears.
Lets see what you get compared to the Pronoiai Allagion:
You get the same defense, -1 to attack, -4 to Morale (but it still good at 4), -4 to Charge (they are Horse Archers, this is not their game), -1 to Armour the same as Feudal Knights (not counting the shield) but most importantly you get bows and 50 florins in lower price.

Pronoiai Allagion is basically the same unit as Feudal Knights. It has +1 to Armour (but not def) but lacks 2 in Charge having 'only' 6 as opposed to the Feudal Knights 8.
But I don't know... It seems they don't tire as fast as the Feudals though...

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