Wardogs... Why?!?

[Altimis]

Know what? if they decide to bring back Wardog

That mean the modders have more option to make Mods to the game

Example; we might see Third Age 2 Total War again with Warg based model on Wardog perhaps.

[Manu La Canette]

I once found some stuff about historical use of dogs by ancient Romans back when I was student. Their use is a FACT. Romans used to breed a special kind of moloss, this race is dead nowadays.

They weren't Irish dogues, German Shepherd or Rottweiler like in many movies. Rottweiler was a race madeup by some South German butchers in purpose to guard entrances, convoys and even their own purses around the neck. Epirus moloss since I remember were tuff but quite small beasts, the Romans used them along bigger races to breed some real warbeasts (canis pugnax). Some thinks that the actual "Roman molossus" or 'Napolitan mastiff" still close to the race used by Romans but nothing is sure. We also trust that the races of mastiff used by the Spaniards in jungle warfare against Native Americans were close to the Roman wardogs original kinds.
Such dogs were usefull in any skirmishing or guerilla warfare: Romans as Conquistadores had not a clue about many an environment where they fought whereas their foes known the terrain as their homeland. Where an invading force might have some difficulties to chase out ennemies through dense forests, sending wardogs uppon them were just their best option. Why the hell wouldn't they took it ?

[Manu La Canette]

Btw, I can figure a system about how to use them properly: imagine that Wardogs no longer be a unit themselves but get implemented into infantry units.

Let's say you are in battle, you are trying to reach a damn skirmishing unit with one of your legionary cohort. Well without wardogs, you'll never reach the skirmishers, your cohort will get tired and the skirmishers shall keep runing. Well now let's say you got the 'wardogs upgrade' for a specific legion or maybe your whole infantry units (I don't know how it will be implemented), then you can imagine 4-5 beasts kept behind the ranks in classical engagements by their masters, you just click a special ability button to unleash them and you target the skirmishers. The dogs will chase them, making even more damage to morale than real casualties, making them route.

That should allow Roman infantry (or other's) to deal with light troops and skirmishers. It wouldn't be a 100% chance option, but if the dogs can reach skirmishers really fast, and couldn't scatter them in time, well at least it would give the player time to reach the distance with the cohort since the dogs are attacking.

[Nashk]

I loved the wardog unit back in RTW. Sure it wasn't an efficient unit, and adding another legion would have been more useful than using the wardog, and I hated the leftover "peasant" beast handlers that are left behind. However I had fun with them, and it was interesting trying to get them to fit in the army.

They were also great for chasing down units and causing chaos.