Slingers?

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Most of the time I ignore them... They are just too bad and have a low missile attack (except for a few mercenary units), they are useless in melee, they hit your own infantry if you shoot with them behind your line and I just don't have time to effectively use them before they must fall back to my rear to avoid being killed. Is there any point in building slingers? How can I make them effective?

[Slimshoom]

use their reasonably good range to pound the enemy line while they make their way towards you. then have them stop when the enemy gets too close and then pull them behind their line. Then, as the battle is raging, move the slingers behind the enemy and have them fire into the rear, severally decreasing their morale.

[azek]

If i play faction, which can create archers. Then i dont use slingers or hire mercanary slingers, because archers have bigger range and they are more useful.

[teh_executioner]

i fully upgrade their attack on custum battle so they have equivalent strength to archers and plus they shoot faster, i use them when defending a seige with stone walls or better.

[hellheaven1987]

Not sure about them but when I was playing Briton, I used one unit of slinger to win a war!

[Flogger]

Shouldn't slingers have unlimited ammo, as they just pick up stones off the floor?

[guyyug]

if all stones r gone what do u use? thine air.

i prefer using archers or javlins cause i am more confident in their ablites but i will use em on walls

[Shadows]

Slingers are good for delaying an enemy army. They cause casualties and demoralize troops, plus they are cheap. easy to recruit and best off expendable. Archers are worth more than slingers, so you wouldn't want to risk sending them to flank an enemy. Instead use slingers. And if your slingers are shooting your guys in the back, either set them in fron of your infantry, untill the last moment,then retire them to the flanks and have them harras the enemy from the sides and back. OR place them farther back behind your troops, that way they put more of an arch on their shoots, with this you could also put them on a hill above your infantry line. This way they would also shoot over your infantrys' heads.

[tito labieno]

Slingers are made to be sent to massacre. After their missiles are finished they can run into the enemy formation, already engaged by your front line, to create panic.

[Jamieus Maximus Pillockus]

what ever happened to the archers that were with vanilla, im playin SPQR 6.0 and lovin every minute of it but i need my archers man!

Im sick of slingers they are about as effective as carlton palmer in englands defence!

Do we ever get archers before the marius reforms?

[.Socrates]

My slingers always get run over by calvary.
I mostly have 1 or 2 slingers in my army as diversions.

[hellheaven1987]

I find out that actually slinger is more useful than archer. It probably because slinger throws stone as vertical line, but not arc line, so the accuracy is higher than archer.

[mike007]

I used to hate slingers, but actuly they are very useful, heres why:

*Good range
*Powerful enough missle bonus
*Fast moving, easy to flank
*Very useful until archers come into the game (SPQR 6)
*When attacking, send your slingers out to lure single units into range of your veltes/princii/horses
*Great at defending walls
*Cheap
*Expendable
*High chevrons slingers are extreemly powerful

and most importantly in attrition battles

*High ammount of ammo! thay can almost sling all day!

i love my slingers now! they have won many a war for me.

[Necromancer]

When you're the Seleucids you'll find Rhodian slingers to be very useful in your campaigns against the eastern factions, especially when you have at least an Awesome Temple to Haphaestus, and an armoury, send the Rhodians to a city with an Awesome Temple to Haphaestus, and an armoury, retrain them, and you've got yourself some serious killing machines. Slingers also have a huge advantage over archers, they don't fire at a steep trajectory like archers, they fire directly at the enemy, guaranteeing a direct hit at the enemy formation, also as mike stated, they have more ammunition, and they seem to fire slightly faster than archers. I find a combo force of upgraded Rhodians and Cretans work very well especially when facing more lightly armed troops, they will work well against heavier troops though.
Good Luck on your Campaign
-Necro

[Red Harvest]

The main problem with base level slingers is that the way missile units work with the RTW engine, it is difficult for them to get in range AND actually use their weapons. So, as with javs you need to give them some extra range to behave in a more historic manner. I make their range 100 to compensate for this gameplay defect.

Archer attack is higher than it should be in RTW. Historically, slingers were valued as much as archers in most of the Med at the time and had comparable ranges. To correct this I modded base level archers down to where their attack is only a slight improvement over slingers, and I reduced base level archer range to 100 meters.

They have plenty of ammo (more than archers).

Slingers and archers have the same basic firing rate, once every 6 seconds.

The small shield makes them slightly more durable than archers vs. missile fire.

RTW went archery nuts unfortunately...so to make it reflect historical practices I've dropped Roman Archers in favor of Roman slingers, swapped out British chariot archers in favor of chariot javelinmen, reversed the backward recruiting order of slingers/archers for Numidia, and am in the process of converting some of the war elephants to javelins (depends on culture.)

[Casius Cherea]

i find merc slingers very useful... with three units of balearic slingers and general i defended sardinia against many roman invasions (several hastati units with velites general and sometimes archers)... if i use slingers in large armies i put them on the flanks, especially when plying greeks... main line is hoplite/armoured hoplite phalanx with 2 cretan archers (skirmish off, guard on) behind them and 2 rhodian slingers on flanks (skirmish on, guard off)... the only problem then is cav but if it is not armoured you can shoot em before they can reach you...

[Kraut]

Well, I also prefer archers, mainly because of their better range. However, you have to learn how to use slingers correctly if you want to play as Carthage (no archers) or Britons. I often used them in skirmish fashion, harassing the enemy before the main battle lines clash. After that, I mostly used them to give fire support from the flanks (because of their flat arc mentioned, to prevent friendly fire) but they are quite vulnerable there of course. I still prefer archers.

Of course, Rhodian or Balearic slingers are just good.