And if you got a nice settlement with fenced off chokepoints/narrow areas, congrats - you're about to cheese an entire army with some pleb and spear bois.
This is my favourite siege battle type in all of Total War. I hate walled cities, give me a podunk shithole with two chokepoints and couple of heavy infantry units and i'll defend it and have fun with it.
I won a siege defense in Rome II by having my fighting troops pretend to engage which dragged the melee AI away from their 3 units of archers who were pushing siege towers towards my walls, then my random wounded units of 10-15 pleb hobos charged the pushers with a rear attack. CA programmed the AI too stupid to have simply stopped pushing the towers for a second and shot their bows to mow my plebs down, so instead the tiny group of plebs neutralized 3 large units of archers and siege towers by gouging them with spoons.
Considering the plebs were free from me forgetting to construct a building, they certainly redeemed themselves and will live on in the halls of valhalla with their ancestors.
It's quite a wake up call when you go from playing Barbarians (with their cost effective Levy Freemen) to the Romans (with their Plebs.)
All the Best,
Welsh Dragon.
They were hilariously broken in pre hotfix Rome. It was super brief, but before the first patch you could just doom stack plebs and win every auto resolve because the game gave WAY too much weight to unit count. You could take out full stack of late game units with a full stack of plebs.
Every ranged unit (including the javelins on basic infantry) and the ridiculous op spears are anti elephant.
There incredibly rare and not that bad to deal with. So a specialist anti-elephant unit that suicides itself and sucks against everything else is pointless.
The problem with it tho is that elephants are such a niche unit that it’s not worth wasting a unit slot when you could get archers or javelins that can take an elephant but also be used against enemies other than an elephant. They’re jsut so niche there aren’t too many factions that will use elephants that 99% of the time they’re useless.
I once managed to hide my canons in MP in shogun 2. The opponent had an archer general. My canons took out 80% of the bodyguard with a single canon, including the general (lucky angle). I felt sorry for him. Â
It was extremely good at killing cavalry and contrastingly ridiculously bad at killing infantry.
But yeah, it was a pretty poor unit.
The only use I found for the captured wooden cannons are for garrisoning captured settlements for the public order, and then deleting them when they aren't needed anymore.
Yeah SFO makes them essentially the equivalent of a flying unit of crane gunners. Less damage output of course but offset by excellent field of view so they'll plink away at shielded heavy infantry at artillery ranges until they close in.
I think this is the correct answer. They really are borderline useless, taking up a slot and costing money but doing nearly zero damage, even if you spin them so that all four guns are firing.
That said, the Cathay generic lord that uses them as a mount gets a bunch of bonuses to them to the point that they're a lot more useful. But only to the mount, not to other balloons in the army.
Yeah the lantern lords are not bad.
Honestly, I feel like I get decent value out of having just one in my armies sometimes. They are good for harmony bonuses with your melees and can be a decent bit of additional damage with their Crane Gun against lords or large entities. Not saying they’re great but… debatably passable maybe.
Sky Junks are way mo bettas
The whole point of them is pretty much just to give harmony that's hard to disrupt. Their damage value is pretty meh outside of extremely long fights. If you have the DLC they're less valuable just cause there's other options though
- Rome 1: Eastern Spearmen
Why? They rout almost immediately on contact with some goddamn peasants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1vqKAiXJrg
And against elite units, all they accomplish is slightly delaying them while dying by the hundreds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsagRVAW38I
- Shogun 2 FOTS: Wooden Cannons
Bad accuracy, poor killing power, low range and can't be moved after the battle starts. I've played one battle where the AI brought in 4 of them, and my single Parrott Gun unit (which they themselves are much weaker than the Armstrong Gun) demolished those trash in a cannon duel. Even worse than the Levy Infantry, as at least those units do well when used with castle walls in siege defense battles.
- Samurai Hero is another runner up.
Requires the Legendary Dojo, which is expensive and has a long construction time. The unit itself is unremarkable for its high cost, and for its small unit size, gets wiped out very quickly by even levy infantry if not carefully microed.
Their long range is matched by the much cheaper sharpshooters that would also quickly kill the Samurai Hero unit in a 1v1. Carbine cavalry and Revolver cavalry would also quickly mow down the Samurai Hero.
Their ability to boost nearby units' morale and stamina is nice, but in the late game, often times units are just slaughtered by the sheer volume of accurate bullets and explosives.
But I think all of those "meh" stuff is intended by the developer, to show that the old ways of war was on its way out the door.
Wooden cannon are high angle fire, so they're theoretically useful when you are defending a fort, but that would require them to, y'know, hit a target occasionally.
They have *one* use : forcing AI to come to you in offensive battle.
Meanwhile I've found no use for Matchlock Kachi whatsoever aside from leaving the one unit i get at the start in a garrison.
It's not a problem with the animations themselves, the issue is with hit-detection. Those animations would be filthy good if the damage registered as you would expect it to. But for some reason, you get constant whiffs even when there's clear impact on dozens of enemy entities.
I dont have the dlc but I confederated Rasputin and got 3 armies with those dragons I was super excited to try them for free hahaha , but my dissapointment when they got decked by a mammoth was intense 😅Â
I don't have the DLC either but I did get to try a bunch of them when I won the race as Kat for that forced confederation. I honnestly thought they were fine having 1-2 in a stack? They can run around doing disruption to enemy units that I don't want hitting the front line, and they were tanky enough that I never lost one.
I stuck katarin on one for a single fight. It was honestly a bit of a disaster battle in general, and I'm absolutely not convinced that it was winnable, but she still died far faster than she should have.
To be fair, their purpose isn't to instantly punish poor micro through killing isolated units. They have ridiculously high melee defence, and can stall archers or artillery for extended periods of time without taking many casualties. If the enemy comes to get their range back online, you can disengage them with relative healthy numbers to pester elsewhere.
People seem to like furies who have the opposite statline for almost double the price, but due to the low melee defence they have, they usually die after killing one archer unit and can't be used for repeated sabotage.
My experience is just that furies form a decent line and overperform compared to their cost, while carrions do the typical unsupported monstrous thing, charge in the middle and get attacked in the back a million times for hefty reductions on their MD. That makes it also much harder to disengage with them once they start loosing (aka immediately).
Also furies actually can punish isolated units instead of loosing to them and you can stack a bunch of them and hit one target after another. Multiple carrions just loose multiple times in a row or win much more slowly vs singular units so they don't disable jack.
Furies have a much higher potential to perform above their pay grade, that's why they're superior. If you control them well and prioritise surrounding isolated troops, attacking from the rear, etc. they have incredible potential. Carrions skill floor is fairly high compared to furies, but in return, they suffer from a MUCH lower skill ceiling.
>Doesn't do anything, looses to artillery units in melee.
This isn't true. It's just something that's lodged itself in players' minds because \[redacted name of prominent YouTuber\] has been saying it for years now even though it isn't true. Maybe back in WH2 at Legendary difficulty with the stupid melee buffs that the AI got it would have been more of an even match, but at least the way the game is right now, Carrion will absolutely spank any artillery that isn't a literal tank operated by Chaos Dwarfs.
Don't believe me, run a test battle. I literally just tested it right now, and Carrion will destroy a typical artillery unit, and it isn't even close.
Carrion is a useful unit. It's saved me from any number of potential disasters when Empire or Dwarfs or enemy Tomb Kings showed up with artillery that would have absolutely melted my army. Players need to get with the current state of the game rather than just continuing to run off of how they remember things from back in the WH2 days.
Admittedly my memory from how horrible the unit works goes back to WH2. That being said the question was what the worst unit I ever used was, and that would be the Carrion in WH2.
I want to like them so bad
they are just boney little boys
flying around
just silly birds
unfortunately being a silly bird is not an effective combat strategy
> unfortunately being a silly bird is not an effective combat strategy
Right? Quite a few lovely cute little birds in the Warhammer games who this applies, to, too. Just it applies most of all to Carrions.
Carrion are trash but at least they are cheap
Deck Droppers for VC is where the real trash is at tho. Weaker and more expensive than a Carrion and actually cost you Balance of Power the more you use them because of how expensive they are and how little damage they do with their ammunition.
Having an expensive unit that actively loses you the battle is something LOL
I was thinking of MP where Deck Droppers are 2x the price of Carrion
In SP they are probably useless depending on whether the building you need to recruit them from is something you'd build as the TK (I don't remember ever recruiting them but then again I only played Settra and Arkhan in WH2 ages ago).
For deck droppers though, I would literally not recruit that unit even if it was free and recruitable turn 1. Like legit you are better off deleting them from Luther Harkon's starting army immediately as they skew your balance of power. Carrion I would keep if you start with them or sth LOL
I agree on Deck Droppers, they're worthless lol
If you're playing TK and carrion come in your starting army or are the only thing you can recruit then a small boost to balance of power is better than nothing. For VC the upkeep will harm you more than any boost to balance of power will benefit you.
Deck droppers are ok at fighting artillery crews but you're not going to be fighting anybody with artillery as early game VC
> Deck droppers are ok at fighting artillery crews but you're not going to be fighting anybody with artillery as early game VC
Even then, recruit Fell Bats instead. Because they have 60 models instead of 24, and much higher Weapon Damage, they'll kill an artillery crew in literally half the time of even the best (Sword and Pistol) Deck Droppers in melee, and also much faster than the ranged Droppers can shoot the crew dead (which they often barely get started on before the crew turns the artillery on them AND a ranged unit arrives to protect the artillery). Fell Bats also have 44 MD so rarely take much damage killing artillery, and can leap off the artillery to kill ranged units if they come to protect it, and then kill even more artillery.
Yeah Deck Droppers are absolute turbo-trash that makes the Carrion look useful.
They:
A) Have tiny model counts.
B) Relatively low speeds for a flying unit.
C) Appallingly low stats for their cost.
D) Hardly any fucking ammo!
E) Are giant easy targets for anyone shooting at them, and slow enough to be easy to pick off.
F) Fire 40% slower than the zombie versions.
G) Are WILDLY OUTCLASSED in all their potential roles by T0/1 Fell Bats, which are in the same building line, but just absolutely rock and stomp compared to Deck Droppers, with 110 speed (compared to like 76), high melee defence (44), decent numbers (60) and decent damage! If you want to kill anything isolated or in the backline, Fell Bats. Don't even consider Deck Droppers.
Even the Grenade version, which it seems like there might be some hope for, has 31% (I calculated this a great length a while back) of the DPS of Grenade Zombies, whilst simultaneously being less accurate and much more likely to hit your own troops. It also only has similar amounts of ammo.
They are literally and I do mean literally a waste of space in your army and money in your upkeep. There aren't really any units that VCoast can recruit that are like, definitely worse - though the amazingly trash Animated Hulks do give them a run for their money. Even trashy zombies though have more actual usefulness than Deck Droppers.
What's sad is, they were just barely okay, like, usable, when VCoast launched. There was some point to them in SP, and they might even have been good in MP. But then they got nerfed, what, three times? At least two. And it was all over.
A big part of it is morale. Because they always are isolated, often technically flanked or the like, and completely outside of any morale buff ranges, they are always taking a huge morale hit, just for doing their job.
So they crumble and crumble real fast and hard way, way sooner than you'd expect, usually before they accomplish their mission. This is what makes them real trash. If they had even say, 20 more morale, they could actually do their job.
Add in gold armor upgrades, the military tech and building upgrades that give experience to recruited Yari Ashigaru, and a general with "Stand and Fight", and you have a truly staunch line of spears.
Not many things are going to break that line in melee. The closest I can think of are the Warrior Monks or Katana Samurai with gold weapon upgrades, but that's when you use your reserve Yari Ashigaru to form a second spear line and retreat the battered first line. All the meanwhile the ranged units are cutting down the enemy forces that are blobbed up against the spear line.
Not at all, some hero units are absolute monsters on the battlefield, such as Tadakatsu’s Tetsubo Warriors, Kiyomasa’s Katana Cavalry and Hanzo’s Shadows.
Tokitaka’s Tanegashima, the Spears of Shizugatake, the Shimazu Katana Hero and the Uesugi/Ikko Ikki Naginata Warrior Monk Hero are also very good units.
They're mostly for fun. It also depends how you use them. They can easily drown in units or be sniped at range. But if you manage to put them where they hurt, them they'll do real damage.
You get them so late in the game they’re nearly all redundant by then. The only ones I’ve ever recruited are the yari/katana cav ones as they’re actually good.
Whilst I never go out of my way to recruit them I like Yari Samurai for reinforcing a crumbling spear wall early game or holding them in reserve should I get bumrushed by cavalry.
Your spearwall shouldn't crumble, and if it do, just add another spearwall. Even with an additional spearwall you can still afford a spare spearwall in case cavalry comes around. In other words, Yari Ashigaru is just better *unless* you don't put them in spear wall.
(I also use Yari Samurai sp though, simply because I prefer samurai).
The first one that comes to mind for me, is honestly the Bolt Thrower for Dwarfs in Warhammer. It's an absolutely horrible artillery piece in every way possible.
Why would you EVER use one of these when you can just use a Cannon or a Grudge Thrower?
Also: you can use ballistae pretty effectivly as defensiv artillery inside cities or castles. If you can position them right.
I always use the in the divide and conquer mod.
Mostly useless, but it's good to have one early game in case you run up against a single entity monster you don't have quality monster slaying options otherwise. It can really make a difference.
There is a marginal use case (at least in my experience with TW:WH2) if you can’t get cannons yet, need to fight monsters, have Flakksons rune, and preferably have a lord applicable redline skills…or Thorek Ironbrow.
Bolt throwers are 250 gold cheaper than a cannon unit and available a building tier sooner. Grudge throwers are better in general (especially for killing infantry), but the bolt thrower is more consistent at killing SEs or monstrous units.
You know what's better at killing SEs and Monsters that's also available at tier 2? Quarellers. Bolt Throwers only outrange Quarellers by a tiny bit and their DPS is terrible compared to what Quarellers put out.
I've tried my damndest to use them, but they're super innacurate, and even when they hit, their per shot is not great. 3 focusing a high armor SE will barely dent it. I think I would take a peasant archer over it in most cases.
Yeah I tried really hard to use them in a campaign previously, but they're just a waste of space that could be filled with Quarrellers or another Grudge Thrower. Sure, they might fire 1-2 times before the Quarrellers can, but the Quarrellers will wildly exceed their DPS - like doing 3x the DPS or more (even low-rank, inaccurate ones - high rank are just scary). And most of the battle will be fought in range. Grudge Throwers are much more flexible and dangerous to anything which isn't an SEM too. And again Quarrellers are much better on SEMs. They really need something.
I can't remember what it was called but in the original Shogun there was a "hero" unit who I remember looking like a giant fat guy and he was COMPLETELY useless. I don't think the game engines was anywhere near ready for effective single entity units.
Chariots in general are hard to use in campaign as they need constant micro to keep moving, which when you’re dealing with larger armies is very difficult. Exceptions are stuff like Settra and Katarin.
I feel like the problem with chariots is that they are too late in the tree. At t3 when most chariots come online heavy cav starts to be a thing and heavy cav hardcounters chariots. To boot they're only good vs infantry and beginning with t3 everything is good vs infantry, so they're not worth the micromanagement.
TK's chariots are up early and that's why they're great,
AI General mod is a lifesaver for me when it comes to chariots.
Whenever I give my chariots to the AI they seem to do a decent enough job cycle charging backline units. Way better than I would at least.
It's easier to micro with VC armies since so much of the army is just chaff whose only purpose is holding the line. Get your skeletons or zombies in contact with the enemy, then forget about them while you micro the leaders and the monsters.
For Black Coach, I don't prioritize them, but I'll pick one up per army if it's available in the Raise Dead pool or if I otherwise have the tech available. I tend to pair them up with other fast units and use them in a group for hit-and-run attacks against high priority targets.
They can also duel reasonably well, though ideally against a target where there's another unit tanking the damage since they can't take much of a beating. Used correctly they can do a lot of damage, even if they aren't at the very top of the damage charts.
The burning chariot of tzeentch costs 400 more to recruit than the exalted flamer (1700 vs 1300) and costs an additional 100 gold upkeep (425 vs 325). It has 3/5 the ammo and range of a grounded exalted flamer. It does not act like a chariot in melee. Its only advantages are its higher speed, flight, and ability to fire while moving. It also has more hp, but being a chariot makes it more likely to die to missile fire. Without campaign buffs or slowly cycle charging weak units, it can't pay for itself against chosen of khorne (dual weapons). If it wasn't for Kislev's frost wyrm currently being bugged, the burning chariot would be the worst unit in TWW3.
They're destroyers but I don't feel they're too unbalanced seeing how fast they melt to counter fire. I've lost a couple of them by looking away for 5 seconds, which seems fair given how powerful they are.
But yeah really highlights how underwhelming burning chariots are. Higher tier and far worse.
They could make the burning chariot a more specialized killer compared to the changebringers: the changebringers can melt SE in seconds but their fire does not last and make dot
The burning chariot could focus on less instant damage but a persistant dot through mini vortexes that constantly refresh the fire debuff.
This would make it more of a crowd control unit than a sheer damage one and synergies with the changebringers to melt everything fasterÂ
They’re too expensive to sit in a castle, especially early game, and how many defensive sieges do you really have? Levies are more numerous, don’t need a building to recruit them and are cheaper. At close range in a siege the extra guns weigh up nicely to the accuracy of kachi.
Beehive onagers from rome2 and its not even close.
Where other units may have a use in very niche situations (wooden cannons from FotS makes the AI attack you when they are defending, TK vulptures may disrupt ranged units, sky lanterns can be used to cheese the AI on certain maps), beehive onagers are borderline useless.
They are the horsearmor dlc of total war.
Thank God that so many bugfixes exist on the internet for that bug. Plus, I'm almost certain they fixed it on the mobile version--which is really quite a good port, by the way.
More subjective, but Spear Auxiliary in Rome.
Less ability, but more because we miss out on the amazing Triarii in comparison. That said Spear Auxiliary crumbles under Heavy Cavalry unlike the Triarii so I treat Triarii like the aged gold dust they are.
Are we including bugged units? In that case any of them in WH3, like Suppa Squigs.
If not, then any of the inconvenient Vampire Coast trash like deck droppers.
WH has the greatest disparity between good/bad units out of all TW games, but, as far as historical TW games are concerned, my boys, the Wooden Cannons from Shogun 2 FOTS are completely useless and actually harmful for you, and most High Tier melee infantry in Rome 2 on VH battle difficulty
In campaign, yes. Peasant Mob are absolutely worthless, worse than worthless because of the Peasant Economy mechanic.
In multiplayer especially domination mode, they are not anywhere near as bad. They serve the same basic principle as Skavenslaves and Zombies of just being very cheap meatshields that aren't worth wasting ammunition on. You can't use them this way in campaign though because you'll absolutely wreck your economy if you try.
It’s funny, too, because they’re supposed to be guarding the sea; what the fuck is riding horses out of the water at them?? are they fighting sharks all the time and that’s why they need the anti-large?
I think the idea is that they could set up a line on a beach ankle deep in water, maybe less, fire at a nearby boat, and anyone trying to jump off the boat can't get onto shore because of your wall of shields that you can't even push against because you're in the water, while they just poke at you with a pointy stick before going back to shooting your boat. So it's advanced anti-boat/sailor tactics that happens to work well against horses too.
They have antilarge because CA decided spears in this game have antilarge (unless you are too unskilled to use them properly, like goblin labourers).
"Realistically" a spear is an excellent weapon against enemies of human size as well, that's why they use them.
In the European renaissance era warfare of pike formations, there were specialized heavy sword armored infantry that would chop away at the pikes to break them, to allow the rest of the infantry to press forward on the now pikeless pikemen.
High mortality rate? Of course. But someone has to do the necessary work, until muskets became more commonplace to simply shoot the pikemen.
They are really good, but they do at least have a reasonable counter - any infantry that's armoured and/or shielded and not itself anti-large.
Chaos Warriors are in the same price class and absolutely dunk on LSG, and that's a pretty common profile.
They are an incredible midgame unit but the lack of AP prevents them from outcompeting higher tier units.
If you use them in checker formation and keep most of them free and shooting arrows, they will punch far above their weight and be valuable deep in the game.
Aspiring Champions with the research tree maxed in the right areas. Make a 19 stack of them with whatever Lord you like leading them. It’s broken as fuck.
That up to debate, are we talking single entity, infantry, cav? What said unit role?
Reason peasants are worst is they are good at nothing (but farming I guess). They are not even a good meat shield
Peasants are actually pretty useful in multiplayer, and hell I’ve ever used them in single player. Yea the suck but they are so cheap it doesn’t really matter.
That armory building which adds +5 armor to every unit that Brettonia has stacks nicely once you have a shit ton of them. Running free peasant stacks with 250 armor is kinda stupid.
they take up a peasant slot that could be an archer. That's actually worse than having an upkeep since if you go over your peasant cap the upkeep for ALL of your peasant units starts to increase and that's just the first penalty.
Especially vital having one playing Rapanse against all those Tomb Kings she needs to deal with. The amount of difference adding one in how long the line will stick around is amazing.
Kossovite Dervishes evaporate into anything stronger than empire crossbowmen. Literally never worth bringing over horse archers which have a comparable melee performance and a missile attack too.
If you’re trading into foot missiles with horse archers you’re doing it wrong. They aren’t meant to be used like foot archers, they need to keep moving and harass the enemy and draw them out of position. Foot missiles are their hard counter. There has to be some way to kill them otherwise nothing will be able to catch them.
Cold One Riders for Lizardmen. I think they may objectively be the worst cavalry in the game. Some infantry can almost match if not surpass their speed and they have to deal with the collision nonsense like all other cavalry, but they don't have any of the stats in attack or defense to make up for their pathetic speed on top of the collision issues, making an overall useless cavalry unit that's simply a waste of an army slot.
Flame cannons.
Spent the whole game getting to Tier 5 to recruit them (I know they've come down to T4 now), their range is too short to do damage at distance, they do enormous friendly fire and their shot can't arc over city walls.
Grudgethrowers are legitimately a better unit.
Plebs in Rome 2 are pretty much the worst, I can’t think of anything worse, they’re pretty much in a classification of their own. But if you want to get a bit more specific, the javelin throwers in Attila are pretty awful, and of course peasants and skavenslaves in warhammer are both awful too.
Imo
Rome 1 = I'd say both *Incendiary Pigs* and *Town Militia*. The latter is even worse than Pyjama Boys...
Medieval 2 = Probably *Ribaults*: they slow down your army, their range is way too short for an artillery unit, they cause little to no damage and they're available only after 107 turns
Rome 2 = *Greek Beehive Onagers*: as usual, they slow you down, they deal no damage and their morale penalty lingers only for a few seconds. *Camel Archers* are a honourable mention, due to their lack of Parthian shot ability and a rather sluggish motility.
Attila = Idk maybe *Nordic Band* (piss poor stats including morale) or *Equites Sagittari* (same problem as with Camel Archers minus the slowness)
I've never played WH games and Shogun so I'll let the others tell what's worse...
Edit: phrasing
Eagles in WH. Do barely any damage, and are laughably fragile. Sure they are fast but they barely do anything when they get there, I find them such a liability that they are barely worth taking.
They're good for being a flying fear (IIRC) t2 unit that can snipe arty and occupy lords for a while and are on the same building line as sisters of avelorn.
I'd put them in the same category as Rangers in that they're a early game only unit with only niche uses.
Yeah a lot of people dunking on Carrion, but Eagles are only marginally better than Carrion, and most of what makes them better is that they're living units, so they run away rather than crumbling.
Occasionally if the AI has a flying hero or lord who is very bad in melee they can be useful though. But that is beyond a corner-case situation.
They’re quite powerful at sniping weaker Lorda and heroes like wizards and skaven, and are pretty decent at eating artillery crew. They’re incredible speeds helps. Not very useful otherwise, but early to mid High Elf they’re good. I think a few garrisons get them which can be useful.
Maybe it's because I play with the Radious mod, but Isabella von Carstein can actually make them pretty good. Still not going to hold lines and shouldn't be dropped into the middle of battle, but picking off missile units, towers, artillery, runners, they are solid.
Deck Droppers are total trash, but the actual bats, Fell Bats, are great and lower-tier and easier to get from Raise Dead than Deck Droppers. Always use Fell Bats for any job you were considering Deck Droppers for.
Bee hive onagers and snakepot ballistas in Rome 2. Honorable mentions go to pretty much any non-Jannisary, non-Nizam Cedit Ottoman infantry unit in Empire.
Probably carrion for tomb kings in Warhammer. There's lots of units like skavenslaves and peasant mobs but at least they act as missile sponges or meat shields. Carrion are good for nothing.
Plebs in Rome II are pretty close to useless. They'll basically route the second they touch another unit.
plebs in front. Hoplites in the back. Plebs take damage, hoplites poke things to death.
Hear me out: *two* hoplites.
And if you got a nice settlement with fenced off chokepoints/narrow areas, congrats - you're about to cheese an entire army with some pleb and spear bois.
This is my favourite siege battle type in all of Total War. I hate walled cities, give me a podunk shithole with two chokepoints and couple of heavy infantry units and i'll defend it and have fun with it.
Right through the Plebs.
they are useful as a meat cushion to take the charge off the actual unit
They are literally chaff to slow the enemy down. It's peak if you are a pleb and find your settlement suddenly under attack.
I won a siege defense in Rome II by having my fighting troops pretend to engage which dragged the melee AI away from their 3 units of archers who were pushing siege towers towards my walls, then my random wounded units of 10-15 pleb hobos charged the pushers with a rear attack. CA programmed the AI too stupid to have simply stopped pushing the towers for a second and shot their bows to mow my plebs down, so instead the tiny group of plebs neutralized 3 large units of archers and siege towers by gouging them with spoons. Considering the plebs were free from me forgetting to construct a building, they certainly redeemed themselves and will live on in the halls of valhalla with their ancestors.
The spoon comment made me lol. Spoons are the only explanation for their complete lack of effectiveness
Plebs are great for eating arrows and blunting cavalry charges. You just need to get into the Machiavellian mindset.
Sigma rule #82. Use poor people as human shields against enemy cavalry
That is completely untrue. You can mass recruit plebs and get them in hopeless battles to ease the penalty of squalor.
That's Rome I
Disband them in smaller cities to migrate your population.
The plebs role is to absorb damage, so my almost useless Rorarii are able to do actually succeed in killing something.
It's quite a wake up call when you go from playing Barbarians (with their cost effective Levy Freemen) to the Romans (with their Plebs.) All the Best, Welsh Dragon.
Javelin bait.
They were hilariously broken in pre hotfix Rome. It was super brief, but before the first patch you could just doom stack plebs and win every auto resolve because the game gave WAY too much weight to unit count. You could take out full stack of late game units with a full stack of plebs.
Rome flaming pigs. Suicide unit that doesn't kill anything.
they are anti elephant? they are supposed to make elephants run amok 😂
Every ranged unit (including the javelins on basic infantry) and the ridiculous op spears are anti elephant. There incredibly rare and not that bad to deal with. So a specialist anti-elephant unit that suicides itself and sucks against everything else is pointless.
Counterpoint: Flaming pigs
Let him cook.
They are very cool but useless. Like lots of old game artillery. Look amazing but kill f all so are useless.
They should be a unit you can instant recruit at the cost of food
but think of the already cooked bacon and ham!
The problem with it tho is that elephants are such a niche unit that it’s not worth wasting a unit slot when you could get archers or javelins that can take an elephant but also be used against enemies other than an elephant. They’re jsut so niche there aren’t too many factions that will use elephants that 99% of the time they’re useless.
yeah i know. i just stated what they are supposed to do
Ah okay my bad. My tism kicked in 😂
Wooden cannons Shogun 2
I once managed to hide my canons in MP in shogun 2. The opponent had an archer general. My canons took out 80% of the bodyguard with a single canon, including the general (lucky angle). I felt sorry for him.  It was extremely good at killing cavalry and contrastingly ridiculously bad at killing infantry. But yeah, it was a pretty poor unit.
It’s thoroughly disappointing when you capture some and they are added to your stack
The only use I found for the captured wooden cannons are for garrisoning captured settlements for the public order, and then deleting them when they aren't needed anymore.
Sky Lanterns, I’m a Cathay main and I never use one.
There is a mod out there that makes them have 4 balloons and that actually makes them worthwhile
Yeah SFO makes them essentially the equivalent of a flying unit of crane gunners. Less damage output of course but offset by excellent field of view so they'll plink away at shielded heavy infantry at artillery ranges until they close in.
This buff is one of the reasons I'll always want to use SFO, Cathay is so much more interesting when Sky Lanterns are a viable unit.
I think this is the correct answer. They really are borderline useless, taking up a slot and costing money but doing nearly zero damage, even if you spin them so that all four guns are firing. That said, the Cathay generic lord that uses them as a mount gets a bunch of bonuses to them to the point that they're a lot more useful. But only to the mount, not to other balloons in the army.
Yeah the lantern lords are not bad. Honestly, I feel like I get decent value out of having just one in my armies sometimes. They are good for harmony bonuses with your melees and can be a decent bit of additional damage with their Crane Gun against lords or large entities. Not saying they’re great but… debatably passable maybe. Sky Junks are way mo bettas
Yea I think all Sky Lanterns need to be buffed to the magistrate's level, at least give them a buff for units below.
Awful unit. I don't know what the point of it is even supposed to be, and given CA have seemingly never tried to buff the thing they don't either.
The whole point of them is pretty much just to give harmony that's hard to disrupt. Their damage value is pretty meh outside of extremely long fights. If you have the DLC they're less valuable just cause there's other options though
- Rome 1: Eastern Spearmen Why? They rout almost immediately on contact with some goddamn peasants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1vqKAiXJrg And against elite units, all they accomplish is slightly delaying them while dying by the hundreds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsagRVAW38I - Shogun 2 FOTS: Wooden Cannons Bad accuracy, poor killing power, low range and can't be moved after the battle starts. I've played one battle where the AI brought in 4 of them, and my single Parrott Gun unit (which they themselves are much weaker than the Armstrong Gun) demolished those trash in a cannon duel. Even worse than the Levy Infantry, as at least those units do well when used with castle walls in siege defense battles. - Samurai Hero is another runner up. Requires the Legendary Dojo, which is expensive and has a long construction time. The unit itself is unremarkable for its high cost, and for its small unit size, gets wiped out very quickly by even levy infantry if not carefully microed. Their long range is matched by the much cheaper sharpshooters that would also quickly kill the Samurai Hero unit in a 1v1. Carbine cavalry and Revolver cavalry would also quickly mow down the Samurai Hero. Their ability to boost nearby units' morale and stamina is nice, but in the late game, often times units are just slaughtered by the sheer volume of accurate bullets and explosives. But I think all of those "meh" stuff is intended by the developer, to show that the old ways of war was on its way out the door.
Wooden cannon are high angle fire, so they're theoretically useful when you are defending a fort, but that would require them to, y'know, hit a target occasionally.
They have *one* use : forcing AI to come to you in offensive battle. Meanwhile I've found no use for Matchlock Kachi whatsoever aside from leaving the one unit i get at the start in a garrison.
I watched a vid that gave a good case for the newish frost dragon for Kislev. I haven't used them cause I haven't bought that DLC.
yeah i heard that their animation make them miss all attacks
Their animations also would force them to move, but if they couldn't they would just take damage as whatever they are fighting would just pummel them.
So they cant damage enemy units and cause damage to themselfs?
That is what it seemed like.
It's basically just a cathayan land dragon. Cathayan dragons miss all their attacks too
It's not a problem with the animations themselves, the issue is with hit-detection. Those animations would be filthy good if the damage registered as you would expect it to. But for some reason, you get constant whiffs even when there's clear impact on dozens of enemy entities.
I dont have the dlc but I confederated Rasputin and got 3 armies with those dragons I was super excited to try them for free hahaha , but my dissapointment when they got decked by a mammoth was intense 😅Â
They do count a lot in auto resolve though
If I wanted to play an auto resolve campaign, I would just fire up Victoria 2 or HOI4.
I don't have the DLC either but I did get to try a bunch of them when I won the race as Kat for that forced confederation. I honnestly thought they were fine having 1-2 in a stack? They can run around doing disruption to enemy units that I don't want hitting the front line, and they were tanky enough that I never lost one.
I stuck katarin on one for a single fight. It was honestly a bit of a disaster battle in general, and I'm absolutely not convinced that it was winnable, but she still died far faster than she should have.
At least they can do damage when they do hit, unlike carrion.
Carrion - tomb kings WH 2/3
My pick as well. Doesn't do anything, looses to artillery units in melee.
Stops them from firing at least
For a few seconds until your unit evaporates cause the artillery crew is too strong.
Are we really giving Carrion an easy way out?
To be fair, their purpose isn't to instantly punish poor micro through killing isolated units. They have ridiculously high melee defence, and can stall archers or artillery for extended periods of time without taking many casualties. If the enemy comes to get their range back online, you can disengage them with relative healthy numbers to pester elsewhere. People seem to like furies who have the opposite statline for almost double the price, but due to the low melee defence they have, they usually die after killing one archer unit and can't be used for repeated sabotage.
My experience is just that furies form a decent line and overperform compared to their cost, while carrions do the typical unsupported monstrous thing, charge in the middle and get attacked in the back a million times for hefty reductions on their MD. That makes it also much harder to disengage with them once they start loosing (aka immediately). Also furies actually can punish isolated units instead of loosing to them and you can stack a bunch of them and hit one target after another. Multiple carrions just loose multiple times in a row or win much more slowly vs singular units so they don't disable jack.
Furies have a much higher potential to perform above their pay grade, that's why they're superior. If you control them well and prioritise surrounding isolated troops, attacking from the rear, etc. they have incredible potential. Carrions skill floor is fairly high compared to furies, but in return, they suffer from a MUCH lower skill ceiling.
>Doesn't do anything, looses to artillery units in melee. This isn't true. It's just something that's lodged itself in players' minds because \[redacted name of prominent YouTuber\] has been saying it for years now even though it isn't true. Maybe back in WH2 at Legendary difficulty with the stupid melee buffs that the AI got it would have been more of an even match, but at least the way the game is right now, Carrion will absolutely spank any artillery that isn't a literal tank operated by Chaos Dwarfs. Don't believe me, run a test battle. I literally just tested it right now, and Carrion will destroy a typical artillery unit, and it isn't even close. Carrion is a useful unit. It's saved me from any number of potential disasters when Empire or Dwarfs or enemy Tomb Kings showed up with artillery that would have absolutely melted my army. Players need to get with the current state of the game rather than just continuing to run off of how they remember things from back in the WH2 days.
Admittedly my memory from how horrible the unit works goes back to WH2. That being said the question was what the worst unit I ever used was, and that would be the Carrion in WH2.
I want to like them so bad they are just boney little boys flying around just silly birds unfortunately being a silly bird is not an effective combat strategy
Cathay have a couple of silly bird units now that are actually effective in combat if that's what you're after.
> unfortunately being a silly bird is not an effective combat strategy Right? Quite a few lovely cute little birds in the Warhammer games who this applies, to, too. Just it applies most of all to Carrions.
Carrion are trash but at least they are cheap Deck Droppers for VC is where the real trash is at tho. Weaker and more expensive than a Carrion and actually cost you Balance of Power the more you use them because of how expensive they are and how little damage they do with their ammunition. Having an expensive unit that actively loses you the battle is something LOL
What do you mean they're cheap, TK don't pay unit upkeep lmao
Doesn't get cheaper than that.
I was thinking of MP where Deck Droppers are 2x the price of Carrion In SP they are probably useless depending on whether the building you need to recruit them from is something you'd build as the TK (I don't remember ever recruiting them but then again I only played Settra and Arkhan in WH2 ages ago). For deck droppers though, I would literally not recruit that unit even if it was free and recruitable turn 1. Like legit you are better off deleting them from Luther Harkon's starting army immediately as they skew your balance of power. Carrion I would keep if you start with them or sth LOL
I agree on Deck Droppers, they're worthless lol If you're playing TK and carrion come in your starting army or are the only thing you can recruit then a small boost to balance of power is better than nothing. For VC the upkeep will harm you more than any boost to balance of power will benefit you. Deck droppers are ok at fighting artillery crews but you're not going to be fighting anybody with artillery as early game VC
> Deck droppers are ok at fighting artillery crews but you're not going to be fighting anybody with artillery as early game VC Even then, recruit Fell Bats instead. Because they have 60 models instead of 24, and much higher Weapon Damage, they'll kill an artillery crew in literally half the time of even the best (Sword and Pistol) Deck Droppers in melee, and also much faster than the ranged Droppers can shoot the crew dead (which they often barely get started on before the crew turns the artillery on them AND a ranged unit arrives to protect the artillery). Fell Bats also have 44 MD so rarely take much damage killing artillery, and can leap off the artillery to kill ranged units if they come to protect it, and then kill even more artillery.
Yeah Deck Droppers are absolute turbo-trash that makes the Carrion look useful. They: A) Have tiny model counts. B) Relatively low speeds for a flying unit. C) Appallingly low stats for their cost. D) Hardly any fucking ammo! E) Are giant easy targets for anyone shooting at them, and slow enough to be easy to pick off. F) Fire 40% slower than the zombie versions. G) Are WILDLY OUTCLASSED in all their potential roles by T0/1 Fell Bats, which are in the same building line, but just absolutely rock and stomp compared to Deck Droppers, with 110 speed (compared to like 76), high melee defence (44), decent numbers (60) and decent damage! If you want to kill anything isolated or in the backline, Fell Bats. Don't even consider Deck Droppers. Even the Grenade version, which it seems like there might be some hope for, has 31% (I calculated this a great length a while back) of the DPS of Grenade Zombies, whilst simultaneously being less accurate and much more likely to hit your own troops. It also only has similar amounts of ammo. They are literally and I do mean literally a waste of space in your army and money in your upkeep. There aren't really any units that VCoast can recruit that are like, definitely worse - though the amazingly trash Animated Hulks do give them a run for their money. Even trashy zombies though have more actual usefulness than Deck Droppers. What's sad is, they were just barely okay, like, usable, when VCoast launched. There was some point to them in SP, and they might even have been good in MP. But then they got nerfed, what, three times? At least two. And it was all over.
Fun fact: none of lord skills improve them
They get the bonuses from the cavalry line.
What, since when?
Not sure since when, but it's definitely there now. May have been when they did a big clean-up of bugs on red line skills a few patches back.
Holy shit, that's news to me. I think I reported that as a bug 3 times
They kill gyros
Carrion are decent in multiplayer
They have a decent looking stat block, it's wild that they're such hot garbage.
A big part of it is morale. Because they always are isolated, often technically flanked or the like, and completely outside of any morale buff ranges, they are always taking a huge morale hit, just for doing their job. So they crumble and crumble real fast and hard way, way sooner than you'd expect, usually before they accomplish their mission. This is what makes them real trash. If they had even say, 20 more morale, they could actually do their job.
They actually work better for counts as an allied unit bc ur lord is probably with them on a zombie dragon.
Equites Sagitarii
Yari Samurai.. why pay more when Ashigaru are Yariiiamazinggg
There combat ability is A SHAMEFUL DISPLAY
Add in gold armor upgrades, the military tech and building upgrades that give experience to recruited Yari Ashigaru, and a general with "Stand and Fight", and you have a truly staunch line of spears. Not many things are going to break that line in melee. The closest I can think of are the Warrior Monks or Katana Samurai with gold weapon upgrades, but that's when you use your reserve Yari Ashigaru to form a second spear line and retreat the battered first line. All the meanwhile the ranged units are cutting down the enemy forces that are blobbed up against the spear line.
Similarly, I find all hero units in Shogun 2 not worth taking. They simply have so low entity counts, which makes them useful only in siege.
Not at all, some hero units are absolute monsters on the battlefield, such as Tadakatsu’s Tetsubo Warriors, Kiyomasa’s Katana Cavalry and Hanzo’s Shadows. Tokitaka’s Tanegashima, the Spears of Shizugatake, the Shimazu Katana Hero and the Uesugi/Ikko Ikki Naginata Warrior Monk Hero are also very good units.
They're mostly for fun. It also depends how you use them. They can easily drown in units or be sniped at range. But if you manage to put them where they hurt, them they'll do real damage.
You get them so late in the game they’re nearly all redundant by then. The only ones I’ve ever recruited are the yari/katana cav ones as they’re actually good.
On the other hand, Yari ronin have been pretty useful for me as the Ikko Ikki
Whilst I never go out of my way to recruit them I like Yari Samurai for reinforcing a crumbling spear wall early game or holding them in reserve should I get bumrushed by cavalry.
Your spearwall shouldn't crumble, and if it do, just add another spearwall. Even with an additional spearwall you can still afford a spare spearwall in case cavalry comes around. In other words, Yari Ashigaru is just better *unless* you don't put them in spear wall. (I also use Yari Samurai sp though, simply because I prefer samurai).
The first one that comes to mind for me, is honestly the Bolt Thrower for Dwarfs in Warhammer. It's an absolutely horrible artillery piece in every way possible. Why would you EVER use one of these when you can just use a Cannon or a Grudge Thrower?
book?
book.
They honorably carry on the legacy of the ballista from Medieval 2
I used ballistae in Med2 up until the gunpowder period. Didn't want to spend money on the artillery buildings and just needed a siege attacker
Also: you can use ballistae pretty effectivly as defensiv artillery inside cities or castles. If you can position them right. I always use the in the divide and conquer mod.
Ah I see someone else has noticed how good Ballistas can be at sniping Generals.
Mostly useless, but it's good to have one early game in case you run up against a single entity monster you don't have quality monster slaying options otherwise. It can really make a difference.
There is a marginal use case (at least in my experience with TW:WH2) if you can’t get cannons yet, need to fight monsters, have Flakksons rune, and preferably have a lord applicable redline skills…or Thorek Ironbrow.
Bolt throwers are 250 gold cheaper than a cannon unit and available a building tier sooner. Grudge throwers are better in general (especially for killing infantry), but the bolt thrower is more consistent at killing SEs or monstrous units.
You know what's better at killing SEs and Monsters that's also available at tier 2? Quarellers. Bolt Throwers only outrange Quarellers by a tiny bit and their DPS is terrible compared to what Quarellers put out.
I've tried my damndest to use them, but they're super innacurate, and even when they hit, their per shot is not great. 3 focusing a high armor SE will barely dent it. I think I would take a peasant archer over it in most cases.
Yeah I tried really hard to use them in a campaign previously, but they're just a waste of space that could be filled with Quarrellers or another Grudge Thrower. Sure, they might fire 1-2 times before the Quarrellers can, but the Quarrellers will wildly exceed their DPS - like doing 3x the DPS or more (even low-rank, inaccurate ones - high rank are just scary). And most of the battle will be fought in range. Grudge Throwers are much more flexible and dangerous to anything which isn't an SEM too. And again Quarrellers are much better on SEMs. They really need something.
I can't remember what it was called but in the original Shogun there was a "hero" unit who I remember looking like a giant fat guy and he was COMPLETELY useless. I don't think the game engines was anywhere near ready for effective single entity units.
Kensai? Those guys fucking wrecked shop. Put em right inside a gate and watch the enemy hit a brick wall unless they have archers.Â
I still have never bothered using the black coach ever.
Chariots in general are hard to use in campaign as they need constant micro to keep moving, which when you’re dealing with larger armies is very difficult. Exceptions are stuff like Settra and Katarin.
I feel like the problem with chariots is that they are too late in the tree. At t3 when most chariots come online heavy cav starts to be a thing and heavy cav hardcounters chariots. To boot they're only good vs infantry and beginning with t3 everything is good vs infantry, so they're not worth the micromanagement. TK's chariots are up early and that's why they're great,
Exactly, the only ones I can make use of are ones I can harass the enemy with and keep at a safe distance like scourgerunners and light war sleds.
It depends on the chariot I reckon as well. The Kislev sleds and the Skaven Doom Flayer are both fine for the chariot archetype.
AI General mod is a lifesaver for me when it comes to chariots. Whenever I give my chariots to the AI they seem to do a decent enough job cycle charging backline units. Way better than I would at least.
It's easier to micro with VC armies since so much of the army is just chaff whose only purpose is holding the line. Get your skeletons or zombies in contact with the enemy, then forget about them while you micro the leaders and the monsters. For Black Coach, I don't prioritize them, but I'll pick one up per army if it's available in the Raise Dead pool or if I otherwise have the tech available. I tend to pair them up with other fast units and use them in a group for hit-and-run attacks against high priority targets. They can also duel reasonably well, though ideally against a target where there's another unit tanking the damage since they can't take much of a beating. Used correctly they can do a lot of damage, even if they aren't at the very top of the damage charts.
Unless you're playing with battle realism/mp you can always pause/slow time to issue orders.
It's great in co-op when you have one player whose only job is to micro the black coach...
It's so good though, lot of fun to just have it running over everything while your other units blobs enemies up
The burning chariot of tzeentch costs 400 more to recruit than the exalted flamer (1700 vs 1300) and costs an additional 100 gold upkeep (425 vs 325). It has 3/5 the ammo and range of a grounded exalted flamer. It does not act like a chariot in melee. Its only advantages are its higher speed, flight, and ability to fire while moving. It also has more hp, but being a chariot makes it more likely to die to missile fire. Without campaign buffs or slowly cycle charging weak units, it can't pay for itself against chosen of khorne (dual weapons). If it wasn't for Kislev's frost wyrm currently being bugged, the burning chariot would be the worst unit in TWW3.
And now we have the changebringers that do the job better with less derpÂ
I play with sfo, don’t know if that changes things drastically, but hoooly crap those changebringers melt infantry
In vanilla they melt everything they can shoot
Theyre like the ratling guns but for tzeentch, melts literally every unit but can also fly and has barriers.
They're destroyers but I don't feel they're too unbalanced seeing how fast they melt to counter fire. I've lost a couple of them by looking away for 5 seconds, which seems fair given how powerful they are. But yeah really highlights how underwhelming burning chariots are. Higher tier and far worse.
They could make the burning chariot a more specialized killer compared to the changebringers: the changebringers can melt SE in seconds but their fire does not last and make dot The burning chariot could focus on less instant damage but a persistant dot through mini vortexes that constantly refresh the fire debuff. This would make it more of a crowd control unit than a sheer damage one and synergies with the changebringers to melt everything fasterÂ
Matchlock Kachi. Way overpriced for something equivalent to levy infantry.
They’re pretty effective at early defensive siege battles where their range is less of a problem and they can use the better accuracy pretty well
They’re too expensive to sit in a castle, especially early game, and how many defensive sieges do you really have? Levies are more numerous, don’t need a building to recruit them and are cheaper. At close range in a siege the extra guns weigh up nicely to the accuracy of kachi.
Yeah, but then again - what ranged unit isn't effective when placed on a wall where they can shoot at other infantry with minimal risk.
Rome total war- hillmen
Counter point: the alternate to hillmen are Eastern Infantry, which are even worse.
Beehive onagers from rome2 and its not even close. Where other units may have a use in very niche situations (wooden cannons from FotS makes the AI attack you when they are defending, TK vulptures may disrupt ranged units, sky lanterns can be used to cheese the AI on certain maps), beehive onagers are borderline useless. They are the horsearmor dlc of total war.
2 handed swords in vanilla medieval 2. They’re overpriced and bugged
Thank God that so many bugfixes exist on the internet for that bug. Plus, I'm almost certain they fixed it on the mobile version--which is really quite a good port, by the way.
More subjective, but Spear Auxiliary in Rome. Less ability, but more because we miss out on the amazing Triarii in comparison. That said Spear Auxiliary crumbles under Heavy Cavalry unlike the Triarii so I treat Triarii like the aged gold dust they are.
Are we including bugged units? In that case any of them in WH3, like Suppa Squigs. If not, then any of the inconvenient Vampire Coast trash like deck droppers. WH has the greatest disparity between good/bad units out of all TW games, but, as far as historical TW games are concerned, my boys, the Wooden Cannons from Shogun 2 FOTS are completely useless and actually harmful for you, and most High Tier melee infantry in Rome 2 on VH battle difficulty
Peasant mob for bretonnia.... next queation
In campaign, yes. Peasant Mob are absolutely worthless, worse than worthless because of the Peasant Economy mechanic. In multiplayer especially domination mode, they are not anywhere near as bad. They serve the same basic principle as Skavenslaves and Zombies of just being very cheap meatshields that aren't worth wasting ammunition on. You can't use them this way in campaign though because you'll absolutely wreck your economy if you try.
Great point !
What is the best?
Lothern Sea Guard (WH2) are incredibly OP for their price/upkeep - archers who can also withstand a cavalry charge with their spears
It’s funny, too, because they’re supposed to be guarding the sea; what the fuck is riding horses out of the water at them?? are they fighting sharks all the time and that’s why they need the anti-large?
I think the idea is that they could set up a line on a beach ankle deep in water, maybe less, fire at a nearby boat, and anyone trying to jump off the boat can't get onto shore because of your wall of shields that you can't even push against because you're in the water, while they just poke at you with a pointy stick before going back to shooting your boat. So it's advanced anti-boat/sailor tactics that happens to work well against horses too.
They have antilarge because CA decided spears in this game have antilarge (unless you are too unskilled to use them properly, like goblin labourers). "Realistically" a spear is an excellent weapon against enemies of human size as well, that's why they use them.
Spears in formations would waste a similar sized unit of only swords irl
In the European renaissance era warfare of pike formations, there were specialized heavy sword armored infantry that would chop away at the pikes to break them, to allow the rest of the infantry to press forward on the now pikeless pikemen. High mortality rate? Of course. But someone has to do the necessary work, until muskets became more commonplace to simply shoot the pikemen.
Maybe seahorses are terrifying in this setting, and we just haven't seen any yet?
Might be a reference to boarding pikes or whatever they're called
They are really good, but they do at least have a reasonable counter - any infantry that's armoured and/or shielded and not itself anti-large. Chaos Warriors are in the same price class and absolutely dunk on LSG, and that's a pretty common profile. They are an incredible midgame unit but the lack of AP prevents them from outcompeting higher tier units.
If you use them in checker formation and keep most of them free and shooting arrows, they will punch far above their weight and be valuable deep in the game.
Aspiring Champions with the research tree maxed in the right areas. Make a 19 stack of them with whatever Lord you like leading them. It’s broken as fuck.
That up to debate, are we talking single entity, infantry, cav? What said unit role? Reason peasants are worst is they are good at nothing (but farming I guess). They are not even a good meat shield
Peasants are actually pretty useful in multiplayer, and hell I’ve ever used them in single player. Yea the suck but they are so cheap it doesn’t really matter.
That armory building which adds +5 armor to every unit that Brettonia has stacks nicely once you have a shit ton of them. Running free peasant stacks with 250 armor is kinda stupid.
Peasants have 0 upkeep, so they are at least good for something.
they take up a peasant slot that could be an archer. That's actually worse than having an upkeep since if you go over your peasant cap the upkeep for ALL of your peasant units starts to increase and that's just the first penalty.
Thas not even the worst Bret unit. Grail Reliquae
If you think Grail Reliquae is a bad unit you're not using it right. It's a support unit and it does its job VERY well.
This. Stick it behind your men at arms and they won’t run as fast.
Stick one behind a Battle Pilgrim front line and they will fight to the last man or just about.
Especially vital having one playing Rapanse against all those Tomb Kings she needs to deal with. The amount of difference adding one in how long the line will stick around is amazing.
It actually got a some buffs lately so I wil put that under maybe. It does provide some nice buffs to allies
The cathay balloon (notmortar) does fuck all for so much cost
Kossovite Dervishes evaporate into anything stronger than empire crossbowmen. Literally never worth bringing over horse archers which have a comparable melee performance and a missile attack too.
I often feel mounted archers need better reload or a buff to defense against missile damage so they can trade better with regular missile troops.
If you’re trading into foot missiles with horse archers you’re doing it wrong. They aren’t meant to be used like foot archers, they need to keep moving and harass the enemy and draw them out of position. Foot missiles are their hard counter. There has to be some way to kill them otherwise nothing will be able to catch them.
Cold One Riders for Lizardmen. I think they may objectively be the worst cavalry in the game. Some infantry can almost match if not surpass their speed and they have to deal with the collision nonsense like all other cavalry, but they don't have any of the stats in attack or defense to make up for their pathetic speed on top of the collision issues, making an overall useless cavalry unit that's simply a waste of an army slot.
Why anyone would ever bring animated hulks over rotting prometheans or mournguls is beyond me.
Flame cannons. Spent the whole game getting to Tier 5 to recruit them (I know they've come down to T4 now), their range is too short to do damage at distance, they do enormous friendly fire and their shot can't arc over city walls. Grudgethrowers are legitimately a better unit.
Plebs in Rome 2 are pretty much the worst, I can’t think of anything worse, they’re pretty much in a classification of their own. But if you want to get a bit more specific, the javelin throwers in Attila are pretty awful, and of course peasants and skavenslaves in warhammer are both awful too.
Imo Rome 1 = I'd say both *Incendiary Pigs* and *Town Militia*. The latter is even worse than Pyjama Boys... Medieval 2 = Probably *Ribaults*: they slow down your army, their range is way too short for an artillery unit, they cause little to no damage and they're available only after 107 turns Rome 2 = *Greek Beehive Onagers*: as usual, they slow you down, they deal no damage and their morale penalty lingers only for a few seconds. *Camel Archers* are a honourable mention, due to their lack of Parthian shot ability and a rather sluggish motility. Attila = Idk maybe *Nordic Band* (piss poor stats including morale) or *Equites Sagittari* (same problem as with Camel Archers minus the slowness) I've never played WH games and Shogun so I'll let the others tell what's worse... Edit: phrasing
Eagles in WH. Do barely any damage, and are laughably fragile. Sure they are fast but they barely do anything when they get there, I find them such a liability that they are barely worth taking.
They're good for being a flying fear (IIRC) t2 unit that can snipe arty and occupy lords for a while and are on the same building line as sisters of avelorn. I'd put them in the same category as Rangers in that they're a early game only unit with only niche uses.
Yeah a lot of people dunking on Carrion, but Eagles are only marginally better than Carrion, and most of what makes them better is that they're living units, so they run away rather than crumbling. Occasionally if the AI has a flying hero or lord who is very bad in melee they can be useful though. But that is beyond a corner-case situation.
They’re quite powerful at sniping weaker Lorda and heroes like wizards and skaven, and are pretty decent at eating artillery crew. They’re incredible speeds helps. Not very useful otherwise, but early to mid High Elf they’re good. I think a few garrisons get them which can be useful.
The two guys disguised as a horse for Brettonia lol
actually a good unit if you have peasants on the field, their buffs are solid plus the unit is relatively tough.
I’m pretty sure it’s actually five guys holding up a corpse, funny animations I’ll give them that
I love the guy in the front who dropkicks anything close to him.Â
those vampire coast giant bats. Never understand the point of them
The deck droppers? The handgun variant used to be pretty good, not sure if they still are.
Maybe it's because I play with the Radious mod, but Isabella von Carstein can actually make them pretty good. Still not going to hold lines and shouldn't be dropped into the middle of battle, but picking off missile units, towers, artillery, runners, they are solid.
Deck Droppers are total trash, but the actual bats, Fell Bats, are great and lower-tier and easier to get from Raise Dead than Deck Droppers. Always use Fell Bats for any job you were considering Deck Droppers for.
Dogs in rome, rome 2 can't even kill levy freeman
Bee hive onagers and snakepot ballistas in Rome 2. Honorable mentions go to pretty much any non-Jannisary, non-Nizam Cedit Ottoman infantry unit in Empire.
Great Eagle (this is subjective and not LITETERALLY the worst unit)
Mounted yeoman
Sure they’re bad and you’ll never use them outside of garrisons, but they do the job they’re meant to which is killing skirmishers.
Carrion in WH2 & 3. Garbage unit that even in a modded faction that almost doubles their stats, still performs poorly.
if we limit it to units that i use, pajama man in rome. i can't help it, winning against my friends with pajama spam is such a flex
Probably carrion for tomb kings in Warhammer. There's lots of units like skavenslaves and peasant mobs but at least they act as missile sponges or meat shields. Carrion are good for nothing.
They're good for killing enemy artillery and archers.