*OMG UPDATED* How to use gunpowder troops in M2:TW
Gunpowder is a hard unit to use in m2tw for some people. When used properly gunpowder can be a truly deadly force, able to crush the most heavily armoured troops easily and cause mass routs, but when it’s used poorly gunpowder can be very useless, especially with the bugs.
Gunpowder Infantry and general notes
In the right situation musketeers can decide a battle.
The first thing to remember with gunpowder infantry is they aren’t meant to run around and skirmish like archers. Gunpowder is a slow unwieldy weapon and units that use it fire slowly and take time to get into formation. When using gunpowder you want to let the units get set up, leave skirmish off and not move them until you absolutely have to, so they can volley fire uninterrupted and as quickly as possible. It doesn’t matter how close the enemy gets, the closer they are the more devastating their vollies will become.
The second thing to remember about gunpowder is that it scares the crap out of the enemy. Any enemy that take casualties from gunpowder units suffers a large morale penalty and they will rout quite easily,. Gunfire also inflicts great damage on armoured and unarmoured units alike as it goes stight though armor. Muskets are deadliest at this as they can pierce any armor in m2tw. Aquebusiers are less powerful against armor than musketeers but still far better than most things, and handgunner bullets are the weakest armor piercers. Massed heavy infantry are exactly the sort of target gunners should be used against as they are slow to reach the musketeers and heavily armoured.
When using gunpowder you can and will hit your own troops. They can’t arc their fire like archers and if you fire into a melee with your gunners behind your own troops you’ll hit your own and because of gunpowder’s morale penalty you could easily rout your own men. That said you usually have to accept a certain amount of friendly causalities when using guns as their tactics usually have them behind something else.
Gunpowder infantry should be deployed in two ranks. This way they can bring the maximum amount of guns to bear on the enemy and they reload very quickly. In three rows the front gunners wait until the previous front rank has moved to the rear and started to reload before they fire. In two ranks the front rank simply steps to the side moving directly to the back and reloads while the front fires. Then that row moves and so on. The guns will stay far more organised and will fire much more quickly in two ranks. In more than three rows less men are firing at once and the third rank and ones further back will not shoot, making their volume of fire less than it could be and wasting their potential. You should only deploy gunpowder infantry this way when they are firing into a narrow frontage.
Gunpowder infantry use a revolving fire style where the front rank shoots and then reloads. They then run to the back and the front rank fire and the cycle repeats. The front rank usually will not shoot until the previous front rank is in position at the back and facing the front, which is why two ranks are best. This takes a few seconds, which is why gunpowder must be kept still.
Gunpowder, because of its slowness and setup time must be used with another unit to protect them, unless you have so many gun units you can shoot the enemy to pieces before they even get close. Pikemen are the classic choice for this, together musketeers and pikemen for the infamous pike and shot formation. In m2tw however it’s better to have your pikemen behind your musketeers if your facing slow infantry this gives the gunners a unobstructed view if the enemy and removes the possibly of friendly fire. If you are facing fast cavalry have the pikemen in front of the musketeers. Or just to the side to intercept their charge. If you are facing a lot of archers, you shouldn’t be even bother with gunpowder as their slowness and lack or armor and bugs make them almost useless and they will take too many causalities. Musketeers are exempt from this rule as they have such a huge range and kill morale so they can rout archers before they can do much damage. Any infantry that can hold a line, like heavy swordsmen, spearmen or even knights can be used instead of pikes. Having cavalry on the flanks to intercept them is a good idea too.
(Thanks to cottontail for this idea, said in his words) For the Turks, Janissary musketeers and archers are a deadly combination. First, you let the Janissary archers deploy stakes, and retreat them behind your main battleline. Then, you move your musketeers up to the stakes, where they can fire upon the enemy without any fear from any cavalry. This makes up for the fact that the Turks do not have any pikemen. The combination of deadly arrowfire and demoralising musketfire should rout the enemy even before they reach your battleline. Same with the English, only with longbows and Aquebusiers instead.
It is important to keep Aquebusiers and musketeers out of counter fire. There is a bug in m2tw that causes Aquebusiers and musketeers that get hit with missiles to get stuck in reforming or just keep shifting men around uselessly instead of just shooting. This is lessened if they are in two ranks but it still sometimes happens. Hand gunners do not have the fire_by_rank attribute that the other gun units have and doesn’t suffer from this problem. Try to use some other unit to draw fire. This against isn’t much of a problem for musketeers because of their huge range. A hilltop is perfect for musketeers because they get an even longer range and it’s harder for archers to shoot back at them. Always deploy your gunners on a hill if you can.
M2: TW Kingdoms notes
No bugs mean gunpowder infantry are deadly in kingdoms.
The new gunpowder infantry is much better in kingdoms as the rank fire system works properly. The front rank will fire and then reload and stay kneeled until the second rank has finished firing. The first rank will then stand up and fire while the second rank reloads and kneels and so on. Ranks further back will not shoot, so again deploy them in two ranks. Because of the unbugged animations gun units work fine under fire and will keep shooting. It’s still not a great idea to keep them under fire as gun units have weak defense and little armor.
Even while taking losses gun infantry work fine in kingdoms, if they are new.
Note that only the NEW gunpowder infantry works properly Kingdoms Aquebusiers are exactly like the ones in the original m2tw.
Handgunners
Hand gunners are not meant to be used to stay back and shoot like the others. Handguns have a short range and they have a much better attack and defence than the other gun units: Attack: 11 Defense: 13 Armor: 7 compared to Attack: 6 Defence: 3 Armor: 0 for both Musketeers and Aquebusiers and they are best used to fire a volley or two into the flanks or rear of an engaged unit to wreck their morale form the gunpowder attack, then charge into melee, where their good stats and the enemies lowered morale from their gun attack will help them triumph. Against already engaged units this will almost certainly make them rout.
Notice that the knights even though they are elites and aren't losing have wavering morale because of the gunfire the handgunners are hitting them with. With another unit of gunners these knights would probably rout. This is how handgunners should be used.
Don’t try and use Handgunners like normal gun units, as they have too short a range and their accuracy is too low.
M2: TW Kingdoms notes
Magnelwyr are quite versatile.
Handgunners are the same in kingdoms, except there are more of them, particularly in the Crusades where everyone has a unit of them with slightly differing stats. The Magnelwyr are an exception however. They are the only gun units to have a shield and axe and thus can survive in melee better than the other handgunners, even tho their attack is still low. Their missile attack is also slightly lower than other hand gunners.
Gunpowder Cavalry
Nothing shuts up knights better than mounted gunpowder.
Gunpowder cavalry is completely different to infantry. It is unbelievably deadly to just about anything, with a great combination of speed, armor piecing ability and raw distance firepower. The best tactic with them is to either simply stand off and shoot the enemy, the AP and sheer power of the units guns will shred them quite quickly, or run to the back of the unit and shoot them from behind to prevent shots being blocked by their shields. The two units in the game are very different and tactics will be advised separately here.
Reiters are a Holy Roman Empire high tech unit. Only at the very end of their cavalry tech tree does the HRE get Reiters. They are medium cavalry with a good melee attack and a huge missile attack as well as good armor and defense. They wield a pistol and a spear. The pistol pierces armor and has about the same range as Aquebusiers. They can circle and shoot and skirmish. Reiters are best used to shoot the foe in the back as their short range can make them somewhat vulnerable to archers. The Circle and shoot formation helps immensely with this however. Reiters are best used against any slow unit like infantry. They perform equally well against heavy and light infantry. When facing many archers, the Reiters have good enough stats to fight in melee and kill them that way.
Camel Gunners are very different to Reiters. They are a Moorish unique unit and like the Reiter they are high up on the tech tree. Unsurprisingly they ride camels and are armed with a long range musket, a sword and are unarmoured. Their defense is very poor. Camel gunners have a HUGE range as soon as the battle starts they will be able to hit the enemy with their muskets. They are also quite fast and can skirmish.
Camel gunners don’t require much in the way of tactics: they are incredibly devastating, shredding just about anything that moves. With heavy slow infantry just blast them from the front, and send some gunners round their rear and fill them full of lead from both sides. Anything but knights will rout very quickly and everything including knights will be ripped to pieces by the massed ap attacks. Against cavalry they are almost as effective. Missiles are more effective against cavalry in M2:TW, because the horse is a larger target for them. Thus camel gunners are great against horses as well, as their musket fire will kill the horses very easily. They can skirmish away from heavy cavalry quickly enough, but because skirmish mode sometimes fails to work they can be caught. Camel gunners have an advantage against cavalry in melee as well because of their camel class bonuses, so even if they are completely outmatched, like fighting heavy knights they will take more than a few down. They have good morale as well enabling them to take losses and keep going for quite a long time.
Archers seem like the biggest problem for camel gunners, but these units, like all missile cavalry can fire on the move so the best way to deal with archers is to take the gunners off skirmish mode and run them past the enemy at close range but far enough to avoid melee. This way their movement will help them avoid arrows while they will still shoot at the enemy archers. Their closeness and damaging missiles will often cause the archers to rout.
Archers/Crossbows are pretty much useless against the huge range of gunners as well.
About the only weakness camel gunners have is massed archers and the fact they are very expensive indeed, one of the most expensive units making it hard to replace losses unless you’re rolling in money. If you use gunners properly however you shouldn’t suffer many losses.
In the end, gunpowder cavalry is very, very effective, much more so than gunpowder infantry, as there’s no need to worry about cavalry or annoying bugs and you can just watch your enemy fall in droves.
M2: TW Kingdoms notes
Gunpowder cavalry is still deadly.
There is a wider range of gun cavalry in Kingdoms’ various campaigns and it should be used just like the m2tw version. Take them off skirmish and run them close to the enemy, keeping them moving so they avoid the enemy missiles and shred them with their own and get behind the enemy to bypass their shields. Gunpowder cavalry is just as deadly, if not more so in kingdoms than it is in M2:TW.
Gunpowder Artillery
Blowing up enemies with artillery is always fun, if you can hit them.
Gunpowder artillery is used much like normal artillery. It is best used to fire into dense concentrations of enemy units. It causes a big morale penalty like all gunpowder but it is really inaccurate. The first cannons are apparently less accurate than the later ones but artillery as a whole is unreliable and you have to be lucky to get a hit. They are much better used against walls.
Gunpowder artillery destroy stone walls very easily as their shots have a lot of power. The ultimate example of this is the Turkish Monster Bombard that can destroy even the biggest of walls in one shot. Gunpowder Artillery is very useful for destroying towers to make the assault less costly for your troops.
Monster Bombards laugh at walls.
The exceptions to this rule are Ribaults and Monster Ribaults These guns are a collection of small; tubes that fire together and pump out a hail of lead. They have a short range and only require one man to man them. They are quite accurate and cause a huge morale penalty. Monster Ribaults are much larger version of normal Ribaults. In normal firing mode they act like smaller Ribaults so they aren’t really much more useful than the standard Ribault. They have a barrage ability that causes all the barrels to be loaded but it takes almost minute to reload and it noticeably less accurate, tho the repeated gunpowder hits will have a huge effect on morale, probably routing the unit it’s aimed at. The barrage ability looks cool too.
The Rocket Launcher, an amusing artillery weapon used by the Mongols fires a huge barrage of 36 rockets which are very inaccurate and land over a large area and are flame weapons. They are excellent for weakening masses of troops and for firing at enemy artillery since the many fiery projective gives them a good chance of hitting an enemy artillery piece directly and destroying it outright or setting it on fire making it useless.
An annoyance of artillery is the fact is has a minimum range. If you tell a unit to fire and it’s in range but the unit wont shoot, that means the enemy is too close to target. Only large cannon type artillery have minimum ranges, Ribaults do not. Use fodder and other troops to keep enemies far enough away from the artillery so it can fire or target more distant enemy troops.
Kingdoms notes
Kingdoms has the same artillery as M2tw with one new thing. In the Crusades campaign, and only the crusade campaign the basic bombard cannons, not the later ones can fire grapeshot, a hail of small shot to shred enemy troops. Grapeshot is more accurate than the basic shot and flaming shot and comes in handy for attacking troops rather than buildings. The shot hits a wide area so aim for dense concentrations of troops and troops in deep formation rather than shallow formations, as then more pellets will hit home and cause damage.
Credits
Cottontail for telling me about the gunners/stakes idea.
Thanks to hitokiri2486 for reminding me about grapeshot.
Huge thanks To Drpic, the picture editing site for providing free, easy to use tools to crop and edit images.
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Originally Posted by cottontail
