Topic: How to battle with heavy ranged enemy?

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  • #20051
    Avatar photoFlickering
    Participant

    Actually, I have played 330+day on expert iron man mode, and found it very painful to fight with brigand and goblin, especially goblin, I have not a method to make them charge, they just wait till I charge and get attacked twice before I am able to attack on a prepared and linked shield wall.
    Things get worse when in a bad terrain, like they are up hills and I am down hill, I just dont know what to do. I cannot SL to change the terrain, if I retreat to a plain area, they wont follow. The only thing I can do is to retreat and reenter to change terrain and suffer mood penalty or just risking my brothers’ lives to make them all charge and every backrow to only carry kite shield but do nothing because they are more vulnerable to arrows and bolts.
    Thing get even worse when faced goblin, if there were only one entrance to go up hill, this battle can never win, because, the charging man will be twined every turn before they act(the shaman always has more initiative).
    All above makes ironman almost unplayble, if I trained archers to wipe out brigand marksman the only situation faced is even my 100+ ranged skill archer have only 40+ chance to hit marksman and this always miss. Then I have to use quick hand perk to change to a kite shield. But carrying a shield is very harmful to initiative(-8 to initia and more to next turn), this demand high investment in initia attribute to ensure I get acted before marks man. IF not so, my poor little two archer should get to test their luck. All my archers get up to 40+ ranged defense and covered by frontine, but most of them died because they have to testing their lucky against 6-8 enemy arrows, among which 2 to hit head will claim his death, and this is not a low rate occasion.

    Due to above, THE MOST CONCERNING IS, I found if I donot put archers among my 12 battle line or if I donot shoot enemy archers down, they wont make a charge and just make shield wall and wait! This is unfair! They not afraid of death, but it is quite hard to train an experienced archer at current edition! I personally now just get every man holding a shield when facing brigand and goblin, no backrow, no polearm, no ranged brother, this is not a healthy playing way.

    I just wish to get some help to counter brigand and goblin:
    1.how to make them charge, if they charge, I would attack them once every turn not get hit twice in a row in the first 2 turn.
    2.how to survive in a bad terrain? This is very harsh!
    3.if above 200+days, goblin get even invincible in ironman mode, 30 40 of them, 10+ carrying net, 2shaman, almost unbeaten, if I manage to get close, 4 dagger penetrate will claim my death, I am kinda curious, why should dagger penetration armor exist? my brother only have 60-100 HP, I am not a orc, 4 in a row will successfull kill me, and I can do nothing within the tides of enemy.

    Or just say, ironman is not the mode the games should be played?

    Here is my obituary column, can see nearly every man is death being shot.

    #20059
    Avatar photole_souriceau
    Participant

    I suffered a lot same way from ranged enemies in current build.

    After uncounted hours of suffering and re-starting of warband I have this strategy (may be stupid but more or less works for me):

    I train 4 archers (its hard, but possible). Talking about recruits, ranged is needed, but is secondary. Look for ranged def stars and initiative.

    Every level up put all possible to ranged combat, ranged def and initiative. Perks — bullsye, browny, dodge, anticipation, fast adaptiion, bow mastery, berserk, quick hands, kiling frenzy, nine lives. Ranged builds whiout maxed ranged defence likely doomed. May be some ultra-armored crossbowmen have chances but I don’t tried.

    Archers like that can more o less pull out duel with enemy ranged units (and save the day).

    As for bad terrain… yep, another extremly annoying thing. I usually just run as fast as I can. Very high initiative in this archer build provides good chances to leave zone of enemy fire (they most vunerable). Heavy line guys mabe get arrow or two in arse during “tactical reatreat”, but this is mostly survivable.

    #20097
    Avatar photoIoci
    Participant

    get everyone a crossbow, switch to your normal weapon before the enemy reach you. problem solved.

    #20155
    Avatar photoNamespace
    Participant

    I feel very much the same way. Especially when you encounter 3 enemy crossbowmen at around day 20-30. In the last build, combat was difficult but at least it felt fair. Having raiders just stand back, never charge and throw axes and shoot bolts and arrows in your face is definitely not fun combat.
    But it’s the same for most mechanics.. nerf in perks, the whole new morale system, lower initial inventory space, vet. hall that is a joke. Just. Why?
    Should have worked on modding support instead of all this. I would pay another 10-20 bucks just to be able to tweak the game to be a more enjoyable experience.

    Well, here is to hoping that there will still be more balancing changes before the release.

    #20184
    Avatar photomrbunnyban
    Participant

    First, as folks posted, you should generally have enough ranged defenses to tolerate the first volley. In particular, dangerous crossbow marksmen will often prefer to wait for you to charge instead of taking shots unless they have high ground advantage, so a quick retreat will enable you to avoid most crossbow bolts.

    Second, breaking their formation helps. There are 2 ways to get the raiders to break formation, after which slaughtering their archers isn’t really a problem. For one, if they are taking losses from your ranged units they will charge. For another, … I hesitated in sharing this cos I don’t want the devs to alter the AI, but I guess I’ve been abusing it enough.

    If the AI thinks you are running away, they WILL break formation and charge. Because they have higher initiative, THE MARKSMEN WILL LEAD THE CHARGE. Unprotected and often out of action points, they make easy prey to your own ranged fire.

    To convince the AI that you are running away, you have to fall back a certain number of brothers close to the edge. I’m not sure how many, but generally I’ll park my main fore on the hill to closest to the edge and send a few newbie brothers to the actual edge.

    #20185
    Avatar photoNamespace
    Participant

    If the AI thinks you are running away, they WILL break formation and charge. Because they have higher initiative, THE MARKSMEN WILL LEAD THE CHARGE. Unprotected and often out of action points, they make easy prey to your own ranged fire.

    That is a very interesting approach. My only way of dealing with them so far was attack at night, wait until their turn is done and then charge. If my 2nd line takes a bolt, they retreat out of sight. Having raiders not charge is really annoying especially if they have the high ground.
    Oh yes, I once put my whole company on a massive flanking maneuver that took about 20 turns to just put them all in the right place – effective but incredibly boring.
    I will definitely try your method though, thanks!

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