Antesignani?

[Mulceber]

What do you all think of antesignani? Are they good? What purpose are they best suited for on the battlefield? How many units of them would you recommend taking per stack? -M

[Aemilius Paulus]

They are pretty nice, as they are the only decent spearmen the Marian Romani get. I usually put 2-4 of them in a stack. I also modded them to have 1 less armour, as that helmet and breastplate could not have possibly given them such a high armour value, but added the number of javelins, increasing it to a total of five to represent their role as light infantry/elite heavy skirmishers.

[Watchman]

Hey! I will have you know their armour value is calculated entirely according to the same rules all EB units use!

...'sides, what do you mean, "could not possibly"? It's a monolith bronze-plate cuirass plus good helmet. That's a pretty protective combo all right no matter how you look at it.

[Tyrfingr]

The antesignani are excellent screening infantry, and usually the soldiers I send around to flank a enemy battle line. They fare pretty well against any type of troops...

[Aemilius Paulus]

...'sides, what do you mean, "could not possibly"? It's a monolith bronze-plate cuirass plus good helmet. That's a pretty protective combo all right no matter how you look at it.

Well, I meant it in comparison to other troops with similar or even better Armour. There are numerous units in the game who have good helmets, full cuirass, and even leggings, which the Antesignani do not have, but still have a lower armour value than Antesignani.

[Cute Wolf]

Antesignani = a bit expensive, but excellent front line skirmishers who can pawn any mediocre cavalry sent by foolish enough AI to run them down.. they are good against weak heavy infantry formations, or similar heavy skirmishers (such as Peltastai or thureophoroi), didn't fare well against barbarians though... better train cohortes reformata against the aedui/ avernii/ sewboz/ casse

[Novellus]

When I used the Antesignani for the first time, it was a multiplayer game. When I played against my opponent, my lines were held by the cohorts. But once an opening was revealed, I sent both of them through the center and they proceded to butcher the enemy. It was great because their size wasn't the largest and they lived up to what the description said.

[Watchman]

Well, I meant it in comparison to other troops with similar or even better Armour. There are numerous units in the game who have good helmets, full cuirass, and even leggings, which the Antesignani do not have, but still have a lower armour value than Antesignani.

Such as? Do recall that the bronze cuirass is *the* highest-rated piece of body armour in the game...

[Aemilius Paulus]

Such as? Do recall that the bronze cuirass is *the* highest-rated piece of body armour in the game...

Gah, people never understand the concept of relativity. For instance, most of the blokes on these forums will argue to death that their puny nation was just as important as Roma. I'll say, yes, your nation is important, but what you have to understand is that some nations are more important than other. But they won't listen and continue rambling on... Anyway, read my last post more carefully!!! I said that other troops with cuirasses have lower armour value than Antesignani. Now only this, but those "other" troops sometimes have leggings in addition to cuirasses and they still have a lower armour value. The Antesignani cuirass is rated unusually high IMHO, as most other troops have much lower armour values.

However, EB is not always so rigid in the unit statistics. For instance, high armour uber-elite units often have only 8 defence skill, while the levy Lugoae have something like 13 defence skill, with other "barbarian" unarmoured troops having even more defence skill. How can Lugoae have more defence skill than those elites?