Best Ulm troops early/mid? ArmorPierce v ArmorNeg

[Boron]

Graeme Dice said:

I've never used them myself, but they probably have a role.

graemes advice is great

my use for ulmish cav is the following :
they and sappers have 2 strat movement as only ulmish units .
mastersmith have 2 strat move too .

since sappers count as 5 units when sieging i buy as ulm only sappers , mastersmith + cavalry .

the sappers shoot more often than the arlabests but don't harm my cav normally .
this way i have strat 2 movement , thnx to the sapper ability can storm every castle and i have a small but powerful force which doesn't need to care much about supply .



against indeps i put the knights on flanking attacks .
against humans the knights are normally on hold + attack while my mastersmith + my sappers do quite nice damage especially the mastersmiths

[Sheap]

My favorite Ulm infantry is also the morningstar+shield, although I use the pikemen extensively also. Pikemen are good for when you are facing enemy cavalry, because they break up cavalry charges fairly well with their long weapons (most knights will make their morale roll vs repel, but not all of them). Against other infantry, having a bunch of pikemen in front will stall the troops while your cavalry or archers kill them. And pikemen remain interesting into the late game against summoned troops without 30/50 morale, as always some of them will fail to attack. This series of small advantages makes them worth having as a part of your army.

The Ulm knights are great, because they have exceptional protection, strat move 2, and very good morale also. Being mounted, they suffer less encumbrance for their enormous armor. Unless your enemy has designed their force to beat you, knights will often take no losses. Finally, knights are effective against many SCs, as the standard banelord+wraithsword without a heroic ability will have trouble with a bunch of knights and sappers.

Of course, vs. heavy magic Users, you don't fare so well, but them's the breaks... Watch out for lightning and fire damage especially, and things like Drain Life. Ulms have extra HPs compared to normal humans, but compared to what else is out there, they don't have that many.

[archaeolept]

yes I definitely buy armies such as you put forth boron. those black knights hold a lot of conventional punch. smiths for magma/blade. small force of sappers to pepper the opponent and provide a frightening degree of siegery.

however, I don't ever start w/ knights because of the outrageous resource costs for hvy Cav in this game, and I don't go production, or little. After a few castles, though, this immediately becomes plausible.

otherwise the guardians to flank ;P and a mixture of BP inf heading straight up. flails are better against lightly armored opponents. Axes against hvy armor w/out shields. Morningstars against hvy armor w/ shields.

[Yossar]

Do flails fatigue twice as fast or not?

[Graeme Dice]

Yossar said:
Do flails fatigue twice as fast or not?

They cause fatigue at the normal rate. Fatigue is acrued on a per turn basis, or twice per turn for quickened units.

[Boron]

archaeolept said:
yes I definitely buy armies such as you put forth boron. those black knights hold a lot of conventional punch. smiths for magma/blade. small force of sappers to pepper the opponent and provide a frightening degree of siegery.

however, I don't ever start w/ knights because of the outrageous resource costs for hvy Cav in this game, and I don't go production, or little. After a few castles, though, this immediately becomes plausible.

otherwise the guardians to flank ;P and a mixture of BP inf heading straight up. flails are better against lightly armored opponents. Axes against hvy armor w/out shields. Morningstars against hvy armor w/ shields.

hm it is 2 black steel plate infanteries or 1 knight resourcewise .
or 3 normal ulm infanteries vs 1 knight resourcewise .

the problem is the light ulmish infantry you get probably more losses due to your arlabests then to enemy fire then.
the heavy ulmish infantry though has so high encumberance and is so slow that when it goes to battle a few round it is so fatigued that it almost doesn't hit an opponent after the first few rounds .
morale is quite low too .

so spearmen are already quite evil for ulmish infantry because of repel .


against marignon / arco or man e.g. ulmish infantry should suck bigtime .

many indies are infantry with spear too .

so at high indep settings in my practice games with ulm for me really the sapper + knights only combo worked better than e.g. arlabests + ulmish infantry .

it will take for the ulmish infantry about 2-4 turns to meet the opponent .
so 6-12 fatigue .
then each combat round for the heavy ulmish infantry +8-10 fatigue , for the light ulmish infantry 6-8 fatigue .
at 20 -1 att , at 40 -2 etc.

all ulmish inf have 10 base attack .
so soon they fight with 9 or 8 attack .

this makes it almost impossible for them to hit highdef troops like vans .

[PvK]

No, fatigue only comes when units do close combat attacks, or cast spells. Marching doesn't cause fatigue. Still, the heavy plate does cause fatigue that can make the chainmail Ulmish infantry better in some situations than the plate infantry. Also because you get more of them.

They're all tough, so when you need more numbers, like at the beginning, I tend to go for the fastest builds: Maul/Axe Chainmail troops, with some shield/mail troops to block arrows.

PvK

[Boron]

PvK said:
No, fatigue only comes when units do close combat attacks, or cast spells. Marching doesn't cause fatigue. Still, the heavy plate does cause fatigue that can make the chainmail Ulmish infantry better in some situations than the plate infantry. Also because you get more of them.

They're all tough, so when you need more numbers, like at the beginning, I tend to go for the fastest builds: Maul/Axe Chainmail troops, with some shield/mail troops to block arrows.

PvK

whats base encumberance then ?
there is base encumberance , lowest value
melee encumberance , midvalue .
and spell casting encumberance , highest value .

so do you get the base encumberance then by missile weapons like bows ?

[PvK]

No. Base encumbrance is the encumbrance of the unit when it is nude. Encumbrance values of equipment are added to this to get effective encumbrance.

PvK

[Arralen]

.. and twice the equipment encumbrance is added to get the effective spellcasting encumbrance.

So wearing heavy armor is a no-no for a spellcaster, usually.