[thejeff]

Arbalests sound great, but I've never found they work well in practice. They fire once at extreme range and hardly hit anything, then fire again 3 rounds later, by which time your troops have closed and you start taking friendly fire.

Since they do high ap damage, even Ulm's heavily armored troops take damage from friendly fire.

Sappers, or even indy shortbows, work better. Higher rate of fire and even when firing into melee Ulmish armor means your own troops are relatively unaffected.