Quote Originally Posted by nearchos View Post
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I dont know where they saw that a sling could penetrate an armor or a heavy shield,but i havend read about slingers in ancient warfare to penetrate armor or even shields, of heavy armoured units.
Of course i learned to respect them, since during my first major encounter against them, my 15 unit Macedonian army, of pikemen, hoplites, merc veteran hoplites and cav. was anihilated by an army of Rhodes half militia hoplites half slingers.
I had 50% casualties before my units come to contact with their hoplites pnly by sling fire.
Yeah the problem about slingers is not necessarily their damage. It's the tiny amount of AP damage that will always, regardless of targets, the target's facing or distance or whatever, seep through and into the hitpoints of the unit that is being shot at. Coupled with the slinger's rate of fire, range and ammo, that tiny amount builds up to lots of dead people over time. Have you ever noticed how the first one or two volleys from slingers or archers seem to not do very much, yet each volley following that seems to get more and more devastating?

That's CA's idea to have units under fire 'wear out' at work.