Sadly, I would tell you to use them to skirmish - but alas, this is not quite possible due to current meta.
A skirmisher - in my book:
- should be using hit and run tactics thus being a bit more fleet-footed than other infantry.
- weed out lightly armored troops using missile weapons or counter enemy skirmishers
- wound and/or encumber heavy troops by inflicting wounds and destroying shields (javelins SHOULD be able to disable shields or one-shot an enemy on a critical hit like they would in reality but they do not)
- assist heavier troops when it comes to melee by flanking other infantry - this one you could still do but I guess you team would be better off with another unit of dedicated melee infantry.
Unless they change something about the way armor, shields and missile weapons work they seem like a waste of time.
1)
JOINT HURTBOXES and ARMOR HURTBOXES: an armor system that provide a way to balance factions warfare and make more deep the combat system(suggestions)
2)
[POLL] SHIELD + STUCKED PROJECTILE = ENCUMBRANCE
I wrote these two threads in order to make what you write possible.
In summary:
the first thread talks about the armor system.
Instead of having 5 hurtboxes of the model all coverable, which leads, for game balance purposes, not to be able to increase the armor value, I propose to increase the hurtboxes and divide them into 2 categories:
-hurtboxes that can be covered by armor (in greater number, the larger in size).
-hurtboxes that cannot be covered by armor (fewer and smaller)
if the total hurtboxes were 10, then 6 would be covered and 4 not (1 for each direction of attack at least).
For reasons of load on the car, 10 would be enough.
And if we want to dream, let's do 16 + 8.
Since each fully covered character would still have 4 face up hurtboxes, it is less unbalancing to increase the armor value of armor.
In this way, heavily armored characters would be well defended in covered spots, but still beatable since they have weak points.
In this way, with ranged weapons and at very great distances, the probability of effectively hitting a target is proportional to the area exposed by the hurtboxes, which increases as the coverage of the hurtboxes decreases.
Up close, however, with ranged weapons, it would become a question of the aim of the wielder of the ranged weapon.
Furthermore, in the case of a warrior with a shield that does not protect his legs, if he wore heavy leggings on them, he would be strongly protected since the armor value in those points would be high.
In addition, in melee spam would be discouraged, since spamming makes the hits less precise and therefore the probability of hitting uncovered hurtboxes decreases.
The second thread deals precisely with the relationship between ranged weapons and shielded infantry.
Unfortunately my solution is considered less than the usual "increase the armor value", although in mine that aspect is also taken into consideration but considering the consequences it brings if applied without having taken countermeasures.
And the consequences of just raising the armor value (without touching the hurtboxes and doing the above) are an imbalance between units wearing different tier armor, as their armor value would differ too much.
Not to mention that by raising it too much, units that cannot be defeated in a "human" time would come out.
Not to mention that spam would be even more encouraged and the relationship with remote units would worsen in the opposite direction, that is, they would become useless both at distance and in melee.