Poor Jules.

[LeftPaw]

Is it his aftershave? Every enemy unit always takes a B-line straight for Jules squad no matter where he is. I lose him every battle. What is it that the enemy have against Jules?

[Isharis]

Each squad has something called a Threat Rating. This is one of the most easily overlooked but at the same time most vital mechanics.

At the start of each enemy units turn, if it can attack somebody it will. If it has options on who to attack it will attack the unit with the lowest Threat Rating. If it can't attack somebody it seems to head towards the lowest Threat Rating.

This can be used to your advantage. Raising a units Threat Rating can be done by equipping certain artifacts or adding more threatening units. Archers tend to have a lower threat rating and so Jules tends to be targeted more often early on.

A surprisingly effect squad (originally just filler) I made turned out to be 2 Medics and 2 Fighters led by a Soldier. All promoting to Priestess and Soldier respectively. All 3 Soldiers in the front row with the 2 Priestess in the mid rank. It easily had the lowest Threat Rating, but was actually very tanky. The Soldiers have high HP and high Armor and the Guardian trait gives them -25% damage received on defense. With 3 of them the damage is spread pretty well, and they get 2 heals per turn from the Medics and/or Priestess.

All the enemies would constantly go for this unit if possible, so I just positioned it in such a way, each turn, that enemy units that could attack units I didn't want them to attack, had the option to attack this squad, and they reliably attacked it. It also delivered reliable damage capable of weakening a squad without wiping it, well positioned for a follow up Surrender Attack.



I would take a moment, to look at each of your squads via Squad Operations and then just scroll through look at their Threat Ratings. I'm betting Jules is going to have the lowest, and that right there would be the answer to why they are always going straight for him.

I promoted my Jules to a Horsebow and added other Horsebows to his squad. Horsebow is a light cavalry unit, but counts as an Archer for the Archer Captain trait. This will allow his squad to launch a volley fire attack at range 2, or range 3 from certain terrain, and then move a few tiles after the attack. If he does get engaged, Horsebow units have the Hit and Run trait that gives them bonus evasion in open terrain, so they can attack from a hill and then move to an open terrain spot where they have bonus evasion.

I recommend conscripting Lightning Affinity Fighters that have high starting Strength and Skill to become Archers that eventually become Raiders, or Lightning Affinity Bowman, against with high starting Strength and Skill to become Horsebows and eventually become Raiders. Mercenaries that start as Skirmishers or Rogues can also be retrained.

I also recommend giving him a Lightning Affinity scroll if you get one. You won't regret it. Once he promoted to Raider I gave him a Proof of Merit to gild him. His squad is easily my strongest squad has a high Threat Rating now.

[LeftPaw]

I just wish I could hide Jules or keep him safe in some way or I'm never going to be able to level up when he get's wiped out straight away each battle.
Hiding units in forest would have been a good feature.

Or I could use him as bait to lure units into a gauntlet type trap.

[OverkillEngine]

Jules be squish. Like Isharis said, one of the best ways to help Jules out in that regard is to promote him and his squad to Horsebows (I like adding in a Hospitallar both for keeping internal unit losses down during archery exchanges but also for having a fast field medic) as that makes them more beefy and more mobile. Also, learning enemy movement range and how to position a melee screen for your archers is not optional. The AI will punish your mistakes in this regard every single time without fail.

[Steelfleece]

If you manage to get some of the more powerful artifacts, they can actually add a surprising amount to a unit's threat value. Even an archer/warbow squad can wind up seeming intimidating enough that the enemy decide to attack that bunch of guys with shiny armor and pointy sticks over yonder.

[Panthaz89]

ugh just use 1-2 slots for frontal tanks an all archer squad is pretty useless even with walls they can be lit up by other ranged units without someone in front to tank dmg. Later on a single paladin can hold well as a lone frontline for them.

[Marijn]

Originally posted by Panthaz89:

ugh just use 1-2 slots for frontal tanks an all archer squad is pretty useless even with walls they can be lit up by other ranged units without someone in front to tank dmg. Later on a single paladin can hold well as a lone frontline for them.

In my experience a full archer squad struggles a bit in the beginning stages of the game, but slowly starts to have more impact as you advance in the campaign. At the end, enemy squads were just melting when I attacked them with Jules.

Never tried using a tank in an archer tank though, so it might acually work better than what I did.

@OP: you should try to position Jules in such a way he can't be directly attacked by the enemy. Use bottlenecks and/or other friendly squads to block. If in a certain turn he can't attack without exposing himself, then it's fine to not attack with him.

[Detective Costeau]

Yeah. You can even manipulate this mechanic a bit in missions with a high enough unit cap to bring 1-2 throwaway bait units. The enemy will attack the lowest threat target they can find, even if doing so is basically suicidal.
As for archer units? They get much better later in the game, but even so, the only ones I really get a lot of mileage out of are very late game archer units with either Narima or 1-2 samurai in the front line so they don't just melt if an enemy looks in their general direction.

[Isharis]

I have 4 primary archer squads right now:

Jules is a Raider with 6 other Raiders, for a total of 7 Raiders and usually destroys an entire unit with a single volley fire.

I also have a unit of 6 Crossbows that are mostly water/earth units that never had the strength or skill to be any good at any job, and so I made them crossbows, since Crossbow has a high Weapon stat and doesn't use Strength at all.

My other 2 have Paladin's in the front, with a mix of Archers and Warbows (soon to be all Warbows) in the 2nd and 3rd ranks.

If you're really struggling wit Jules, and don't want to Horsebow him, take 2 Acolytes (even if you need to borrow them from Diana) and put them in the front row of Jules squad. They should do a fair job absorbing damage and once they promote to Paladins the squad will have a stout defense.

Acolytes and Paladins have Guardian as a straight that allows them to take -25% damage when defending. Since ranged units mostly volley fire on offense, whenever you actually fight in close combat you'll probably be on the defense, which means they will almost always get that -25% when it matters most. Additionally, once they promote to Paladins, they will be able to substitute 1 attack for 1 heal, including in ranged combat. So when you volley fire with Jules at range 2 or 3, the 2 paladins will each drop a heal on the squad, even if the enemy can't fire back.

I also really do suggest adding artifacts to the unit, as some of the epic ones can be relatively cheap and carry a stout boost to threat. I equipped an everlasting potion to my soldier squad and it boosted them by a couple thousand, enough so that they weren't the lowest threat anymore.

[LeftPaw]

It's not easy to upgrade his unit when he's not scoring any points due to getting whipped out on the first enemy turn. Honestly they ignore all my other units and all head for poor Jules, so if I'm lucky I get one strike in before the end.

[Isharis]

Originally posted by LeftPaw:

It's not easy to upgrade his unit when he's not scoring any points due to getting whipped out on the first enemy turn. Honestly they ignore all my other units and all head for poor Jules, so if I'm lucky I get one strike in before the end.

Have him hang a few tiles back behind the lines. If you click on an enemy unit it will show their movement range in blue, and their attack range in gold (on the edge of the blue.)

Just don't move Jules close enough to even be attacked, and then they will close the distance on their turn, and you can move up and fire.

[LeftPaw]

Originally posted by Isharis:

Originally posted by LeftPaw:

It's not easy to upgrade his unit when he's not scoring any points due to getting whipped out on the first enemy turn. Honestly they ignore all my other units and all head for poor Jules, so if I'm lucky I get one strike in before the end.

Have him hang a few tiles back behind the lines. If you click on an enemy unit it will show their movement range in blue, and their attack range in gold (on the edge of the blue.)

Just don't move Jules close enough to even be attacked, and then they will close the distance on their turn, and you can move up and fire.

I am definitely going to have to plan it. Yes, I can see the enemy's movement range. Thing is I have super powerful units, Jules only has a few bowmen. It must have something to do with his character stats or something.

[Isharis]

Originally posted by LeftPaw:

Originally posted by Isharis:

Have him hang a few tiles back behind the lines. If you click on an enemy unit it will show their movement range in blue, and their attack range in gold (on the edge of the blue.)

Just don't move Jules close enough to even be attacked, and then they will close the distance on their turn, and you can move up and fire.

I am definitely going to have to plan it. Yes, I can see the enemy's movement range. Thing is I have super powerful units, Jules only has a few bowmen. It must have something to do with his character stats or something.

This is why I mentioned looking at Threat Rating right from the beginning. If he only has a few archers, then you need to give him some better units. If its a leadership issue, have him take objectives to get extra leadership. Give him some better artifacts.

In games like this, if you heavily neglect a certain character they can easily fall behind the curve and then it becomes hard to use them. Luckily in SoW its pretty easy to resolve this.

If your units are too powerful and they kill all the enemies in one attack, you can use the force surrender option to attack only 1 round, damaging the unit without destroying it. Then follow it up with Jules taking out the unit to get exp.

Are you just using his stock loadout of him and 2 random bowman?

[LeftPaw]

Originally posted by Isharis:

Originally posted by LeftPaw:

I am definitely going to have to plan it. Yes, I can see the enemy's movement range. Thing is I have super powerful units, Jules only has a few bowmen. It must have something to do with his character stats or something.

This is why I mentioned looking at Threat Rating right from the beginning. If he only has a few archers, then you need to give him some better units. If its a leadership issue, have him take objectives to get extra leadership. Give him some better artifacts.

In games like this, if you heavily neglect a certain character they can easily fall behind the curve and then it becomes hard to use them. Luckily in SoW its pretty easy to resolve this.

If your units are too powerful and they kill all the enemies in one attack, you can use the force surrender option to attack only 1 round, damaging the unit without destroying it. Then follow it up with Jules taking out the unit to get exp.

Are you just using his stock loadout of him and 2 random bowman?

Well, one he has a artefact and two, I can't give him better units because he or his units never gets to level up due to getting bonked early every game.
He has 3 bowmen and a healer.

[FishyFin]

My Jules never seem to have too much problem with being targeted. I run him full bows/crossbow squad. And with enough horse so that his squad can shoot and hide behind my tank. He not likely to be attacked because I position him well beyond enemy range. Against other archer squad, he can take some hit especially in the forest or other defensive terrain. He get the most chance to attack on player phase because of his range. He's my top pick on every chapter and his squad can grow to 9 eventually.

[LeftPaw]

I like Jules, in fact I like most of the characters, I take it personal when one get's popped. :D