are hand maidens good?

[eduardogr]

i have never feeled like they do to much damage

[Dagy47]

they are quite handy

[Muerte]

Originally posted by Dagy47:

they are quite handy

Ha

[A.Pot]

Depends on how you use them. Mounted on horseback, they can make for great harassers and their Anti Large makes them effective for fighting cavalry and monsters but they lack the Anti Armor / Anti Large of the Nobles.

[Redbaron998]

They can give Hawkish Precision to your archers which is awesome. Dont just throw them into a rumble and forget about them. Use them mounted as a ranged poke unit until you see a window open for charge them in for some anti-large. They make great mage hunters

[Nylan]

As has been said it depends how you use them, but also on their traits, gear and skills. Their ranged damage is bad, so i always build handmaidens for melee. Pick up ones with Incindiery trait and they start off doing almost 700 damage and just get better from there. With their higher level skill i get at least one the buff to nearby lord and heroes branch and set the others up to root enemy units and debuff their ranged resistance. Handmaidens can bring a lot of utility to the battles, just gotta build and gear them.

[mllhild]

Im talking about singleplayer on ultra unit scale, not multiplayer or normal unitscale.

Handmaidens are great for Sisters of Avalorn dooms stacks.
There are three things your archer army needs.
1. a way to stop charging enemies
2. a way to prevent the enemy coming in all at once
3. keep the enemy away from your archers

High elfs have two ways of stopping charging enemies:
- Light Mage with Net of Amitoc
- Handmaiden with the protector skill
- body blocking with handmaiden or noble

So the idea is to get two hand maiden with the root skill, a light mage and then 16 units of sisters with a single eagle bolt thrower for siege attacking.

The handmaiden can ride forward, waste enemy atillery ammunition.
Then you start sniping at the enemy mage.
Pull the enemy cavallery towards your army.
Root them one they get into range of your archers.
Go back with one and distract the enemy ranged units. just ride in and out of range and they will stop to shoot you.
Have the other handmaiden ride up and down in front of your sisters. This keeps the AI confused an it tries to catch your hand maiden, wasting time and getting shot to pieces by the sisters.
Anything that slips by gets rooted by your light mage.

There are some generals that are worth to add in, so that you have only 15 stacks of sisters. The punitive one that gives +10% missile damage to the whole army.

Hawkish precision sounds great, but is pretty useless since you need your Handmaiden to stand in the middle of the archers. Which in turn means you need a front line. So you wont have as many missile units. Which in turn means that the +10% if APmissile damage is worth less.

[Aralous]

a handmaiden in your army makes for a good staunch line of spear

[zefyris]

they can solo dragons. And they either make your lord sturdier or make your missile units better. That's pretty good if you ask me.

[eduardogr]

Originally posted by Dorrin:

As has been said it depends how you use them, but also on their traits, gear and skills. Their ranged damage is bad, so i always build handmaidens for melee. Pick up ones with Incindiery trait and they start off doing almost 700 damage and just get better from there. With their higher level skill i get at least one the buff to nearby lord and heroes branch and set the others up to root enemy units and debuff their ranged resistance. Handmaidens can bring a lot of utility to the battles, just gotta build and gear them.

Does the incendiary trait adds up when puting her in a horse?

[viryu9]

I've barely used them for combat. They were in armies, but mostly for their utility. Replenishment is nice, and their influence/turn and most importantly, faction wide public order bonuses. Additionally having them with a growth trait - Fecund is amazing, they are boosting your entire faction on the campaign. Enterpreneur might also be a nice alternative. Basically, they are great for higher difficulty campaign gameplay.

[JODEGAFUN]

With the right trait they are one of the best non magic heroes you can have. 3 trait are top. One makes them a solo monster (+10MA + 10 MD + 100% wapon str.) two buff whole army 5% Wapon str + 10% charge bonus. Last one gives 5% magic res+ 5% missile res all infantery+ 5MD whole army.
+They can give all archer this 15% ap dmg buff on long range. Ore hold one enemie in place, if you use more than one.
And last but not least, they can have entrepeneur (even it is nerved a bit, still top) too.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by Dagy47:

they are quite handy

Are they "handsy" though? ;)

[Gnarl]

Yeah playing as Allarielle I wanted 2 in each army. They have great traits too. With Allarielle I found them equal to Nobles at least at dealing with anything.

All the High Elf heroes are strong though. Too bad all mages don't get phoenixes or dragons though. The ones that do absolutely outclass mages of other factions.

[Xaphnir]

They synergize extremely well with Sisters of Avelorn. Not only to they have an ability that roots a unit, it also applies fire weakness to that unit, making them take more damage from your Sisters.

[yuzhonglu]

Replenishment.