Most Useful Units

[Dude with the Food]

What units do you find most useful in TATW? Not just which are best but also factoring in cost, availiability and uses barring General's Bodyguard.

Here are some of mine:
SE - Light Elven Archers and Sentinels. They fight in melee as well as any orc but have the added bonus of higher morale and being excellent archers. Particularly the Light Elves are low-tier units and readily availiable.

Dale - Longbowmen. Amazing archers in the early game, they can generally destroy anything Rhun sends except heavy cavalry.

Rohan - Riddermark Axemen and Helmingas. Maybe not the most cost-effective, these units I find can form an elite core of my strategies. The cavalry is good too but I prefer an infantry based army. Helmingas are trained asap because they are rarer in campaigns but as almost as good as elf archers.

OotMM - Cave Trolls. They have nothing else to give, especially against typical enemies. You can only use so many Balrogs.

These are mainly the ones I've noticed, what do you think?

[Loki_999]

I'd have to say Elven (High or Silvan) Archers, who are pretty cool in melee as well, especially the later ones. Very versatile.

Trolls - without question. Mordor catapult trolls are also fun to use, rain flaming globs on enemies, then wait for enemies to charge and then counter charge... they aren't great when compared to regular trolls, but still pretty decent and provide good shock troops (as long as supported properly, otherwise they die quickly).

[Gondolin]

On the top I'm for Elves archer too.
But I like fountain guard of gondor, really usefull to keep a position

[Eleril]

HE - Noretirno warriors.Great range and decent melee stats.They are like machine guns
SE - Sylvan HA.I know we can't have that many in the army but the ability to shoot and tire enemy troops is fantastic.Plus they can be used as light cav which is awesome.
Rohan - again HA,same as above.
Eriador - Dunedain archers,for the same reason I gave for the Noretirno.If Arnor is rebuild I'll go with the first tier of arnorian cavalry - they are tough and hit hard plus they are cheap.
Mordor - Moranon guards,the can hold the line against many units and they are extremely cheap.One of the best units for Mordor.
This are the factions I have played with the most.I have some observations on the others but not that deep.

[skullripper]

rohan cavarly

[JihadKebab]

Harad - Troll Men of Harad. These guys are simply awesome. 2 HP combined with AP and high unit weight makes these guys capable of dessimating high armor units - like high tier Gondor units. The Troll-Men simply eats them. They are unarmored, so you have to watch out for arrow-fire. I usually employ them on the battlefield in my second infantry line, ready to engage enemy armored units - while my Harad Pikemen soak up the blunt of the enemy attack in my first line.

Also they come in handy when Gondor and Rohan are taking care of and you decide to attack Morder - Troll-men make excellent troll-killers, ironically I really feel the Troll-Men is a highly unappreciated unit.

[ElvenBlight]

High Elves: Noretirno Warriors and High Elven Cavalry. In addition, high elves have got excellent
infantry that holds the line. All these in combination: invincible!!!
Mordor: Uruk-hai Halberdiers - I realized that I normally can't break these guys, even if I charge into their
backs with my cavalry via the hammer and anvil tactic. The Uruk-hai Halberdiers often fight to the last man,
heavily decimating my Arnor armies
Harad: Mumakil are a little overestimated when they face ballista or spear-throwers. Otherwise, they rock!
Isengard: this factions rocks, almost every unit is an optical pleasure. In my mind, Uruk-hai Crossbows are
the most superior because they seldom break, even I charge again and again with my Arnor Sergeants and Dunedain
Bodyguards
Arnor/Eriador: Cavalry!! The Dunedain Bodyguards just save the whole fraction from destruction only on

<a href="http://www.inmivoz.com">Third Age Total War - day and night</a>

[CatoTheYounger]

Peligar marines are an important mid to late game unit for Gondor. They are the strongest weapon Gondor has against the all powerfull Mumaks. Their javelins fell those massive beast quickly where everything else gets trampled. I always send two Peligar marines to Minis Tirith by turn 30 or so in case the Eastern Winds of Mordor blow a super stack to the white city. They are average units against everything else but strong against massive units.

Keep the Marines free of enemies and take skirmish and fire at will off. When the Mumakil make their attack and get close unleash all your javelins on them and watch them go down. It saves an otherwise good Gondor campaign from going down the tubes once the Muamaks parade starts. Dont leave home without them.

[Flinn]

There are many good units on the game, but I think most useful ones are those you can recruit since the beginning (due to availability, cost and easy retrain), in particular:

Bow Quendi are awesome, ok their recruitment cost is quite high, but they are very good archers (long range, good damage, very good stamina, high morale, good precision, high speed) and they work fine against 90% of regular infantry.
Much similar to light eleven archers, but I found them to be slightly better; plus, in the very beginning of HE campaign if you are on blitz you'll probably get a lot by "send reinforcement" missions, which will leave you with only the upkeep to pay and a 1/2 stack of Mg42s.

another excellent unit is dwarven warriors (coupled up with axemen asap), they are cheap compared to other units with similar stats, easy to recruit and available in large number; they can't of course, win battles by themselves, but you can trust them to always hold the line and they become super when holding narrow places.
Axe throwers, if used to soften and flank enemy formations are very useful too.

More in general, any mid tier unit which is recruitable since the beginning (usually units specific of a region, but not always) like Helmlingas, Battle Ready Dunedain, Guards of The Orthanc, Morannon guards and so on often proves to be very good and useful units

F

[Wizad]

Nobody mentioned Balchoth Tribesmen yet?!?!? They are the strongest tier 1 unit in the game. They cost nearly nothing to recruit and have a really low upkeep. A stack of Balchoth Tribesmen can easily tear through any other early game army. I have some screenshots of my Rhun campaign on my old pc. I took all of the eastern settlements within a couple of turns by just spamming Balchoths.

Balchoth Tribesmen most OP unit for its cost.

[LuckyPistol]

Harad - Troll Men of Harad. These guys are simply awesome. 2 HP combined with AP and high unit weight makes these guys capable of dessimating high armor units - like high tier Gondor units. The Troll-Men simply eats them. They are unarmored, so you have to watch out for arrow-fire. I usually employ them on the battlefield in my second infantry line, ready to engage enemy armored units - while my Harad Pikemen soak up the blunt of the enemy attack in my first line.

Also they come in handy when Gondor and Rohan are taking care of and you decide to attack Morder - Troll-men make excellent troll-killers, ironically I really feel the Troll-Men is a highly unappreciated unit.

You, sir, are in the special few who understand that these guys are the bane of Gondor They are the most underappreciated unit in the game period. Since Harad has a lot of unit types to choose from, troll-men might not seem worth the upkeep and recruitment cost, but these guys basically conquered Pelagrir, Mordor, and Rhun for me. Whenever I see troll-men in an army while facing Harad and I have no archers, my heart skips a beat haha

Nobody mentioned Balchoth Tribesmen yet?!?!? They are the strongest tier 1 unit in the game. They cost nearly nothing to recruit and have a really low upkeep. A stack of Balchoth Tribesmen can easily tear through any other early game army. I have some screenshots of my Rhun campaign on my old pc. I took all of the eastern settlements within a couple of turns by just spamming Balchoths.

Balchoth Tribesmen most OP unit for its cost.

I was going to mention this Nobody seems to play Rhun anymore.

[menawati]

Totally agree on the Balchoth Tribesmen - very cheap, javelins that wreck dwarves and they are half-decent supporting infantry when the javs are gone.

Also..

Rhun - variag horsearchers, cheap early unit, useful whole game and very strong vs Dale early units
Mordor - Morannon Guard as already mentioned

and probably snaga skirmishers as well because they are the ultimate cannon fodder that can also actually be really effective used in certain ways.

[The Forgotten]

I will add Arnor Sergents. Just all around pretty good cavalry that made up the spearpoint of all of my assaults in my Arnor game. Get them to silver chevrons and they are spectacular.

[Mhaedros]

Can't decide between Dragon Slayers and Iron Guards, but one of these units on shield wall can easily take down even two troll units.

Pelargir Marines is really the best counter Gondor has to Mumakil and who doesn't love javelins? Also, as Wizad said, Balcoth Tribesmen are ridiculously OP for a crap tier 1 unit.

[knight of meh]

Also, as Wizad said, Balcoth Tribesmen are ridiculously OP for a crap tier 1 unit.

as an add on to this , it's the sole reason why i recruit the crappy dale cavalry ,Yeomen i think?, while not the best unit they are terribly useful against Rhun as one of them cleverly used can decimate 6-8 Balchoth tribesmen

[LuckyPistol]

as an add on to this , it's the sole reason why i recruit the crappy dale cavalry ,Yeomen i think?, while not the best unit they are terribly useful against Rhun as one of them cleverly used can decimate 6-8 Balchoth tribesmen

So going by this statement, would you consider the "crappy" Yeomen to be useful?

[Arond]

Some of my favorites are any of the horse archer units (SE, Rohan, etc.). They are very useful to distract the enemy formations and get them moving where you want them and when they run out of arrows are great to run down fleeing units.

[knight of meh]

So going by this statement, would you consider the "crappy" Yeomen to be useful?

i believe i said that?

just because i don't like them and they aren't very good doesn't mean they aren't useful .. it's sort of like micromanaged orc skirmishers which are the ootmm's shining stars for most of the difficult parts of that campaign ...

[LuckyPistol]

i believe i said that?

just because i don't like them and they aren't very good doesn't mean they aren't useful .. it's sort of like micromanaged orc skirmishers which are the ootmm's shining stars for most of the difficult parts of that campaign ...

Ah, didn't quite catch all of what you meant


On another note, let me add in Uruk Reavers to the list. These guys decimated almost every other early unit when properly flanked. They've got AP and bonus against cavalry, very useful for orc units. I've slain many Rohan generals with these guys

[SpanishGuy]

I love snaga skirmishers, they are cheap, can be massively recruited and can make lot of damage even to elite units