Halberdiers

[gollum]

Halberdiers are simply redundant; the only faction that can find uses for them are the Russians, due to lack of alternatives (and not even them! just remembered that the russians can rain militia seargents...). Catholics can have the much better dismounted chivalric knights and can fare better even with upgraded Militia Seargents due to the later's higher stamina that causes them to be far more useful than the awkward halbs. The Byzantines have the Varangians that are all is needed. The Turks have the heavy Janissaries. The Almohads have Militia Seargents that can do the job as i have said. Only the Egyptians lack a heavy infantry armor piercing elite unit (the Abyssinians are outclassed due to low armor and defence and need substantial upgrading to fare decently against heavily armored infantry opponents).

The problem of the halberdiers is that their role as a unit is supported only by part of their stats. Part of their stats says that they are a "slow but tough" unit, that can grind opponents to submission, but their low morale and low stamina, that translates into lower morale as a battle progresses, mean that they cannot hold in long slugging matches against high morale or high charge opponennts (and even less to knights and heavy cav that have both!) - and such a luxury cannot be had in the battlefield, especially in long drawn affairs against the Horde. Their low base attack (1) makes their problems even more pronounced. For comparison, Billmen, that outclass the halbs in every way, have a base attack of 2, which is ap and morale 2 (comparing with the 0 of the halbs), and excellent stamina.

Halberdiers should have a base attack of at least 2, normal speed and morale of 4, to be a unit that is worth upgrading the town_watch to level 3 (in a Citadel iirc, as castles do not give the 3rd town watch level!).

I think that m52 description's about their uses is fairly accurate; in effect halbs have to be babysitted and used way too ecclecticaly to be a useful unit in the battlefield.