Haha! No more "pin cushion" enemies so: Archer tactics?

[Akimbo]

Well as I'm recently back to MTW2 I decided to have a bash with the English as usual. Spamming longbows was always fun, apart from the enemy never attacked, they just stood there and took it until I ran out of arrows. It's fixed! I don't know which patch did it but finally the enemy will advance. This leaves me the question now of how to effectively use archers on the field. If I mass them up in a nice long line behind spearmen they get a few volleys in but it doesn't really seem worth it now. So apart from using them on castle walls, how do people employ their archers? My typical army layout is like this:

=========Spearmen/Melee=========
^^^^^^^^^^^Archers^^^^^^^^^ ---- Cavalry ----

( I use cavalry on both flanks not just one, but it'd mess up my display lol )

So archers fire until the enemy is too close, where I have them draw back a little as my spearmen/melee engage. Then the cavalry will line up for some evil flank/rear charges. Then I use archers to aim at fleeing units or enemy archers. It's just I don't seem to get enough use out of them anymore.

(p.s. posted in wrong area, if anyone would mind moving this to "Battle Planning" for me ^^ )

[Samir]

seriously?

I usually charge them into the first meele I find so that they can gain some XP if they survive their first two or three battles they get their chance to use their bows and do something for their king that they were supposed to.

otherwise your setup is quiet ok, except if you have higher ground near (best on the flanks) then set them up on the hill and give them some guards.

[Akimbo]

Yeah that's only a general layout, assuming flat grounds, if I have hills I use them ^^ later on I use my archers to launch melee attacks on vulnerable flanks but I try to keep my starting longbowman alive for as long as possible ^^ I've also tried in some larger battles to move some archers to the flanks of melee and open up point blank into the rear of enemy formations. So some of my own people get hit......but theirs do to

[Clodius]

I dunno if its a patch - I am running English longbowmen now and enemy cavalry units are still standing around in front of the stakes to be shot down - although melee infantry will advance.

What I found is that longbowmen face diminishing returns as the campaign continues due to their arrows not being armour piercing and opponents being more and more heavily armoured.

While in the early campaign the ordinary longbowmen could easily wipe out most enemy units without using all their ammo, in the late campaign my retinue longbows have used up all their arrows while the enemy dismounted noble knights or whatever are still standing.

Have exactly the same problem with Byzantine horse archer armies.

Historically this is exactly how it should be - longbows did became less and less lethal as their enemies armoured up (the last great English victory in the 100 years war at Agincourt is now interpreted as more of a crowd control disaster than a triumph for the longbow - the plate armoured French knights dismounted and advanced up hill over a very muddy field on far too narrow a frontage and just got stuck, with many more suffocating in the pile-up or having their throats cut by the English after surrendering than were killed by arrows).

So historically what was the solution? - the English started using more billmen until eventually they outnumbered the longbows in most companies, they employed large numbers of mercenary pikemen, reiters and so on - and in the C16 began mixing arquebuses in with the bows, until eventually they replaced them altogether.

That's kind of reproducable in M2TW - alternate some arquebus units with heavy infantry in the front line, while keeping some longbows behind.

Then make sure your longbows focus their fire on the lighter armoured enemy units (unarmoured pikemen are ridiculously vulnerable to archers even in the late game) and not waste valuable arrows on dismounted knights, generals etc.

Also be careful to select melee units with the AP characteristic when facing the French and other armies that use lots of heavily armoured late era troops - IIRC while Armoured Swordsmen are theoretically the best English melee unit they don't have AP weapons - while Dismounted (and mounted) English Knights do.

Victories won't come as easily as in the early game but that's the challenge.

[Akimbo]

Yeah I found later game that longbows didn't quite live up to their reputation, which as you said is actually historically accurate. However they still had uses, namely shooting artillery pieces and destroying enemy gunpowder units, and focus firing on units I need to break. Other than arqs. do the English get any piercing ranged units? I know there's mercenary crossbows, what other merc units to look out for?

[Zwei-Gothic]

Wait I thought longbowmen have the "Effective against armor" trait. I just checked and it says they do. They're still ineffective against armored foes?

[Theseus1234]

they are, but they are not nearly effective as, say, merc crossbows against the super armor in mid- and late- games. they are still good in the late game for lightly armored gunpowder, lightly armed cavalry, and *gasp* lightly armed infantry!...which dont really come around

[Kiljaden]

I still prefer an arrow rain late game. The only difference is early game my armies have 6-10 units of archers, but late game I'm looking at 4-6 units to make more room for my own heavily armored infantry... and aside from the utility of slowing down the enemy infantry's charge, my archers mainly go for enemy missile units and cavalry.

Though I have successfully taken on a full stack of late game heavily armored men\cavalry with over 14 units of fully upgraded Retinue Longbowmen and 6 Armored Swordsmen to protect them. Really I was just moving them to the citadel on the front lines, but they were intercepted, and still got a Clear Victory.

[Harry Lime]

Moved to Battle Planning

[snuggans]

• a couple of stakes a day keeps the cavalry away!

• goodbye horse archers and enemy ranged units

• weaken enemy infantry so they break earlier and cause less damage! (i.e broken lances will be 100 instead of 120 by the time they reach your lines)

[RollingWave]

a. always keep them in front of the melee group until they're getting close to engaging, with stakes you have no worries for enemy cav charges anyway. and you should easily react to infantry charges in time.

b. try to get direct shots the accuratcy improves by a mile this way and so does the damage. if melee is fightign in front of you move them to the sides