Favorite weapon

[guidon101]

I don’t see a lot of mentions for Javelins. After playing with them for a bit, I have found them to be pretty awesome, so I would add them to my favorite secondary weapon, for almost all my mercs except for pure archers.

At first glance, they might seem ineffective, especially for melee trained mercs — but I noticed even with a low hit-chance tooltip, they still connect at reliable frequency, granted they usually hit shields on shielded opponents. So I have often found use for them during the gap-closing, when I can either get adjacent to the enemy, and then do nothing until the next turn, or get close but not adjacent, and then throw a javelin in his face (and surprisingly connect frequently enough), and then let him close the gap next turn, forfeiting his extra attack, while I switch to my primary weapon and unload a full round of attacks.

Another HUGE benefit to javelins is I get to keep my shields up! Unlike switching to billhooks or other ranged weapons, which would normally be a bad idea for the front-line shock troops, with javelins I get to keep my defensive line defensive, while simultaneously presenting an offensive hail of damage at short-medium range.

I haven’t used them as a primary weapon, although I can see a “skirmisher” ranged support build as potentially viable with javelins.

[Salperticon]

I love it that they included javelins in the game.
I have to admit that I did not make much use of them yet, but I intend to lateron when my shieldbearers gain enough levels to get some utility perks.
For two-handed weapon users like greatswords, pikes and the like I usually go with crossbows, but I can definitely imagine javelins for my other melee guys for the reasons you described above.

The only times when I do not switch to a ranged weapon and take a pot shot before engaging in melee, are when I need to pin the enemy in his position – and when I fight orcs. Don’t want them to get the charge on me, nu-uh.
But aside of that, short-ranged sidearms like javelins are superb to soften up the enemy before the deadly melee ensues.

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[RVallant]

Spears at the moment are my go to weapons. The +20% to hit in a game where you will miss plenty of 80%+ hits is pretty much necessary early on and throughout when you need things dropping quickly.

Swords are good too, +10% hit is nice, riposte is good vs Wolves and anything with broken armour is going down reasonably quickly with swords. I was experimenting with the Military Cleaver and was wondering why the hit % was so low! Didn’t realise it doesn’t get the sword bonus. Decapitate is just brilliant as a high-risk ‘oh crap, gotta kill the idiot before he wipes me out’. Misses often, but when it does work… -I had it work on a bandit leader, that was fun, everyone ran away pronto!

While I like Axes they miss far too often, shield break is useful tho… Maces are my armour destroyers when they can get around in time, stun when it hits can be a life-saver.

I’m not liking ranged weapons. Very hit and miss, I’m not a fan of all-rounders as I’d rather have my archers as specialist archers, but finding someone with a decent range stat is bordering impossible. My latest game was interesting, 15 days not one hunter or poacher showed up for recruitment, so I went without archers and had an easier time of things(!) That might change when goblins turn up.

Have stayed away from 2H weapons so far… I think early on they’re asking for trouble and since I build around survivability I haven’t had much chance to build a spare recruit into a 2H role, especially when people die. Training replacements becomes too important as does repairing armour that kills the finances enough that it isn’t cost-effective for me to try them out, other than 2 tile reach weapons though, thems the bees knees with a good shield-line.

[Author]

Posts