Alith Anar and his Shadow Walkers

[Kushko]

Does anyone else feel underwhelmed by the Shadow Walker unit? They have pretty great melee stats, but with horribly low armor and unit count its pretty much just a gimmick. The same goes for their ranged. They can fire while moving but with low armor penetration and low unit count they just wont be pulling their weight in the ranged department either. I want to love these guys but i just dont see them performing. I wish they had a bit more ranged AP or a higher unit count.

I guess my Alith Anar will be using sisters of Avelorn instead and maybe just a couple units of Shadow Walkers for rear engagements (although even that is rendered pointless every time you attack in an ambush).

Would love to hear your thoughts on this. :)

*edit* I would just like to clarify that this opinion is for their use in single player not multiplayer.

[THEDOSSBOSS]

All HE bows other than sisters are great against light armor, so use them as such. Also, their stalk ability is extremely useful for getting around the enemy. I'd say wait until you get your hands on them before questioning their strength

[Mactalon]

Originally posted by THEDOSSBOSS:

All HE bows other than sisters are great against light armor, so use them as such. Also, their stalk ability is extremely useful for getting around the enemy. I'd say wait until you get your hands on them before questioning their strength

+1, I can see a lot of utility potential for them.

[RED /(Weber)\]

I like them.

[Wyvern]

Shadow warriors and shadow walkers basically have the ranged DPS of WE scouts with the melee stats around shade dual wielding levels(a bit lower really), with shadow walkers having the further disadvantage of low model count, though at least it seems that their DPS got boosted to kinda compensate.

Objectively theyre a suboptimal unit for both MP and SP unless youre trying to focus on theming your army/alith has some monstrous upkeep buffs for them. In SP, cost might not matter, but lack of AP is a serious issue, and kiting is entirely unnecessary if you can just smoosh your enemies with shooting. Given the choice, I see no reason to take them in SP over sisters of averlorn.

In MP it's a similar situation with the HE units being brutally overpriced thanks to their melee stats of dubious use. HE are not really built around kiting, though they can probably pull it off ok with shadow warriors. its worth keeping in mind that the core of WE kite builds is waywatchers and their monstrous 190 range AP shooting, not deepwood scouts, which is basically what shadow warriors are, and deepwood scouts are going to be far cheaper than shadow warriors.

[✪ CMP]

Dont forget Alith will have buffs for Shadow Walkers, I'd say so far they look like a solid unit to use against the DE's, Sisters for heavy armour and you're good.

[DarkFenix]

Seems to me that Alith Anar needs to give his shadow warriors/walkers sizeable buffs, and I'm not talking about silly useless upkeep buffs either. If CA want to encourage different unit comps with different LLs, they need to incentivise it appropriately.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Originally posted by DarkFenix:

silly useless upkeep buffs

upkeep buffs are not silly

with upkeep buffs I can pay 80 gold a turn for a lazer lizard

[StarofTanuki]

someone just say they are op in official forum

[DarkFenix]

Originally posted by aidenpons:

Originally posted by DarkFenix:

silly useless upkeep buffs

upkeep buffs are not silly

with upkeep buffs I can pay 80 gold a turn for a lazer lizard

Which is useful for the first 50-100 turns only, at which point you have enough income to fund anything you like, regardless of upkeep reduction. At which point I'm looking at this silly, worthless buff, wishing I had something that still had an effect.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Originally posted by DarkFenix:

Originally posted by aidenpons:

upkeep buffs are not silly

with upkeep buffs I can pay 80 gold a turn for a lazer lizard

Which is useful for the first 50-100 turns only, at which point you have enough income to fund anything you like, regardless of upkeep reduction. At which point I'm looking at this silly, worthless buff, wishing I had something that still had an effect.

I'd argue it's still valid at Turn 150. If you're rolling in cash at Turn 50 get another army and send it in another direction. If you're rolling in cash at Turn 100 that means you can build all the buildings you like and send another army off in a direction of your choice.

It's only at Turn 150 that you find that getting another army doesn't really help...


Also, making the earlygame so cheap allows you to 'get to lategame quicker;' without those upkeep buffs you would still be poor at Turn 50 because you couldn't afford the building upgrades etc etc etc. Making the earlygame easier makes the lategame come quicker and better (for you).