Difference between Swordsmen and Axemen

[kiraga84]

Hello,

Can anyone tell me if there's a difference between axe-men and swordsmen of the same weight class? i.e. light / medium infantry?

Are there roles where axemen perform better than swordsmen?


Cheers!!!

[Schiehaven]

Axe have armour penetration, although I have no clue how it works.

I only know that each unit got a kind of health bar, e.g. 50, and some defence (melee and shield, the latter is against arrows). Whenever a enemy hits that unit, it does with its attack, e.g. 40. How the dices role I have no clue, but I guess that the enemy will always hit the victim, because he got lower defence. The damage, e.g. 12, is then reduced from health untill it dies. Armour penetration might be that it reduces the armour (although I thought 50 vs 40, is always hit and thus win?)

Same goes for deadliness, I only know that iniatiative determines who strike first. Deadliness is for prolonged combat, can someone maybe explain?

My inituition says that axemen are not front line holders, but they relatively hack through steel pretty fast compared to swordmen, therefore they should be used as flankers or shock troops.

[Highwayleopard]

I believe armour reduces damage taken. Damage is, from what I remember hearing, a dice roll + weapon damage. So armour can stop all of it, for example.

However, AP damage always gets applied no matter what.

I don't know if this is accurate or whatever, even more so with DEI applied as well, since they have vastly different stats used.

[Barune]

As far as i understand, this is how it works in Vanilla.

• Melee attack – the ability to hit the target
• Weapon damage – the amount of damage
• Melee defense – a chance to avoid hit in melee
• Armor – a chance to eliminate dealt damage

Armor piercing is the ability to ignore armor. So If a unit with 30 weapon damage and 10 AP successfully hits a unit with a high Armour value and the defending unit passes its Armour check roll to avoid damage done by this attack, it will take 10 damage (From AP), instead of 40 (From Both Regular and AP).

DeI may have changed the stats but as far as i know the core mechanics of this system are still operating in this manner.

Here is a very well written guide to further explain not only the way the battle mechanics work, but almost everything else about the Vanilla game. Not all of it will apply to DeI of course but if nothing else it should help explain some of the things CA did that the Tooltips don't tell you.

To answer your question about axe men, They are much better then sword units at flanking/shock troops because of their higher AP value, meaning they will do more damage in a shorter period of time then swordsmen making the morale hit of being flanked by them an even larger loss of morale due to men lost.

[kiraga84]

Thanks ppl!

I'll go add axemen to my roster now!

[Sir_Pee_Alot]

The Axemen got sword Animations, So in Rome II its nothing more then a swordmen with a axe in his hand...