are longmas kinda weak?

[Woldy]

They just seem to struggle or at least take a lot of damage even against basic infantry. And dont get me started if they come into contact with anything that has the slighest bit of anti-large. Even empire spearmen is putting the hurt on them.

[Central]

Originally posted by Rianne:

Oh, don't get me wrong. Longmaw for their price underperform. But to me they're meh vs infantry in general.
They work best in safeguarding your own backline, by swooping in after targets that dive your backline.

With large targets, I didn't mean Single entity, I meant large targets, like low armored monstrous infantry like most Ogre's. The surrounding part might have made it sound like I meant big single entity monsters, sorry. :)
I say large targets, because they have around 60 orso attack? Which will be split against 2 infantry models, or 1 single large sized enemies.

Longma have their uses but they are a rather situational unit, protecting the backline is a good way to use them when you dont have other tasks for them, like sniping enemy artillery or something like that.
Longma's are still a cavalry unit, which means that you can also use them for map control and herding enemies into a position which is more beneficial to you.w
just moving them near archers causes them to run away, which means that they are not shooting, you can force enemies to walk into a group of their own men so that your spells can hit more at the same time.

dont get me wrong, i agree with you that they underperform for their price, but you can use them for more than just protecting the back line.

it should be noted that the longma (and cathay cavalry in general) get a bit more freedom if you have the dlc, the jet lion does at least have somewhat reasonable speed, which allows them to enable harmony for cathay's cavalry away from the front lines. they are still not great, even with harmony enabled, but its better than not having harmony.

[Many-Named]

Originally posted by SpeaksTooFast:

Have not used them lately but in my experience Longmas were best used for a quick rear charge or to pick off isolated ranged units and casters. If they get stuck in they can have a really bad time and they pay a lot for their mobility.

With Cathay I find it's best to just try and shoot the manticores as they will often rampage straight into your front line and die.

This. Also the RoR rocks but the vanilla version not so much.