What do you find to be the worst unit in the default era?

[Crow_T]

I can't remember the campaign, maybe it was IftU or AtS, but I had legions of ghosts and their leveled up versions, they were awesome. I always thought ghosts sucked until I started using them a lot, they are super mobile and level up fast. Bowmen on the other hand I have a hard time keeping them alive long enough to level...

I would probably give the merman hunters a 5-10 ranged attack, because they can't hit the broad side of a barn.

[revansurik]

Dwarvish Guardsman - That's a unit I never recruit. They have some defensive power, but since their attacks are weak, the enemy will never shy away from attacking them, and after two turns being attacked by 3 enemy units at once - even lvl 1 units - the guardsman will be either dead or with very low hp. They're also hard to advance and, on top of everything, they're a bit too expensive to use as cannonfodder.

Dwarvish Ulfserker - Unless you're fighting an army composed exclusively of dark adepts and other kinds of made (but for lvl 3) they're dismayingly useless. Since they have low defence on nearly all kinds of terrain, they can be easily hit; their weak attacks won't inflict much of a damage on the enemy because the Ulf will likely be dead before lowering the enemy's hp satisfactorily, and they're too expensive to recruit at large. Also, even if they, by miracle, live long enough to advance, it'll remain stuck as lvl 2.

Walking Corpse - Completely useless: weak, no ranged attack, advances only to lvl 1 and has no ZoC, which means that you can't even use it to block or protect other units.

[beetlenaut]

There is no love for the WC on this thread, but I'm playtesting an undead campaign, and I'm finding it very useful to have a WC or two in my army. There are some scenarios that would be a lot harder without them. How awesome is it to gain a unit while your opponent loses one? It's not a good unit, but that's OK. At the very least it will draw an attack that would have been against a more important unit. And, at level 1, they have an unusually high 7-3 to 9-3 attack. Their worst problem is their speed, so losing a soulless bat makes me very sad indeed.

[WesnothNewbie]

I vote for bowman as worst unit. Coffee, to prove my point I challenge you to a match in which I recruit only ghosts and you recruit only bowmen :p

... footpad should switch nerf on melee to nerf on ranged instead ...

I guess it is some serious necromancy on my part but I favor the change proposed by Cackfiend here: that footpad melee should be changed from impact to blade or even piercing. The reason is to mitigate how devastating these guys are to undead... they utterly destroy skeletons, give significant retal to adepts, and are extremely cheap and fast. Here (attached, I managed to find it ) is a recent ladder game of Cackfiend and Honor on Sullas which clearly illustrates the point.

Basically, undead has no serious way to fight an early attack of footpads with ulfs backing them up, especially on a large map where the footpad mobility makes a huge difference. Skeletons are not cost effective as they are hurt too much by the impact damage, adepts only will work in very large numbers, and will be chewed up by the ulfs / hurt significantly by the ranged retal. You can try to use ghouls to poison the footpads, but if you get more than one or two you don't have any killing power and are sure to lose... also the ghouls are seriously hurt by impact, and can easily be ulfed.

One thing that's pretty bizarre about the game is that, instead of trying to land the first devastating strike on his opponent, Cackfiend basically just rushes at his opponent with the footpads, knowing that there's nothing he can do about it. This is something you pretty much never see in a ladder game... I think it strongly indicates how powerful the footpads are against undead right now.

In alternate era, TBS decided to just nerf their hp so that adepts are more effective, and afaik this change has been well recieved. But just changing the melee damage type, so that a couple skeletons could reasonably attack a footpad without fearing much retal, also seems like a natural fix, with less potential impact on other matchups.

The change would basically mean that if the Knalgan player wants to enjoy the numerous benefits of melee impact, he needs to bring out the dwarves.

Edit: Let me point out that I am not a multiplayer expert... I'm speaking here as a mid-level player and mostly just reiterating the opinions of some experts.

As my username suggests, I am a newbie; however, that replay displayed bad playing for both sides.

Dwarvish leader--your enemy--spams way too many ulfs. This results in some dead adepts for you, and some dead ulfs for him. Luck was what got him the extra adept: I mean, come on, if you'd been more aggressive, your skeles would have slaughtered the ulfs.

Which reminds me. Neither of you were aggressive enough in your strategy. I don't know why: are you afraid for your leader? With so little gold, I wouldn't have thought that would be much of an issue. You attacked him at day, and didn't attack him at night. Also, you could have concentrated your forces on killing his injured units, rather than on the gryphon which you had no chance of killing.

Sorry about that. Went a little off-topic

PS: if you want to play me, I'd be happy to arrange a time (I'm in the GMT timezone). What do you think?

[Velensk]

If you want to challenge Crackfeild, I think he'll be able to show you what you're missing. He is consistently one of the top 5 players on the ladder.

[The Black Sword]

In alternate era, TBS decided to just nerf their hp so that adepts are more effective

It was -10% cold damage btw, similar effect but doesn't affect other matchups much.

More on topic, I'd probably go with the bowman as the least useful lvl 1 as well. For lvl 2s, I'd probably go with the trapper. The Orc Crossbow is better because he really improves the orc's breaking power where as the trapper doesn't improve the dwarves significantly. Trappers are easy to get and have cool level ups, but you have to be careful that he doesn't turn into a lvl 2 for your opponent.

[WesnothNewbie]

In alternate era, TBS decided to just nerf their hp so that adepts are more effective

It was -10% cold damage btw, similar effect but doesn't affect other matchups much.

More on topic, I'd probably go with the bowman as the least useful lvl 1 as well. For lvl 2s, I'd probably go with the trapper. The Orc Crossbow is better because he really improves the orc's breaking power where as the trapper doesn't improve the dwarves significantly. Trappers are easy to get and have cool level ups, but you have to be careful that he doesn't turn into a lvl 2 for your opponent.

Being able to level into a Hunstman with the Marksman ability is really useful though.

I never really liked the Orcish Crossbowman for some reason. He levels quickly, but he's not as good the Warrior most of the time--plus, archers from other factions get bigger bonuses on leveling (a.k.a the Longbowman).

[myte7]

There is no love for the WC on this thread

Which I cannot understand. WCs are awesome. In a stalemate game, let's say on a smaller map like Hamlets, you can basically force your opponent to attack into your defensive line of Ghouls and Skeletons backed up by village healing because of the WC. If your enemy does not attack, that's great, as you can keep making 1-2 zero upkeep units per turn while your enemy will eventually face upkeep problems and has to find a solution to the threat of 100 walking corpses being on the field eventually if he does nothing. On top of that, once WCs reach critical mass, they often can keep up their numbers by themselves with a little luck.

Recently I had an UD vs Knalgans game on hamlets and the Knalgan-player decided to overdefend. Instead of suiciding into a dwarfen defense, you can play it patient by making WCs until they become a considerable problem. After 20 or 30 turns of him doing nothing about the WC spam and probably having no income due to his rising upkeep costs I just rolled him the next night with a mix of adepts and an ungodly amount of WCs.

[TheCripple]

I never really liked the Orcish Crossbowman for some reason. He levels quickly, but he's not as good the Warrior most of the time--plus, archers from other factions get bigger bonuses on leveling (a.k.a the Longbowman).

Clearly you haven't been fighting enough wose and ghosts. Fire arrows are a beautiful, beautiful thing against them. The other faction's archers simply don't compare (other than the Khalifate, which aren't in the default era anyways, despite being basically official) within that niche.

[WesnothNewbie]

I never really liked the Orcish Crossbowman for some reason. He levels quickly, but he's not as good the Warrior most of the time--plus, archers from other factions get bigger bonuses on leveling (a.k.a the Longbowman).

Clearly you haven't been fighting enough wose and ghosts. Fire arrows are a beautiful, beautiful thing against them. The other faction's archers simply don't compare (other than the Khalifate, which aren't in the default era anyways, despite being basically official) within that niche.

I forget other people like to fight against Rebels...

[TheCripple]

I forget other people like to fight against Rebels...

They also have some use against undead, though Wose are a particularly obvious target. It's a pretty typical case of faction balance meaning that some units are much more useful against some factions than others, which is fine by me.

[Aelaris]

I forget other people like to fight against Rebels...

They also have some use against undead, though Wose are a particularly obvious target. It's a pretty typical case of faction balance meaning that some units are much more useful against some factions than others, which is fine by me.

Also useful to bust up Heavy Infantry on a village, which can give the blade-centric Northerners a hard time. (When not on a village, use poison. If at all possible ignore and go around, but fire arrows do work if you actually, really need to kill it.)

HI are pretty lousy anyway, though, so it's not a big use. I would say very useful against undead. No use against Knalgans, a longbowman is pretty much better in most cases, same with against northies.

All around, orcish archers are probably my favorite non-magical ranged unit. It's just that other factions have, say, Mages, and mages tend to outshine for the whole dealing fire thing.

[Zeckls]

I have a love-hate relationship with Thunderers. They like to miss those 70% chance to hit kill shots a lot.

My least favorite unit is probably Thieves though.

[TheCripple]

Also useful to bust up Heavy Infantry on a village, which can give the blade-centric Northerners a hard time. (When not on a village, use poison. If at all possible ignore and go around, but fire arrows do work if you actually, really need to kill it.)

I'd consider this one of their perks as well, though this is also an area where trolls do surprisingly well. As for Undead, I play them quite a bit - the Orc Archer is the single most obnoxious unit to deal with in that entire faction, by a long shot. They are good against basically everything. Sure, trolls can punch through skeletons, but at least a ghost can help there. Sure, the various blade units can handle ghouls easily enough, but the skeletons can more than hold their own. So on and so forth (with the orc assassin not having anything that they are actually good at - of the two units not immune to poison, one basically lives on villages by stealing them and the other is one of the units for which attacking at range tends to be a questionable idea).

[nillybit]

I notice the Walking Corpse and Goblin Spearmen as getting a lot of folks' downvotes. I don't do Undead much, but I love the Northerner faction and goblins have their uses.

Uses for Goblin Spearmen:
1. Deep territory village defense. If your opponent has a lot of fast, scouting units and is trying to steal your villages, goblins make a great, inexpensive defense to maintain hold of the villages behind your main battle lines (looking at you, bats).
2. Great at sticking it to softies. At 6-3 base damage, they are actually almost as lethal as other level 1 melee units. The problem is at 18 base hit points, they die easily. If you protect them, they are wonderful at stabbing mages, archers, and other soft units who attack your line of trolls. True, grunts are superior at this, but you cannot field nearly as many grunts as you can goblins. They're not a replacement for grunts (grunt damage is plain better and they are superior at protecting key villages), but they supplement them well for this role.
3. Proof against skirmishers. You can't (or at least shouldn't) field enough trolls to protect your archers/assassins/vulnerable units from skirmisher units. Goblins fill these gaps quite nicely. Even at 18 hit points, a goblin has a high probability of surviving one round of attacks from a fencer or a saurian and have a decent chance of injuring them enough while trying that they can then be butchered on your turn.
4. They're super easy to level. Two kills will certainly do it. And when they grow up, they can become rousers which make all your other goblins hit even harder. True, this isn't really a reason to make goblins, but it's nice added value.
5. No upkeep. In a long stalemate match, these are effectively a timer to force your opponent's hand if he cannot generate any level 0 units himself. He will either have to attack you in your strong position, or after 30-40 turns of deadlock, your army will be so massive that you will just trample his with an overwhelming number of units.
6. Bait (use sparingly). Use them as fodder for your opponent to break his line upon and follow up on his foolish attack by crushing him with your stronger units the following turn. You lost a few goblins, big deal. Personally I laugh every time one of them dies, even if they're mine. It's hilarious. Keep in mind that anything less than a kill on a goblin generates NO experience for the attacker (but your goblin still gets experience if he survives). So they're not completely free experience if you have a realistic plan to back them up with, even if they are being used as fodder.
7. Unit trading. There are many times where your opponent will withdraw a damaged unit to a safe enough distance from the main battle line where you can still reach him for the kill, but you will also lose your unit in the process the following turn due to over-extending your reach. Give him a raw deal by sending in your goblin kamikaze to deliver the finishing punch. Bonzaiii!

What you don't want to do with goblins:
1. Leave them unattended by other units. You're giving your opponent free experience if you expect your little goblin to do anything useful by himself. Whose side are you on anyway?
2. Stick them in the front lines when you have insufficient forces to take advantage of your enemy murdering your goblins. This is really a variation of the first point in this list.
3. Don't generate an army of them by themselves. Again a variation on point 1, but if all you're producing is goblins, you have a stupid army and deserve to get trampled.

The bottom line is, goblins are incompetent alone. When you generate them, expect that they will probably die, because they probably will. However if they contributed to killing a more valuable unit than itself (which is almost any other unit) before it died a grisly, horrible, hilarious death, this is money well spent. Did it skewer a mage before being mercilessly shish kebab'd by a passing knight? Great job, goblin! That was money well spent. Your 9g versus the opponent's 20g+upkeep costs. Do not underestimate upkeep costs. They sometimes seem invisible, but they are still spent money. A goblin is only ever 9 gold and not a penny more. Not only that, your lost goblin typically does not alter your battle plans much, but a lost mage can turn a pitched melee into a rout. It's a much stronger tactical victory.

My general recommendation is to field only a few goblins in one of the aforementioned supplemental roles. As your income dwindles due to rising upkeep costs, consider switching to producing only goblins once you can no longer field any more level 1 units in a timely fashion (when this occurs varies by map; on smaller maps it might be as low as 2-3 gold/turn, but on larger maps this probably won't be until <12 gold/turn--the point where you can no longer generate a level 1 unit per turn). Prior to that point, produce only very few for the specific roles they are good at (which is pretty much only to supplement your grunts in the skewering softies department and warding off those pesky, dumb bats from stealing your villages).

They're a great unit when used appropriately.