

In a siege that doesn't involve a tower, you can siege with massed archers, and then retreat and come back once they run out of ammo, allowing you to pick apart the garrison with minimal losses, provided they don't sally out.Nord Veteran Archers are the top-tier archer unit for the Kingdom of Nords. If you are decent at managing aggro (and dodging projectiles), a group of 20 mid-level archers + you on your horse can savage any field battle against a minor lord, with little actual risk. In vanilla, massed archers are absolutely terrifying, especially if you as a player on horseback, draw the enemy's attention so that they aren't focusing your archers. Similarly, in mods that change horses into something less terminator-like, archers become extremely powerful as a way to blunt a cavalry charge. The archers accounted for a great many of the kills, since the AI infantry and cav were focused on my own infantry, and as such not pointing their shields toward the archers. Using a recent run of the 1257 mod as an example, I used spearmen and other lighter infantry, backed up by a smaller group of heavy infantry, to draw the enemy, with a group of cav as a interdiction force to protect my archers. In mods where heavy cav spam isn't viable, archers can be very useful.

I have never seen the point of using them in field battles, especially against cavalry. Sieges are pretty much the only time I ever use archers. But for field battles they aren't as good, becasue they are in a weird place damage output wise, and don't have the accuracy that the other nation's archers get. Originally posted by DarthNachoz:If you are using them for a siege, than yes nord vet archers are amazing. The Nord archers aren't bad since they tend to be better melee fighters than the others, which could be a boon if you need them to hold the top of the ladder during a siege. I prefer the Rhodoks over the Swadians, mostly from experience fighting them, I find the Rhodoks are tougher than the Swadians. I tend to favor the Vaegir Marksman as an archer unit, the Sarranids aren't bad, but the lower rank units are just so fragile compared to the Vaegir units, that the Vaegir are easier to train up. I think I probably prefer crossbowmen for defending a siege and archers for attacking.Īs far as individual units. On the other hand archers give you spike damage which can be valuable for getting the upper hand early on. Crossbowmen have a slower rate of fire meaning they'll probably keep shooting through more enemy waves.

In the field it's probably the Khergit Veteran Horse Archers (because mobility is a hug boon if you lead them in a circle around the enemy).
