How do you use onagers?

[Quirinus]

How do you use onagers in battle? I mean, I know they can be used for battering down walls, but what about in normal field battles, against an army?

Because many people seem to like using onagers in field battles a lot, but I've always found them to be horribly inaccurate-- without fire the missiles' accuracy are middling-okay, but they don't kill that many people if they hit. The flaming missles do do good damage when they do hit (and it's bleddy fun to watch too) but they are often wildly inaccurate-- seriously, even when I aim to the middle of a large army, the flaming missles can go flying far beyond the flanks of the enemy army, or dangerously close to my own lines. Not to mention the AI tends to sprint when there are onagers present (which I suppose is realistic).

The end result being, whenever I use onagers, they take out maybe twenty or thirty men per battle-- sometimes they will exhaust their ammo without hitting a single man. Their usefulness ends when the battle is joined (unlike maybe archers or skirmishers) since their extreme inaccuracy puts my own men at risk. They also become liabilities in a fluid battle (which is the way I like my battles) when my line gets flanked, or the line gets segmented.

So.... what is the appeal of onagers (or ballistas for that matter)? And if I'm doing it wrong (likely), how does one use onagers (and ballistas) effectively?

[Alerion]

Well to b completely honest, I use them, mainly, for giggles ^^

I mean it just looks awesome to have half of an infantry unit flying scorched into the air...

They can be used actually... but you're right, they're not the best there is...

When I was playing Romano british in BI I had 4 of them (2 unit cards) in my full stack army.
If the enemy attacks you, they have a much higher range than archers, skirmishers, etc. and thus if you get lucky you take out a good part of enemies before any other units even think of fighting... and you deal good morale damage too.
If you attack, beacause the enemy doesnt move, I just move up until the onagers are in range and nothing else... they fire and fire and of course many shots miss, but if you deploy them right behind your battle line your troops are never in danger... a lot of enemies die and when they finally decide to attack the accuracy gets better, the nearer they come... then they enter the archers range and my archers fire (and they also use fire) and that's the point where a lot of armies already break and 50+% rout before I lost a single man...

What's left over is no danger... even if it was a full stack before... I`ve had battles where the battle lines NEVER actually engaged... they made it into javelin range and at that point... with onagers having taken out a lot of them... fiery arrows flying at them and then the cohorts releasing their missiles... they just all routed... it's fun to watch

but it actually depends on luck... so I wouldn't base my strategy around it... my army can well take on any enemy without the onagers... so if they happen to not hit anything there's no problem at all.. but to have a battle like desccribed above once in a while is fun :)

[Fatski ElRatski]

I don't find them to be essential in combat, but perhaps a nice addition. Especially when facing large groups of enemies I find onagers with flaming missile's to be semi-effective. Even if they don't hit their intentioned target, if there are enough troops next to/in the vicinity of the target, usually they hit someone. Or at least hit enough for it to be worthwhile, and at the very least they thin the ranks of the opposing enemy. Not to mention being able to fire against any opposing onagers without having to risk any of your own foot soldiers/cavalry. I found in one case when playing against the Romans if you pepper their legions enough with arrows they go into the testudo formation, which is when onagers can become deadly. A well placed shot will totally cripple a Roman legion that is in testudo formation, I've had it happen on a few occasions (I usually don't play as the Romans). It also forces your enemy to either charge you or break ranks trying to avoid the missles, like you said, which tires them out and pretty much at that point, if you didn't already have it, gives you the upper hand.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

I never ever use money on onagers for tactical purposes for field battles - me only ever using them to attack towers in sieges (the aim being to prevent them from damaging my purpose built siege weapons). As said already, they are too inaccurate, immobile and are also near useless after the melee fighting has begun (the risk of friendly fire being way too high).

[Wausser]

I never use them, they slow my army down, and as stated in this topic: not effective enough

[ReluctantSamurai]

There's one faction that can benefit from their use in field battles.......Carthage. For some reason, the designers didn't give Carthage foot archers (although archers sit in the towers atop War Elephants) and slingers just don't cut the mustard in my book.

Onagers are helpful in those bridge defense battles where you don't have archers but your opponent does. You can't just stuff the bridge without coming under arrow-fire, so you hold your troops back out of archer range and let your onagers thin out those archers.

Once in a while, you get lucky and land one or two shots into the foot units massing to cross the bridge and create a HUGE amount of casualties. But, as has been mentioned, a bit of luck is involved so don't base your entire strategy on them.

If you find yourself defending a very high hilltop, they can be murder, as their effective range is enhanced and sitting high uphill from your own troops reduces the risk of friendly fire.

As has already been mentioned, they make a fun diversion, but don't rely too heavily on them.

[Spartan198]

In field battles: I position them behind my heavy infantry (hoplites, legionaries, etc.) and let them shell advancing forces, then cease fire and retreat them after the hand-to-hand combat begins.

In siege battles: I auto_win most sieges because I'm not very good at them, but in the specific case of forts, I use onagers to take out nearby towers (they wreak havoc on my flanks), then once that's done, I'll just set them and archers to flame projectiles and fire at will and let them shell the troops inside until they're out of ammo, then retreat them all and send infantry and horses to finish off the few that remain. Gives new meaning to the word "killbox".

[SubRosa]

I avoid using Onagers in field battles if I can help it. My typical field army is a full stack of units, plus a second stack with a few replacement units of each type I have, a few Peasants, and two Onagers. The first stack does all the fighting. The second one just tags along behind and rotates fresh units in to replace those that take losses. The Peasants are there for a quick garrison for whatever cities I may take.

When I come to a city I bring the Onagers up to the first stack so I can assault immediately. I use them to knock a hole in the walls directly across a street going to the town square, then knock down the towers flanking it. Then I go straight in, not having to worry about fire from the towers.

[Spartan198]

Hmm...I think I might try the "reinforcement" stack method.

Gods know I've fought more than one army to near complete annihilation just as I reach those outlying lvl 1 provinces...

[SubRosa]

It is a trick I learned playing Carthage. I built a Great Armament to take on Rome. All Sacred Band, Long Shields, and War Elephants. Needless to say I could not retrain most of them in Italy. So after every battle I started to carefully merge my depleted units (so I did not lose any units, or lose experience in them). Then I would send the weakened left-over units back to Carthage to retrain. The reinforcements waiting in the second stack would then come up to fill out the ranks. When the units retrained in Carthage they would come back to the front and join the reinforcement stack.

That gave me a full-strength army at all times, even though I had to go back all the way to Carthage to retrain. It takes a lot of micro-managing though, as you have units going back and forth all the time.

[Xander77]

I'm actually fairly fond of onagers, except for the part where they slow down my advancing army. They're bloody good on defense and when you don't have to move your army much (Italy with highways).

There are basically two things that can happen in a field battle. Either the enemy sprints to avoid the onager fire - which means you can skip the stupid "enemy army finds the nearest hill and stays there while you find a way to properly catch them" portion of the battle. The enemies arrive at your lines worn out (if not exausted) and give you plenty of time to maneuver your cavalry behind their lines. If you have a decent "archers shooting them along the way + front lines to give them a stern welcome" they are very likely to start a chain rout.

Other option? They hang out at onager range (or right outside it, which means you have to inch forward - then either option 1 or they hang out at onager range). And you get a bunch of free kills, some morale loss for every unit... and you onagers get slightly more accurate with xp.

Nearly ignored is the matter of using onagers on siege defense in a wooden wall settlement. Sally forth, and stick your onagers near the walls. The enemy army usually tries to bugger off to one corner... but since most of the map is taken by your settlement, they can't go outside onager range without retreating completely. Free kills. A lot of them, if you get enough onagers. Works really well against somewhat archer poor armies (romans etc). For BI hordes you really want stone walls - no way to use onagers, but great for archer duels with an unfair advantage).

[Quintus.JC]

Use onagers to take out elite hoplites/phalanx, better yet, use Ballistae and Scorpions.

[Youngie]

How do you use onagers in battle

I dont.

[KipDan]

The best way to avoid friendly fire when using onagers is either to deploy them on your flanks or in front of your main infantry line. I usually have 2 onagers in my army so I target one to a unit infront of the general and one to the general hiself. Most of the time this tactic manages to take him out early, causing a massive morale loss for the enemy forces. Then using a cimbination of light cavalry and fire balls I rout their entire army leaving my untoched heavy infantry to sweep up the cities.

[Spongie]

In normal battles, I'll just use them to soften up the enemy - aim flaming shots at the centre of the enemy and watch the carnage; sometimes you'll get lucky and take out the general. Once they're out of ammunition (or the enemy closes), I switch them off and the real fighting begins.

They're also pretty fun in battles involving your Roman "friends" and allies...

If they start besieging a city that I want, and they don't have any artillery of their own, I'll attack it on the same turn that they start so they don't have time to build any siege equipment. First, I position my onagers on the other side of the city to them before the battle begins. Then, I'll knock a hole in the wall on my side and wait. The Brutii/Scipii will then march all the way around the city walls to the breach you've made, taking casualties from the wall defences en route. End result: the city is yours, your ally's force is weakened.

One time I moved to attack and noticed my Brutii allies had a "win or die" symbol on the pre-battle page. So, my attacking force (one onager and one infantry unit) sat there until the timer ran out, not attacking the wooden walls. End result, a narrow defeat for my guys (no casualties as I didn't flee the battlefield... they retreated a few steps on the campaign map and I moved the rest of my stack to besiege in its stead) and Brutii lost a full stack army .

Another time, when the Brutii had build a siege tower, I moved my onagers around to the side and started shelling flaming shots at the gladiator unit they were fighting against on the city wall. The onagers accidentally took out the siege tower as a second Brutii unit of legionaries was marching up it, wiping it out . Also took out a few Brutii when I was lobbing flaming shots over the walls at the (small) unit of gladiator rebels surrounded in a sea of my allies... damn that onager inaccuracy when used against troops. Still, Brutii couldn't have been too upset as they still took the city and then handed it over to me

[Quirinus]

Been trying out onagers in bridge battles recently, and I still think they're something of a double-edge sword. Flaming missiles are pretty good in chipping at the morale of the enemy, but honestly, other than taking down walls, there's nothing they can do that a couple of archer units couldn't do, better. Worse, in one of my battles, I had two units of Spartans guarding a bridge, I lost half my men in each unit. Not to the enemy, but to flaming missiles that misfired. I was extremely annoyed, but luckily they were new units, so I didn't lose any veterans.

One thing onagers are really useful for though: destroying enemy artillery, and elephants. Nothing more gratifying than to see the feared troop of war elephants run amok in the middle of an enemy army....

[Darkvicer98]

I tend to stop my Onagers firing flaming missiles at the enemy when im advancing my infantry or if my infantry are infront of the Onagers. The Onager sadly fires the flaming missile to anywhere 20 feet infront of it which i lose half my men before the battle has even begun.

But its good to see them take out big groups of infantry advancing towards me so i tend to wait for my enemy to come to me and rain hell on them before i send in my army.

[Celt Centurion]

I use several of the above ideas. Onagers can be useful if you are defending a hill or attacking downhill.

Another use which I found by accident is that three unit cards of onagers inside a fort left on "fire at will" are just devastating to the attacking army. I played a round an hour or so ago as Rome. I built a fort outside of Tarsus and put six onagers and three centuries of legionaries. Egypt attacked with three units of heavy infantry with a reinforcing army.

I sallied just by turning on the onagers and watching the mayhem. The attacking army was reduced to about 1/7 of it's original strength and I "quit battle" before the Egyptian reinforcement army got close enough to engage. End result, heavy Egyptian casualties, I didn't lose a man and when Tarsus sallied against the besieging Egyptian Army, the one besieging the fort also attacked. Both were destroyed.

In such a defense, set onagers to use fire and put them on high speed after a few minutes. Its like watching fireworks flattening an enemy.

In a defensive battle a few months back, my onagers destroyed the enemy onagers before they ever fired a shot! Cool!

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

[gollum]

I dislike Onagers so much that i usually mod them out. I wish i could load them one by one to another onager and onager them in the sea...