EB's reflection of archery

**jerby** · 04-15-2005, 21:32

i've heard that in the current RTW archery cannot be reflected properly, since it can't realy hold back and disrupt.
so how will EB handle archery, since it is way to deadly in RTW. please dont make accounts as: archery won the battle of agincourt or carrhae. both weren't.

agincourt was won due to the weather. the knights of france had much better armour as th emetal on the arrows: the bodkin point could not penatarte! the mud at the battle was so stickey that fallen knight couldn't get up, ut the lighter archers ( switching to knives) could easily run circels around teh knights...

Carrchae was technically won by arrows, but was messed up by the romans.
the commander ( i believe crassus) was very confident in the testudo fomration ( almost as much as hollywood) and thought they copuld easily withstand the fire. but due to teh constant supply of arrows the steppe troops won. carrhae might have taken up an entire day to detroy many units before the catapracts came ( if they did, i'm not sure) in rtw carrhae should take about 10 min...

so archery is uselessly overpowerd, probably hollywood influence. even black skies of arrows didn;t do much damages, it just gave good shade..

**Steppe Merc** · 04-15-2005, 21:44

Sorry, archery was extremely important. You are thinking about Romans and their contempariaries. But the easterners used archery, and it was a key compenent.
And no, it wasn't just because of Crassus' stupidity. Carhae was won due to the Parthians, not the because the Roman's stupidity. Without the steppe tactics, the Romans still would have won. And guess what? Steppe tactics are based on archery. And their bows certaintly did kill. But the Parthians didn't only use horse archers, as the cataphracts and other heavy and medium cavalry played some role, though probably not that big.
But composite bows, as were used by the people of the steppe, and other Easterners, were deadly. Even the Greeks had decent archery (at least the Cretians). So don't make blanket statements that archery had no use. It was key to many cultures, and it did play a major role.
Just not with Rome, and it's neighbors. What you are saying is like saying that cavalry is to important in the game. While it may be true for the Romans, not for all cultures.

**jerby** · 04-15-2005, 21:55

so it was important, ok. sorry about that. but than again was it effective? did it kill or distrupt?

ok. it always seemed weird that teh forrester warband with its strait bow was one of teh best archers..looked weir. were they so good? was the curved bow so much better? will this be implemented?

**Steppe Merc** · 04-15-2005, 22:10

Yes, the composite bow was far superior to any self bow, including the longbow. They had greater range, and required less force, and were smaller.
And yes it will be in EB. We will represent the different sorts of bows different people had.

As for effective, it depends what you mean, and how the people you're talking about used it. A lot of cultures just used it for pre skirmishing, to kill off a few, and bother the rest. But others had archers in a lot more important role, and those tended to be the ones with the superior bows. The were still used in a harrasing fashion, but it was a lot more prolonged and deadly than say the Romans, or Celts. And they were far better archers. The Eastern nomads, and even the more settled Easteners were excellent archers. Instead of the bow being a backup weapon, it was a main weapon for the nomadic cavalry and many settled nation's cavalry.
But even the steppe horse archers couldn't win a battle on there own. They needed back up of some kind. All had some sort of heavier cavalry, and most had some sort of infantry. Even the Parthians, who were very horse oriented tended to have a 2 to 1 ratio of infantry to horsemen.

So archery was important, and deadly, but it can't really win a battle on it's own. Unless you are playing an infantry faction, and don't have any cavalry to chase off the archers. Then you deserve to suffer the fate that Crassus and other settled people did against horse archers.

**jerby** · 04-15-2005, 22:18

i'm really talking to teh right person for this...thxn for the info.
ok so how will the archery of the 'barbarians' be handled? if they were inferior they won't kill much and will thus be pretty much junk. becuase (to me) archers can only kill, the disruption would be difficult to implement.
and the ancient question: will (the best) archers be better than (the best) peltast in EBTW? noton a 1 vs 1 basis but on kills vs infantry ( including melee when empty or not..)

**DemonArchangel** · 04-15-2005, 22:29

Steppe Merc, will foot archers outperfom HAs in terms of shooting power?

A foot archer generally carries a larger bow and heavier arrows than an HA would.

**cunctator** · 04-16-2005, 11:34

Starting in late republic/early imperial times even the romans increasingly used archers and horse archers. Probably because they had seen the usefullness of such units fighting for their new enemys like the parthians.
Most of the roman archer units were stationed in the east, northwest africa and the at the eastern danube frontier to counter their mobile enemys their. But horse archers were also a part of Germanicus army in the 14ad-16ad campaign against the germans.
The greater part of the 46 known archer units of the auxilia around 100ad were horse archer or mixed units. A part of the equites singulares augusti was also equipped with bows.
11 alae quingenariae sagittarii ( out of ~75)
8 cohortes equitatae millariae sagittarii( out of ~22)
9 cohortes equitatae quingenariae sagittarii( out of ~77)
18 corhortes sigitarii ( out of ~18 cohortes millariae and 132 quingenariae)
The roman archers were mostly recruited in the east and so they also used the composite bow. This era was the only time period when composite bows were in widespread use in central europe.