Throwing Weapons Preview

[Kinjo]

In this preview we are going to cover some of the throwing weapons that will be in the Shieldwall mod and why we wanted to include them. With being big fans of Viking Conquest the combat in Thrones felt like it was missing something with the only throwing weapons being used by skirmishers. There will still be the traditional javelins, but there will also be heavy throwing spears and Goidelic/Irish throwing darts which are just a light version of the javelin. We wanted to add a little more dynamic to the combat system by bring back precursor projectiles that are used before combat. That said not all unis will have precursor projectiles and they will be limited to only certain units. For example heavy throwing spears will only be used by some of heavy shock infantry that can afford them and the Goidelic darts will only be used by the Irish culture factions.

Heavy Throwing Spears



Heavy throwing spears will have a unique model that is bigger then regular javelins and will have its own unique projectile properties which is short range and a slower velocity.

Goidelic Throwing Darts





With the Goidelic throwing darts there will be two types, one with just be wooden and a more advanced one will have an iron tip. We have seen these illustrated a couple of different ways to include flights, the version we will be going with will have a suaineamh, or throwing strap which made throwing the dart more effective. The Irish deploy these throwing weapons in large numbers, but will not have the shield castle formation as most of the units use small or medium round shields. This will be one of the aspects that will make the Irish faction play differently on the battle map then a Viking or Saxon army, not only will they be faster they have lots of short and mid range fire power. However it comes at a cost of armor and melee longevity as the light troops will have issues in prolonged melee, but nothing a few gallowglasses can't solve

Irish darts in actions with the Kerns attacking a shield wall.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Here is a short video of darts being used by the defensive units and heavy throwing spears being used by the attackers. This is just a work in progress and will be adjusted a bit more in addition the darts in the video are not using the model with the throwing strap yet. I suggestion watching it in full size to be able to see them better.

[Hydrall]

These look amazing!

One question I've got: how will these ranged attacks be structured for melee troops with a ranged weapon? Is it only auto-firing/preliminary throwing of javelins, like vanilla Rome 2's Roman troops have, or will they be able to pick targets and such like a normal ranged unit, just with lower ammo?

[Kinjo]

With melee units if your attacking they will target the unit you attack, if you are on the defense they will target the unit that comes in range first. That said you can toggle fire at will on or off if you want to try to save your projectiles for another target.