Wardogs- Too powerful or not?

[Asimov]

Apart from the slingers, I am also very interested in the wardog unit. It seems that they can deal all type of enemies, from Inf to Cav, the dogs would drag them down and tear them to pieces. Granted, I'm using Julii so most of enemies fielded light units only, but even Carthagians were poor in dealing with rabies. What is your opinion on the dogs, my fellow warmongers?

[Basileus]

I dont like em so i dont use em, ive only used them once early on and they preety much kick ass and never stop to chase evry unit around heh

[TosaInu]

Dogs have trouble to kill elephants.

They have strong and weak points.

All to often they attack 1 unit and chase that unit off the map even if only 1 enemy survives.

They are nice to assault open gates. Not only can they kill some, it also doesn't matter how many die, the handlers are normally away from danger and you'll get a full fresh unit in the next battle.

[CBR]

Oh I remember that battle clearly Tosa. Good thing I had an elephant unit

Havent dont many experiments with them but from what I have seen so far I would say they do seem a bit too powerful..

And I'd still consider them to be a fantasy unit anyway.


CBR

[dedmoroz]

i use wardogs in 3 cases:
1. Slow down frontal assault to buy my skirmishers more time.
2. city assaults - dogs will always go in first.
3. Flanking with dogs.

i use only 2 or 3 units of wardogs in full army.
u cant rely on them too much though because they suck against heavy infantry and cavalry.

[Red Harvest]

i use only 2 or 3 units of wardogs in full army.

That's almost like saying "I only use 2 or 3 units of elephants per army," not because of their relative effect, but because having 2 or 3 special units in a single army stack is a rather large portion of the force.

[Red Harvest]

I don't train wardog units. I sometimes use the ones the senate give me. I consider them overpowered and more like a fantasy unit there for variety.

Then again, I don't fear dogs, even the supposed big vicious ones. Given the choice of fighting armed men or fighting dogs...well, the choice is pretty easy.

[aw89]

when they got some chevrons, you see clearly how overpowered they are.

[derF]

There are 2 things wrong about the Wardog unit:

Firstly, in real life, Wardogs would eventually lose interest if they become very tired in pursuit. Ive seen a band of Wardogs chase 3 chariots off the entire length of the field.

Secontly, also unrealistically, they are too disciplined. If you charge them into a line of troops, they will attack ONLY the unit you sent them against. In real life, they would break off and attack anything that moves!