Shield Wall

[Shin-GaiJin]

What are the attributes of the special ability 'form shield wall', where to use and when not to use?

Thankyou for your help

ShinGaiJin

[A.Saturnus]

Shield wall improves the defensive ability of an unit but slowes it down. It is quite usefull if you want to defend a position without moving your troops around. Even light spearmen like levies are capable of stopping a cavalry charge when in shield wall formation. Obviously, it's less usefull if you want to attack. However, even then I've used it with levy spearmen.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

If a unit has it use it, put them on guard and shieldwall. It makes a unit vertually inpenatrable from the front.

[econ21]

It seems a tricky formation to master from my limited experience. You have to allow enough time of the unit to settle down, facing the way you want, and you have to make sure you guard the flanks. I tried to use it to block the front of a bridge and my unit got massacred because I left it took late and did not anchor it enough. It's a little too static for my fighting style, I guess. I use the pause alot and micromanage to get good unit match-ups against the AI. The shieldwall and schiltron don't seem well suited for that kind of flexible fighting style.

[Viking]

My shield walls are usually broken, and the units massacred. I might be using it wrong, but for me it looks like a pretty useless formation.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I use it a lot in my Roman campaign, the Auxilia fight very well but they're quite a high stats unit for spears. Several units together is the way to use it, provided they take the charge square on the front they should hold.

[teja]

I have little experience with the shildwall but in city fights. As far as I can see it worked there well. The shildron formation is great when fighting cavalry and blocking small gates as common in city fights and at bridges when outnumbered. Shildron works best when you let the enemy run into it, while they are pursuiting another unit of yours to lure them into your shildron.
Both formations are very static. Shildron is suicide when facing archers.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I just used the shield wall in three bridge battles. It was excellent. A single unit of Saxon Keel troops held against 2 comitatsenes units and a unit of limitanteses (sp?) long enough for my archers to rout them. I didn't check how many they killed, but they held for quite a long time each time. The next battle was against an even larger, though less professional, force which was also routed in a similar way.

If only for bridges shield wall is indispensable.

[Shin-GaiJin]

Thank you all fo your response


ShinGaiJin

[Ragnor_Lodbrok]

In my most recent Saxon campaign I've started to appreciate the shield wall. It is extremely useful against charges, especially cavalry charges.
As I pushed towards Asia Minor, I faced equites clibinarii and Sassanid clibinarii immoralts. Sometimes one Saxon keel in shield wall formations manages to rout clibinarii immortals.

[Somebody Else]

I remember a siege in which I fought off a half-stack WRE army - with at 5 comitatenses cohorts... I had 2 keels and a unit of levies, as well as my faction leader.

Put the grunts into a shield wall, which stopped the Romans dead, and had my general flying about doing multiple flanking attacks - that shield wall was quite literally a wall. Valour wasn't even all that high either - only a couple bronze chevrons.

[Viking]

I tested it further today, and made it work for cavalry charges. But still I have problems with infantry and prolonged fighting with cavalry.

[Cras]

I use them often when I am under attack in a city, I move out the roman spear unit and form a shield wall right in front of the gates.

usaually the enemy charges and the get slaughtered by either my archers or the towers firing.
They seem to hold out quite a while against infantery, cavelary and are resistent to arrows

[Deus ret.]

with the arrow thing I'm not that sure, IMHO units in shield wall formation tend to take quite a lot of damage from ranged attacks, even from the front and especially from javelins.
about holding a stone-walled city they're unmatch4ed, though: blocking the gateway with a single unit ans watching the otherwise far superior enemy units die under the oil and on yur spears is indeed a touching sight *sob*

[Ragnor_Lodbrok]

with the arrow thing I'm not that sure, IMHO units in shield wall formation tend to take quite a lot of damage from ranged attacks, even from the front and especially from javelins.
about holding a stone-walled city they're unmatch4ed, though: blocking the gateway with a single unit ans watching the otherwise far superior enemy units die under the oil and on yur spears is indeed a touching sight *sob*

In one test custom game, I gave the AI one unit of clibinarii immortal against one saxon keel. The CI fired all their missiles on my keel, but I suffered only 2 casaulties.

[Deus ret.]

mmh...I did some testing myself this afternoon and you're right. well it seems that shield wall units have indeed become the phalanx of BI, with respect not only to their defensive capabilities but also to their ability to deflect arrows. I've not had much archer opposition against shield wall units yet; as far as I can tell, though, javelins fired at a tightly-packed shield wall unit are devastating, even when thrown frontally.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Thats probably because historically the locked shields deflected most arrows while javalins went straight through.

[red comyn]

Think it deffinalty helps if you run them all together, which i didnt know you could do until (very) recently. So I was using it much more like gaurd mode than sellecting them all and having them in one huge wall!

[Watchman]

I don't know of its practical usefulness, but the way multiple units in shieldwall form a single unbroken line is at least historically credible. Anyone know if you could persuade vanilla-RTW phalanxes to do the same so the pike line isn't full of gaps ?

[Viking]

I don't know of its practical usefulness, but the way multiple units in shieldwall form a single unbroken line is at least historically credible. Anyone know if you could persuade vanilla-RTW phalanxes to do the same so the pike line isn't full of gaps ?

Last time I played RTW was 1.2, and then I had to fill phalanx-gaps manually. It might have changed since then for whatever I know.

[Deus ret.]

AFAIK the gaps are due to entries in descr_formations.txt. there are some basic outlines for different formations; each of them contains a line reading

inter_unit_spacing 2.0

with the 2.0 being the gap between units. reduce the number to 0 and you should be fine.

[Watchman]

But then that would "link" any and all units together and probably cause issues with officers, wouldn't it (they seem to move into the rear of the formation in shieldwall) ? I seem to recall in BI units formed such a solid line *only* with shieldwall on, but at least cursory look into descr_formations didn't seem to clarify the issue. Wonder if it's an effect particular to that special formation...

[A.Saturnus]

Modding out the gap doesn`t cause any problems. It looks a bit strange with the officer having no file behind him but phalanxes work actually better (at least in my perception). That the officer moves behind the unit is of course only so for the shield wall formation since that doesn't have a gap on default.

[Watchman]

Indeed ? Hmm, this sounds like it has potential...
*goes modding*
Thanks for the tip BTW.

[hoom]

A bunch of RTW mods that remove the phalanx unit gap also remove the officers & then you get a proper abutment of the units.
Looks really impressive with a big phalanx army on huge unit size like that

[TheBigJon]

Perhaps i'm just a lousy general but i've found Shield Wall gets kinda overwhelmed by cavalry charges, even front on. Also my troops seem to break and run real quickly.

Is putting on guard mode important to making it work?

[A.Saturnus]

Well, of course, levy spearmen will be overrun by Sarmatian Aux, even in shield wall. But the enemy will still take longer and lose more men.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
Shield wall rocks defending bridges! Shrt way to heroic victories and remarkable battle site markers.

Congrats on the seniorship Wathcman!
.

[Watchman]

...when did that happen ?

"Fred, I've been elevated!"
"Nasty! Did you see who did it?"
- Feet of Clay

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I find leaving them on guard mode helps because they maintain formation.