Skeletons are horribly unfun in so many ways

[GlyphGryph]

In no particular order:

They are inscrutable. There’s no way to tell in game how they actually work, what their resistances are, etc., and it doesn’t even make any sense. They have 80% damage resistance to axes, but only if the axes are thrown? Why? They also have a 50% resistance to piercing weapons? Even if I could find some sign of that in the game, I don’t have the slightest idea what actually counts as a piercing weapon – spears, hammers and daggers? Maybe? I don’t know. Also they can apparently see my hiding dudes somehow? I’m not even sure.

They turn most of your character growth options into trap builds. Built a ranged team? You’re fucked, does no damage. Grabbed crippling strikes, executioner, or Fearsome or got some nice wolf armor? Useless. Focused on a spearwall team? Sucks that they have good defense dudes that can shieldwall indefinitely combined with really powerful pike wielders a resistance to spear damage.

They reduce tactical options without offering any alternatives. No injuries, no fatigue, no fear, near-immunity to range, strong ranged-melee attacks of their own (among… other things, if you know what I mean), come in large numbers, have good stats, cause fear in your dudes really effectively when spearwalling… but they don’t open up any new options for dealing with them. Their only drawback is being a bit slow, but not slow enough to matter!

They just seem by far the most boring enemy to fight. Might be fine as the rare occasional fortress challenge they used to be, but now that we have the undead scourge event they are just… tedious.

[Wanderer]

The Ancient Dead require completely different tactics to fighting bandits, orcs, and goblins. While Ancient Legionnaires function very much like Orc Warriors, the armor requirement to effectively fight them is not nearly as high because their swords are basically weaker Arming Swords (that don’t cause bleed, unlike basically all bladed Orc weapons). Other thing is that Legionnaire shields are reasonably breakable for Axe specialists, unlike Warrior shields which are a waste of time to try to break.

Yes, Archers are a lot less effective against the Ancient Dead, but they are not entirely useless when the Legionnaires come around; they still do full damage to armor, so they can still armor-strip the Pikemen. Which make them really easy to get chopped by a Greatsword or Warbrand user (via Split). Also, since the Legionnaires have really low initiative, it’s really easy to stack Overwhelm on them with your Archers. Heck, even full plate users can stack Overwhelm on them.

[Namespace]

Wanderer wrote:

Other thing is that Legionnaire shields are reasonably breakable for Axe specialists, unlike Warrior shields which are a waste of time to try to break.

Yes, Archers are a lot less effective against the Ancient Dead, but they are not entirely useless when the Legionnaires come around; they still do full damage to armor, so they can still armor-strip the Pikemen. Which make them really easy to get chopped by a Greatsword or Warbrand user (via Split). Also, since the Legionnaires have really low initiative, it’s really easy to stack Overwhelm on them with your Archers. Heck, even full plate users can stack Overwhelm on them.

My guy with fighting axe makes pretty short work of those shields. Finding a named axe with high shield damage will be a lot more exciting than before now. Also flails are great since they ignore shield defense (20 on a tower shield), but their damage is not that great. Splitting shields and using hammers is probably more efficient.

As for archers: I still think they are amazing against legionaires. War bows pretty much melt their rather light armor (135-150 ish I believe) and overwhelm helps to keep your shield bros from getting hit by those nasty pikes.

[RusBear]

The only problem with new undead – the number of enemy and too early companyday of spawn such like necrosavants and honor guards. All rest – very good. Cuz you need new tactic and some brain work.

[Wanderer]

Namespace wrote:

Wanderer wrote:

Other thing is that Legionnaire shields are reasonably breakable for Axe specialists, unlike Warrior shields which are a waste of time to try to break.

Yes, Archers are a lot less effective against the Ancient Dead, but they are not entirely useless when the Legionnaires come around; they still do full damage to armor, so they can still armor-strip the Pikemen. Which make them really easy to get chopped by a Greatsword or Warbrand user (via Split). Also, since the Legionnaires have really low initiative, it’s really easy to stack Overwhelm on them with your Archers. Heck, even full plate users can stack Overwhelm on them.

My guy with fighting axe makes pretty short work of those shields. Finding a named axe with high shield damage will be a lot more exciting than before now. Also flails are great since they ignore shield defense (20 on a tower shield), but their damage is not that great. Splitting shields and using hammers is probably more efficient.

As for archers: I still think they are amazing against legionaires. War bows pretty much melt their rather light armor (135-150 ish I believe) and overwhelm helps to keep your shield bros from getting hit by those nasty pikes.

I believe Legionnaire armor is somewhere between 150-200 (depending on if it is the scale mail or the breastplate). But it is still significantly less than the 400 armor that Orc Warriors get.

[GlyphGryph]

Wanderer wrote:

The Ancient Dead require completely different tactics to fighting bandits, orcs, and goblins. While Ancient Legionnaires function very much like Orc Warriors, the armor requirement to effectively fight them is not nearly as high because their swords are basically weaker Arming Swords (that don’t cause bleed, unlike basically all bladed Orc weapons). Other thing is that Legionnaire shields are reasonably breakable for Axe specialists, unlike Warrior shields which are a waste of time to try to break.

They do a lot more damage than orcs when you consider their ability to focus fire with multiple deep lines (and the fact that unlike the random flailing of orcs, they make damned good use of that ability). They also have higher defenses than orcs, and if you break their shields the damage they deal out individually starts to be competitive (while ignoring the fact that much of their damage will still be coming from the back line.)

[Wanderer]

GlyphGryph wrote:

Wanderer wrote:

The Ancient Dead require completely different tactics to fighting bandits, orcs, and goblins. While Ancient Legionnaires function very much like Orc Warriors, the armor requirement to effectively fight them is not nearly as high because their swords are basically weaker Arming Swords (that don’t cause bleed, unlike basically all bladed Orc weapons). Other thing is that Legionnaire shields are reasonably breakable for Axe specialists, unlike Warrior shields which are a waste of time to try to break.

They do a lot more damage than orcs when you consider their ability to focus fire with multiple deep lines (and the fact that unlike the random flailing of orcs, they make damned good use of that ability). They also have higher defenses than orcs, and if you break their shields the damage they deal out individually starts to be competitive (while ignoring the fact that much of their damage will still be coming from the back line.)

Agreed that they can Focus Fire a single guy. You work around that by using a typical staggered formation, where the Brothers with the best defense (i.e. using Heaters in this case) form the points of the formation, and sponge the pike attacks, where as the rest of the line chew up the Legionnaires that inevitably will try enter the gaps in the formation. Use Rotation to swap out the guys on the points if they’re getting unlucky on the hits.

Orcs instead (Warriors primarily) will get to your archers one way or another by knocking your wall out of the way, and chop up your archers before you get through their 400 armor.

[Mike]

I agree that they could use some more tactical diversity but I think that you’re exaggerating a bit when you list problems with them.

Apart from throwing axes resistances make sense, they have no flesh or organs to pierce nor veins to cut. You only damage the bones and it’s not easy to hit those with a sharp point. This has been an understandable and accepted staple with various fantasy games for literally decades.
I assume that the inability to tell whether a hammer pierces or crushes is a joke.

You say that they make “builds” useless – but 1 or 2 perks don’t constitute a build. If you have a generally good bro he can do allright, maybe give him a different weapon, that’s all.

If, one the other hand, you’ve made a fearsome-crippling-executioner-dagger specialist you’re simply being faced with the flip side of any specialisation – while doing great against some enemies it performs poorly against others. You wouldn’t call orcs broken just because a swordmaster can’t crack them, now would you?
At any rate, that’s what you have the reserve roster for – keep your builds somewhat varied and simply switch bros based on their effectiveness in each battle.

Also, skeletons resist missles – their armors don’t. They have more armor than HP so just equip your rangers with crossbows and watch the skellies mostly melt before they even reach your line. Then switch xbows to longaxes or billhooks.

As for specific options let me point your attention to the fact that they often miss either body or head armor, while usually carrying shields. Flails with mastery completely ignore shields and let you choose whether you want to jit head or body. Do you own math.

Of course later you meet fully-armored skellies but it’s the same with humans and orcs, so no big deal. The difference being that decayed shields are trivially easy to break, giving your hammer much easier task.

Also from my observation they have somewhat low accuracy, they rarely hit my shielded tanks. So just suit up and grind them to bonemeal.

P.S. As for seeing through bushes – they are magically reanimated dead. They don’t HAVE eyes. Why would you assume they “see” the way the living do?

[GlyphGryph]

Mike wrote:

I agree that they could use some more tactical diversity but I think that you’re exaggerating a bit when you list problems with them.

It’s probably just because I’ve got the undead crisis rolled three times in a row now and I’m really tired of not being able to explore any of the interesting alternate team compositions I want because “all skeletons all the time” is constantly in effect.

[Wanderer]

GlyphGryph wrote:

Mike wrote:

I agree that they could use some more tactical diversity but I think that you’re exaggerating a bit when you list problems with them.

It’s probably just because I’ve got the undead crisis rolled three times in a row now and I’m really tired of not being able to explore any of the interesting alternate team compositions I want because “all skeletons all the time” is constantly in effect.

Sounds like someone’s been pissing in the graveyard one too many times…

[Author]

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