Low Gaul morale

[vartan]

Celtic slingers are great, I always use a few of those. But really, all slingers are useful, unlike some archers. Most regions with crappy archers aren't far from an area where you can get Cretan Archers, so what's the point in even using the crappy ones? All slingers are great though.

You can hire many toxotai for the money it takes to hire a few toxotai kretikoi. Take the initiative in the battle; don't let the battle come to you, but rather take the battle to your opposition. In close range, your numerous archers will prove that their blood was worth something.

[WinsingtonIII]

You can hire many toxotai for the money it takes to hire a few toxotai kretikoi. Take the initiative in the battle; don't let the battle come to you, but rather take the battle to your opposition. In close range, your numerous archers will prove that their blood was worth something.

But if you're in an area where you can hire tons of toxotai, you might as well just hire tons of sphendonetai. They only have 1 less missile attack than toxotai, their range is significantly longer than toxotai, and their attack is of course armor piercing. Plus, they carry twice as much ammunition as toxotai, and toxotai only have a unit number equal to slingers anyways.

In my personal campaign experiences, sphendonetai are consistently more useful than toxotai, and judging by the stats, it makes a lot of sense. The only situation where massed toxotai might be more effective than massed sphendonetai is if the enemy brought only unarmored troops, and even then I'm not so sure, because the difference in attack is pretty marginal and may be outweighed by the range and ammo differences.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Depends on whether you use slingers historically. I.e. putting them right out in front of the army, or right out on the wings for enfilading fire. (Where they are vulnerable both to enemy missiles and to enemy cavalry charges.)

(The Romans, to be different, had the Accensi right at the rear of the army, where in actuality they wouldn't see any action in a normal battle that was going well for the Roman side - they were a reserve to help the Triarii in case everything went pear-shaped and the rest of the army ran away.)

Archers have one advantage over slingers - you can put them behind your army, and they can safely fire over the heads of a protective line of infantry in front of them.

IMO, in EB, losses from slinger 'friendly fire' if they shoot from behind a friendly unit should be MUCH higher - since that would be downright dangerous if you did it in real life, telling slingers to aim over the heads of friendly men in front of them! So firing with slingers placed behind a friendly unit is an 'exploit', IMO.

[vartan]

Not just that Stu. The toxotai can use flaming arrows to demoralize enemy units. The best option would be to combine and have both slingers as well as archers in one's army. We already know slingers pierce armour and flaming arrows demoralize enemy troops.

EDIT: Scato mentioned one critical thing and that is how archers can be positioned behind your own troops as their trajectory is higher than slinger trajectory.

[WinsingtonIII]

Not just that Stu. The toxotai can use flaming arrows to demoralize enemy units. The best option would be to combine and have both slingers as well as archers in one's army. We already know slingers pierce armour and flaming arrows demoralize enemy troops.

EDIT: Scato mentioned one critical thing and that is how archers can be positioned behind your own troops as their trajectory is higher than slinger trajectory.

I usually try and have both slingers and archers, however, I almost never use toxotai, if I'm campaigning in Hellas I'll just recruit merc Kretans, and everywhere else that has toxotai available generally has a better alternative nearby (Skythians, Syrians, Persians, etc. are all near/in areas where toxotai are recruitable). Truth be told I only use flaming arrows very rarely anyways, so I tend to see sphendonetai as all around more useful than toxotai for me personally, but obviously, others may have different tactics.

Scato, that is a good point about friendly fire, I didn't really think about how the game allows that. I'll admit I do generally take advantage of that exploit, usually without really thinking about it.

[A Very Super Market]

Toxotai happen to be a truly terrible archer unit, especially when you take their recruitment area into consideration. To the East lies vast expense of Asia, filled with all sorts of nasty characters with terrifyingly powerful weapons. To the North are the massive forests which reduce their effectiveness to nil. The only faction they can stand toe to toe with are the Romans, who don't even have their own archers. Truly a sad, sad existance.

Arrows will still cause plenty of friendly fire if they're too close to the melee. But slingers fire their bullets at a nearly flat trajectory regardless of distance, so there is no alternative.

[vartan]

Throw at me all the slingers you have. You shall have no room to talk once your slingers are lying on the ground because they have been shot down by arrows. They are for winning the missile fight and overall against barely armoured units. (Note: When it comes to units, among other aspects of the game, 99 percent of my brain is thinking from a multiplayer point of view, so you'll have to excuse me.)

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Truth be told I only use flaming arrows very rarely anyways

To be historical, my house rule is that I only use flaming arrows when I'm defending. When you're defending a fixed position, and the archers just wait for the enemy to come into range, the fires (braziers, hot coals, or trench filled with burning oil) that they need to light their arrows are right there, just where they want them. But the archers couldn't realistically run around carrying those fires around with them. So if the archers move position, I imagine they move away from their fires and therefore they can't fire flaming arrows anymore.

Simply put, I roleplay that archers can only fire flaming arrows as long as they don't move after the battle starts.

[Cute Wolf]

To be historical, my house rule is that I only use flaming arrows when I'm defending. When you're defending a fixed position, and the archers just wait for the enemy to come into range, the fires (braziers, hot coals, or trench filled with burning oil) that they need to light their arrows are right there, just where they want them. But the archers couldn't realistically run around carrying those fires around with them. So if the archers move position, I imagine they move away from their fires and therefore they can't fire flaming arrows anymore.

Simply put, I roleplay that archers can only fire flaming arrows as long as they don't move after the battle starts.

Interesting aspect of roleplaying.....
Well, did they don't have matches at that time?

[vartan]

Simply put, I roleplay that archers can only fire flaming arrows as long as they don't move after the battle starts.

There are many things EB's MP veterans would be upset about if they saw it occur in battle, but going around using flaming arrows wouldn't be one of them. It would be just fine!