Topic: Conscripts are frustrating as hell

Would like to share some feedback on the new dlc. I have around 800 hours in the game and so far consider it one of the based tbs tactical games I played. The latest dlc is quite great – entirely new equipments, origins, enemies… A bit lacking are the events for the new backgrounds but I guess you cannot have it all. Especially exciting was the introduction of a new late game crysis. Surprisingly enough, it lacks ‘easier’ quests if you side with the northerners. You are only fighting 15+ men strong armies and amny times several of those at the same time.
The basic unit of those armies – the conscript – is insanely fat. To the point where fighting them is simply frustrating. And this is AFTER their hp nerf. Let us compare them to other enemies you see – undead legionaries, wiedergankers, footmen, orcs. All of those get to the brink of death of not annihilated when hit by direct hit with a good 2-handed weapon. A headshot with a billhook will also give them a trauma and severely disable. To the conscript a headshot with a billhook… dealt 11 damage. A shot from a WAR BOW – 7 damage. Remember killing a billman with 2 arrows? Or maybe with a single headshot? Well, conscripts with a polearm do not seem to have a worse accuraccy, however you cannot kill them.

Gunners are super strong, they deal much more damage (and goddamn overwhelm) than noble force archers, they cannot be shot down reliable because they stand right behind conscripts. They appear in groups of 4 and just overwhelm half you squad with a single shot.
That all would be ok if there was a good way of countering that bullshit, like having the right equipment or taking the right position. BUT with consripts who take AT LEAST 3 turns to kill with you very best brothers that is nigh impossible. Hammers are great vs orcs, swords and arrows are great vs nomads and bandits, maces are great vs barbarians. It would seem (low armor) that cleavers and swords should be good vs southern forces – yeah, coz hammers and maces are totally useless, but they are not enough. You just spend a great amount of turns trying to break the very first rank of conscripts punishing them with swordlances, cleaving them with greatswords – to no avail. Their effective HP coupled with their defense is simply too high. Even if you manage to quickly shoot down 1-2 gunners, others will still destroy all your armor while you are drown in the consctipts. Also getting into melee with a crossbowman means that he is down. Getting into melee with a gunner means that you get overwhelmed and probably stunned.

Probably more importantly conscripts make your best weapons and brothers seem useless. A skilled brother with a 2 handed mace can bring down a knight in 2 hits, kill 2 ancient honor guards with berserk and rage in 1 turn but… with best of luck he will kill a conscript in 2-3 turns. Polearms will take 4-5 hits (and we will also have misses) at very least to kill a conscript, they never get traumas.

More ridiculous is the fact that they never break morale. They get hyped even if they kill a dog if an officer is near, and you can kill their WHOLE army and the last 2 men wont flee. This is extremely counterintuitive, I thought it were the barbarians who did not fear death.

Yeah, you can train a special counter-conscript army full of gunners, buy grenades etc. But still the difficulty is way over top of the other types of cryses, and more than that the battle have little fun – you are not slashing and smashing with your star brothers, while others hold the line – you simply drown in the conscript bog and trade hits forever, hoping that your gear and accumulated wealth is enough to grind them down. Very similar to fighting wiedergankers but involves less tactics (you can focus dangerous wieders, spearwall vs them, take their weapons, kill multiple of them with AOE, which is fun).

In fact all those problems should go if conscripts get no nimble. There will appear some strategy to think of, where do you want to strike and push (atm you cannot push at all – conscripts will drown you down). There will appear fun of punishing the infidels with mighty blows and going berserk.

Honestly I think this will be enough and in fact souther armies will have their intended strength match their actual strength (on the global map they trade evenly with northerners). Currently if you witness a live competition of northerner and southerner armies of “equal strength” the former get annihilated with the latter having very few casualties.

I also remember witnessing a conscript whose armor was already battered holding 2 orc warriors for something like 5 turns (imagine a footman doing that).

I love the game, I really love new enemies and challenges, but please nerf these frustrating guys.