Belaric Slingers Merc

[Asimov]

I, as Julii, have just conquered Corduba using a full stack which contain three units of belaric slingers. The Carthagians sally out of the city to try to save their last city. After organizing my main battle line(Romans in the centre) , the slingers were grouped together and put at the left flank on a small high ground for fire support.

The firepower of these slingers is much more destructive than what I expect, one salvo from the group can knock down dozens of shield equipped infantrys. Enemy light cavalry tried to charge the slingers, but they were stopped cold after three salvos and many dead horses were littered in front of the slingers. They have provided marvelous artillery and I'd like to ask my fellow warmongers for experience. Would the slingers be useful against real heavy forces (i.e. Other Romans)?

[Spino]

I, as Julii, have just conquered Corduba using a full stack which contain three units of belaric slingers. The Carthagians sally out of the city to try to save their last city. After organizing my main battle line(Romans in the centre) , the slingers were grouped together and put at the left flank on a small high ground for fire support.

The firepower of these slingers is much more destructive than what I expect, one salvo from the group can knock down dozens of shield equipped infantrys. Enemy light cavalry tried to charge the slingers, but they were stopped cold after three salvos and many dead horses were littered in front of the slingers. They have provided marvelous artillery and I'd like to ask my fellow warmongers for experience. Would the slingers be useful against real heavy forces (i.e. Other Romans)?

Yes, those particular slinger units will do quite well against heavily armored troops. Two or three of these units can be devastating when concentrating their fire on a single target.

Put those slingers on the flanks of or to the rear of an enemy unit and watch the body count increase at a phenomenal rate.

Balearic and Rhodian slingers were highly sought after mercenaries in real life. Their incredible skill combined with their unique lead and clay missiles made them more than a cut above the average slinger of that period. Their performance in the game is certainly overstated but their overall value certainly isn't.

[Ellesthyan]

How so is their performance overstated? I thought that slingers were extremely effective missile units IRL (even more then archers), while they needed a lot more skill to use.

[Spino]

How so is their performance overstated? I thought that slingers were extremely effective missile units IRL (even more then archers), while they needed a lot more skill to use.

They were, but I meant that within the context that most of the missile units in RTW are overpowered. The exception to this are the javelin throwing units which seem positively anemic (modding by adding 'ap' after the 'thrown' variable in the export_unit_descr.txt file takes care of that). If anything I would say that pilum and javelin units should be the deadliest missile units in the game followed by these specialized slinger units.

In real life I expect Balearic and Rhodian slingers took quite a toll on most enemy troops but the idea that they could take down fully armored hoplites or legionaries with the effectiveness they demonstrate in RTW doesn't seem quite right to me.

[Sinner]

I, as Julii, have just conquered Corduba using a full stack which contain three units of belaric slingers. The Carthagians sally out of the city to try to save their last city. After organizing my main battle line(Romans in the centre) , the slingers were grouped together and put at the left flank on a small high ground for fire support.

The firepower of these slingers is much more destructive than what I expect, one salvo from the group can knock down dozens of shield equipped infantrys.

One point to consider there about how effective your Balearic Slingers were: you'd placed them on your left flank, which meant that they would tend to fire towards the right-hand ie. unshielded side of the oncoming Carthaginians. Whether intentional or not, it's little touches like that which can greatly influence the effectiveness of a unit and thus the outcome of a battle.

[Red Harvest]

I'm in the same camp with Spino. Missile attack is overdone for all but javelins and pila. However the Balearics should be potent compared to archers (yet they come in 2nd best when compared to archers in RTW.)

[zhuge]

Well if the AI is smart enough to get shield equipped units stop and adjust their facing when a missile unit is near it would cut down on casualties. If the enemy troops were just stationary targets just trying to weather the barrage, this might work, but in other cases I suspect this would be hard to code and dependent on other factors, ie you wouldn't want the AI to stop if it was a cavalry unit charging your ranged units.

Anyway we've had some previous discussions on this regarding archers, lowering their attack and increasing cost/upkeep:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=40765
and a more general discussion:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=39757

as well as a mod to nerf attack values for missile units:
http://www.twcenter.net/downloads/db/?mod=210
where Rhodians/Balearics get 7 for Missile attack and sounds more reasonable to me.

[The_Emperor]

I'm in the same camp with Spino. Missile attack is overdone for all but javelins and pila. However the Balearics should be potent compared to archers (yet they come in 2nd best when compared to archers in RTW.)

Sadly this is due to the reputation of the sling in the post-roman world, it was largely seen as a barbarian weapon and just fell out of fashion despite its advantages... This gives rise to the false modern perception of archery being king and slings as not being REAL weapons at all.

I remember many people stating "A unit of Slingers!, A SLING as a Weapon!!" when the carthaginian Slinger hit the .COM Pages.

[HarunTaiwan]

David and Goliath.

What took Goliath down?

A sling.

[Gith]

Yes, a sling killed goliath. But you can't ignore the situation: Was he at bowshot range, or was he 30 feet away? Did he throw the stone through Goliaths helm, or just smack him in the head?

I question the ability of a sling to kill a man at bow range (longer than the normal range of an archer in this game), assuming it doesn't hit any of the armour he is wearing.