Best Foot Archers for Campaign 1.5.10?

[vertibird]

Is it still Fian Champions? They are hard to collect hundreds and expensive. So what are the other options? I guess best is Aserai Master Archers , but I saw a video they lose against vlandian sharpshooters but it may be outdated.
What is the best archer unit overall?

 

[Apocal]

Is it still Fian Champions?

Yes.

They are hard to collect hundreds and expensive. So what are the other options? I guess best is Aserai Master Archers , but I saw a video they lose against vlandian sharpshooters but it may be outdated.
What is the best archer unit overall?

Other than Fians, take your pick of any with two quivers and decent armor. They all perform about the same in practical terms.

 

[vertibird]

Yes.

Other than Fians, take your pick of any with two quivers and decent armor. They all perform about the same in practical terms.

Thanks, two quivers are rare, Palantine Guards and all crossbowmen have single quivers if I remember right. So only Aserai Master Archer remains

 

[Dabos37]

I actually find Palatine Guard pretty deadly, despite of they just having single quiver. They are pretty good in melee and more resistant to enemy missile units which is pretty valuable. Palatine Guards are not great against enemies with tons of missile cav though, due to archers missing a lot of shots against horse archers, but Palatine Guards are probably better than other T5 archers against most of kingdoms in the game.

 

[KingEroc1st]

Palatine Guards are probably better than other T5 archers against most of kingdoms in the gam

they aren't. check their weapon load out and you'll see they have inferior bow and arrows also only 1 quilver. not to mention bow skill difference

 

[Dabos37]

they aren't. check their weapon load out and you'll see they have inferior bow and arrows also only 1 quilver. not to mention bow skill difference

Uhmmm, maybe something has changed in the last two patches. Palatine Guards had the best bow compared to other archer units (not taking fians into account), and they had 160 bow skill level, same than Master Archers. Palatine Guard had the steppe war bow (66 damage) compared to steppe recurve bow (62 damage) that master archers had (I say “had” in case these things have changed, I cannot check the game today).

I cannot check these values now but I would be glad if they would have got a nerf because Palatine Guards were pretty OP in the past.

 

[Apocal]

Uhmmm, maybe something has changed in the last two patches. Palatine Guards had the best bow compared to other archer units (not taking fians into account), and they had 160 bow skill level, same than Master Archers. Palatine Guard had the steppe war bow (66 damage) compared to steppe recurve bow (62 damage) that master archers had (I say “had” in case these things have changed, I cannot check the game today).

I cannot check these values now but I would be glad if they would have got a nerf because Palatine Guards were pretty OP in the past.

Imperial Palatine Guard (why are they named this anyway? without Rome, there isn't going to be a Palatine Hill) still have the Steppe War Bow with 66 damage and +3 damage bodkin arrows.

Khuz Marksmen and Aserai Master Archers have 62 damage bows, two quivers
Sturgian Vet. Bowmen have 56 damage bows, two quivers.

So yeah, nothing changed recently.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I like the vlandian Xbow line because they become xbow at tier 2, making them easy to keep raising up and useful right away.

I used to say the Khuzait archers because they become a 2 stack archer at t3, but I think they changed the Aserai troops to be a archer at t3 too, so now the aserai may be slightly better, I don't know because I haven't tried them in a recent game.

 

[ImperialDane]

Outside of the Battanians. I might go for Crossbowmen actually. Vlandian Sharpshooters or Imperial Sergeant Crossbowmen are quite deadly. And the Sergeant Crossbowmen can also double quite well as infantry. In fact i find them to consistently outperform the Palatine Guards (Why even give them that name if they're going to be worse equipped ?) in both ranged and melee.

So i suppose it depends on your needs a it as well. So could be the Master Archers, could be the Khuzait Marksmen or could be any of the Crossbow troops.

 

[Antaeus]

In1.5.10 noble troops are more common.

You can wander through Battania at a casual pace, visit every castle bound village and come out the other side with 20 or 30 highborn youth, then it's just a matter of time and upgrades. If you're going after trade, you can very quickly collect a scarily large force of Fians after a few trade loops from Askar.

It also goes for ownership of castles... if you own a Battanian castle, and don't set a garrison wage limit, you could end up with hundreds of highborn youth after a while. I have a castle with 90 right now.

I'm going to assume it's not too hard to gather noble sons, imperial vigla etc too now..

I prefer to run a force with mixed Fians and Sharpshooters... I have them in two separate groups, so that I can create overlapping fields of fire. I tend to find that they end up with relatively similar kill counts. Allowing for the Fians having twice the arrows, I suspect that leaves the Sharpshooters being the more lethal, but Fians have that range and that sword...

 

[KingEroc1st]

run a force with mixed Fians and Sharpshooters...

from my observation, Crossbowmen not only have higher range accuracy and damage than regular archers by a large margin. they also have an advantage shooting upwards in a siege scenario. i often find my sharpshooters out performing fian champs in a siege.

 

[anoddhermit]

The Merc Xboxmen which are T4 are what I've been using. Complimenting whatever faction, it doesn't matter. The T5 have a bit better stats and gear but I stick with T4.

A mere 8g wage for an excellent unit I think. Archers die much less often, so its being limited to tavern recruitment hasn't been bad.

I will typically have two archer and infantry units for flanking, and these dudes beat most archers excepting Fians.

Playing Battania currently with only 5/123 Fians and they work fine as my almost only archer too.

 

[Medivhtratos]

from my observation, Crossbowmen not only have higher range accuracy and damage than regular archers by a large margin. they also have an advantage shooting upwards in a siege scenario. i often find my sharpshooters out performing fian champs in a siege.

But with less ammo they become more a target than a thread in siege situations

 

[Antaeus]

But with less ammo they become more a target than a thread in siege situations

This is all about how many you bring. Plus that Pavise shield is exceptionally handy once they've completed their rounds.

Also, if you bring a crossbow, or you have a party with you that has a crossbow firing leader (I usually train up one of my siblings that way) then there are perks that add extra bolts to quivers - a couple of extra bolts across 40 or 50 crossbows is an extra 80-100 shots - which makes a big difference.

I find Sharpshooters are particularly good a clearing hideouts.

 

[snuggans]

crossbowmen have shields which makes them last longer if they have to melee so they are more versatile, otherwise yes fian champions / aserai master archers / khuzait marksmen are pretty good for large drawn out battles where their 2 quivers shine

 

[KingEroc1st]

But with less ammo they become more a target than a thread in siege situations

any archer of mine that survived long enough in a siege to shoot 20+ rounds at the enemy has done enough to happily retire. paired with their high power weapons and good accuracy that's like 5-10 kills

 

[Apocal]

But with less ammo they become more a target than a thread in siege situations

I've never thought it was cheesy to just retreat out of a siege (as attacker) once my archers run out of arrows.

 

[Medivhtratos]

I've never thought it was cheesy to just retreat out of a siege (as attacker) once my archers run out of arrows.

To do all the sieging again? Normally I finish what I ve started regarding sieging(only when I troll around by retreating my party, and sieging alone. I retreat and start again because the arrow barrels doesn't work on my side of the siege). Personal opinion: retreating is cheesy in a lot of ways, when you play only Archer party. They should add a penalty for this no matter what.

This is all about how many you bring. Plus that Pavise shield is exceptionally handy once they've completed their rounds.

Also, if you bring a crossbow, or you have a party with you that has a crossbow firing leader (I usually train up one of my siblings that way) then there are perks that add extra bolts to quivers - a couple of extra bolts across 40 or 50 crossbows is an extra 80-100 shots - which makes a big difference.

I find Sharpshooters are particularly good a clearing hideouts.

Regarding ammunition Crossbowmen will never reach a archer with two quivers. For hideouts though I accept their multi tasking role. Compare the rate of fire or loading animations and you will see in a range battle which side has a higher kps score.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

To do all the sieging again?

You don't have to do any of it again, you just got back to the "launch assault", continue siege preperrations..." menu on the map. You only have to build camp again if you actually choose to leave from the map menu and I think it even double checks "are you sure?". And the dead stay dead, and wounded enemies only heal if you pass time building siege stuff or what not.

 

[AJAJP_Juan]

(why are they named this anyway? without Rome, there isn't going to be a Palatine Hill)

I think Palatine doesnt necessarily refer to the Palatine hill, but palaces in general.

And as for OP, I suggest crossbows all the way, for their low number of shots is greatly compensated with accuracy and damage. Other option I usually do is hunt for forest bandits and recruit them, they are decent archers and when outnumbered heavily they may join outright. Also with a perk can get into Fians, reducing their short supply.