Do archers on Overwatch stance ever fire?

[Dunadd]

Archers on overwatch stance with a clear view of the enemy as they move don't seem to be firing at all. Is there only a percentage chance they'll fire or does Overwatch stance not work or mean something different? Or do you just not get old if they've fired on overwatch but missed?

[Dunadd]

Is there any point having archers at all? Skaven just massacred both mine and neither hit with a single shot

[melkathi]

They should fire. For me it works fine

[Dunadd]

maybe it just isn't giving me a message when they miss then, or i missed it when tabbing to google controls

[Paranoia]

Shooters are mainly useful at Rank 5+, when they have supporting Skills and actually hit anything.
As to why you wouldn't notice that Overwatch happens, well, that is very odd indeed. No corners nor obstacles?

[Painless]

Yes I have been hit by an Overwatch Archer.

[Game kNight Plays]

I run with a dedicated archer in my Cult warband and the Globadier as my second shooter - rest is melee as you need melee!

Overwatch should work fine something else must have caused them not to shoot (out of range maybe?)

[Dunadd]

Did eventually manage to hit a few times with aimed shots from the top floor of a building in one mission - still lost heavily overall though. Seems to be very hard at the start - pretty much every mission i'm either outnumbered (by skaven) or the enemy are much better armoured (Possessed, Sisters of Sigmar). Don't know if that's just been due to random chance though

[Petrothian]

you are never out numbered. not possible.

*unless you mean story mission, stay away from those unless you got a good warband going.

[Dunadd]

No it wasn't - i thought i was outnumbered 7 to 5 by skaven, but must have been confusing loot icons with enemy fighter icons on the starategic view or something

[Greybush]

Ok, since you apparently cba with the tutorials or reading the pop-up info...

Shooting:
Each ranged weapon has a range that increases based on quality (from white to purple).
Your base Hit chance is 75% and increased by Ballistic Skill.
Hit chance can increase and decrease based on circumstances. A target in cover means less Hit chance, a stunned target means higher Hit chance, and so on.
Overwatch is triggered when an enemy unit walks within range and sight of the unit in Overwatch stance. Hit chance is same as normal shots
All ranged weapons also have a minimum range (about 5m), so anything that walks into view of an Overwatch stance that is closer than minimum range will not trigger Overwatch.
Units in Overwatch will also not fire straight through a friendly unit, so a friendly unit right in front of the unit in Overwatch will block the shot and Overwatch will not trigger.
Line of sight is determined from the point of view of the unit, not the player.

The AI will never outnumber you, except in Story missions. If you bring 5 units, the AI brings 5 units.
Each mission has a difficulty (Normal, Hard, Brutal, Deadly) that determines the strength of the AI. Higher difficulty means bigger buffs to AI health and damage. The rating differences are neglible. Until you get the hang of things, you should avoid Brutal and Deadly missions.

[uddhava]

And keep in mind that if a unit pops into view while he's having alot of cover, the to hit chance can be very low, esp at low leves when your units BS is still bs.

Open the combat log with L to see if to hit rolls were made.

[Silkdawn]

Theres also situations where Ive had a low range weapon in Overwatch that didnt managed to be close enough for a shot against a charging enemy towards another of my friendly ones.

This might have been due to my own friendly also slightly may have blocked the view, but I stick to the whole charge thing :)

[Sarger]

I do not remember: is it possible to Overwatch with not loaded weapon? If so, could it be the case?

Is there reliable measurements method in game to clearly understand distances like "It is 5 meters from me to that corner"?

[armyofmarkness]

no, can't overwatch with a non-loaded ranged weapon.

in general, ranged options are very weak at low levels, and overwatch triggers when a unit is in range and at least 1/4th visible, which means it'll have fairly low chance to hit in cases of units moving out of cover (particularly at low levels)

[Horagen81]

I just ben in a mission with 5 units of Cult.
My leader and Archer I had put up no a high buildings and sat them on overwatch both unit shot and hit their targetswhich were an Skaven.

Skaven Leader was going for one of my Two-handed guys lucky my own leader took the shot at him and stun hit him with a bow

The other was a Skaven Hero my archer hit the Skavenbut he ran then into an ambush by Mutant and got killed.

So yes overwatch seems to work. Better then ambush for me sometimes as I have seen other just go up to my ambusher and hit him with out triggering it. (merc hero in one instance and Sister hero in another instance.
Nun theif stole my equipment too even when I took her out at won the battle XD)