Is this right?

[Forward Observer]

I still have not started a campaign in Kingdoms simply because I want to finish my current grand campaign, but for grins, I have played a couple of instant battles in at least three of the 4 eras.

So last night I fired up an instant battle in the Crusades and it was a castle assault with me as the Kingdom of Jerusalem against the Venetians. I didn't realize they were in this particular era, but they are listed in the custom battle roster.

Anyway, all I have in the way of siege equipment is a ram, a mangonel, and one bombard. The Venetians have crossbowmen on the walls on both sides of the gate, so as per my usual tactic in such situations, I direct the bombard to fire at the center of one of the two walls they are on.

Since I am used to this phase of the assault being somewhat automatic, I turn my attention away for a few moments. When I look back, I see my bombard unit setting within spitting distance of the walls and being shot full of holes by the crossbowmen.

They were totally decimated before I could get them to safety. I exited out and re-fought the battle thinking that instead of targeting the walls, I had instead advanced the unit by mistake.

It was no mistake. To get within in range of the wall to fire, the bombard unit had to advance so far into missile fire range that it was never able to get off a shot before its crew got wasted.

Is this part of the re-balancing? If so, the bombard in this era is now pretty useless unless you have a totally undefended (no missile troops) wall and totally inactive towers. (no troops near by)

Any opinions or comments?