Surprised by the Hashashin!

[Third spearman from the left]

It's great when after playing MTW for so long it can throw up something new for you to play with. I've never had the Hashashin before and wanted to know if anyone had any tips for their use in the field?

While your here you can also tell us about any new units in any of the mods that 'float your boat' and make MTW great to play again and again.............

[Scurvy]

i'v only used them a few times online and only once on sp, but they are only any good for defedning... hide them at start somewhere in the middle of knowhere, and the either snipe the enemy gen or flank large amounts of men, they can do afir bit of damage, i reccomend using them in 2's and 3's to have any great effect, and they cant take on many infantry and no cavalry one vs one... think of them as nizaris that can hide :P

[Odin]

In XL mod you can build sherwood foresters as the english that have similar effects. I personally dont like the unit types as there 12 man size dosent equate to much punch.

As scurvy said, you can use thier stealth for advantage but to what end? I suppose, as sun tza would say, in warfare it is best to make your strategy. For this reason hashashin work because the AI will adjust to them once they are spotted.

Placed at the right place they can set up a decent ambush. Try setting them up near a tree line with some hidden units within and maximize the effect. In all honesty they dont make it onto my unit roster often.

[Scurvy]

small units are great fun to mess around with, although i really stress the need to use them in groups :P 12 are useless but if you have 36 they can take on most units.... similar in beserkers in that way...

[Geezer57]

The most creative use I've read about, involving little units that have the "hide" ability, is in castle assault defenses. One fellow used Hashishin, hidden just inside the outside ring wall and well away from the gatehouses, to keep all his arrow/balista/catapult/etc. towers firing long after other troops had retreated into the inner keep. Sherwood Foresters should work as well - just make sure that "Fire at Will" is turned off, so they don't give themselves away prematurely.

[ajaxfetish]

Is there any ambush advantage if they start firing from hiding, or does it only do any good if you order them straight into a melee attack?

As for cool mod units, in XL I like the Wallachian Mercenary Cavalry, just as fast as steppe or saharan cav, but with some decent staying power. They make excellent scouting/pursuit/envelopment troops. Then of course it's hard to beat Klibanophoroi. Armor-piercing kataphracts with bows have few natural enemies and a wide range of prey. It almost feels like cheating to use them!

Ajax