Archer appreciation thread!

[Ludial]

Ok, so I just had a little accident with Nords and because of its outcome(my heart is still beating quickly because of what just happened) I`m happy I rely on archers so much, and wanted to share that with all the archer lovers(and even haters ) out there.

I love my archers. Deadeyes with big axes who can take on anyone. They literally butcher anyone too slow or too light to withstand their hail of death, and even knights have a good reason to fear them. They eat big scary Nords and Swadian knights for breakfast, and make Nord and Swadian women cry with happiness at night. They rule!

What exactly just happened:
I was about to attempt a second assault on Tevarin castle near Uxkhal(the Nords had taken it from the Vaegirs beforehand, who had taken it from the Swadians... don`t ask, the way factions decide how to wage warfare is simply crazy ); the friggin` garrison didn`t want to surrender despite the fact that I wiped out a good part of it in the first assault and now outnumbered it(just for the record, my casualties are pretty close to zero when I fight Nords, be it siege or field). So basically this Nord lord comes, with a band of 90 or so soldiers, and starts goofing around. Another is tailing him, with about 120. So I attacked the first one, but apparently misjudged the distance at which the second one, as a follower, would assist. So this way I came up against a force of about 210 with my 70 archers! I didn`t win, but... my company managed to kill a good 60 Nords(ratio in the battle was 2:1) before I went down. Then I managed to break off. All in all, I lost just 6 men. Another 10 or so were wounded, for which I thank Jeremus. If I could quadruple his salary and give him the best women and luxuries in Calradia, I`d do it So now I`m off to replenish my casualties. Then I`ll get back, kick the ass of the lord with the larger company, then take the castle. The first lord(I think he was Aedin) will surely be in there - apparently he took the most casualties, as when we broke off, his company was reduced from 90 to just 40 This was the only time I didn`t win against Nords, because I don`t normally fight companies three times the size of mine, but only one and a half to maximum two times.

Anyone who is big on missile troops, post here and show your appreciation for them with positive antics, funny stories, tactical discussions and any other way you can think of to show how much you love your archers. No matter which ones, even crossbowmen of any kind, even Nord archers(I realize that it`s the moronic Nord doctrine that has given them such a backseat place in their armies), even bandits of any kind that have a bow!(although this is not for throwers - these guys are a different category )

Sadly, I cannot post screenies of archery glory as I don`t know how(yes, I`m that technically incompetent, any help would be appreciated), but I`ll be sure to post ones once I learn how.

Show your love/hate, people. This is for the Archers!

 

[NightWolf]

i wish i had a set of bow and arrows so i could personally nail the people who hate archers..but hey thats just my opinion.

nothing beats the feeling of the self satisfaction you get when you are galloping on a horse at full speed and nail some pitchforked wielding farmer right in the face

 

[Anxe]

I love filling my enemies with arrows. My favorite is when I ride up to a bunch of looters without ranged weapons and I get to tag them like wild animals with tranquilizer darts. Delightful.

 

[Lord Sami]

I've had a lot of fun with modified archers and huge parties of looters (thank god for the troop editor).

I basically turned my recruits into overpowered super archers and made all the looter parties have 30-80 men at all times. With nigh perfect accuracy and masterwork warbows those guys made short work of any and every unit that came up against them, and the before mentioned looter parties were just hilarious to watch.

It was also fun to watch how they bumped heads with other top archers in Calradia. Once I fought against some Vaegir sharpshooters, and thanks to my archers' superior reach they were able to pick all the enemy soldiers one by one simply by staying out of their reach. The Vaegirs just stood there like idiots watching the arrows fly at them, and didn't even move a muscle. Perhaps this kind of AI behavior should be looked into before the next version?

 

[dryhte]

I mainly appreciate my own archery I love hanging behind my mob of Nords (Warrior to Huscarl) in sieges and taking enemy archers out while the huscarls deal with the grunts. Or riding the steppe with a band of Khergit Lancers (love them, they're easy to train and quite effective), where the lancers distract my enemies and I pepper them with arrows...

Yay for archery

 

[Niv]

Personally, I simply adore the sight of a dozen arrows in my own shield as I'm riding along. Archery is indeed awesome in this game.

 

[Zilberfrid]

I have a new charcter which relies on the solid *thunk* of hammer against head (from horseback) but once my prisoners fill up I love to just ride a bit ahead and turn, load my light crossbow and disdainfully shoot my enemy in the face.

 

[Oriel]

I love archers too. Especially wheren taking cities. I take party of 30-40 top tier close combat soldiers, siege city. Defenders (mostly archers) sail out of city walls and 60 of them died in just few seconds (battle size 100, max dif.). Abandon siege and repeat.
Yesterday i lowered number of troops in city by 180 losing 3 men.

I like to fight them in open too. As foot soldier i love the sound of hundrets of arrows passing close by or hitting my shield when i advance. But after i switch to 2hSOW game is over

 

[Sir Malagant]

My favourite charachter is a horse archer. His army contains two-third horse archers and one-third Khergit Lancers.

I really like it to ride in full gallop past my enemies and pepper them with arrows.

When I play with foot troops, I always have a lot of archers behind my first line of heavy infantry.

So, I really like archery. 

 

[Steele Xia]

CROSSBOWS FTW 

hey bows are cool too 

 

[Troll]

Well, to say truth I more Khergit than Vaegir for my fighting style but still bow is a must. Riding on a horse with big group of Swadian behind you and shooting them one by one is just wonderful.

But still, Vaegir Marksmen are the best. No nord can even reach line of them. Swadians and Khergits with their horses never survive from their charge to them. So horsemen will be handled in melee with big axes and then every other enemy is just easy target. Though, I have suddenly noticed superiority of Rhodoks...

Not long ago I fought with lord Meriga against army of Swadians. It was interesting fight and now I am fan of forest bandits too. Meriga didn't have many Vaegir archers but 18 forest bandits he had.

 

[dryhte]

Yup when I can recruit or subvert them, I tend to pick forest bandits up left and right I put them in my castles for safekeeping (the castles, that is)

 

[Kalnia]

Well I guess I'm the first archer hater here... *prepares for flaming*

A good huskarl round shield, an axe and some men behind you in the same garb tends to give the pretection needed from as many volleys or potshots as there are until you can close to melee and then most archers have the tendency to kinda die. Give me a shield anyday.

This being said, I have had characters where I set myself up with small elite armies of Vaegir archers (without cheating byw!) as I do with my main and his very few huskarls. The moment before pressing the Fire at Will button is almost as good as the moment the great axe falls on some poor archers face... I never had the patience because cavalry have the tendency to wipe or get in among archers before they can set up properly. I tried witha rchers but in the end the pull of a shield and axe is too good for me to resist, I'll stick with throwing axes for now.

 

[ddrake]

Being a traditional archer myself i appreciate archery in the game.
One tactic i find extremely effective when fighting Nords and have many archers on your part plus a bit of infantry (say 60% archers, 30% inf). Send archers on the left.. it will be the enemy's right side.. the shields are on the other side.. send infantry on the right and advancing. Then you ride with a warhorse (good armor) on the back of the enemy line. They will all turn towards you.. and get a load of arrows in their back.
Plus use the infantry to lure them. Make it stand close enough to them to attract their attention but far enough not to get in a melee. You will see the enemy line slowly turning to your infantry, thus again exposing their back to the archers. Make your inf retreat slowly. Make them charge once most of the enemy are down.
If you are heavily outnumbered this second part will be hard to do as coming waves may trap your own infantry. In which case stick just to first part of tactic.
It works wonders to me both when using Rhodoks (sergeants + sharpshooters) or Huscarls + Vaegir Marksmen.
Recently with just 100 men i was able t o defeat more than 500 Nords with minimal losses.

A company of Vaegir Marksmen shooting is the Calradian equivalent to a machine gun. Rate of fire and damage done are astounding.

P.S. yeah, Jeremus is an ok fellow and I appreciate having 9 surgery in my party.. but giving him the best women.. i don't know.. I'd rather give him Firentis instead! 

 

[Mabons]

Archery, the most kickass weaponry in the game. (For once I agree with Ludial!)

Too many people think that archery sucks, but believe me, they will own when it comes to multiplayer.

 

[Troll]

A good huskarl round shield, an axe and some men behind you in the same garb tends to give the pretection needed from as many volleys or potshots as there are until you can close to melee and then most archers have the tendency to kinda die. Give me a shield anyday.

Tried 100 Marksmen vs. 100 Huscarls fight yesterday. Well, 14 Huscarls survived. You could say that huscarls still won but I'd expect elite infantry to do better against archer only army before I'd use them.

 

[Dushatar]

Even If I take about 30 marksmen vs 20 Nord Trained Footmen, I surely lose like hell... Dunno why... :/ Ofc, counting off the wretches I get rid off.

 

[Ludial]

yay, this is so good.

anyways, I personally love archers because of the idea of killing your enemy while almost surely surviving yourself. what I do with archers(and I advise any other missile troops enthusiast out there to try the same) is that I use them as a stand-alone army of skirmishers. I`ve already written this in other threads, but for those who haven`t seen those passages:
I have them spread out in a skirmishing line - this makes them less vulnerable to other missile troops, while in the mean time they cover more ground(enemy disperses when charging them ), because of that they often get a direct line of sight to the unprotected flanks of shieldmen and have fun shooting at all sides when being charged. Any footman that ventures too deeply in the skirmishing line is doomed - he will most likely receive a couple of arrows to the back while being hacked at from the front by two or three fellas with 2h axes And I use this effectively even with Rhodok sharpshooters - the crossbows are especially deadly when the enemy closes in. And I in general love the Sharps - they`re like mid tier infantry who is incidentally also expert at ranged combat

Another thing that I love doing is hunting forest and steppe bandits. There`s so much satisfaction in fighting fire with fire(even hunting steppe bandits with foot missile troops ). Granted, a forest bandit is nowhere near equal to a marksman and same goes for steppe bandit to lancer, but a forester with a staff or 2h axe and steppe raider with spear or lance are definitely not to be underestimated

@Dushatar: you might want to try using archers as skirmishers - that`s how they`ve been throughout history and that`s how they`re most effective.

To anyone using the 2:1 horse archers to lancers thing - I`ve found that it`s better to simply have all lancers. They have better survivability and one would still get the same ratio of bows to melee, and lancers are decent horse archers. I`ve found that a company comprised entirely of lancers is something pretty effective in a siege

 

[Hietala]

Rhodok sharpshooters and Huscarls wwho carry throwable axes

ranged pwnage 

 

[Troll]

Rhodok sharpshooters and Huscarls wwho carry throwable axes

ranged pwnage 

Throwing axes of Huscarls are nothing but Rhodok Sharpshooters truly can do something.