[MaxWilson]

As an example of archers: in one game that I'm playing right now, as Ashdod, I happen to be fighting EA Agartha, EA Ermor, and EA Marverni simultaneously. My heavy troops (Ahimans) are all tied up in expansion parties, but my best location for a second castle also happens to be right on Agartha's border. Agartha's troops are pretty weak, but they can cast some nasty Earth Elementals and such, so I don't want to rely exclusively on cranking up the PD. Since Agartha's troops are shieldless and mine aren't, it's was a pretty simple matter to produce a moderate handful of (2 res) slingers and set them to help the PD. So far that's kept Agartha out of some provinces that they might otherwise have taken.

On the other hand, against Ermor's tower shields missile troops are totally useless.

-Max

P.S. Archers, especially low-precision "archers" like slingers, are sometimes quite good at "accidentally" killing off enemy mages. It's not something you can count on but it can be a nice surprise.