Light Infantry... what the ****

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Nephelim:
]No, light infantry is supposed to suck. It's the peasants that you hand a pitchfork to.

No, it's not. Light and skirmish infantry are not the same as peasent levy. Not even close.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Taqwus:
They might live a bit longer with something like Marble Warriors, Fog Warriors or Antimagic. With those spells and anything else that boosts all friendlies on the battlefield, the more the merrier.

This is true. Those things however work better on heavier infantry, and still don't give one a reason to use LI.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Firebreath:
As Taqwus mentioned, the moment that you can make the fight drag on, and on, and on (using spells or simply 20-1 numbers - light infantry (low encumberance) becomes an advantage rather than a waste of space...I would hate to think what a large group of flaggelants blessed with fire 9, and an air shield, and an ironskin could do to any heavy infantry or cavalry...especialy if you combine that with the surround bonus, enemy encumberance, and any defence lowering spells like web or tangle vines, etc.

It's difficult to make a fight drag on for so long, especially since by the these higher end spells are available HI tends to be outclassed, and LI even more so.

Plus, Relief is also available.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Peter Ebbesen:
Two words, two awesome words that really show the potential of a mass surround strategy:

MASS FLIGHT

That high-level spell was designed for the horde-mentality player, I swear Every single enemy unit that can be surrounded will be surrounded each round, so long as you have enough troops.

By the time you have Mass Flight you can expect to see Storm. Plus, when this tactic works it works better on heavier units, not lighter or missile units.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Spacepain:
Light infantry serve the core and bulk of a persons army.

Their primary purpose is to die so that other more expensive units don't die. And in turn can focus on hitting while not being hit back.

Also, secondary, they serve to finish games where encumberane would force most other units to stop fighting.

The core of someone's army? Curious, is this your multiplayer experience?

The crux of the LI problem is that they cost almost as much as good HI, and die much faster, which makes using them as a shield pointless.

The effect of encumberance in a LI vs HI fight is minor, as typically by the time a give HI is tired, it's already killed several LI.

[Wendigo]

I use always a good amount of LI huskarls when playing Vanheim & Utgard Jotun.

With Vanheim I use them both for early expansion, and as a quick response force once the game advances thanks to their strategic move of 2: huskarls & mages can quickly be re-located, while the slower HI follow up at a slower pace.
Default Vanheim can also easily pull many trooper buffs that allow the humble huskarls to stand up on equal terms vs much heavier troops.

Same issue with Utgard-Jotun: the huskarls help compensate for the giant infantry troop density issues (one extra body+ one extra attack per square), and unlike HI they can keep up with the giant's movement rate.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Thilock_Dominus:
I would not say light Infantry sux. Ex. C'tis light Infantry armed with spear, javalin and shield can be quiet useful. An unit with 30 or more with light infantry can block off a heavy cavalry when its charging.
The light infantry can take out the heavy infantry if it gets its chance to hurling the javalins, the same goes against archers.
That's my experience with C'tis light infantry plus they are cheap

Javelins are quite nice, if you can manage to micromanage them so that your Javeliners can repeatedly target opposing HI while a small band of your HI pins opposing HI and distracts archers.

This strategy is very easy to disrupt however, and only really works against independents. Still, this alone saves Pangaea from completely sucking.