How do you (successfully) play Reavers?

[Janthis]

To start with I was a bit disappointed that they weren't more akin to AoW3's Dreadnoughts instead of these spiky edgelords, but this is about gameplay.

Their great strength seems to be ranged weapons, but with 3 action points to fire, they function like Planetfall's snipers minus the range. Once the enemy reaches you in melee, it's over. Cannons feel weak for some reason. Should I just ignore those and focus on harriers or something?

[mk11]

Use mercenaries to push the enemy back so your firearms can fire. You can also use harriers to immobilise so you can get the shot next turn.

Get guided projectiles so you can stand behind the melee line and still get 90% shots without moving.

Cannon are a bit tricky since their power is to shoot in a line but they can't move to get that line. That means they are only really good in larger battles.

[Aurumworks]

Has someone tried spider mounts and then just spamming overseers and dragoons?

[Blanch Warren]

Originally posted by Aurumworks:

Has someone tried spider mounts and then just spamming overseers and dragoons?

I think you mean the net throwers, since dragoons only come later.

Also, it's well known, at least by one's own playtesting, the official Discord, and Youtube, that Magelocks don't make for mass units. They might be improved if there was a rework, that is, if they were intended to be a suitable T2 archer in the first place, and not a support unit. Because that's basically how they function in combat - they can pack a punch when they actually fire, but it's not something they can do every turn.

The Youtube answer to the question is that, although they are potential early game powerhouses, you are probably relying either on tomes, or you've come across another faction's city that can provide backing for your own units. Because most of their units are squishy. I have a hard time believing that a Subdue strategy would work in the long term.

[Janthis]

Also, it's well known, at least by one's own playtesting, the official Discord, and Youtube, that Magelocks don't make for mass units. They might be improved if there was a rework, that is, if they were intended to be a suitable T2 archer in the first place, and not a support unit. Because that's basically how they function in combat - they can pack a punch when they actually fire, but it's not something they can do every turn.

They should at least lose the range penalty, they are rifles after all.

[The Big Brzezinski]

Originally posted by Aurumworks:

Has someone tried spider mounts and then just spamming overseers and dragoons?

I have. Went heavy nature for cavalry buffs. It wasn't very interesting being that it was a blob doctrine, but it worked okay.

[deathbyhornet]

Play Pokemon and collect all of the units you normally can't make like Lost Wizards by using Devolve or Wand of Polymorph and Subdue, hello Lost Wizards.

[AkumaOuja]

Originally posted by Johnny_B_80:

To start with I was a bit disappointed that they weren't more akin to AoW3's Dreadnoughts instead of these spiky edgelords, but this is about gameplay.

Their great strength seems to be ranged weapons, but with 3 action points to fire, they function like Planetfall's snipers minus the range. Once the enemy reaches you in melee, it's over. Cannons feel weak for some reason. Should I just ignore those and focus on harriers or something?

Ignore harriers and your native support unit, take Prolific swarmers, get Tome of Enchantment, then probably grab some Order tomes for a better support and Beacon of Healing, then antimagic to strip people's buffs, spam mercenaries and magelock blocks all game and build on that. The Merc is basically a T2 unit for the price of a T1, and Magelocks do such absurd damage that they're generally still useful against T5s and Mythics. Tome of Cryomancy and Doomherald aren't bad choices either because they can trigger really hard morale spirals+slow is good for them. Tome of Subjugation gives them a cavalry unit that isn't garbage, etc.

You really only play Reavers for Merc+Magelocks+Cannons since their other mechanic with capturing enemy units is trash outside of occasional problem stalling because it takes too much effort to set up inorder to get random garbage you can't rely on or to tie down a unit you could have killed, when their core playstyle really is all about the uniform, reliable ranks of undifferentiated steel.

Aside from Enchantment being an obvious "This tome is honestly great everyone should grab it" [though IMHO that says more about the nature of other starting tome options, it's not that Enchantment is that great it's that most others only have like 1 or 2 other things you actually want while Enchantment has multiple things for everyone] Revelry is obviously still good for them and starting underground still lets you ignore like 2/3rds of infestations and makes the AI not prioritize you properly even if it also lives underground meaning you can build up so those are good for them like they are 90% of things.

If you really want to use their capture enemies mechanic mechanic grab cryomancy and spider-mounts to make it less painful and spam your support+harriers.

[~ Fabulous ~]

cannon, numbers and be evil

cannon long range and disable retaliation, canon is actually really good, it can disable retaliation from very long range and lower down the time for you to siege, it is really good to be in tandem with infantry, since after cannon shot you can basically gang bang big monster without worry about retaliation.

evil, you need to play aggressively, don't play diplomacy just wreck em, change the city to your people and make em independent, do that enough time to the point where you can just flood the enemy with your troop from a single call of the liege, don't worry about having too many war, for reaver war = cannons, spam those cannon baby!

[Balekai]

Things I personally liked that I found success with and maybe you will too:

- Starting Racial traits: Hardy +8 Hitpoints to make harriers and other units beefier. Defensive Tactics to get +1 Armor, Resist and +10% Evade chance while adjacent to another units, further making units a bit tankier. Keen-Sighted to help make sure things like Magelock don't miss with their one shot. All of the above made the early game a lot easier for me and by mid game really added up with all the materium enchantments.

- Societal Traits: Champion Leader + Silver Tongue + Bannerlords. Experimented a bit with Silver Tongue + Chosen Uniters for less focus on Rally of the Lieges and more focus on high Vassal income (and better unit start rather than just 1 extra scout). Anyways I think i like Bannerlords was better than Uniters regardless. Silver Tongue alone reverses the drawback of not having a whispering stone, allows Free City trading to be free (including Reaver trading options that use precious War Spoils), and gives you cheaper Proclamations (including War Spoil based Reaver ones). Bannerlords allows you to rely on Rally for a lot of quick units, including Reaver Cannons that do not cost War Spoils when Rallied.

- Stack types i used throughout my various playthroughs using this build:

Early game with the above Racial traits I found Overseer with Staves of Mending and Harrier combo worked best especially for my low unit count. I would have to rush to get City upgrade so I could actually produce an overseer or recruit Chaplains until then. My leader started with Staff of Frost loadout for the two freezes that synergize with subdue.

Early to Mid game I used the early game combo in combination with polearm/magelock stacks to "Varying effectiveness." The power and success of my forces came from Draft/Liege spam. Plus anything recruited from Lieges having faithful due to "Covenant of the Faith" Free City spell.

Mid to late game I was just spammed everything I could, including cannons, as I upgraded along the Order/Matrium tome affinities. Beacon of Healing as mentioned came in handy to supplement my rather poor healing in combat. All units of course are super cheap and expendable because of the faithful line of tomes in general.

Late game was mostly stacks of Order/Materium infused Dragoons and hero/observer support. Lots of mortality rate in my stacks vs. the hardest/largest enemy stacks/seals. Only when I started replacing Cannons with Shrines of Smiting did I stop losing units. Something like 2 Shrines of Smithing + 2 Dragoons + Overseer + Support Hero/Leader.

- Tomes if I remember correctly: Faith --> Enchantment --> Beacon --> Construct --> Transmutation --> Sanctuary --> Exaltation --> Teleportation from Astral? (can't remember. I know I liked this for two games during story mission to teleport units to seals. One could easily take something else) --> God Emperor --> Stuff like Supremacy or Severing if the game goes along enough.

[Mentato]

Yeah the same idea occured to me - to try and compensate Reaver's weaknesses with picks like Chosen Uniters. And then the absurdity of it occured to me as well - if you want to play good/diplomatic/vassals, High culture is so much better because you get to vital picks in Order faster making you snowball harder.

[Janthis]

Yeah, playing Reavers pretty much pushes you towards the chaotic evil style of play. The problem is I don't really enjoy the zerg rush, mob the enemy with cheap units style. I was hoping for a more imperialistic, conquer the enemy with technology faction, but this doesn't feel like it.

[Mentato]

Good thing Reaver DLC adds the tomes exactly for what you want to play with Industrial culture.

[Janthis]

Originally posted by Nabbut:

Good thing Reaver DLC adds the tomes exactly for what you want to play with Industrial culture.

You mean the golem tome or whatever it's called? Sure, it's fine if you want to use constructs a lot. I need to do more experimenting with it.

[Mentato]

What are the tomes in AOW 4 empires and ashes?
The Tier 1 tome is Materium and Nature, the Tome of Alchemy. The Tier 2 tome is Materium and Order, the Tome of the Construct. The Tier 3 tome is Materium and Chaos, the Tome of the Dreadnought. The Tier 4 tome is Materium and Shadow, the Tome of Severing.

[Janthis]

Haven't used the tome of alchemy yet, it seemed to be about poisoning your enemies, which isn't really my style of play / what I was going for. Tome of the Construct and Dreanought are ok, I enjoyed the Ironclad though I think it should've been a default Reaver unit. Haven't looked at the Tome of Severing yet. But they do seem to push you towards evil in general.

By the way, if you're gonna give advice you might want to drop the condescending attitude. Just saying.