Archers; Too heavily armed

[kuudou]

Historically the downside to putting your archers in melee combat was that most of them would not carry a shield, not because they didn't have the "right" muscles to swing a sword. That is just preposterous.

Contrary to what most action medieval films would lead you to believe most melee situations involved shield and/or spear formations. That was the best way to keep you and your buddies alive. Archers are meant to be mobile, hence their lack of a shield, heavy armor, or a shafted weapon. And not having a shield in any melee situation puts you in a severe disadvantage, especially if this melee situation involves a formation of shields on the enemy's end.

 

[Bohemond Chesne]

Historically the downside to putting your archers in melee combat was that most of them would not carry a shield, not because they didn't have the "right" muscles to swing a sword. That is just preposterous.

Contrary to what most action medieval films would lead you to believe most melee situations involved shield and/or spear formations. That was the best way to keep you and your buddies alive. Archers are meant to be mobile, hence their lack of a shield, heavy armor, or a shafted weapon. And not having a shield in any melee situation puts you in a severe disadvantage, especially if this melee situation involves a formation of shields on the enemy's end.

Except for the periods in which archers DID tend to carry shields, wear armour and often used two handed weapons/polearms... such as late in the 100years war.
It's better to think of medieval armies as a 'minimum equipment' affair, not a 'regulation weapons only'. Archers might be required to have a gambesson a bow and a knife, but many will have suplimented their kit with whatever they could purchase, improvise or loot. 

That said there is no solid history/realism argument either way so it just comes down to gameplay ballance and look. As far as I am concerned a top level non-noble archer has the similar access to equipment as a top level,  non-noble infantryman, as a player If I want to play as a 'heavy archer' and have a party of 'heavy archers'  and am willing to spend the money and training time on it/them I don't see the problem.

 

[11sparky11]

I'm calling BS on the archer/polearm thing unless you provide me with a credible source.

 

[Bohemond Chesne]

Not being funny but the archer's maul is one of the best known weapons of the 100years war. Its a large two handed mallet designed as a tool, but acording to a number of sources they were also used as weapons. There are also descriptions of mounted longbowmen having lances.

Its not as if it's hard to stick a spear in the ground nearby while you shoot, then grab it when the fight get's too close for comfort. Such a strategy is particularly well suited to fighting from a semi-fortified possition with stake layed out infront, arrows stuck in the ground with more distributed by runner from behind, we we know was an approach used at a number of battles.

Having faught with a spear, shield and bow, I really don't understand why people imagine this should be an issue.

 

[11sparky11]

Not discrediting everything you just said, but I want some sources to back all this up. Not just 'some descriptions say that'. It's pretty vague. (I know that maul's were commissioned for archer use but I doubt they would be used as a weapon, only as a very last resort/grab what you can kind of thing. Archers also traveled light as a rule, I see no reason why they would be lugging a lance around. They'd be more likely to whip out a bollock dagger or something in a close fight)

 

[FrisianDude]

you standing there with only a dagger might well mean your death in one swell foop, though. If you're at a point that you have to draw a melee weapon, then there's a dude probably heavily armoured, often with a shield, and with a longer weapon than a dagger in hand. Doesn't it then make some sense to get your mitts on a longer weapon, you know, just in case you have to be in melee?

 

[Do not look here]

Yeah, I guess that it would make more sense to have something that would at least give you a chance to beat him senseless or carry nothing at all and leg it at first sight of approaching enemies.
Also, "archers should be mobile" isn't all that true. History shows that massing lots of archers and allowing them to fortify, at least lightly, their positions was a valid option. And I think that leaves archers in close vicinity of different axes, hammers and other nasty tools when it comes to beat some senses in someone's head. Or actually beating him senseless.
Not mentioning that, probably depending on period, but anyway, any standing army would have carts carrying supplies for it, food, weapons, additional quivers. Carrying heavier stuff into single battle doesn't sound half as bad as marching with it whole weeks.

 

[Jarl Anthony]

Archers are 2 dam armored  I would prefer leather or chainmail for archers not plate armor,sword and shield I think clash of kings is the only mod which has archers realistic armed.Hope they wont screw that in bannelord.

 

[11sparky11]

Yeah, I guess that it would make more sense to have something that would at least give you a chance to beat him senseless or carry nothing at all and leg it at first sight of approaching enemies.
Also, "archers should be mobile" isn't all that true. History shows that massing lots of archers and allowing them to fortify, at least lightly, their positions was a valid option. And I think that leaves archers in close vicinity of different axes, hammers and other nasty tools when it comes to beat some senses in someone's head. Or actually beating him senseless.
Not mentioning that, probably depending on period, but anyway, any standing army would have carts carrying supplies for it, food, weapons, additional quivers. Carrying heavier stuff into single battle doesn't sound half as bad as marching with it whole weeks.

I never uttered the words "archers should be mobile", I said they should travel light.

 

[Do not look here]

Yeah, the thing with discussions in threads is that they're not one-on-one, so I took a liberty to respond to some arguments presented by "archers too heavily armed" side represented by few posters.

And about travelling lightly, I can't see how that says anything about their in-battle equipment. Actually, it's really hard to discuss about archers as a single entity. There would be whole world of difference between a peasant with bow, which would walk into battle with own clothes, said bow and club or maybe an axe, and servant of wealthy knight, that it so happens sports a bow, in which case he'd travel by horse and be equipped by his master.
As I was said lately, some of the units in M&B that fight dismounted actually travel on horses on world map (it's as easy as marking unit as mounted and not giving it horse, it will appear horseless but will have world map speed of a horseman, I just didn't know it is used in Native), so one can explain it that way. Especially that we have lots of knights in army
That's why I agree with Bohemond Chesne here, that

a top level non-noble archer has the similar access to equipment as a top level,  non-noble infantryman, as a player If I want to play as a 'heavy archer' and have a party of 'heavy archers'  and am willing to spend the money and training time on it/them I don't see the problem.

 

[Baltic Marauder]

I don't think the problem is with the archer's equipment as much as it is with their skills. Clearly archers should be much less capable of melee combat than infantry. As far as them carrying voulges, I don't really see the problem with that, seeing as infantry can do the same. If the problem is that polearms should be too long to carry on your back, then that should be fixed for all units, not just archers.

 

[General_Sherman]

I think a lot of people are too used to fantasy rpgs, and rts games to understand this, but; an archer does not necessarily have to be bad at melee combat just because he is an archer. The dynamic of infantry beats cav, cav beats archers, and archers beat inf is not really based on reality, but on the necessity of balancing games like rpgs and strategy games and such. To me, in warband, this is not necessary, because warband is modeling a different more focused level of historical combat than most other games.

Archers were not speedy little sniper/assassins that quailed at the thought of close quarters fighting. Even with their bows, its likely that most archers would not engage from farther than 50 yards or so, any further and most basic armors would stand a good chance of stopping their arrows (of course this varied by both time and place). Archers were soldiers, just like the knights, and pikemen, and men-at-arms, and billmen etc they fought along side.

 

[Redleg]

I think a lot of people are too used to fantasy rpgs, and rts games to understand this, but; an archer does not necessarily have to be bad at melee combat just because he is an archer. The dynamic of infantry beats cav, cav beats archers, and archers beat inf is not really based on reality, but on the necessity of balancing games like rpgs and strategy games and such. To me, in warband, this is not necessary, because warband is modeling a different more focused level of historical combat than most other games.

Archers were not speedy little sniper/assassins that quailed at the thought of close quarters fighting. Even with their bows, its likely that most archers would not engage from farther than 50 yards or so, any further and most basic armors would stand a good chance of stopping their arrows (of course this varied by both time and place). Archers were soldiers, just like the knights, and pikemen, and men-at-arms, and billmen etc they fought along side.

While what you say is true to some extent, many archers did spend a great deal of time practicing archery rather than practicing with melee weapons.  Professional infantrymen probably did train much more than archers in melee combat and the infantry "tactics" of the time (e.g., fighting in formations of one sort or another) and would therefore have greater proficiencies with melee weapons.  I don't see a problem with how Warband allocates weapons proficiencies to archers versus infantry.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

If archers were realistic you would have men with semi-decent melee capabilities firing arrows into enemy formations for days before they caused any significant damage. For the necessity of good gameplay they are only given a dagger or whatever so that the player doesn't spam them.

Even so, in a lot of the world, the best archers, slingers and javelinmen were from the countryside or outside the realm, and weren't trained professionally, but taught themselves how to shoot. They also weren't expected to join the fight and in some cases rejoined the baggage train or even went home once the skirmish phase was over. This wasn't always the case, but it's something to consider. The professional, armoured longbowmen of medieval England were a bit of a rarity.

 

[Apollo ?]

Many instances where Archers are wearing heavy to medium Armour in history.

Spoiler

 

[Redleg]

Nice pictures, but aren't those modern depictions of what the artist thought the archers would have looked like?

 

[the lotnest]

off off off  ****K