A Few Questions about Archers

[julianj99]

I'm a big fan of archery in most TW games. It is a very good equaliser when you are outnumbered, as well as giving you tactical options in both attack and defence.

My Q's are

Is direct fire archery more accurate/effective than indirect (e.g. firing from behind your own troops, which is how I normally deploy, or over palisades against troops inside a town)?

Is there an accuracy bonus as you get closer? I am playing with the SE and I have got Light Elven Archers behind enemy units at close range and the volleys were deadly (I didn't charge into H2H combat as there were a lot of Orcs and these troops are not strong in that regard). In one case, I was trying to rescue my beleaguered General's unit, which was losing against 350-400 orcs and after a short while first one, then the other orc unit routed. I don't know how many volleys they fired or anything. The battle was raging fiercely and I had a lot to attend to.. Obviously the General's unit was contributing but it would have succumbed to numbers - it was being defeated before I brought the archers round.

I know that fire arrows are less accurate than normal arrows, which is why I generally reserve them for particular targets.

[LuckyPistol]

Direct is more accurate/damage dealing. There should be an accuracy bonus for how close you are, but I may be thinking of a different game

Firing over your troops should be okay as long as the archers are elevated, especially since you're playing as the Silvans. But in your specific case it is probably the Orcs having low morale that was the larger factor

A fun tactic of mine is to get around an engaged enemy unit, get as close as possible, then use fire arrows. Works like a charm

[Joseignacio]

While someone more knowledgeable than me answers your questions, I'll only say it can be rather worse to fire over you units, but... if you are meaning firing from behind them, while they are engaged in a melee, ..., it's only empiric, but I think more of my soldiers die (from friendly fire) than enemies.

[LuckyPistol]

While someone more knowledgeable than me answers your questions, I'll only say it can be rather worse to fire over you units, but... if you are meaning firing from behind them, while they are engaged in a melee, ..., it's only empiric, but I think more of my soldiers die (from friendly fire) than enemies.

I wouldn't recommend it with non-elf factions, as only the friendly fire with elves is pretty small, if at all noticeable.

[Withwnar]

Some useful info here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ts-(-Kingdoms)

[julianj99]

Thanks all, this is very useful. I would say that firing arrows overhead from archers behind your own troops works well enough. It avoids the problem of your men being caught, if they are in front, esp by cavalry and massacred. To avoid friendly fire casualties I tend to stop when enemy forces are in H2H against my own soldiers and direct the archers fire at opportunity targets or "follow on forces" which are not yet engaged with my men.

[eugenioso]

I'm a big fan of archery in most TW games. It is a very good equaliser when you are outnumbered, as well as giving you tactical options in both attack and defence.

My Q's are

Is direct fire archery more accurate/effective than indirect (e.g. firing from behind your own troops, which is how I normally deploy, or over palisades against troops inside a town)?

Is there an accuracy bonus as you get closer? I am playing with the SE and I have got Light Elven Archers behind enemy units at close range and the volleys were deadly (I didn't charge into H2H combat as there were a lot of Orcs and these troops are not strong in that regard). In one case, I was trying to rescue my beleaguered General's unit, which was losing against 350-400 orcs and after a short while first one, then the other orc unit routed. I don't know how many volleys they fired or anything. The battle was raging fiercely and I had a lot to attend to.. Obviously the General's unit was contributing but it would have succumbed to numbers - it was being defeated before I brought the archers round.

I know that fire arrows are less accurate than normal arrows, which is why I generally reserve them for particular targets.

Back in RTW1, archer units were flat out better and deadlier than archers in MTW2 engine, the reason being that archers fired directly at the enemy instead of launching high angled volleys onto the air. The obvious problem was that they could hit the men in front of them, protecting them, so keeping them on a hill firing from behind your main line was the perfect combination, or keeping them on the flanks.

In the MTW2 engine, archers were all turned onto volley fires, so they wont hit the men in front of them. The problem with this, however, is that archer units became much less deadly when firing like this. Also, archers on walls can no longer even fire at enemy units from walls unless the enemy unit is far away enough, which is in every sense of the way (historical and gameplay wise) retarded. Archers on RTW1 could fire at nearly all enemy units attacking their walls, except the ones closest to the wall.

The result is that archers in MTW2 are deadlier at long ranges with their volleys than at short ranges. However, if the enemy unit is extremely close to the archer unit and you order them to fire, the unit will loose a volley practically directly at the enemy. Holding an enemy in place and running behind them with an archer unit to pepper them is thankfully a still viable tactic both in RTW1 and MTW2.

In other words, the answer is yes, but only on specific scenarios.

The closer you are, as stated above unless you are nearly point blank in front of them, then the volleys will actually hit less enemy units.

Fire arrows are less accurate, slower reloading arrows that inflict bigger morale damage than normal arrows. Normal arrows inflict morale damage by causing casualties instead of by fire attack. Even though others have stated otherwise, fire arrows do not inflict more damage on the enemy. You would use fire arrows on enemies whose morale is breaking to rout them definitively, and to make beasts riot; elephant units are susceptible to fire arrows because they can run amok. In TATW's case, that means lots of fire arrows can make Mumakil run amok and kill tons of enemy units in enemy armies; one of my gondor MOS campaign's most epic victories was making an enemy Mumakil unit run amok during a city battle.

[KingofPoland]

As the silvan elves I usually put my archers (around 10-12 per stack) in a very thin line in front of my infantry, that way you maximize the amount of archers facing straight and when the enemy gets close enough the drawn out lines gets you some flank attacks from the archers on the extremities. I usually turn skirmish mode off and once the enemy is close enough, I pause and charge with infantry while I turn fire at will off, your archers will tear up your units if you don't as they are for the most part not very armoured and you'd be hitting them in the back. My archers then fire at fleeing troops to capture some of them to help remedy the fact that you probably won't have much cavalry to run down units.

Also, don't be afraid to engage your archers in melee as the silvan elves if things get bad, they can stand up to all but the best infantrymen, but usually I'd use them to help out a faltering flank, so there is probably a more advanced infantry unit already engaged with the enemy.

By doing this with a full stack i was able to get half stacks of orcs to flee without any melee engagement and only needed a bit of melee against larger stacks. I can't stress turning fire at will off enough once you engage in melee, as retraining silvan heavy swordsmen/spearmen is very expensive and a hassle.

[LuckyPistol]

As the silvan elves I usually put my archers (around 10-12 per stack) in a very thin line in front of my infantry, that way you maximize the amount of archers facing straight and when the enemy gets close enough the drawn out lines gets you some flank attacks from the archers on the extremities. I usually turn skirmish mode off and once the enemy is close enough, I pause and charge with infantry while I turn fire at will off, your archers will tear up your units if you don't as they are for the most part not very armoured and you'd be hitting them in the back. My archers then fire at fleeing troops to capture some of them to help remedy the fact that you probably won't have much cavalry to run down units.

Pretty sure if you fire arrows at fleeing units they just die. Kinda pointless taking prisoners with arrows through their skulls

[Flinn]

Some more tips, out of my experience

- more than often, it's mandatory not to waste even a single arrow, because you'll be largely outnumbered by the enemies (tipical elves vs orcs battle), so:

• It's important to not let the archers aim whomever they want, but it's better to give them specific targets (always remove fire at will); do not waste arrows on low tier enemy units such as snagas or light archers, but better to concentrate fire on cavalry/wargs or other dangerous enemy troops (such as pikes if you use a lot of chavalry, generals, heavy infantry etc); sure, your archers need to be good enough to damage that specific unit (i.e. not much sense to shot at heavy infantry with 2 ranged damage archers).
• If you don't really know to whom to aim, simply aim straightly in front of your archers, this will give them better range and better accurancy. If the enemy is not coming or deployed in a single line, then do not aim at the first line but at the second or the third; even the best archers have the tendency to spread the volleys over a certain space, so if you aim at rear lines chances are that less arrows will be wasted.
• Do not concentrate the fire on a single unit, it's a waste of arrows; you should only do this when you are badly at need of stopping it (i.e. a cavalry unit that is trying to flank you) or when you have the chance to inflict heavy damage to a heavy unit (i.e. firing them in the back); in any case never use more than 2 max 3 archers units, even in such cases.
• Save some arrows; you don't really need to have all your archers shooting at the same time if you don't have enough targets, better to save them for possible extra actions later on during the battle.
• Spread the archers as much as possible; if the unit has too many lines, the back ones will inevitably shoot on a high parabola; similarly, do not let your archers clog up themselves in big groups, this happens usually when they have run before (i.e. into cities or when they chase an enemy to keep it in range) as they lose their original formation.
• When at bridges, always have your archers aiming at the fartest enemy unit on range on the bridge; this is due to the fact that enemy units will tend to spread over the bridge from their position to the battle line, so that your archers will inevitably forced to shoot closer and closer to your own units. Keep aiming at fartest units. Also, do not have all the archers shoot together, even if they shoot against different units, because most arrows will be wasted; I usually do not have more than 4 archer units shooting at the same time (I won battles of elfs vs orcs of 1:8 with average results of 40% vs 95% losses).

- few more:

• Sometimes I deploy my archers on the flanks of my army, especially if I plan to flank my enemies with my infantry; this way you'll get the best position to pepper enemy flanks before actually engaging them, besides if you don't have cavalry and your archers are quite good in melee, they will already be in position to flank the enemy.
• I often use the "chessboard" position to deploy my archers behind my infantry, if you leave enough room between infantry companies you can keep shooting to the enemy on a straight line and also your archers will be protected from melee enemy units, as they will unlikely be able to move precisely between your infantry units and reach your archers (so they will inevitably get into melee fight with your infantry). Besides, this way the enemy unit flank will most likely be exposed to a direct fire from your archers (and a close one too!).
• Stakes are decisive if you know how to use them; never forget that you can deploy stakes at the beginning of a battle and them move your archers away, so you can use them to create a barrier for your lighter troops or artillery and move the archers on a better firing position (high ground etc); stakes can be really OP at fords/bridge battles.

mmm I'm sure I'm missing something, but I guess I've already bored you enough for one single reply

[julianj99]

Excellent Flinn! Not bored me at all. Taking in the advice of other posters, I have had two exceptional battles with the SE against the OoMM (with the help of good deployment positions and some luck) of 22:1 and 24:1 kill ratios. Part of that was using archers very effectively. I have left the two smallest archer units using fire at will and fire arrows - spread the goodness about - and controlled the fire of the others. As suggested the mix of fire arrows and normal ones is a force multiplier. Also I noticed that my fire arrow units kept firing on routers, till they were out of range, so they ran off the battlefield, rather than regrouping and coming back (I'm sure we all have had the amusement of some unit we thought was toast charging our troops in the flanks or rear).

Obviously not all recent battles have been such dramatic victories but I have generally done pretty well.

My only disagreement with Finn's post is the not shooting to conserve ammo. Unless I have units in contact, and so am going to cause own goals, I reckon that any archer not shooting at all times should be put on a charge. For Elves there is the additional penalty of having their Timotei taken away . Foot archers have enough ammo....although I agree about HA, sometimes they do need to avoid wasting their small stock of arrows.

[julianj99]

Sorry - that's a culture-specific joke. For non Brits, or those too young to know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO7zGCsemiY

[lolIsuck]

Excellent Flinn! Not bored me at all. Taking in the advice of other posters, I have had two exceptional battles with the SE against the OoMM (with the help of good deployment positions and some luck) of 22:1 and 24:1 kill ratios. Part of that was using archers very effectively. I have left the two smallest archer units using fire at will and fire arrows - spread the goodness about - and controlled the fire of the others. As suggested the mix of fire arrows and normal ones is a force multiplier. Also I noticed that my fire arrow units kept firing on routers, till they were out of range, so they ran off the battlefield, rather than regrouping and coming back (I'm sure we all have had the amusement of some unit we thought was toast charging our troops in the flanks or rear).

Obviously not all recent battles have been such dramatic victories but I have generally done pretty well.

My only disagreement with Finn's post is the not shooting to conserve ammo. Unless I have units in contact, and so am going to cause own goals, I reckon that any archer not shooting at all times should be put on a charge. For Elves there is the additional penalty of having their Timotei taken away . Foot archers have enough ammo....although I agree about HA, sometimes they do need to avoid wasting their small stock of arrows.

24:1 ratio is still pretty bad with the Silvans, especially the 1 part. You can easily destroy a 3000 orc army without any casualties.

[Patronus]

24:1 ratio is still pretty bad with the Silvans, especially the 1 part. You can easily destroy a 3000 orc army without any casualties.

I mean yeah, if you're on top of a really steep hill or keep kiting the enemy or fighting defense on a city, you can wipe out a 3000 orc army with few to no SE casualties...but that's a best case scenario.

On relatively flat open ground, a 3,000 orc army (especially one with Trolls, Catapults, cav, wargs) is going to cause a certain number of casualties...certainly you shouldn't be losing 1/2 your SE army, but you're not going to get away with no casualties either.

And even in those ideal battles where I'm facing a horde of low tier orcs, I get tired of the constant kiting and sometimes just conduct a final charge to finish them off....so yeah no casualty victories against orcs are not nearly as common as some people make them out to be, nor are they always fun.

[ThorHa]

I hope it is not considered necroing reviving a thread 5 weeks old? Anyway, as a seasoned TATW player I would add some advice for good usage of archers:

1) First note that Elven archers are vastly different from conventional archers. While Elven archers start at missile attack 7, conventional ones start in the range of 2 to 4, not considered the accuracy and range differences yet. If I am not mistaken from observation and memory, MOS further reduces conventional archers? Anyway, only elite archers of other factions are remotely comparable to the Elven lowest tier. Keept that in mind.

2) Archers work best on defense in elevated positions. You are guaranteed to find such a spot in mountains if attacked, but if you study terrain closely you will most often find such a spot. Make sure archer heavy armies end on such a spot. You can abuse this especially in moutains by deliberately baiting a seemingly vastly superior enemy army into attack. Try sending a 10 unit Elven stack into the Misty mountains (8 archers, 2 cavalry including general) :-).

3) But archers DO work in a different way as well. As Gondor I made a habit out of using armies with nothing in it but archer militia (which in standard TATW used to have missile attack 3 or 4) and militia cavalry/generals. Archers (hey, I was a newbie than) where on skirmishing and fire arrows, only the cavalry was manually directed. I had spectacular success hitting exhausted Mordor units which were mass chasing my archer units.

4) If you can´t lure the enemy into an attack, initiate the attack but play the battle as if you were on defense. If the enemy stack refuses to attack by itself, move some of your best archer units barely in range and fire some volley. This guarantees the enemy stack will move to you.

5) If you have a pretty weak stack but still want to do some damage, attack nevertheless. Use the archers as a kind of mobile force (they are usually a bit faster than conventional enemies). Hit from a distance, retreat, hit again, retreat, generally moving toward a maps edge. When you are out of ammo, simply withdraw. You can whittle full enemy stacks down to near 0 with that tactics. If you have a cavalry available even better - move round the enemy stack in a wide circle and do nothing but chase the routers your archers will inevitably produce. This fastens the process.

6) Avoid city battles with your archers inside. At nearly all costs. They produce much WORSE results on walls than in the open field. If you have to fight inside cities with archer heavy armies, do the opposite from what seems logical: Concede a wall to an enemy as soon as your archers start firing arc shots into the air, line your archers opposite to this wall INSIDE your city (as far away as possible without obstacles in between), fire against the enemy unit on the wall. This works best as long as a sturdy units simply holds the space between the two inner towers of a gate.

7) If you have to defend a town where the gate has already been broken - try to hold the opposing forces not exactly at the gate but just a bit to the inside. Yes, one or the other enemy single figure will slip left and right. But archer units left and right can directly fire into the ensuing crowd - and some single enemy figures moving towards them are eliminated in the process. This in fact abuses a consistent TW M2 battle glitch - the absurd spacing of forces which try to engage an enemy in colon formation through small gaps of forces or terrain obstacles.

Speaking about Elves I regard any encounter where I have more than 20% losses as a defeat, any encounter where I have more than 10% as a real disappointment. Yes, that includes fights against more advanced enemy stacks with trolls, wargs or Mumakils. More or less the only enemy unit I constantly fear are troll catapults for their incredible ability to eliminate a high ranked and nurtured general of mine with a lucky shot (too often in the last minutes of an otherwise won battle).

[julianj99]

Hi Thorsten,

I don't think it's thread necromancy, and I started the thread. My only disagreement with you is over point 1. Elves are the best archers, but they are not in a class of their own. In vanilla TATW from the Good side, missile attack factors,Elves start at 9-13, with Dale not far behind at 7-10, Gondor 6-9, for example. Rhun has Loke Nar Rim at 8. Obviously some of the other evil factions are pretty poor, but they have numbers. (SOURCE- THE PALANTIR compilation of stats - I think I got it from the TATW guides pages).

If you check my thread about Dale you can see I used their archery to deadly effect against Rhun and Mordor in a campaign.

The rest of your posting seems good tactical advice.

[julianj99]

Here's the Palantir Guide - v useful , a great job by brandybarrel http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...Third-Age-v3-2

[ThorHa]

Elves start at 9-13, with Dale not far behind at 7-10, Gondor 6-9, for example.

Sorry, unfortunately not true. Gondor Militia Archer start with attack 3 in MOS (or 4 in vanilla?), Eriador Hobbit archers with 2, Dale Longbowmen (its second archer unit) have a missile attack of only 4. Rohan archers start with missile attack 2 (from memory). All entry or level 2 archers from said factions are already outclassed in range by Elven level 1 archers (from all Elven factions).

Yes, the Dale (Athala/Bardsmen) or Gondorian (Ithilien Rangers) elite archers have similar values to the Elven light or the Norotino archers from the High Elves. Elven light are tier 1, Norotinos are a building tier 2 unit, while the Dale or Gondorian elites are building tier 3.

So I keep my statement, that in order to only match the entry Elven light archers you need the elites from other people. Which works as intended, given the differences in price and availability :-). Not to mention the poor cavalry choices for Silvan (and Lorien for MOS) armies (1 horse archer).

Regards,
Thorsten