Art De La Guerre

[Janos Hunyadi]

I was looking at the Elite crossbow with pavise, are they worth having, am I missing something

The pavise does not seem to count in melee, just for shooting

My first impression is anything with a bow, that cannot run away, is dead under these rules, very few of my friends use a lot of missile power, unless it is compulsory in the list.

[Hazelbark]

Bows are critical at holding enemy mounted to account. Elite Crossbow are very powerful solutions to things like cataphracts, heavy armored knights and elephants.

True when its an option I rarely purchase the pavise, but if you face enemy mounted bow it increases your shooting durability.

So foot bow by themselves are very weak in melee. But truthfully almost everything is weak by itself. But plant a foot bow in between say two warring state HI impact from Qin. Or even HI 2HW. and anyone rushing it has to risk crashing into the rest of the line.

[fdunadan]

Or place your Crossbows in a field or rough terrain; they will not be a so easy prey : Hi will fight at -1 and mounted at -2 (except Elephants, but they rarely charge at Elite shooters)

The pavise is only useful if you expect a lot of shooting from your opponent. The Crossbow have the disadvantage of putting every protection to 1, so while it's great against Cataphract, Heavy Knights and armor infantry, this means that troops with 0 protection will get a +1 protection if shoot at with crossbow. Hence a duel between Bow and Crossbow will turn usualy to the advantage of the Bow, due to the +1 protection. Having a pavise to your Crossbows can mitigate this.
_________________
Audentes fortuna iuvat.

[Hazelbark]

But the only troops that have a protection of zero are Medium Cavalry.

So you get out shot but Medium cavalry bow.

[Longtooth]

Bow also have a protection value of zero

[Hazelbark]