Billmen Vs Halbardiers ???????????????

**Procrustes** · 03-15-2005, 23:14

Originally Posted by Zarax

On the other side Swiss halbs will beat both in a straight fight as they are pumped up billmen (or bills are toned down swiss).

The swiss have a little more attack and a lot more moral, but less defense and armor than the billmen. I posted there stats above, too - courtesy of Frogbeastegg's unit guide.

**Zarax** · 03-15-2005, 23:19

Their lower armor negates armor piercing, while higher attack will offset for the lower defence against billmen and AP kills vanilla halbs.

**Procrustes** · 03-16-2005, 00:11

Originally Posted by Zarax

Their lower armor negates armor piercing, while higher attack will offset for the lower defence against billmen and AP kills vanilla halbs.

Hi,

I've always been a little confused by that - my understanding is that the armor peircing bonus won't apply against non-armored units, but that doesn't mean you get a penalty for attacking a non-armored unit with an armor-piercing unit. Do you understand differently?

Best,

(As an aside, this discussion is making me wonder whether polearms the most effective unit to use against other polearms. Seems that the strength of polearms is against cav, and that swords would be better at taking out polearms. Hmm.... I'm seeing some testing coming up tonight.)

**sir_schwick** · 03-16-2005, 00:57

A true story*:

I am playing a game as the English/Early/Hard. It is 1202 and I own North Africa, Iberia, Britain, Western Europe, Northern Italy, Germany and Scandinavia. Sharing borders with Papacy, Polish, Byzantines. In the year 1205 the French resurge in Ile de France with 6k men, all Chivalric knights, Halbeards, Crossbows, Chivalric Sargeants, etc. All I can respond with is 3k of some okay to l337 troops out of Burgundy. Anyway, the first wave is 2 chivalric knights, the RK, 6 Halbeards, and the rest Crossbows or Chivlaric Sargeants or CMAA. My longbows are not doing much to the Halbeards and I charge knowing I will end up retreating. AFter about two seconds of having swamped the Halbeards, they all ran. I quickly regrouped and hit the remaining army hard, causing them to run. The whole rebellion is crushed and my finally gets his Specialist Defender virtue. Morale of the story, the best way to deal with Halbeards is to attack from all sides and hard. If it had been Billmen or Swiss Halbeards, they would have chopped up a bunch of my horses(funny charge huh?) and infantry first.

Billmen and Swiss Halbeards cannot go into arrow storms, but they can be used as flankers or against spearwalls. The lower defence and armour is actually good in the desert and against anti-armour troops. I would not recommend letting either of these units handle heavy cavalry charges head on. They can, but its like sending HC straight into the enemy 'ala King Arthur.

*from my mother's sister's roomate's mailman's veterinarian's client's baby's mama's lawyer's associate's defence contractor buddy's wife's manicurists's liscenser's mother's estranged gay son's husband who knows an editor at some computer games magazine

**Procrustes** · 03-16-2005, 01:48

hey,

well I went home and tried a few custom battles. I couldn't find swiss halbs in the custom battle OOB's, but I was able to crash some halbs and billmen into each other. Bottom line - vanilla billmen beat vanilla halbs every time. The low moral of the halbs really hurts them - they start waivering after loosing a dozen men and things go down hill fter that. Billmen will loose up to half their men by the time the last 10 or 15 halbs flee. Halbs will win if you give them a couple more moral points - so build those churches! I think that billmen would benefit most from an armorer. Another thing I noticed is that the halbs do better if you start charging them a little before they would have on their own. Seems they don't get up enough speed otherwise.

Both halbs and billmen ate CMAA like candy.

**Ironside** · 03-16-2005, 08:46

Both halbs and billmen ate CMAA like candy.

Oddly enough is Militia sergs the best counter, cost-wise to regular halbs (they loose 1 vs 1 but are much cheaper), thanks to the ap bonus.

**Procrustes** · 03-16-2005, 17:20

Originally Posted by Ironside

Oddly enough is Militia sergs the best counter, cost-wise to regular halbs (they loose 1 vs 1 but are much cheaper), thanks to the ap bonus.

Wow - thanks! I tested this a bit before work this morning and the results were suprising. Vanilla militia sgts can almost match vanilla halbs. Actually, the halbs loose a lot more men for most of the fight, but after they loose about a dozen men the MS will suddenly start to waver and then the tide turns. (The effects of lower moral, I guess.) This ought to be a really cheap way to deal w/ halbs - set some MS on them to chew them up while you get anything else to charge their flank - should break them pretty quickly.

As an aside, I also paired halbs and billmen up against vikings, and got a great demonstration of the value of valor. Vanilla vikings get chewed up, but add one valor point and they will take halbs or billmen each time.

**Zarax** · 03-16-2005, 12:17

Originally Posted by Procrustes

Hi,

I've always been a little confused by that - my understanding is that the armor peircing bonus won't apply against non-armored units, but that doesn't mean you get a penalty for attacking a non-armored unit with an armor-piercing unit. Do you understand differently?

Best,

(As an aside, this discussion is making me wonder whether polearms the most effective unit to use against other polearms. Seems that the strength of polearms is against cav, and that swords would be better at taking out polearms. Hmm.... I'm seeing some testing coming up tonight.)

No, against armor lower than 3 you simply don't have the bonus.
Without AP you can only use the base attack (3 at best, only a few units like huscarles, VG and JHI can do better) and so you loose a good degree of effectiveness.
Swiss halbs still retains a good attack but the others are quite plain on melee without it.

The best counter against halbs?

Gallowglasses, Highlanders or Ghazis.
No armor = less damage taken, mounted crossbows also do wonders against vanilla halbs.

**sir_schwick** · 03-16-2005, 15:45

Originally Posted by Zarax

Gallowglasses, Highlanders or Ghazis.
No armor = less damage taken, mounted crossbows also do wonders against vanilla halbs.

So your saying there is a useful purpose for Mounted Crossbows. ;)
Highlanders do not have AP ability, although they still kill well enough. I agree that in pure ability those units are better for anti-halb ops, however cost-benefit wise you Militia Sarges are much better. You want to use Gallowglasses and Ghazis against CMAA,Chiv Sarges, and pinned RK(if your halbs aren't already there).

**Zarax** · 03-16-2005, 16:22

Well, we're discussing about a quite limited environment...
Highlanders will fare a bit worser but they are still reasonable since they're cheap as dirt...

Actually mounted crossbows are quite useful as long as there is no enemy cavalry and they can be trained in early IIRC.
Against armoured infantry mounted crossbows are much better than any mounted archer and are imho better for offensive purposes than their foot counterparts, especially against CMAA and Chiv sarges who are quite resilient to arrow fire.

**Procrustes** · 03-16-2005, 17:34

Regarding mounted xbows, they can be built in early by the Italians and I forget who else - and the build requirements are quite low (basic farm). I think they are a real boon - I use them like light cav that can shoot a bit - do the skirmish thing early in the battle then switch to engage. If you combine the valored-up remnants you end up with some pretty decent cav for early.