unit depth and missile units

[Mexican ground karate]

HI i tried to gather information on the net but didnt find anything about this, does the depth/width affect how missile unit take their shot ? meaning if they have better accuracy and can fire properly if they are at max width ? (for handgunners for example)

[elkapp]

No, just affect things like rotation speed, charge resistance and aoe vulnerability.

[Namhaid]

All individuals in ranged units fire regardless of their formation. This actually makes square formations much better unless you are facing heavy artillery, as they can rotate faster and it makes them easier to protect.

[Mexican ground karate]

Originally posted by Namhaid:

All individuals in ranged units fire regardless of their formation. This actually makes square formations much better unless you are facing heavy artillery, as they can rotate faster and it makes them easier to protect.

how does it makes it easier to protect ? for example they owuld be more vurnerable to other missile units no ?

[MASTAXPLODER]

Originally posted by Batou:

Originally posted by Namhaid:

All individuals in ranged units fire regardless of their formation. This actually makes square formations much better unless you are facing heavy artillery, as they can rotate faster and it makes them easier to protect.

how does it makes it easier to protect ? for example they owuld be more vurnerable to other missile units no ?

I think he means if your getting flanked you can rotate the squad quicker.

[wei270]

ok effective fireing angle matters in this game so some time you want to change the weigth of your fireing line to match the side of opening you can fire though so that all ammo is spend with maxime chance of hitting enemies.

also if your line is too deep the time to rotate gunners to fire cuts in to your reload cycle which lowers your damage out put.

and yes the shape of your formation matters depends on what you are getting hit with(spells,cannons, and other missle units) while having a more ranks does stop a charge from going through, which lowers the impact damage of the change(when units change there is a hidden damage mod that is just base on mass and speed and if it doesn't run you over not all of your units is taking that damage) but most of the time if you get charged by mounted units you are ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[Namhaid]

Originally posted by MASTAXPLODER:

Originally posted by Batou:

how does it makes it easier to protect ? for example they owuld be more vurnerable to other missile units no ?

I think he means if your getting flanked you can rotate the squad quicker.

Exactly, the higher maneuverability is it's biggest advantage imo, as it means they can be where they need to be and shoot at what they need to shoot much faster.

They also get a slight advantage in melee, as there will be less of them to be attacked at the same time, so they will last a little bit longer, although it's not going to matter that much.

Combined with a checkboard formation it can give your units a very stong advantage when defending from enemies with lots of fast units that can flank you easily (or if you want to cheese with an almost full ranged stack), but normally I wouldn't bother unless really necessary.

I'm not sure it has any effect on normal ranged attacks, but if it does, it's not much. Of course it has the disadvantage of making you much more vulnerable to artillery or certain spells, so if you are facing a dwarf army with half a dozen pieces of artillery, it's much better to use a wide formation, but overall I think narrower or square formations are far more effective.

[happyscrub]

Square formation makes it harder for friendly units to get thru. You might have some friendly spears nearby wanting to get thru your archers to stop a flank. They can do it MUCH faster if the archers are in a wide formation.

[Andrewbh2003]

another thing to factor is that square formations are not just braindead "always 100%" squares are much tighter than a "spaghetti" formation so for example archers are much more vulnerable to things like AOE or mortars than if they were in a more loose formation

in general squares are indeed better simply cause the extra rotation can come in clutch at times but dont discount more spread out formations when dealing with certain factions

[Mexican ground karate]

very informative answers guys thanks a lot

[yojimbo1111]

From what I can tell, ranged units kill faster if they are mirroring the shape of their target. Squares better against single entity, wide better against wide unit formations.

[lPaladinl]

I think it affects their firing angle (how wide it is), so a wider formation can shoot more to the side than a square formation.

But then a square formation can rotate much better than a wide formation.

Really their formation is more about how they handle getting shot at. Being dense makes it easier for collateral damage from artillery, and I imagine volleys of arrows kill off more archers when they're in square formation.

That said, I guess guns are better against wide formations and suck against squares? Since they can only hit the front row.

[archmag]

This short video combines most of what was said in the thread about unit width and depth (2:30 for ranged units specifically) and shows examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aGRzy_PzJQ

I recommend watching it even though it is for WH, not WH2.