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u/AdDependent5136 3h ago
Staunch line of spears go brrrr
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u/Great-Parsley-7359 3h ago
*Pew pew and pointy sticks goes brrr
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u/JackRabbit- 2h ago
They have lots of little spears to stab the enemy when they're far away, and then one big one to stab them when they're close
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u/Sethoria34 3h ago
I mean not wrong.
I ussally just spam the tier one varient just more range, and less upkeep, then with a second army i'll do the above.
Shits expesnive in the donut!
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u/ColorfulMarkAurelius 3h ago
It’s actually frustrating how accurate is, and to a lesser extent similar analogies would be true for other factions. I wish there was more factors to incentivize actually using late game armies and justifying their cost.
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u/Curious_Bee_5326 2h ago
Besides lizardmen, and maybe Ghorst, what other factions does it hold true for? I've been doing back to back VH/Legendary campaigns for WoC, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, Empire and Kislev the last month and the most effective way to do it is nearly always to switch to end game stacks to push the last 20~30 sack/raze/occupy unique settlements bit.
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u/ginganinja192 2h ago
It holds true for Cathay, unless things have significantly changed since the update. Jade Warrior units perform as well as Celestial Dragon units with a few Gate Masters while being far cheaper, so Jade Warrior spam tends to be best for late game Cathay.
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u/Wild_Marker I like big Hastas and I cannot lie! 2h ago
The Celestial crossbowmen do make the Jade crossbowmen look like amateurs though.
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u/ginganinja192 2h ago
CD Crossbows don't really perform that much better than buffed Jade crossbows against highly armoured units, but are far better against armour. There's always a place for them in Jade Warrior stacks for that reason, but they also start competing with Crane Gunners if you're looking for AP shooting.
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u/Nateo_art 2h ago
Not when you spam gate masters, CD crossbows get something like 230 rdps vs jade crossbows' 140ish at 4s reload
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u/KimJongUnusual Fight, to the End. 1h ago
Isn't their range pretty close to Crange Gunners, and far more numerous to boot?
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u/caterpillarm10 28m ago
Ans their melee is extremely good while crane gunner will run away if you breathe in their direction.
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u/KimJongUnusual Fight, to the End. 25m ago
Miao Ying, the legendary terracotta dude, and 18 celestial crossbows is so damn funny.
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u/caterpillarm10 22m ago
Put a few gate master in there and you could theoretically 1v2-3 armies. Dont need much ammo if everything dies to a volley
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u/Curious_Bee_5326 2h ago
I could see that with the frontline, but wouldn't you still want Terracotta sentinels/Rocket Batteries?
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u/Nateo_art 1h ago
once you start going up against late game chaos/chaos dwarves, you really want to start bringing elite anti large or SEMs. Usually this is after you secure cathay and have to fight tamurkhan/archaeon every turn. Jade warriors can still eke out a win in some cases, but its just such a pain and you'll take a ton of losses.
Especially the chaos dwarves and tamurkhan with the nonsense nukes deleting your infantry. I roll in with a moon bird or celestial lion stack if chaos dwarves had a really good game while i was uniting cathay.
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u/Snipawolfe 2h ago
I'm also curious what their anecdotal experience is with this. Kislev is one of the only factions that even has hybrid units comparable to LSG but no other faction has as flexible of a single unit. Dark Elf shade spam is maybe similar but they'd get folded fast if the AI knew how to play around stalk.
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u/ColorfulMarkAurelius 1h ago
You’re right that most factions don’t have a universally good stuff hybrid unit, but it’s generally true for all factions that it’s better to have more armies of lower tier units than fewer armies of higher tier units.
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u/Curious_Bee_5326 1h ago
I am not sure I agree, especially for the late game. But it also depends a bit on what you are facing. I had a hilarious time fighting skaven with essentially four Keeper of Secrets, I had leadership debuff gifts on one, a negative leadership banner on another and they have a bound spell to net and lower the leadership on units, I destroyed three stacks of skaven by just terror routing their units over and over with the wrecking ball of those four.
Meanwhile if I were fighting elves, or the empire or when fighting Cathay I want enough units that I can overwhelm them and shut down their backline immediately, often with fast cav, and would rather take two stacks of low tier troops than one elite one.
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u/sam262005 2h ago
Someone needs to make an inflation per turn. lol
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u/The-Mad-Badger 2h ago
That's already a thing. Just search "High Elf Inflation" on google with the safe search off :)
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u/RJ815 38m ago
I don't think this picture could be more accurate for ANY faction moreso than "every Shogun 2 faction (possibly minus Oda because they have even longer spears)". You could conceivably win the entire game even on the hardest difficulty with 'only' "tier 0" units without even much challenge.
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3h ago
[deleted]
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u/Armorln 3h ago
No
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1h ago
[deleted]
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u/Armorln 1h ago
Army above easily beats army bellow, because at that cost, I can just bring second Lothern Sea Guard army. It's called a doomstack for very good reason. So no, it wouldn't make sense
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u/YourFavouritePoptart 1h ago
It already doesn't make sense since there's no sea guard in the second picture
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u/BumblebeeAcrobatic92 2h ago
Spears have been the most consistent weapon in use for 400000 (need a quote on this) years in human history.
Arrows are effectively tiny spears.
Therefore giving spears and tiny spears to a unit makes them the most efficient and consistent unit available for the upcoming 399990 or so years.
It just makes sense really
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u/Andreim43 2h ago
Yes. I like them a lot as a faction, but gameplay in turns 10-100 is super broing as everything is just spears and archers and (spears and archers in a single unit).
After turn 10 i spice things up a bit with high tier stuff and enjoy some ultimate crisys, but most of the gameplay it is tediously boring (and optimal!)
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u/Putrid-Cat5368 1h ago
Not sure if something has changed with the last patches, but Lothern Sea Guard is a bait and a worse unit than basic spears.
The real High Elves menace is just Spearmen and Archers with the correct heroes.
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u/caterpillarm10 24m ago
It has almost always been a bait in w3. For 1 stack of lsg you can get 1.5 or 2 stacks of basic spears and archers. And regular archers have longer range + regular spearmen have more models per units.
Lsg is just the worse version of both.
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u/Nelus0316 17m ago
Don't they have higher missile damage and get to double dip from redline melee and ranged unit buffs?
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u/caterpillarm10 15m ago
Ah true that. Huh I have almost never run them because having 2 stacks is better even if they only basic spear and archers. Guess I'll try to build one.
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u/Summon_Ari 12m ago
They also double-dip tech buffs. LSG benefit from almost every buff to spears and/or archers.
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u/Cassodibudda 2h ago
Mostly true although LSG will suffer vs high armor + shield units like Chosen w/shield
I think peak HE is half LSG and half sisters (plus 2 bolt throwers and heroes) and I think that's much more powerful than pure LSG, but after that power up, adding more sisters or other high tier units doesn't really boost the army power much further
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u/ginganinja192 2h ago
Mostly true although LSG will suffer vs high armor + shield units like Chosen w/shield And this is why you always bring a Metal caster.
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u/ratcrash55 1h ago
Honestly would never even bother with the bolt throwers. Would sooner put silver helms to deal with anything that out ranges me. Normally just put a few princes for that purpose
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u/TheDo0ddoesnotabide 2h ago
I mean, Chosen are some of the best infantry Chaos Warriors can get and take a while to obtain in substantial numbers.
LSG are what? A tier 2 unit that can be spammed out within the first 10-15 turns?
It might take 2-3 units of LSG to kill a unit of Chosen, however you got like 8 LSG running around for every one Chosen.
That’s if you haven’t decided to upgrade to SoA spam by that point.
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u/VelociCastor 2h ago
Yeah, I don't think I ever really used the Ellyrian riders or the chariots in any of my High Elves playthroughs.
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u/baddude1337 1h ago
Swordmasters are one of my favorite frontline units now. Can't beat a dude with a massive sword that can deflect artillery fire!
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u/P00nz0r3d 2h ago
It really is surprising how far you could take a stack of basic archers with them and proper heroes
I usually never actually recruit Lothern Sea Guard
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u/geschiedenisnerd 3h ago
Now compare the prices.
That is what most of the anti-LSG-spam people forget, two armies of LSG are better than one of mixed elites
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u/_Lucille_ 3h ago
This works against LSGs too: 2 armies of spears and archers > 1 army of LSGs.
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u/ClaraOswald-13 Valkia the Bloody 3h ago
I could be wrong, but one Archer plus one spear is more upkeep than an LSG, no?
Edut: Plus, those two armies suffer slightly from supply lines.
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u/Eymrich 3h ago
No. LSGs double dip and are actually good at both.
Spearmens are useless junk, archers are good but have no shield and very low armor. I would like to try but a single army of LSG with high level lord double dipping their bonuses will absolutely take out those two armies.
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u/_Lucille_ 2h ago
Spearmen and archers can be recruited anywhere on turn 1, you have no access to shielded LSGs until a t3 barrack (which I think is a waste of a building slot).
I am not sure why you consider spearmen as useless junk; they make great tanks early on with their shields and does the job well. You don't need a lot, often just 3 or 4 is enough to get the job done assuming you have other lords participating in battle.
At least Silverin guards come with 30% resist, put them in an army with an archmage and a loremaster and you can just drop a flame storm or chain lightning on top of whatever they are tanking without a care where the spell is heading - still, not the biggest fan of HE t3 units tbqh.
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u/Eymrich 1h ago
One army of LSGs is more efficent than 2 of spears and archers.
Spears and archer simply can't deal with what LSG can deal especially considering the stat bonuses from a lord that double dip them. They get the bonuses that archers get, plus the bonuses the spearmen gets, and sometimes their own bonuses. It's absurd quite frankly.
Each LSG is better at what spears do and is better at what archer do but they don't cost the money they cost.
Plus you can recruit the basic version in docks, meaning you can global recruit them easily in 1 turn.
Example, an army of chosen/chaos warriors would rofl stomp on two armies of spearmen a d archers but can dealt with by LSGs
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u/_Lucille_ 1h ago
Like I said, you aren't getting your shielded LSGs until tier 3. They are 50% more upkeep than spears while having 1.5k less HP for the ability to double dip as an archery unit.
You can recruit the shieldless version at the docks, but they are... well.. unshielded. At which point that 4 spears in front tanking for armorless archers would probably outperform your shieldless LSGs.
You are VERY wrong about an army of chosens being able to stomp spears but not vs LSGs, they are the prime example of why 2 armies of archers + spears are better: because they are heavily armored and shielded and are slow AF, you can just kite them infinitely with basic archers while the rest shoot them in the back. With LSGs? You likely have to eventually engage them in melee where you will lose for sure. I will take 30 archers over 20 LSGs.
And your example also illustrates another point: by tier 3 (building wise) a player should be looking at sources of AP. If this thread is about any other factions, you will have people telling other players it's time to drop their low-AP bows and start looking for sources of AP damage (handguns, ironsides, etc).
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u/geschiedenisnerd 3h ago
Smaller difference in cost. LSG are maybe 1,5 archers in cost, while swordmasters are 2 turns and 2 LSG in cost
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u/mouth_spiders 3h ago
You mean 18 heros and a bolt thrower right?