Missile vs Shield

[Endoperez]

Will arrow hurt a shielded man? Probably not.

First, the formula for determining whether or not a missile hits (manual, page 77):

Attacker: DRN + (size points in square), if the bow is non-magical
Defender: DRN +2 + 2xParry - (Fatigue / 20)

Let's assume the worst case: 6 size-points in the square, and the target is unconscious at 100 fatigue.

DRN + 6 vs DRN +2 -5 + 2xParry
or, DRN +6 vs DRN -3 + 2xParry

Shield, Parry 4:
DRN +6 vs DRN -3 + 8
or DRN +6 vs DRN +5, which gives advantage of 1 to the attacker. According to the table on pg 5 of the manual, this is 54% chance of exceeding the defender's value, which in this case means 46% chance of not dealing damage to an unconscious soldier.


Great Hide Shield (Machaka Hoplite), Parry 6:
DRN +6 vs DRN -3 + 12
or DRN +6 vs DRN +9, which gives penalty of -3 to the attacker. 24% chance of hitting, or a 76% chance of a miss. Why, those Hoplites have an Air Shield!

Tower Shields have parry 7. Magical shields have parry values from 7 up to 9 or so. Parry 9 gives deflection:

DRN +6 vs DRN -3 + 18
or DRN +6 vs DRN + 15, -9 penalty to the attacker and 5% chance of success. 95% Air Shield. It stacks with the magical one, too!

Now, if the shield-bearer isn't unconscious, and has just 20-39 fatigue, his chances of avoiding a hit go way up. 74% chance of deflection for Parry 4, 92% chance for Parry 6, 1% chance for Parry 9.

Archers are already used very much, so normal Shields shouldn't be made (much) weaker... but surely the magical ones get too much oomph from the doubling!

[Corwin]

Yes, I have seen these calculations before.

Hovewer you know, I;ve started to suspect recently that maybe there is something wrong with it. I am not sure it works exactly like this in the game.


The reason for it is EA Ermor. All their legionare-type troops have tower shields. (parry 7) Undeads also never tire. So according to these calculations they should be almost invincible to missile fire. (1% chance of missile connecting).


However to my big susrprise , about 30 archers firing into mass of legianaries, killed 2-3 legionarie each turn, and they were doing it consistently for many turns.

This is way higher than one could expect based upon these formulas.


Of course, all I have is anecdotical evidence. But I have seen it hapening several times in several battles.

Perhaps someone could run some quick tests with these undead legonaries and archers. We may very well get surprising results.

[calmon]

I agree with Endoperez, its strange to see a battle where 100 bowman can't hit a single commander with a parry 9 shield.

There should be something like in the melee defense roll: A multiple attack penalty.

I'm fine when a magic shield blocks 99% of a single bow attack. But if 20-30 arrows hits the position in a single combat turn there should be a penality. The defender just can't block everything with his shield.

Maybe the -2 multiple attack penalty (from melee battle) should work fine here. Every attack after the first gives -2 to the defender die roll.

[Meglobob]

Is this really the case? The longbowmen of MA Man are awesome, a 100 longbowmen can easily inflict huge casualtys on any opposition, especially when wind guided/flaming arrows. Upto turn 40 in two Mp's and noone's managed to deal with my longbowmen yet and they have fought dozen's of battles vs MA Ermor, MA Arco, MA Argatha, MA Marignon and MA Machaka.

Judging by actual battles fought and won, not noticed any force standing upto them better than any other, shields or no shields...

[curtadams]

It could be that parried arrows hit the shield rather than the ground. Re Corwin's report, almost all the arrows will get parried but a few percent should manage to pierce shield + armor with good damage rolls. Likewise Meglobob's longbowmen will often pierce armor+shield even when parried.

I was recently playing EA Arcosephale and I'd also say archers do better than a straightup intepretation of the shield rules. Cardaces have parry 4 shields and should be fairly tough to archers but mine were having a lot of trouble.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm playing early age Ermor now, which has loads of tower shields, and I agree, while they do seem to shrug off more arrows than any other nation, I regularly suffer some damage from archers, and possibly more damage from short range attacks like sticks and stones. I suspect there may be another factor at hand. One thing to keep in mind though, is the random element-with 100 arrows each having a base 1% chance to hit, that's 1 arrow hitting, but the random rolls in this game add a whole other element there. I don't know from the above formula whether or not there's randomness involved in calculating whether a striking arrow actually penetrates and hits, but I'd bet on it, and also on range having an effect.

[Endoperez]

HoneyBadger said:
I'm playing early age Ermor now, which has loads of tower shields, and I agree, while they do seem to shrug off more arrows than any other nation, I regularly suffer some damage from archers, and possibly more damage from short range attacks like sticks and stones. I suspect there may be another factor at hand. One thing to keep in mind though, is the random element-with 100 arrows each having a base 1% chance to hit, that's 1 arrow hitting, but the random rolls in this game add a whole other element there. I don't know from the above formula whether or not there's randomness involved in calculating whether a striking arrow actually penetrates and hits, but I'd bet on it, and also on range having an effect.

I used the table that takes the randomness of rolls into account.

I just did the math and didn't test it; it's nice to hear that this isn't as severe as the math would suggest.

[mivayan]

Did a little test with tower shields (parry 7, def -2). It's nowhere near 3% that the formula says, closer to 14% (not very exact test).

Perhaps the correct formula uses (Parry - defence penalty) in stead? That gives 11% to hit a 0-fatigue tower shield unit. A small manual error wouldn't be strange.

[Jack_Trowell]

Or maybe that a shield parry doesn't negate the attack but add to protection, as in melee. It would explain why low armored troops can still get some damage from arrows even whith tower shields.

[Dedas]

According to the manual the arrow/bolt, if parried by the shield, hits the shield. Thus I tend to believe that the shield protection value is used.