Celtic elite units

[Pharnakes]

If someone was throwing javelins at me, I wouldn't drop my shield. Maybe when it came to close quaters, but I'd damn well hold onto it untill the romans stopped throwing pilla.

[Geoffrey S]

If someone was throwing javelins at me, I wouldn't drop my shield. Maybe when it came to close quaters, but I'd damn well hold onto it untill the romans stopped throwing pilla.

That's what you'd want to do, but try holding a shield upright and balanced with a number of pila sticking out of the front, dragging it down...

[skuzzy]

That's why I carry 18 shields.

[Elminster12]

Yeah, the reason javelins are underpowered in RTW is that the engine doesn't simulate shield damage. Even so, Gaesatae aren't too hard to manage. I generally like to have a unit of them if I can manage, and use them as sort of a crack troop, even when I play Pontos. Them and Hoplitai add a nice mobile wing to the army.

[Stone and Blood]

Well, if you look at the gasaetae's status, you will see that his armour is something around 5 or 6, i don't remember very well, and 3 defense of shield. All that these guys got of armour is a helmet, would be nice to decrease theyr armour to 2 or 3, or make them vulnerable to missile atack, specially for the reason of realism. And i agree with the 11 or 12 of defense skill, because these guys were realy awesome fighters.

[Decimus Attius Arbiter]

They were also great skirmishers since they were named after their javelins. So they would know about avoiding those attacks. Defense skill only covers melee. I would think you'd need some velites with more practice to hit them. And as has been said in many other posts, they have mental armor(Watch the Matrix a few times) since they are drugged up and their pain receptors are shot.

You're free to change the stats so you can get a traditional RTS elite. The elites in this game are very role-playing oriented.

Also I do believe when you get the reforms, those new units would have been few and therefore expensive seeing as Rome was buying them over to their side.