Stakes

[Bumson]

I am playing vanilla unpatched and have a question about the French Scot Guards

Can the French Scot Guards lay down stakes?

If they can, how can I do this?

TIA

[Antissa]

Hey there,

As far as I know, only the English longbowmen are able to deploy stakes, so I'm unsure if the French Scot Guards are able to do so as well.

However, if its possible, you are given the option to deploy stakes during the Battle Deployment phase

[N3rull]

They can't lay stakes.
Use Custom battle mode to jump over all factions' unit rosters. When you hover your mouse over a unit, that units short description, stats and basic abilities show up.
Only units with "Can use sharpened stakes" ability can do it.

As far as I remember the leaders of this tactic are English, a any Longbowman unit (and they have three) can lay stakes.
Also Poland (Lithuanian Archers) and Turkey (Janissary Archers) can use stakes. That's all to it.

Oh and as Antissa said, Stakes an be laid during the battle deployment. If stake-laying archers have suitable ground ahead of them, their "Flaming Missiles" special ability will display "Lay Stakes" ability instead.
One trick to laying stakes is - the longer the formation of archers, the longer the rows of stakes they lay.
This works to a point though - the longest line of stakes will be laid by a formation of archers 3 ranks deep and 40 men long (I'm playing on Huge unit scale, dunno how it is on lower ones. I think the important part is that the formation should be 40 men long). Stretching your archers any further will not increase the length of their stake wall.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

There are some merc units that can lay stakes as well like free company longbows and welsh longbows.

[Sokar Rostau]

Free Company Longbows? I haven't come across them yet.

[Captain Spanky]

Theyre a late period merc unit, available around mainland Europe. Not great, but pretty useful in a jam.

[NobleNick]

Here is a full and complete list of those units which can use stakes (extracted from brandybarrel's FAUST for M2TW v1.2) :

Longbowmen         (England)
Yeoman Archers     (England)
Retinue Longbows   (England)

Lituanian Archers  (Poland)

Janissary Archers  (The Turks)

Welsh Longbow Mercenaries (Mercenary)
Free Company Longbowmen   (Mercenary)

[Sher Khan]

Moved to Battle Planning.