Quote Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
Continuing my exploration of siege assault tactics....

When you are staffing your Forlorn Hope*, what kind of units do you look for and why?

* For the benefit of the 2-3% of you who do not know this term, the Forlorn Hope is the first unit over the wall or into the primary breach during an assault -- the poor folks who you know are most likely to get the chop despite any prep you've put into the assault.

Several factors influence my choices:

If my troops face a serious cavalry assault then the obvious choices are spearmen or hoplites, backed up by light infantry.

Often the besieged city's barrack type will determine the troops first up the wall or through the breach. I try to use only troops that I can immediately retrain instead of losing some of my higher-level troops.
Example: I play as the Julii and attack Segestica which is held by Dacia. Segestica has militia barracks, so after taking the town I can train hastati but not principes. In that case I use hastati instead of wasting my principes. The principes are too valuable to fend off the Dacian counterattack a few turns later.

Sometimes I also use an all-cavalry attack. This works best with settlements that have only wooden walls. After making three breaches I pour in my equites or other light/heavy cavalry. This is only useful against garrisons of light infantry/skirmishers/archers that have no anti-cavalry bonus or good defense stats. Iberian infantry and Numidian javelinmen come to mind. Warbands and desert infantry are problematic simply because of the sheer numerical advantage in unit size.

There are exceptions to this. Sometimes I deliberately sacrifice a cohort or two of triarii or praetorians when facing tough opposition such as chosen swordmen or armored hoplites. Those one or two units will take the brunt of the enemy's defensive efforts while the rest of my troops get by with minor casualties.