Leveraging Magic Bows

[Trumanator]

on the other hand, fire bolas are range=strength, so that can hurt your options.

I think the quickness problem is only w/units, as it seems to work with commanders.

[Jazzepi]

Originally Posted by OmikronWarrior

First, great turn of phrase at the end there.

Second, does the "quickness" casting actually work for you? In my experience (which is limited after early failures), quickness results in an arrow being fired and then the unit merely advancing forward without taking a second shot.

On a more general note, check out Fire Ebola's for some interesting "bow" options. They are single handed, so a high preciscion unit can equip two (and hopefully an eye of aiming) and throw them into the enemy ranks causing some attrition to units on the front.

I dunno, I've heard conflicting reports on this from all angles. TC makes great use of a cheap W9S9 bless, so I generally also throw in a bless which gives the commander natural blessed quickness + quicken self + aim/nature's eyes. You could test it by putting two commanders out, one with no quicken self, and one with quicken self, then see if one fires more often than the other.

Really, though, any commander that can buff his accuracy is going to be highly effective. Quickness isn't necessary. Most people don't buff their thugs with air shield (or give items that do it) so bow of bewolf can be a 5 death gem answer to a 50 gem thug. Even if you suicide your guys into battle, they only have to hit once to render the thug/SC useless.

Jazzepi

[Illuminated One]

Bows of Botulf are good as mentioned, but the vine bow can be, too (edit: and fire bolas).
It has a short range, but that doesn't matter much since the spell has a very short effective range (precision) anyway, so instead of putting a mage into your frontlines and watch him die to a stray arrow you can put that bow on a bane. Additional benefit: thanks to the lower range your thug won't target the decoys the enemy has somewhere but the SC that's mopping up the infantry a few steps away.

[K]

I've had some success with the idea. The key is not to put them not on crap indie commanders, but commanders with high natural precision. Toss in an Eye of Aiming and you can be firing a seriously devastating volley with a Bow of War (gets even better with Flaming Arrows). Bows of War are also a natural source of very good archery for nations that don't do it at all.

The other bows also have situational uses, and in general the "items army" can use the gems better with items that don't run out of ammo. My personal favorite is using four guys with Rods of the Phoenix and boots of Quickening and some basic Reinvig.

[Baalz]

Piercers can be quite effective against the right opponents. Super elites with average hps (dual blessed vans, knights of the chalice, etc.) don't last very long when you can pop 4-5 per turn while they try to chew through your PD. Not that hard to mass, if you've got a spare hammer they're only 3E in CBM. Vision's foe can also be pretty good, though it fires 50% slower making it better against really big guys like Neifels or SCs.

[Makinus]

One other option that i use sometimes is equiping a bow on those cheap/sacred indy mages (shamans, etc.) that have 1N and scripting them to Eagle Eyes and Fire Moster. Its even more effective with nations that have cheap nature mages (LA Pythium, etc.) as you use a secondary castle to keep producing these units and equiping them...

BTW: A commander with Bow of War casting Eagle Eyes can potentially hit 13 targets? or 13 times the same target?

[Trumanator]

Thats actually a superb idea! Plus, you'll usually have a bunch of them anyway as you're trying to bootstrap into E/A/D!

[thejeff]

Originally Posted by Makinus

BTW: A commander with Bow of War casting Eagle Eyes can potentially hit 13 targets? or 13 times the same target?

13 targets. Or, I suppose 13 times the same target if there's only one to aim at.
They appear to be separate attacks. Aimed and resolved separately.

[Lingchih]

I was attacked in a recent game by massed BoW, banefire bow wielding Banes from MA Ermor. The player was using Banes to cart most of his undead hordes around, so he needed quite a few of them, and they don't really have much to do once the battle starts. In a 5-10K unit army, I would usually see 10-12 Banes carrying bows of war or banefire bows. Their effectiveness in those numbers was actually quite good. Just like having a mass of archers along.

Granted, this is an extreme example, and it was very late game, but the tactic worked well. I would occasionally have a unit that could cast arrow fend, or storm, in the battle, but often I did not have one available.

[PyroStock]

What script, without additional forged items, can keep a non-mage commander with a bow from attempting to melee when they run out of ammo? Even if I script "Firex5 + Stay Behind Troops" they still attempt to melee (and don't stay behind troops) when ammo=0. I would rather not add in a "Retreat" to the script either. I thought I found a solution/script awhile back, but I believe I forgot it.