Surprisingly bad units

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Given they're poorer than lighter cavalry in precisely the role they're supposed to be doing (shock charge to rear of engaged infantry), that's surprisingly bad.

No they are not. Thessalians last longer in melee.

You could be a surprisingly bad general, maybe that's the reason for your problems.

[QuintusSertorius]

No they are not. Thessalians last longer in melee.

You could be a surprisingly bad general, maybe that's the reason for your problems.

If you're wasting your cavalry in melee, then I'd say that's bad generalship. That's what spearmen are for, to butcher enemy cavalry stupid enough to stay still.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

If you want to annihilate a unit of slingers for example, do you really re-charge your cavalry at them? In such a case the negative effect of the horsies getting tired and inevitably losing men in the retreat is worse than the few casualties taken for letting them stay in melee. Of course you can't run Thessalians headlong into a wall of spears. You can't do that with Hetairoi or Kataphraktoi either. Thessalians are just in the middle between Hetairoi and Prodromoi.

[QuintusSertorius]

If you want to annihilate a unit of slingers for example, do you really re-charge your cavalry at them? In such a case the negative effect of the horsies getting tired and inevitably losing men in the retreat is worse than the few casualties taken for letting them stay in melee. Of course you can't run Thessalians headlong into a wall of spears. You can't do that with Hetairoi or Kataphraktoi either. Thessalians are just in the middle between Hetairoi and Prodromoi.

No, I've got slingers and archers to annihilate enemy slingers with. That's the kind of target my long-rangers are tasked with. Indeed if I see slingers, they get the focus of my slingers like nothing else, since all other enemy ranged troops are relatively harmless for my main line.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Indeed if I see slingers, they get the focus of my slingers like nothing else, since all other enemy ranged troops are relatively harmless for my main line.

Definitely so. It's surprising how much a humble unit of slingers can ruin a battle for you. Being the cheapest unit in EB, they are also one of the most effective. Running them down with cavalry is not always the best option, nor is it always possible to do so. In general, EB cavalry is not good for taking on an entire unit by themselves and destroying the unit in melee, even if it is a missile unit. I normally use archers to target enemy slingers, since the archers I hire have longer-range weapons than the slingers. Cretan archers and many other composite-bow archers have much longer range that allows them to decimate the slingers while keeping away from their murderous volleys of bullets. If you are using your own slingers for counter-fire, be careful, the enemy have the same range and are likely to make you bleed just as much.

[LordCurlyton]

Maybe over my time of playing EB I've had a different EDU set, but the fact that Thessalians are getting ragged on is odd to me. They WILL beat Traikioi Prodromoi 1:1, I can attest to that, but it will hurt. Both units are badass, in any case. Thessalians also can last a long time in melee and will break no/low-armor missile units on their own if you choose to waste them for such. I loved using Thessies as FM killers, esp once they chevroned. Since you shouldn't be charging any elite infantry with cav short of catas IMO (though lancer types like Prodromoi do for a poor man's solution) the Thessies should be more then able to hold in a melee against the medium and lesser infantry, esp if they do a proper flank assault.
As for slingers, love 'em, but I don't worry about them as long as I have a balanced army. Either I'll get some light cav around to slice and dice or I will pound them with my protedcted archers (not slingers) and let my heavy inf take the occasional casualty from slinger fire. MY slingers target heavy cav/FM, heavy inf, and HA's in that order. Unless I flank with the slingers phalanxes and large shields are generally avoided. Love getting them behind phalanxes though.
I can't say as I've ever met a truly surprisingly bad unit, though some have not lived up to the hype I read on the forums. Thraikioi Peltasti come to mind, as do Gaesetae, which are frankly NOT THAT HARD TO KILL if you are smart about it. The Thraikes, well, the hype made them to be an uber-peltast. As I found it to be, they are better than the standard variety, but not by that much. In fact, they seemed to take cavalry charges worse than normal peltasts (yes, i know, shouldn't be letting it happen but sometimes you just gotta line 'em up and take the licks when you haven't had the chance to refill the army) though they are a notch above in melee ability. Nothing to write home about but i do recruit them in both regular and merc form when I in those areas. I just prefer the standard peltast's vast recruitment area.
And that is the best part of EB; you can call a unit bad if you want but that's mainly because it doesn't fit your generalship style. And those badass units tend to be hard to recruit whereas main units are wide in area. It all balances out. I will go with the anti-elephant crowd though. Even the armored ones don't faze me since I'll just rout the rest of their army first and gang bang the eles. And Velites are just plain depressing for me; I'll hire peltasts instead.

[QuintusSertorius]

There are some objectively bad units in this thread. If they can't perform in the role they're designed for, they're bad. Doesn't matter that there might be some kind of exploit or trick you can use to make them effective.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

No, I've got slingers and archers to annihilate enemy slingers with. That's the kind of target my long-rangers are tasked with. Indeed if I see slingers, they get the focus of my slingers like nothing else, since all other enemy ranged troops are relatively harmless for my main line.

Yes I've got archers to annihilate enemy slingers with in the first place. But not in that particular army with that I was marching against Kyrene, the odd left Ptolemaioi settlement, whereas the rest of the army (with all my archers) had to do more serious stuff. And indeed Thessalians are an awesome cavalry force.

Can Epeiros recruit Thessalikoi?

[QuintusSertorius]

Yes I've got archers to annihilate enemy slingers with in the first place. But not in that particular army with that I was marching against Kyrene, the odd left Ptolemaioi settlement, whereas the rest of the army (with all my archers) had to do more serious stuff. And indeed Thessalians are an awesome cavalry force.

Can Epeiros recruit Thessalikoi?

No idea, I'm outside of homeland provinces anyway, so they're mercenary-only.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

I had an interesting battle tonight. My cavalry forces were 110 Hetairoi, including bodyguards, 95 Thessalians and 85 Thraikioi Prodromoi. The enemy's cavalry were 65 Hetairoi bodyguards, 100 Hippeis Hellenikoi and 100 ordinary Prodromoi. I took the offensive and charged the enemy Prodromoi with my Thracians. I thought it would be an easy win, since my Thracians are 2 points better statwise in both attack and defense. Both forces were not tired. But the enemy slaughtered all my Thraikioi! I was really shocked, I only managed to kill approx. 40 of them.

In the meantime my Thessalians had attacked their Hippeis. Taking about 5 losses, they killed all the Hippeis (with help of some Hetairoi). They were exhausted, but I let them hurry and line up again to help out the Thraikians. But it was too late. The enemy Prodromoi had already routed my Thraikians and chased them down. I told my Thessalians to attack them nevertheless, and guess... They completely annihilated the foe, taking another 2 losses only. Without help of some Hetairoi. Yeah, these are Thessalians.

Will provide screenshots if you don't believe it.