Ancient Legionary Pikemen

[Benjamin37]

So I've been playing on vetran Iron man and (kind of) enjoying it. I don't have problem with too many enemies. I've figured out good tactics against most enemy comps. I just don't have any f*cking clue how to reliably take down a group of Ancient Legionaries, especially with Pikemen.

The Pikemen sit in the back and do uber damage. I flank but never can do enough damage to keep them from crippling guys in one hit. They have no weakness; they are tough, resistant to meele and hard to bring down quickly. And of course if the formation turtles up, I'm done for.

I save scum everytime I play them because of how easily I get wiped. I can fight necrosavants, Fallenheroes, even the Nachreher packs that keep eating themselves. I might lose a high level brother here and there. I deal. But this 1 enemy comp party wipes me unless I get perfect execution and I mean all my 60-70% hitchances have to all hit. My stuns have to always land. Basically I have to get lucky. Any suggestions? Are they OP? Can I get a flippin ballista or something? I'd rather fight Orc Bezerkers.

[red255]

Orc Beserkers are cake, they die to archer fire easy. 3 arrows from a warbow, tops.

So vs the ancient dead. I use hammers probably with a backrow of long ax to break thier shields.

never seen them turtle, they have no range so if you have a pair of archers they'll come to you.

[Benjamin37]

I'm talking about the two-tile attack range pikes. The shield dudes are lame. Break shields, blah blah. Easy peasy. The pikemen they protect will kill all my front line guys in 1 or 2 rounds. Sheildwall won't help, 2-3 focus fire on one guy. Each hit is enough to take 150 armor easily. It's devastating. They can't be brought down by ranged. You have to flank but it's not realiable enough.

IMO they do too much damage and are too accurate. And to clarify again, I'm refering to the Ancient Legionary kitted with Pikes.

[Muscarine]

Greatswords, split directly through backline. Don't waste your time on the shield legionaries they're here to stall you into getting poked to death.

[red255]

yeah that sounds valid. have 2 archers so they won't turtle, and use greatswords and split to hit the back row.

[titanopteryx]

Think heater shields would work?

[Arch]

Tried nets?

[Sathra]

Just took on and beat 15 of these guys. Mostly lvl 8-11 mercs in reinforced mail hauberks (I've seen scale about 3 times total so only got 1).
Got pretty messy, 4 guys got badly hurt, one nearly died.
Tactics were a wide front (so they spread out) and 3 warbrands, a greatsword and greataxe. Then just smash through them as fast as possible. Could probably have done better, but it was a valuable experience.
If you can afford it though, you could have someone expendable pull away from the main group and draw a bunch away.

[Benjamin37]

Originally posted by Sathra:

Just took on and beat 15 of these guys. Mostly lvl 8-11 mercs in reinforced mail hauberks (I've seen scale about 3 times total so only got 1).
Got pretty messy, 4 guys got badly hurt, one nearly died.
Tactics were a wide front (so they spread out) and 3 warbrands, a greatsword and greataxe. Then just smash through them as fast as possible. Could probably have done better, but it was a valuable experience.
If you can afford it though, you could have someone expendable pull away from the main group and draw a bunch away.

Yeah, that seems a bit rough to me for that level of mercs. I just won't fight ancient legionaries any more. Any other type of enemy I don't mind.

[Realm]

The pikes are tough early on, but once you get Heater Shields and decent armour they kind of reach the point where you can half-ignore them (Because you'll be more worried about Honour Guards and Necrosavants).

The real pain is when you have to fight about 15 pikemen with an equal number of honour guards AND shield legionaries, with a little over a half dozen or so necrosavants and a few ancient priests to top it all off.

[Sathra]

I should point out that most of my bros aren't great. They're about mid-30's melee defense with Heater shields. Haven't replaced them due to lack of coin/recruits, and they do fairly good against Orcs.

[Twogun]

how do you save scum if you are playing ironman? or do i want to know?

[Barahur]

The Ancient Honor Guards with the pikes that can sweep 3 people every turn are much, much worse. My biggest issue with the Ancient Dead is how high their melee defense seems to be. On top of their shields with perks, very heavy armour, high melee skill, etc it's a bit much all put together.

[Muscarine]

Originally posted by Barahur:

The Ancient Honor Guards with the pikes that can sweep 3 people every turn are much, much worse. My biggest issue with the Ancient Dead is how high their melee defense seems to be. On top of their shields with perks, very heavy armour, high melee skill, etc it's a bit much all put together.

Yea the problem atm is that not many people have tested all this so feedback is thin.
This is my third 80+ days test playthrough and i only encountered a single Honor Guard once.

[[OO] coldsteel]

I agree with the OP, those guys are really, really tough. I try to flank them with greatsword bros and use split to reach them but the problem is the greatsword guys don't have shields and if two of the pike skellys focus on them, they get messed up in a hurry, even with good armor.

I wouldn't mind seeing them toned down a bit or at least have fewer of them in battles.

[Fyren]

Originally posted by red255:

yeah that sounds valid. have 2 archers so they won't turtle, and use greatswords and split to hit the back row.

Using the greatswords to blow through the enemy lines and face the pikemen head on, or flank? Flanking would be kinda hard though if they reposition.