Sir Morgan,<br><br> I believe you have the right of it. As most experienced archers could tell you, we can make entire shield walls cover up and worry about one bolt/arrow coming their way rather easily. How many of us have heard the "Archer UP" come rolling across quickly followed by an entire line of shields going high? This can be done without a bolt even on the crossbow if you do it right. So, knowing that response to a single archer we then add in multiple archers and (this is important) "aimed" mass fire and I think you have a formula for success. One on one, most fighters have little to fear from Combat archers, but in mass and in melee too many people have trouble focusing on multiple threats, let's use that to our advantage. If you stagger the mass fire and come in from several angles there isn't much that a shield wall can really do if a group of archers is out for them. They have two choices, duck and cover hoping for the best or break their formation and try to get through to kill the archers. Either way they are no longer fighting the big fight but merely trying to survive. If we can force a portion of a line to standstill or break away to try and get to the archers have we not succeeded in forcing them to fight our fight?<br>
<br> <br><br><br>Jean-Paul DeCalmont<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>
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Second... Volley fire. Volley fire doesn't need to be like some braveheart/agincourt high arching thing. I'll add the caveat that I don't KNOW if it will work, but hey, I haven't seen it tried, and I have a few ideas of what MIGHT happen.<br>
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If a small group of archers... say 10, or more if possible, were to prepare a volley fire where they were all ready to fire at a point on a front, it could createa moment of opportunity. Here's what I envision.<br>
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The archer corp congregates behind a point in the line where some fighting is going on. They prepare to fire. They give commands. At this point, I know some of you are thinking, "Morgan, this won't work. They'll see us and all they have to do is cover up."<br>
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Well, you might be right. But let me tell you 2 things. 1... if the shieldmen see a mass of archers and their reaction is to save themselves, that will expose the poles and spears as well as the commanders behind them. In point of fact, I'll go so far as to posit that the desired effect of a mass of archers is to make the shields afraid for their lives and do just this very action.<br>
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If the shields hear the "ready....aim...." command and cover up...they'll likey cover up until they hear "FIRE" and sense that the volley is over, or something else happens. This point is time is an incredible opportunity for the front line fighters to press an attack, execute a pulse charge, whatever.<br>
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Success in a tactic isn't predicated on the kills that each individual potential killing shot has, but on the success of the whole attack. If you mass 10 archers, fire a 10 shot volley, none of the 10 arrows kill ANYONE, but because the volley caused a shield wall to cower in fear for 3 to 5 seconds, and your front line shields execute a pulse charge at that point, which collapses the line, that sounds pretty successful to me. That sounds like the kind of attack that can re-take a flag in the ravine, in fact.<br>
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It takes coordination. It takes timing. It takes skill. We posess all the tools. But we'd have to put them together. Of course, I could be wrong. :)<br>
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Kind regards,<br>
Morgan <br>
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