Lothern sea gaurd as main archers in army?

[Slapjack]

My main army tyrion has archers as the primary ranged units. I want his army to be the most elite units. I would either upgrade them to archers(light armour) or i can use the lothern sea guards. Are they better/same/worse than regular archers. It would be nice to have lothern sea gaurds as infantry backup.

[Sai Kyouji]

Pure archers have slightly better range, ammunition and damage than sea guards so you probabbly only need like 3 seaguards to hold the line for 7 archers on the back ratio.
Upgrading archers to light armour is good, sometimes they need to take hits from artillery and other archers.
Do not use unshielded seaguards tho. Those will just die to enemy's archers.

[HobbyCathartic]

I like the Sea Guard, because they're competent in melee. I use them as my frontline troops with regular unarmoured arches behind them. This makes up the bulk of my army.

[Purin]

I personally run 3 to 4 spearmen for meat 5 archers and 4 sea guard shields and 3 artillery rest w.e u want. A mix of both really is good

[VladK02]

guard is okay for campaign, early stages of campaign, but later on you need normal units - like you say, elite. And in multiplayer, if you bring all guard, you will get rekt hard.

Reality is that for ranged, guard is worse then archers. 30 men less, and their def vs large only works from the front arc. Cav usually comes at you from behind or from sides, and monsters dont give two sh-its about sea guard 'defense vs large' - they just plow through.

guard serves 2 roles in a balanced army - and its not shooting. In defensive stack, 3 guard with shields as a first row in center of your army - to prevent frontal cav charges (brettonia), absorb some ranged, and add a bit of arrows into enemy advance. And in offensive stack, you want a guard unit on the flanks to shoot skirmish cav and block flanking charges by shock cav.

Guard is ineffective in taking down monsters or standard melee infantry once the fight begun (in MP - in campaign the AI is stupid, and your units are buffed, so its a bit different, but still).

For balanced army, you want 2 bolt throwers, 4 archers, and 2-3 sea guard, fill rest with elite units. Thats enough to take on 2 enemy stacks, and any defended city (use cheese and parade tyrion in front of enemy towers while arty shoots them, then run him in front of enemy archers till they run out of ammo, then take the city with elite units).

[Logoski]

I generally run 4 spears as frontline, 2 sea guard on either end and 6 archers in the back. The rest are special units like dragons, bolt throwers or eagles. I never use cavalry.

[Sai Kyouji]

Originally posted by mwelch02:

I generally run 4 spears as frontline, 2 sea guard on either end and 6 archers in the back. The rest are special units like dragons, bolt throwers or eagles. I never use cavalry.

What :v you still use spearmen after early game?
But they have lower melee stat than sea guard shielded.

[Slapjack]

This is my setup so far.

4 Pheonix guard
4 Swordmasters of Hoeth
6 Archers
2 Silver helms(sheilds)
2 Dragon princes
1 Star dragon

My question is based on this setup, should i trade out the archers for lothern sea guard?

[Rabidnid]

No reason to use sea guard at all in field armies. I have all the upgrades for when my garrisons fight. They are great in garrisons because you don't have to pay upkeep for them.

[Sai Kyouji]

Originally posted by Slapjack:

This is my setup so far.

4 Pheonix guard
4 Swordmasters of Hoeth
6 Archers
2 Silver helms(sheilds)
2 Dragon princes
1 Star dragon

My question is based on this setup, should i trade out the archers for lothern sea guard?

IF you keep that many Phoenix Guards and Swordmasters, sea guards arent needed here. Nope. But I do advise on taking out silver helms when you have already gotten Dragon Princes.
Silver Helms arent really good at anything. ... Elyrian Riders at least are very fast.

[Slapjack]

So, even tho archers are cheap early units, the are still viable late game with no unit to replace them?

[Sai Kyouji]

Originally posted by Slapjack:

So, even tho archers are cheap early units, the are still viable late game with no unit to replace them?

Light amoured archers I guess?

[Slapjack]

Originally posted by Sai Kyouji:

Originally posted by Slapjack:

So, even tho archers are cheap early units, the are still viable late game with no unit to replace them?

Light amoured archers I guess?

normal or light, is there no other unit better for ranged than a archer or archer(light armour)?

[Zebedee]

Originally posted by Slapjack:

So, even tho archers are cheap early units, the are still viable late game with no unit to replace them?

Pretty much for light armoured archers. I usually have 4 of them and 2 LSG in an army. The LSG provide a bit of cover for the flanks if needed. LSG are great replacements for spearmen and replacements for archers in sieges. In battles, I've never thought 'what i need more of is LSG' once the better High Elven infantry becomes available. For your army, I'd be adding an artillery unit or two. Phoenix guard are great but phoenix guard taking down already damaged monsters is better.

[Magni]

Outside of extremely early game or cheap rear-area stacks, I tend to run Sea Guard as my archery line, with the front taken up with the big boys; White Lions, Swordmasters and/or Phoenix Guard. I prefer the Sea Guard over Arhcers because the difference in missiles isn't all that big while having your archers also be a capable melee reserve force is a pretty big game-changer.

Frankly, like 6 Sea Guard and 2 Bolt Throwers is enough to melt most early-game armies once you've grabbed some red-line Lord buffs for them, and going combined arms will work out better in many situations. And later on, HE archery loses a lot of utility due to the lack of AP.

[Zebedee]

Just tangentially, but the AP 'problem' on the campaign is hugely mitigated by the amount of buffs just a single lord travelling the seas will activate.

Don't think I've used a second line in melee since I sent my principes in for Rome 2. Do play on normal battles though so I can see the utility more if the AI has been buffed silly for a straight fight. And in MP. Otherwise, AI is AI and I've dun goofed lots if the wyverns and chaos trolls are taking archer names.