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[shadow_archmagi]

So, recently, I took a turn in the Bloodlines game on the Zombie Master Forums. The Relentless Assault mod was on (apparently that makes lizardmen and kobolds and goblins all siege you, and that was just what I saw while I was playing).


Three shiney lizardmens appeared. (Mace Lord, Spear Lord, Swordmaster).

Each super lizard came from a different side of the map and had a squad of around seven-fifteen lizards.

I had been stockpiling crossbows and bolts simply because they're the first weapon you get access to, what with only needing wood and bones (which were pretty much abundant when I got there)

So I had every dwarf who could grab a crossbow. In the end, my fort defense looked like this

Code: [Select]

l T  l
l T  l
l T  l
l D  l ___
l M S     l
l           l
l           l
lARARRRR   l
______________

l's are walls, T's are traps, the D is the door to the fort. The S is a swordsdwarf and the M is a miner; they constituted our entire melee force. The A's are somewhat trained archers and the R's are raw recruits. No one had a crossbow of any quality.

My plan was that some of them would get stuck in cage traps, and then those that got past would have to stand on a single tile while fighting two dwarves and being shot at by a dozen. It'd be a classic "Defeat their superior numbers by using a bottleneck" style thing.

Except that what ended up happening was a complete rout in which we took nine captive, killed about twenty, and the rest escaped.

What gives? My bottleneck thing didn't even come into play. We killed them so fast they didn't have time to get to the bottleneck. My swordsdwarf did not, in fact, kill any of them. The miner killed two, and the rest of the kills were divided between the recruits and the archers.

What about crossbows is it that says "Raw recruits with zero-quality bows firing zero-quality bolts are more dangerous than trained swordsmen"

[jryan]

I think the real killer with crossbows is the fire rate, I think individual bolts deadliness isn't too crazy, but a dwarf fires it like a machine gun.

[Kyronea]

I think the real killer with crossbows is the fire rate, I think individual bolts deadliness isn't too crazy, but a dwarf fires it like a machine gun.

Which really ought to be fixed. Real crossbows can't fire like that; even Chinese repeating crossbows could only quick-fire a limited number of bolts. I'm pretty sure that not even modern crossbows are capable of such firing rates.

[Karik]

Crossbows actually don't hit that hard, though they do seem to hit like a motherfucker on the crits (shot through the heart, and your too late!).  So if you consider you fire a bolt or so a second, and have say five dwarves, that means in ten seconds you have fifty attacks that can do meh damage or OMFG WHAT, not to mention your units are safe unless the enemy has bows (and really only the elites are dangerous if you are behind fortifications), so ya. 

[Talanic]

I suppose there's a little historical accuracy there.  Crossbows - once they hit the scene - were extremely deadly weapons.  Particularly in that they took relatively little training to allow someone to be dangerous with one.

Granted, the machine-gun rate of fire is entirely wrong...

[Biag]

Crossbows actually don't hit that hard, though they do seem to hit like a motherfucker on the crits (shot through the heart, and your too late!).  So if you consider you fire a bolt or so a second, and have say five dwarves, that means in ten seconds you have fifty attacks that can do meh damage or OMFG WHAT, not to mention your units are safe unless the enemy has bows (and really only the elites are dangerous if you are behind fortifications), so ya. 

I enjoy that "meh damage" and "OMFG WHAT" are perfectly understandable units of injury. All hail the Internet!

[darkrider2]

I have two squads of melee fighters, most of them are pretty well trained, and I've never lost one of them to an enemy melee fighter, all injuries are sustained from goblin bowmen.

[Owlbread]

Surely the dwarf would have to crank up the device every time he fires an incredibly deadly bolt?

[warhammer651]

nah, they just pull back the drawstring with their hands.

[Karik]

Crossbows actually don't hit that hard, though they do seem to hit like a motherfucker on the crits (shot through the heart, and your too late!).  So if you consider you fire a bolt or so a second, and have say five dwarves, that means in ten seconds you have fifty attacks that can do meh damage or OMFG WHAT, not to mention your units are safe unless the enemy has bows (and really only the elites are dangerous if you are behind fortifications), so ya. 

I enjoy that "meh damage" and "OMFG WHAT" are perfectly understandable units of injury. All hail the Internet!

Lol all hail.

and dwarves don't crank the crossbows back into place, their beards are tied to the strings and they just jerk their head with satisfaction every time they kill a dirty elf with a wooden bolt and that is why their fire rate is so high.

[Radivnal]

If you think recruits and "somewhat trained" archers have a fast rate of fire, wait until you get marksdwarves to Champion level (given that's not going to happen in next version, but still). They've got a rate of fire that rivals a semi-automatic paintball gun.

[Karik]

Semi automatic?  You mean fully automatic 0.o, Champion marksdwarves are like worth 5 raw recruits with xbows, and if you consider how much more they hit, then 10+!

[Radivnal]

Okay okay...I didn't want to be too generous, but I guess you're right. Heh, I've had my squad of three Marksdwarf champions spray two full squads of goblins...

I'm pretty sure I heard them laughing maniacally while their hands blurred reloading the crossbows.

[Owlbread]

nah, they just pull back the drawstring with their hands.

I'm pretty sure crossbow operating was a lot more complicated than that, hence why they didn't really replace archers fully.

I am also conscious of the fact that I may be sparking a debate on a subject I am fairly unfamiliar with. Do forgive me if I make mistakes here.

[psychologicalshock]

nah, they just pull back the drawstring with their hands.

I'm pretty sure crossbow operating was a lot more complicated than that, hence why they didn't really replace archers fully.

I am also conscious of the fact that I may be sparking a debate on a subject I am fairly unfamiliar with. Do forgive me if I make mistakes here.

Nah light crossbows could be reloaded by hand the cranks were necessary on heavy ones. Even light crossbows tended to hit harder than a regular bow though.