Ranged units

[BrannFox]

I have a hard time seeing ranged units like archers or Faey nobles viable other than essence gathering because a heavy Range Offensive orientated build looks weak compared to heavy melee/magic builds. I don't have enough time playing around with various builds in the game but I am wondering from what I can see are range builds just not a sound strategy in this game? Once the enemy closes the gap on ranged units it's the end.

Even if I have a range heavy wielder are they useless stats because melee units have more damage and survivability?

Your thought please, thank you.

[Dwarfogus]

Ranged units are alright if they have some sort of frontline to delay the collision with the enemies. They are mostly very good for neutral fights too. But I'd say + Range builds are good on something like Banes, other than that full Archery builds are quite weak, because ranged units should be used as support units, not as the main army. Oh, and ranged stacks are very strong in defending sieges!

Anyway, magic builds will always be the strongest

[Ail]

Ranged units are great in defensive battles with elevation and are decent when someone blocks approaching-melee-units for them. If they can attack at double-damage they are great.
But on their own they are fairly easy to counter. If you get right next to them and they have to use puny melee-attack or some magic just to get away, they are just bad.

There's also units that specifically counter ranged by halving damage received. Against those ranged is also quite bad.

Overall I'd say good for defense and maybe mix in a few stacks in an otherwise pure melee-army. But going for ranged primarily doesn't seem the best idea.

[Quillithe]

Yeah don't use pure ranged - but they can force enemy melee to close on you and put them in a rough spot of fighting your melee while getting nailed by high damage ranged or spending turns just walking past melee.

A few well placed earth walls can really help too, or a backwards shove.

[Jack Blaze]

Mix your army

Don't user either pure ranged or pure melee comps since both are just about equally easy to counter on their own

My personal go to most of the time is to try and get to an army that's 5 melee and 4 ranged. It's been doing well enough for me so far

[Naruto0408]

Originally posted by Jack Blaze:

Mix your army

Don't user either pure ranged or pure melee comps since both are just about equally easy to counter on their own

My personal go to most of the time is to try and get to an army that's 5 melee and 4 ranged. It's been doing well enough for me so far

pure melee is more viable if you go for magic tbh, but yeah...

[BrannFox]

Originally posted by Naruto0408:

Originally posted by Jack Blaze:

Mix your army

Don't user either pure ranged or pure melee comps since both are just about equally easy to counter on their own

My personal go to most of the time is to try and get to an army that's 5 melee and 4 ranged. It's been doing well enough for me so far

pure melee is more viable if you go for magic tbh, but yeah...

So this is what I was wondering, if magic builds (from what I have read) are the most powerful, then it seems that melee with high defence farming essence is the way to go?

[Quillithe]

Personally I really like the half ranged units of militia and musketeers.

They can open a fight with a huge damage shot, often doing more than normal ranged - and they are decent melee units if things go wrong.

[Level12Boss]

Range builds are incredibly powerful, especially the Barya faction with Hellroars. A Barya army made up of half Hellroars in full stacks will wipe out an entire opponents army worth like 10K+ XP before they can even move.

Focus on skill and equipment upgrades that will boost your hero Initiative so you get the first shot, and to increase Range for your troops. High ground also gives huge damage bonuses.

For magic, the most important spells are Onslaught and Rapid Fire and these will give your ranged troops an extra attack each round (!). I build Ranged armies around the ability to cast Rapid Fire and/or Onslaught in the first round.

Clouded Vision will let you get into range while limiting the range of opponents.

And spells like Dimensional Door, Repel, and Swap will let you teleport troops around the battlefield. This can move melee opponents away, or move your shooters into range to take out the enemy before they take you out.

For support troops, Veteran Pikeneers have an awesome two-tile short ranged defense that can really slow down the advance of enemies. Shadows (Sassanids) have a base of like 45 initiative so they always get to move first, which means you get to cast spells first.

Have fun!

[BrannFox]

Originally posted by Level12Boss:

Range builds are incredibly powerful, especially the Barya faction with Hellroars. A Barya army made up of half Hellroars in full stacks will wipe out an entire opponents army worth like 10K+ XP before they can even move.

Focus on skill and equipment upgrades that will boost your hero Initiative so you get the first shot, and to increase Range for your troops. High ground also gives huge damage bonuses.

For magic, the most important spells are Onslaught and Rapid Fire and these will give your ranged troops an extra attack each round (!). I build Ranged armies around the ability to cast Rapid Fire and/or Onslaught in the first round.

Clouded Vision will let you get into range while limiting the range of opponents.

And spells like Dimensional Door, Repel, and Swap will let you teleport troops around the battlefield. This can move melee opponents away, or move your shooters into range to take out the enemy before they take you out.

For support troops, Veteran Pikeneers have an awesome two-tile short ranged defense that can really slow down the advance of enemies. Shadows (Sassanids) have a base of like 45 initiative so they always get to move first, which means you get to cast spells first.

Have fun!

Ok I see, Barya I haven't played yet and if they are a faction focused on range than it makes sense to play with their strengths. Thank you for the shared knowledge.

[Quillithe]

Barya kinda are and kinda aren't.

They only get two ranged units - musketeers that only shoot every other round but can buff their next shot when upgraded and hit pretty hard.

And hellroars that also shoot slow but do AOE and are top level units.

So you can pretty easily go non ranged, but they get the magic for rapid fire AND benefit a ton because two shots in a round means you get 3-4 rounds of ranged attacks at once basically.

Do that and it can really determine a battle