I do not understand peltasts

[Oedipus's Stepdad]

Are they infantry? Are they ranged units? Are they not supposed to be countered with cavalry? Why the f*ck can they counter cavalry better than spears and deflect ranged attack better than legionnaires???

[MANWHATADONGA]

1. They are range units. 2 Yes but archers and slingers do a better job. 3. Never seen that, they will run away if not they will get slaughtered. are you playing with a mod ? Better then legionaries do not think so.

[Canadian Ninja]

High end peltasts tend to have great melee defence and are heavier than most archers / slingers so they take charges a lot better than them. And they have great shields so with their great missile damage they are excellent ranged units that can transition in to melee after running out of javelins.

[Alf Stewart]

they are ranged, high level range with some melee capablity. very good armor piercing especially if u can get behind enemy. basically what he said ^^ a flexable unit that will beat weak units in melee. but against strong swords wil probably lose.

[David]

The peltast generals of some easterners in mp are very strong

[Oedipus's Stepdad]

How do you counter them?

[Stevcorp]

Peltasts are supposed to hang out behind the front line and fling javelins over your troops' heads. Or you can keep them in reserve to inflict heavy damage on cavalry while they're tied up in melee with something else (horses are much easier to hit then an enemy soldier).

Once they run out of javelins you can send them around the flanks to attack the enemy from behind, or keep them in reserve to plug holes in your front line - but either of those events are a sign you're losing or headed for a pyrrhic victory.

They generally can't hold their own against either infantry or cavalry in a straight fight. More expensive peltists = can last a bit longer before getting their ass kicked. I won't usually shell out for anything beyond mid-tier, because if your peltists are constantly in melee it means you need a better battle plan.

Cavalry are a general counter. One thing to keep in mind though. As mentioned, it's easier to hit a horse with a javelin then an enemy soldier. One on one, a cavalry unit will mow a unit of peltasts into the ground. But if one cavalry takes on multiple peltasts, it will mow one of those units into the ground while the other peltasts fill the cavalry full of spears. Losing one cavalry unit for one peltast unit is clearly not a good trade.

[LSD]

Ranged in Rome 2 is this weird mix of "sort of trying to be accurate" and "lol arcade game".
Every ranged unit sucks shooting units head on, cos shields and armour work like scifi shields that deplete (semi-randomly, too). Peltasts are the best at depleting those magic shields because they do the highest damage, and they're the best at scoring random kills, too. But they can't fire over the heads of allies at all.
They obliterate when used to flank, where shields don't work and only armour is taken into account.

They destroy cavalry because unit movement is dumb and combat relies on stupid animations. Whereas spears have to catch cav and then pick at them with their teeny tiny attack values (which determines chance of a hit), peltasts don't. And as horses have separate health values to their riders, and are a much bigger target than men, they absolutely destroy cavalry.

Let lines clash, run them round back, and fire away. Like in real life, some of them can stand toe to toe with light infantry.

[Asterius]

You can either use your longer range missile units to mow them down,
or send your cavalry to force them into melee, but use another melee unit of yours to finish them. They have some melee capability but when facing true melee unit they will break.