Elite unit usage discussion

[Deathcake]

Greetings y'all

Just been thinking about elites and how I use them the other day and thought i'd post a thread to hear some input.
At the start of a campaign, I always disband any unit that I cannot immediately garrison or train to save money on their usually big upkeep (that 410 per turn for example for dwarven dragonslayers means one extra low level farm per turn basically).
My usual tactic is to disband every unit that I cannot have for free for the first 10 or 15 turns to use the extra money to buy extra commerce buildings or farms or roads.
I then start building up my first attacking army, usually only needs to be a half stack for nearby rebel settlements, always made of up just units that I can train nearby.
Do you use the initial elite units yourself? I'm talking about the initial swordmasters for Dale for example, or the fountain guard for Gondor, or dwarven dragon-slayers. Are they usually that much greater fighters than initial rebel garrisons that they are worth using for the extra upkeep?

Even once I can recruit elites in for example one castle, I usually just use them for the free garrison upkeep slots in that settlement until I can recruit many more of them than just one or two. Say for example when I have 3 settlements that can recruit them. I guess I am just timid to use them until I can easily retrain and recruit more. I tend to keep spamming the cheaper, easily replaced units until fairly late in the game when I can have at least a half-stack of elites that can be trained/retrained in a handful of nearby settlements, generally turn 70 or so.

Do you move elites straight into your main attacking army/armies as soon as you can recruit them?
Anyway just curious how you guys use limited numbers of elites and whether you usually use the initial elites and if you find them worth the additional, fairly significant upkeep.
cheers

[The Mouth]

If the starting elite units are proving to be a real drain on my economy, I usually use them as expendable shock troops to gain the upper hand in early battles. Just throw them in where the fighting is thickest and don't be afraid to let them die. Of course I usually play as Mordor so I don't have this problem. I get stack killing Nazgul instead!

[the lightning legion]

i never use fountain guard but am often afraid to get rid of them but I do like using the sylvan heavy archers you get at the start with MOS they can do huge amounts of damage without taking any AND charge in to save the day

[Jmonstra]

I use them. I figure the initial economy hit won't matter in the long run if I use them to take more territory and gain thus more income.

[Ulfgard the Unmaker]

Speaking as a dedicated turtle-player, I spend much of the early game hanging on to elite units for defensive purposes-- costs be damned, they go a long way towards being able to efficiently break attacking enemy forces. As the game progresses, unless the early units are monumentally useful, I tend to focus more on smaller groups of progressively-more-elite units. I always try to get the most I can done with as few units as possible; if I wanted to spam cheap, low-quality units, I'd play the zergling game like seemingly every other player recommends (immediate and constant rush tactics with really terrible infantry).

Elites form the core of my armies whenever and wherever possible; they are to be used both first and last in any given situation. The elites used at the opening of an engagement put the hurt on the enemy early and deal with serious threats or just chew through masses of lower-tier enemies to reduce the number of threats you have to keep track of and simplify battlefield maneuvers overall. Lower quality troops, if there are any on hand, are useful in the middle stage of the battle to simply wear down the opposing force's stamina. Elites come back into play when the enemy is tired; fresh elites against tired foes are particularly devastating and are instrumental in decisive battlefield victories. My only real departure from this formula is when the enemy leads with their trolls. In that case, and that case only, I deviate from my normal modus operandi and swamp them with the most useless units I have to absorb their charge and allow my elites time to get into position to do the real damage to them; of course, if the enemy uses his other infantry to screen his trolls from my advancing troops, I usually just commit the elites to cutting a path through to the trolls.

[Bladvak]

Speaking as a dedicated turtle-player, I spend much of the early game hanging on to elite units for defensive purposes-- costs be damned, they go a long way towards being able to efficiently break attacking enemy forces. As the game progresses, unless the early units are monumentally useful, I tend to focus more on smaller groups of progressively-more-elite units. I always try to get the most I can done with as few units as possible; if I wanted to spam cheap, low-quality units, I'd play the zergling game like seemingly every other player recommends (immediate and constant rush tactics with really terrible infantry).

Elites form the core of my armies whenever and wherever possible; they are to be used both first and last in any given situation. The elites used at the opening of an engagement put the hurt on the enemy early and deal with serious threats or just chew through masses of lower-tier enemies to reduce the number of threats you have to keep track of and simplify battlefield maneuvers overall. Lower quality troops, if there are any on hand, are useful in the middle stage of the battle to simply wear down the opposing force's stamina. Elites come back into play when the enemy is tired; fresh elites against tired foes are particularly devastating and are instrumental in decisive battlefield victories. My only real departure from this formula is when the enemy leads with their trolls. In that case, and that case only, I deviate from my normal modus operandi and swamp them with the most useless units I have to absorb their charge and allow my elites time to get into position to do the real damage to them; of course, if the enemy uses his other infantry to screen his trolls from my advancing troops, I usually just commit the elites to cutting a path through to the trolls.

Pretty much this.

I usually play as Gondor or Rohan and the elites at the beginning are really worth it. I might add, even the special units at the beginning are worth it (Ithilien rangers, Lossarnach axemen)
The Fountain Guard is really worth its upkeep, it is basically a very good unit that can withstand and defeat any unit that Mordor sends your way. I usually go for archers and light cavalry against Mordor (heavy cavalry against Haradrim due to bigger movement points). Having only light troops against Mordor is manageable but when the nazgul bodyguards come I'm in trouble, mainly because I do not want to risk my foot generals. so the FG acts as a fill-the-gap unit, they usually tend to have 10:1 kill ratio. oh, and FG are excellent troll killers.
As Rohan, the elite cavalry at the beginning is very good, being better able to inflict damage and they tend to have low casualties. As far as I could see, a unit of Rohan elite cavalry can sustain as low as a fifth of the casualties that Rohan Riders take, in the same circumstances. For this reason, I usually send them to Osgiliath to help as much as possible.

[Deathcake]

thanks for the input thusfar.
I suppose it depends also a fair bit on which faction you are using. For the Dwarves for example, their mid tier Dwarven Warriors are so solid against just about anything you will be fighting that once you can produce a good number of those, I guess I tend to stick with them as they are so easily replaced close to the front lines, where as if I go to use the Dragon Slayers for example and lose a few to a Rhun charge for example then I have to retrain them quite a long ways from the front lines since they can only be produced in a very small number of settlements.
While their stats might be slightly better, I think the sheer availability of the 'almost as good' mid tiers of the dwarves are generally good enough. I do recruit them for sureI've found that I tend to use the elites (the ones that can only be recruited in one or two settlements and have a 12 turn replenish for example) more for defensive duties to use the free garrison upkeep for the city in which they were recruited. Bit of a waste if I do say so myself.
Where as with the goblins, their 'elites' are really the only option, since their first tier snaga's and goblin infantry are so mediocre that you really need to pump out those higher level Heavy infantry/halberds/archers (not counting trolls, who are pure and simply NEEDED for the orcs to add some punch) to have any chance, especially once the dwarves and elves start coming for you.
Just seems a shame to me that I don't tend to use them, I think mainly because of the hassle of moving them all the way back 'home' for retraining of them, and if I only have one or two I figure to myself 'may as well just grab another couple of mid tiers that I can retrain there when i take the enemy settlement'
I might try to use them more, as it's a shame to waste all those great battle models if nothing else

@theMouth; that's good in theory but since personally I tend to just build and not take any settlements for the first 20 or so turns, they would tend to end up just sitting around sucking up upkeep
@lightning legion; yes I think the heavy archers are the only ones I use now that I think about it, since they rarely take any damage from rebels in particular and they can dish out great hurt while not getting hurt themselves, it doesn't matter that I can't retrain them
@JMonstra; i used to do that, but these days I am tending to not take any rebels out until I have a couple ranges and barracks ready to go, as I have found that sometimes taking extra settlements that earn you very little initial money can be a huge drain, as a village might only make you 150 per turn, but you might need 4x units @ 140 per turn to hold it, thus the net effect is loosing money, so I tend to get my main settlements pumping first with the markets and roads and farms etc
@Ulfgard; that sounds like what I do late-mid to late game once I can recruit them in several spots reasonably close to where the battles will be happening, though I tend to use the low-mid tier troops for the initial hit and about half the battle, and bring in the elites at the end for 'mop up' duties on enemies getting low on numbers and getting tired. I used to rush a bit at the start, but now I find I get much better results with some initial turtling and building up of your main city or two to really get that economy and troop production happening before taking any new settlement, so rather than having to spread your limited initial money spread across lots of small villages, I can use it to get higher level markets and stuff in the one or two main money/troop producing places that you start with. And since I find it is very rare to get hit on your main towns in the first 20-30 turns, I find that the elites for defensive duties are not really needed, hence why i usually disband them.

edit; one big exception to my 'dont use many elites for some reason' thing is the golden warriors of rhun, as they are unlocked fairly early in the barracks/ranges chain (3rd rank I think?) and can thus be pumped out a lot easier than those that require for example the top level barracks to be recruited.
(editted edit: I suppose though that they are not true SUPER elites in the vein of dragon slayers/fountain guard etc that can only be recruited from one or two locations, they are more equated to Gondor's infantry/spearman/archers, of which I definitely use all the time, so not really a fair comparison in retrospect)
I think basically if I can't easily retrain/recruit a unit, I don't tend to use them for much more than defense of their home settlement. By late game, once you have a good half to 3/4 stack of super elites (going back to dragon slayers for example) then I for sure create an army out of them, but until then, i pretty much waste them I think by leaving them at home twiddling their thumbs and lovingly oiling their weapons and armour.

[Jmonstra]

thanks for the input thusfar.
I suppose it depends also a fair bit on which faction you are using. For the Dwarves for example, their mid tier Dwarven Warriors are so solid against just about anything you will be fighting that once you can produce a good number of those, I guess I tend to stick with them as they are so easily replaced close to the front lines, where as if I go to use the Dragon Slayers for example and lose a few to a Rhun charge for example then I have to retrain them quite a long ways from the front lines since they can only be produced in a very small number of settlements.
While their stats might be slightly better, I think the sheer availability of the 'almost as good' mid tiers of the dwarves are generally good enough. I do recruit them for sureI've found that I tend to use the elites (the ones that can only be recruited in one or two settlements and have a 12 turn replenish for example) more for defensive duties to use the free garrison upkeep for the city in which they were recruited. Bit of a waste if I do say so myself.
Where as with the goblins, their 'elites' are really the only option, since their first tier snaga's and goblin infantry are so mediocre that you really need to pump out those higher level Heavy infantry/halberds/archers (not counting trolls, who are pure and simply NEEDED for the orcs to add some punch) to have any chance, especially once the dwarves and elves start coming for you.
Just seems a shame to me that I don't tend to use them, I think mainly because of the hassle of moving them all the way back 'home' for retraining of them, and if I only have one or two I figure to myself 'may as well just grab another couple of mid tiers that I can retrain there when i take the enemy settlement'
I might try to use them more, as it's a shame to waste all those great battle models if nothing else

@theMouth; that's good in theory but since personally I tend to just build and not take any settlements for the first 20 or so turns, they would tend to end up just sitting around sucking up upkeep
@lightning legion; yes I think the heavy archers are the only ones I use now that I think about it, since they rarely take any damage from rebels in particular and they can dish out great hurt while not getting hurt themselves, it doesn't matter that I can't retrain them
@JMonstra; i used to do that, but these days I am tending to not take any rebels out until I have a couple ranges and barracks ready to go, as I have found that sometimes taking extra settlements that earn you very little initial money can be a huge drain, as a village might only make you 150 per turn, but you might need 4x units @ 140 per turn to hold it, thus the net effect is loosing money, so I tend to get my main settlements pumping first with the markets and roads and farms etc
@Ulfgard; that sounds like what I do late-mid to late game once I can recruit them in several spots reasonably close to where the battles will be happening, though I tend to use the low-mid tier troops for the initial hit and about half the battle, and bring in the elites at the end for 'mop up' duties on enemies getting low on numbers and getting tired. I used to rush a bit at the start, but now I find I get much better results with some initial turtling and building up of your main city or two to really get that economy and troop production happening before taking any new settlement, so rather than having to spread your limited initial money spread across lots of small villages, I can use it to get higher level markets and stuff in the one or two main money/troop producing places that you start with. And since I find it is very rare to get hit on your main towns in the first 20-30 turns, I find that the elites for defensive duties are not really needed, hence why i usually disband them.

edit; one big exception to my 'dont use many elites for some reason' thing is the golden warriors of rhun, as they are unlocked fairly early in the barracks/ranges chain (3rd rank I think?) and can thus be pumped out a lot easier than those that require for example the top level barracks to be recruited.
(editted edit: I suppose though that they are not true SUPER elites in the vein of dragon slayers/fountain guard etc that can only be recruited from one or two locations, they are more equated to Gondor's infantry/spearman/archers, of which I definitely use all the time, so not really a fair comparison in retrospect)
I think basically if I can't easily retrain/recruit a unit, I don't tend to use them for much more than defense of their home settlement. By late game, once you have a good half to 3/4 stack of super elites (going back to dragon slayers for example) then I for sure create an army out of them, but until then, i pretty much waste them I think by leaving them at home twiddling their thumbs and lovingly oiling their weapons and armour.

I probably should have mentioned that my version has significantly more free upkeep slots, so elites end up being worth it as an assault force since I can just garrison 2-3 units there for free afterwards.

[Macilrille]

Depends on the game and faction really, as well as style. I turtle with MOS guided by Lore with most advantages given to my opponent. Which is insanely hard BTW- though I am not the best of players.

FPoE can do without many elites for a long time (and has to), but those Rangers can sure mow down Orks at a distance- making them worth it- and the BR Dúnedain is often the only decent melee unit you have against Ork Halberds etc. Meanwhile as Gondor, you need those elites to withstand the Nazgûl from the start, the Ologs and Rhûn Halberds from Turn 10-15, the dreadstacks from Turn 25 and the Troll Cata from Turn 25-30.

HE on the other hand does not really need those Guardians- and since they are impossible to rebuild until very late- they can be dismissed. But... what if... those pesky Orks sneak a stack through the ambushes to siege Imladris? Oh no... so usually I actually keep them.

[eugenioso]

Greetings y'all

Just been thinking about elites and how I use them the other day and thought i'd post a thread to hear some input.
At the start of a campaign, I always disband any unit that I cannot immediately garrison or train to save money on their usually big upkeep (that 410 per turn for example for dwarven dragonslayers means one extra low level farm per turn basically).
My usual tactic is to disband every unit that I cannot have for free for the first 10 or 15 turns to use the extra money to buy extra commerce buildings or farms or roads.
I then start building up my first attacking army, usually only needs to be a half stack for nearby rebel settlements, always made of up just units that I can train nearby.
Do you use the initial elite units yourself? I'm talking about the initial swordmasters for Dale for example, or the fountain guard for Gondor, or dwarven dragon-slayers. Are they usually that much greater fighters than initial rebel garrisons that they are worth using for the extra upkeep?

Even once I can recruit elites in for example one castle, I usually just use them for the free garrison upkeep slots in that settlement until I can recruit many more of them than just one or two. Say for example when I have 3 settlements that can recruit them. I guess I am just timid to use them until I can easily retrain and recruit more. I tend to keep spamming the cheaper, easily replaced units until fairly late in the game when I can have at least a half-stack of elites that can be trained/retrained in a handful of nearby settlements, generally turn 70 or so.

Do you move elites straight into your main attacking army/armies as soon as you can recruit them?
Anyway just curious how you guys use limited numbers of elites and whether you usually use the initial elites and if you find them worth the additional, fairly significant upkeep.
cheers

elites that you start with can be considered utterly expendable troops; throw them as your main shock unit against the masses of mordor and watch them butcher the enemy with glee and joy. since you cant retrain them at least until a ridiculous amount of time later, go ahead and treat them like the bombs they are.

when i use elite expensive units, i never make elite stacks, save for very very specific occasions. the best way to use elites is to complement armies, not build them entirely of elites. as gondor for example, my armies attacking mordor will contain a heavy dosage of militias, supported by gondor infantry, gondor archers and my generals, with perhaps a unit of fountain guard if its getting late. with other factions ive had units that have survived the entire campaign, literally. as the silvans, my unit of silvan heavy archers and its survivors fought balrogs, trolls and sauron himself at one inopportune moment. they were retrained twice throughout the campaign.

i rarely use evil armies save for isenfun. they are a special case so to speak. since their only good production center is isengard, you have the strategic need of using basically everything you can build. snagas for defending isen, and uruks for offensives. isengard gets no trolls, and the warg riders are pathetic, so its all about the numbers.

[Deathcake]

cool, cheers fellow digital war leaders, some good thoughts

[Jmonstra]

Hehe. Isenfun.

[LuckyPistol]

Evil factions need those starting elites haha They're your only trump card until you get your economy going

[the lightning legion]

I have grown to love dol amroth units effective easy to produce and with mos can be retrained at the city of kings

[Deathcake]

Yes those 'Fiefdom barracks' (I think they are called?) are really great usefulness lightning. Very handy as it really helps me use all of gondors units as they can very easily be retrained right on the front lines instead of needing 5 or more turns to return home. It's a great system I think, where you cannot recruit new units there, but just retrain all others. Handy for the Lossanarch units and Pelagir too, even though their 'home towns' are quite close to Tirith anyway. Those white swans look nice too, even forgetting for a moment that they are solid units.

[the lightning legion]

its not even turn 40 yet for me and already my units are about to take umbar and minas morgul so I think they should let you build them in really big cities around the map like umbar or esgaroth

whoring fiefdom units gets you really far really quickly but leaves you with almost no solid troops on the front lines out in the middle of harad

[Ulfgard the Unmaker]

If that's a complaint about the ease of sweeping Harad, you should try turtling instead of a blitz. It's a completely different campaign.

That said, seeing as how your name is lightning legion, I get the distinct impression that you're not one for the slower playstyle.

[the lightning legion]

I did once try to play turtling before the war of the ring really got started and bodyguard stack could barely repel the many harad stacks coming at me I eventually managed to take harads legs out from under it by sending a stack of dol amroth troops to umbar and they raided everything but since all the good factions were on the way out I got surrounded and jus couldn't do it but i had many epic last stands after a fief capital like dol amroth or pelagir repeled a few stacks the garrisons would have to fall back to minas tirith and it ended with the most epic last stands ever with men of all over the west fighting stack after stack in and around the pelennor until after about 10-15 battles i jus didnt have enough guys and the last battle went with me fighting level by level but dem trolls......

and it wasn't a complaint about sweeping harad more of priase for the effectiveness of fiefdom units I have taken over more than half of harad by turn 20 because of their power

[LuckyPistol]

Seriously? Gondor is the hot topic for elite unit usage? They have the largest roster in the game for heaven's sake! This thread is starting to turn into another Gondor strategy discussion.

Personally I don't even think Gondor needs their starting Fountain Guard unless you're playing with the full pro-Mordor/Harad scripts in MOS. If I had to make a list of what units need their elites at the start it would look like this:
1. Orcs of the Misty Mountains- The thing is, with such crappy units, these guys need the starting troll unit and wargs more than their cousins in Gundabad. They have elves to fight!
2. Dwarves- I've played at least two dwarf campaigns and I've always found myself surprised that I need those elites merely because without them I don't have enough without them to expand in the West before the High Elves take all the good spots
3. Mordor- What else can I say? You're up against Gondor, if you didn't have the Nazgul Mordor would be VERY difficult
4. Dale- Rhun is your initial enemy, you need as many good units as you can get
5. Eriador- Hobbits? Breeland Militia? DO I NEED TO EXPLAIN THIS ONE?
6. High/Silvan(and Lorien)Elves- Merely because you don't start out with many units and they have a tougher time recruiting than everyone else
7. Isengard- Honestly, I find the Guards of Orthanc to be pointless and not very useful, but they are a tank of a unit to deflect Rohan cavalry
8. Orcs of Gundabad- that troll unit comes quite in handy if you start a war against Eriador before barracks event. But OoG are in a comfortable position that its not needed
9. Rhun- The Loke Flag Rim's AP is useful if you initiate war with the dwarves, but Rhun is fine without it
10.Gondor- With attacks coming from east and south, its good to have above average units to strengthen your defences
11. Harad- The starting elites you get aren't exactly game changers, but they're good for fighting against Gondor elites
12. Rohan- With numerous Generals, I don't find a reason for their starting elites other than for the pro-Isengard scripts in MOS, but other than that the Rohan is well off even without them

Just my thoughts. Dunland in MOS is excluded as they have no "elite units" per se, other than their economy

[the lightning legion]

but they have made gondor so epic in mos

I think eriadorsFL bodyguard can really dish out the hurt but I think relative to the evil actions almost all elf units will perform leaps an bounds better elder units are almost not needed