syrian archers

[glouch]

are syrian archers any good?

i'm skeptical because every archer unit that i know of and used has been cut to pieces by anything from elites to lowly levies.

are they worth the money?

[Watchman]

Unlike most infantry archers, they wear a decent set of armour. That means they also don't die nearly as readily when someone throws stuff back at them. Way back in a few Hayasdan campaigns I learned right fast the buggers are not something you want to have a firefight with if all your guys have protecting their hides is shirts.

Even if your guys are on horseback. You're likely to run out of ammo before inflicting meaningful casualties on the Syrians unless you have something like three to one advantage - and that had better feature slingers.

Personally, I found that once the AS started adding these guys into its stack parade mopping them up became a lot harder, and tended to revolve around using the Hai Bodyguard Terminators to hunt down the Syrians from amongst the other troops at the very beginning. Not fun.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

I couldn't try Hindus Longbowmen yet, but so far the Syrians do an awesome job. They have a lot of advantages over other archers, namely armour, range, numbers, and ammunition, in which they are all superior over every other archer. Cretans are a tad better when it comes to melee, you can use them almost as medium infantry if needed. The Syrians are also good in melee, although not excelling.

[TWFanatic]

Personally, I rarely care about melee ability for archers. The fact that Syrians have 4 missile attack makes them a waist of money for me when you can get slingers with a similar attack AND ap stones for far less (think in terms of upkeep as well).

[LordCurlyton]

Syrians are nice in archer vs archer duels but it seems like they have shorter range than Parthian Foot Archers and less ammo. I still am rather fond of them, though, as they can hold up in melee well enough and can win lots of archery duels, since a basic HA cannot charge Syrians and win, they'll just get slaughtered.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

You mean Thanvare Payahdag? I don't think they outmatch the Syrians in any way...

I don't like Slingers. They are Psiloi, and just can't walk in formation. Plus they get slaughtered very quickly in missile-duels because they lack any kind of armour. Taking Slingers instead of Syrian archers is like taking Akontistai instead of Thraikioi Peltastai... brrrr.