Archers

[Karhu]

I have a few questions to do with archers: it seems to me they are one of the trickier units to use, especially when attacking. At the end of a long attacking battle I often find the archers are knackered from running around all day, but have hardly fired a shot (or make that an arrow).

1. When defending, which is generally better: to line the archers up two deep in front of the main army, allowing them to pull back through the waiting melee units who then charge down the hill; or to keep the archers on hold and have some YA loose in front of them to draw the enemy's fire?

2. I have tried leaving archers further forward to act as true skirmishers, but they always seem to get caught: the Yaris are just too quick for them. Is there a way to make this work, or is this just not the way Japanese armies of the time fought anyway?

3. Apart from special cases like river provinces, do archers help very much when attacking at all? The defending army is invariably on a hill/in a forest/both, and unless they can be lured out the best option usually seems to be to flank a bit and get in there (especially if you can arrange a little rain ).

[shingenmitch2]

Added firepower always helps your attack. Archers may be tired from running around in the attack, but they're still effective doing what they do best, firing arrows--so who cares that they are tired? They add weight to your attack, fatigue the enemy and lessen his numbers.

In defense the nice thing about the archers is they fire arcs-- over your troops. I like to skirmish with guns and have the archers behind a wall of spearmen and just have them weaken the incoming attacker's troops.

[Hiroshi-O'Duff]

I think archers pack the most punch for the dollar, generally speaking -- especially for Uesugi who buys them at 25% off. They can get a LOT of kills from missile fire, and do a reasonable job of melee fighting when in flanking support of common infantry.

Basically, there are some strategies that work well for defending archers.

If you have a TALL hill, where you needn't worry about friendly fire, position your archers just on the front crest of the hill (not on the top). In front of them, make a wide line of YA or YS units to slow down any fast charges, and have some flanking units to the sides. Your blockers will possibly take some arrow fire, but your archers will rain death until the attackers come up the hill at you.

Option 2) If you're on flatter ground, and need to worry about friendly fire as your archers fire over infantry heads, I use the same basic approach (sometimes), or I'll put the archers in front, then when the enemy gets close, go LOOSE formation and push the wall in front of the archers (or pull the archers back a bit). You need to be ON YOUR GAME to do this most effectively, but it works.

I'll post on archer ATTACK later on (if nobody else does it first).

[Bodhiharma]

Hmm,

That should be added somewhere? To some sort of Archer Strategy guide, because I could visualize that, and that made sense to me.

Of course, me being the newbie I am, I would always put my archers up front, and they'd get slaughtered...so you're right, put them behind some YA or YS and let those fellows take the brunt of the charge. Good thinking!

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Honour And Pride
--Bodhiharma Daidoji

[borisus]

1- if your SA have armor upgrade thay can stend in front,usualy you can kill many of the enemy SA before they start killing yours,just make sure you put your SA in the best position and formation.
you also can make 2 lines of SA,it is very efective.
2- use your YA as a skirmish force.if you have a large hill in the province you can use your SA to skirmish,put them on the hill and fire at the enemy,don't fire to much,as soon as the enemy starts to get close go back to the main army and continue from there.
3- you can use the SA in the attack but you will loose many of them,i bring only one unit of CA with my attacking army.always bring min' 1 SA to a brige atteck,to scare the AI.

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"A WISE MAN ONCE SAID,LETS KICK THAIR ASS!"

[Minagawa Daimon]

bulls-eye

[This message has been edited by Minagawa Daimon (edited 04-26-2001).]

[NagaoKagetora]

You are like a kid with a new toy daimon!



[This message has been edited by NagaoKagetora (edited 04-26-2001).]

[Minagawa Daimon]

ooh, behave ...thats more like it

[The Bear]

Defensive: I put most of my SA up front, loose formation, hold- not skirmish mode, with foot soldiers in the back, all up a hill. The ennemy gets rained on with arrows, gets tired going up that hill, then hits the archers. While the ennemy is entangled with my SA in man to man combat, my foot soldiers comme charging in (charge and height bonus creates a lot of routs).

Offensive: I send my armored division (Nag, YS and/or HC depending of the situation, all with upgrades when possible), and use my archers as artillery support (rarely on fire at will, i usually want to choose wich ennemy unit to shoot on), then try some flanking with shock troopds (WM, ND) or cavalry.

In any case , they are quite usefull while cheaper than most units.

[TheDarkDwarf]

archers ammo runs down way oo fast

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Never underestimate the power of Dwarfs..

[Laertes]

One handy-dandy bit with using archers on the offensive is that moving a line of archers a bit ahead and unleashing arrows tends to get a response from the AI. That response sometimes includes charging you, which can be very, very useful. On a bridge map, it usually is withdrawing out of arrow range... which can give you a bit of breathing room if you enjoy daring tactics like racing your Daimyo over the bridge. Or it might cause enemy archers to expend arrows on your SA, which might be good if your SA are in loose formation (so you don't lose too many) and in particular if you have many arrow-vulnerable melee units (think WMs), and the SA's aren't too critical to your attack.

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He is justly served; It is a poison temper'd by himself.

[lei]

i love SA and always chose them as my taisho cos they never get too involved, so morale stays up where it should be.

i was confused in one battle where i put a few lines of monks in front of the archers and let the archers rain hell on the attacking units- whilst doing this i could've sworn i lost more casualties from friendly fire at the back of my monks than i did in close combat. it even had the quite disturbing sound effect: "fwip swoosh-thud" as my rear monks faltered in numbers, i'm sure of it!

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TIGER LILY!!!
check it out for yourself at: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tom.surman/frames.html

[BanzaiZAP]

lei:
Yes, friendly fire can be a serious problem. Monks get cut down just as easily by your arrows as by those of the enemy. It seems that archers are worse about FF than muskets.

When the enemy engages, I send my archers to the flanks, rather than behind my main line. Cuts down on FF, and set them up to charge the flanks when they run out of arrows. They're not as tough in HtH, but they do fairly well with any kind of terrain advantage, and will often be enough to rout the enemy. I have a unit of ashi's or yari's standign immediately behind them. When the eemy approaches, I have the archers hold fire, and send the spears charging through them into the attackers.

-- B)

[Trousermonkey]

This may be a little off topic but Hiroshi got me thinking. Has anyone investigated using archers with deep ranks on the side of a steep hill? I currently use archers about 2 rows deep regardless of the geography but on a steep hill where the men in the rear are elevated with respect to the men at the front it would make sense that there would be less casualties of friendly fire. Or will the archers refuse to fire if they're in too deep (among the ranks that is)?

[Karhu]

I just wanted to say thanks for all the great tips. They really work.

Have just finshed a campaign as Uesegi on hard to get to use SA as much as possible. I was never able to win with Uesegi on this level before, but am now celebrating driving the last of the Takeda into the sea at Hizen.

Thanks!




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The general claimed the troops owed their victory to him, but in truth they knew it was their gift to the general.