Yes, being closer to your target means you save more ammo and kill them faster, but it also means you are way closer to a bunch of angry daemons with big swords who want to turn you into sushi
Yeah, I've often found that getting close to the enemy in Warhammer 2 with a missile unit often doesn't go well even if your speed is nominally higher than what you're shooting at. If you're Wood Elves, or you're playing anyone else but you're shooting Chaos Chosen or Drwafs, you can get away with it. Other times, if the enemy isn't already in melee walking up will mean getting a volley off before awkardly trying to change formation when running away only for the melee infantry to reach you. It's usually best to use your full range.
Swords? nah. He got closer to the demon that has a precursor weapon. "Why not get closer?" well, cause then you're in range of their javelins and will get your unit wiped. lol.
@@LevattWolfheart yeah. This exactly. When lines clash you move your units in the way that they are close enough to deal 100% of possible damage. Many times I seen people flanking enemies with their archers and instead of getting closer for more DMG they shoot at the maximum distance
In the case of ranged infantry it makes sense to still fire at them as they're closing the distance from far away because you don't know how many shots you'll get before you get interrupted.
not really. Remember that ammo pays it's role as a weight in balance of power so more efficient you are at spending it - the farther ффн you are from losing to army loss.
@@dimas3829 The only case I would argue is it depends on if your army is often expending most/all of your ammo during most battles. If you using Ratling Guns, then you probably don't need to worry about that.
A big shoutout to the Klissan's All Stats Meaningfully Revealed mod. This mod shows all kinds of hidden stats, including the calibration distance for ranged units.
Zerkovich. I watched your videos on overwhelming sides and focus fire and has helped vastly improve my win rate when it comes to battles i would usually think i would lose. These videos are great info on how to tactically take advantage of units. Great stuff.
Yes, this is actually something useful to know and to keep it in the back of your head. But it is highly unpractical too. When the enemy comes rushing into you with full stacks and you got little to no time to move your units or plan something, you want to get as many shots in as you can. There is very little time to move and get your units into a better position, the 2 or 3 seconds that you spend to do this, the AI will get more shots into your ranged units and thus killing more overall while you try to get the perfect shot in. You want to get as many shots in as you can before they come crashing into you, good range or bad range, the few seconds that you kill more of them counts. There are some cases when you have the luxury to move your ranged units for better shots like with the dwarfs who can hold the front lines to move their guns around to get a better aim. In general a bad shot that makes it towards the enemy is the most useful thing. Cause it can kill more of em before they reach you.
@@BazzBrother Never use skirmish mode, maybe for ranged cav but that's it. Your entire formation will fuck up, your units will block eachothers shots and everything will go downhill quickly. If you mean to kite, it's better to do it yourself
@@famulanrevengeance3044 We kinda need something like "Skirmish Direction" Mode like "Move Back/Left/Right if possible" to chose from..... would make Skirmish way more practical usefull. So you could at least get them move in a Bit of Formation. "if Possible" here means such basic things like: As long as Terrain allows it but also they dont collide with another unit. But i doubt CA would be able to make such a Function withou massiv Bugs xD
I agree with you in terms of having made at least a little damage to the enemy vs no damage at all cause they could smash the missile having said that I see the good opportunity here to use this tactic combined with a Lord or hero attack as they could bait the enemy troops into the battle immobilising them.
The waste depends on the type of battle you're playing. If you feel like the battle will last long enough for your units to use all of their ammo, then sure it's a good idea to wait a few seconds to get the most out of it. But sometimes you don't have time to wait 10/15 seconds, you are facing a powerful enemy with a lot of very dangerous units that need to be taken out quickly. In that case, you have to shoot them as soon as you can, even if you miss a bit more on the first few volleys
I’m usually ok with sacrificing some accuracy to get a few extra volleys in before the melee starts. Especially if I have higher range than me opponent. Any other time getting in that range is a great idea especially with highly inaccurate units. The first thing I think of is grenade cav. Very Short range but seem to miss a lot of you arnt really close to the enemy but wow that damage when they hit.
These kind of stats feel mostly usable by Kislev cause they aren’t paper sheets on melee combat. Or on skirmish can cause those can outrun melee. But yeah totally good video
Dwarfs, Ogers, Norsca, Nurgel, Darkelfs can all make very good use of this advice depending on your playstyle. Also i May need to start doing this in my campains since my warpfirethrower is allways out of ammo.
They are usable by every faction that can field a ranged unit. You do know you can protect your ranged units? You don't have to just put them in front of a charging enemy. You can put something in-between. Bind enemy units in combat, then maneuver your ranged units to find into the sides and back. In which case, you get even more out of it because you're not only close but also firing into the flanks.
6:28 this shows another aspect of positioning, namely friendly fire. the arrows of the earlier games fired over your own troop's heads (for the most part, the games varied in the specifics), but firearms did not (again for the most part), and Warhammer splits the difference. when you are close to your own units and they are also close to the enemy you tend to do some friendly fire, more so with cannons. having a clear line of sight to your enemy helps, especially when close, which makes setting up skirmishing formations rather important in that you allow them lines of retreat and open lanes of fire.
Late to the party but just wanted to say I love this series. I feel like so much of the content for total war games focuses so specifically on say a specific race and what strategy to use, but doesn't touch on the more fundamental things. I've been looking for this kind of "teach a man to fish" series so I can play with a more broad understanding and then have fun just learning the different factions etc., this has been a great help in understanding the common puzzle pieces to look out for and when to apply different concepts, rather than just trying to have a bigger army (or more armies) and auto resolve.
I love your videos man. Started listening to them while I work. They are just super informative while also keeping a nice tone. Looking forward to the next one! See you in the future!
It's bizarre to have an accuracy stat and then this. They could put it in the accuracy tooltip at the least. My guess is this only affects guns and not bows. Edit: Nevermind, apparently bows too... weird.
If not in the unit card to avoid to try and avoid information overload and clutter, then AT LEAST make the change and put it somewhere like the unit browser so it's visible *somewhere* in game
Interesting vid. Sometimes I make my frontline hold down the entire army and I will rush my ranged units behind the enemy line and point blank them in the rear. It's devastating!
Hidden stats like these are so damn annoying. Why should players have to rely on game files and UA-camrs to find out that 75% of their ammo is being wasted at max range. There’s literally nothing in-game that alludes to this conclusion. As always, thank you for going above and beyond Zerkovich 👑
@@rafaelcastor2089 it makes sense IRL but it's a freaking game! I've never watched warhammer youtubers and I never knew this was in the game and I feel robbed. why the heck game doesn't tell me how it works? is there a reason for that? I can't think of one. I'm not opposing mechanic rather I'm angry I had no meaningful ways to discover it ingame.
@@guffi00 "it makes sense IRL but it's a freaking game" It's a Warhammer Fantasy* game. For as much as it has magic, gods, superhumans and whatnot, the universe is still pretty grounded when it comes to thinks not related to magic. Plus, it is a RTS battle simulator for the most part so it makes sense for them to have this in game. And you do have a way to discover it in game, through experimentation and paying attention to the flying missiles since it does use a physics engine for everything ranged. Yes, i agree that they could've done better tutorials or just add a line in the firing cones to tell you more directly, but it's not really something to get worked up about by itself.
Great material! I remember how much it changed my target priority when you realesed your first video about calibration distance. And happy that you mentioned how risky it is, especially against human enemy in Multi for example, was silently mumbling about it for first half of the video 😅
Why isn't there simply a second line in the cone of fire, so you know the calibration distance? It would be pretty self explanatory and people would know that you can shoot at the max distance, but it'd be better to get closer.
Every gun in real life has a max range and a max effective range. Idk why they can't just list it in the stats if that's how they made it behave in game.
Probably just not worth the time and effort to add it because it's really not important. It's an interesting mechanic but in the heat of battle not at all worth thinking about.
@@skorpikion Devs love doing that kind of shit so they can stealth nerf. They'll tweak those values and push updates without patch notes so you don't even know what they are changing. Its probably far more common than it seems to be and its already a common thing. In more recent times a big example of that is the Helldivers 2 devs, guns have dozens of stats but only show a handful to the players, and the devs have outright argued against showing the players those stats in any way with a mountain of excuses. Of course, data miners have proven they tweak them secretly and even the devs have admitted to shadow nerfing stuff using those values (all while gaslighting players about it too).
Excellent vid zerk. One think i think you could have pointed out though and helps with the micro is using the command orders. If you hold shift and click a location, then click attack, the archers will move to there and then start shooting. That way you dont have to keep coming back and re issuing attack order
Wait... that's a thing you can do!? Since when? I've not seen a single youtuber mention this, and I've watched a bunch of videos highlighting hidden/advanced movement orders over the years.
This is why I wish the cone stopped at calibration range rather than max range, or had some sort of colour change past calibration distance :( having to dig through unit files to figure out how best to use them always sucks
Dungeons and Dragons has a neat way of showing effective range on weapon or monster statblocks, which two numbers with a slash between, for example 30/60 (ft). The second number is the max range, and the first is max effective range, and between those two numbers your attacks are at a disadvantage.
Unit veterancy is also something to keep in mind, they become massively more accurate at rank 9 and you really don't have to worry about this anymore, it would be a waste to run them forward when they have improved firerate as well
Usually the enemy is charging at me, so range isn't exactly a constant :P At best you could move closer to busy enemies while flanking Worst part is that when you get too close the enemy might charge at you which gives them a speed boost and might make it so that you can NOT outrun them anymore
It's kind of you, to assume my missile units survive long enough to use ammo. Distraction carnifex? That's every unit I bring. See these archers? Nuh-uh sorry friend too fast for you, they're routing off the map already and BAM sucker that's GG I'm uninstalling this f-
I like flanking pinned melee units with ranged units up close. Also I think that what is being described at 4:25 is circular error probability otherwise known as CEP, which although it is being simulated in a fantasy game here, is a real life effect that artillery takes into account when working out ballistic properties.
As a lizardman player I do use this, for example shooting melee infantry who are stuck in combat from point blank in the back is awesome. However the kiting type of missile units do too often need that extra range.
I think this is really important, as someone who likes to play as Kislev often times the battle comes down to how well I use my ranged units. I recall in a really hard battle, my melee line was pretty much destroyed and it was my streltzi vs their lord + some infantry and if I'd known this early, I probably could have kept casualities much lower than they needed to be since I thought it would be best if my streltzi kept maximum distance to avoid entering melee but it probably would have been ok to be somewhat close for that damage opportunity.
Shooting at optimum range is only practical if you have the speed to get away from a retaliatory response or if you have an impassable obstacle to hide behind like a cliff.
As LoTW says, conserve ammo as it impacts the balance of power, the more ammo you use the less killing power you have to keep that balance of power in your favour
Very curious to see if gunner type units suffer from this less due to the higher velocity and flatter arc of their shots. Bows have to worry about not just aiming in the correct direction, but not under or overshooting their targets. For missiles with a flat arc, they can instead just draw a line through them meaning that under or over shooting isn't usually a problem.
I think gunners still have this in relation to accuracy issues. I've noticed several Empire gunpowder units deal more damage when they're closer than when they're at almost max range.
"gunners" are not really gunners in WH TW. They don't reload and they shoot through each other. They are basically archers with more limited animations and trajectory. Same with "crossbowmen"...
I understand why they didn't do it for this game, but I'd like to see more strategy games portray gunpowder units as fundamentally different to archers/crossbowmen. They should be low range, low rate of fire, that do high damage, slow and do massive morale damage to enemies. They should essentially function as anti-infantry pikemen, very good at holding a position from the front especially against low quality enemy infantry. This isn't necessarily more "historically accurate" but I do think in games that include both gunpowder and traditional ranged units it gives guns a more interesting role on the battlefield instead of just "bows but AP" which is really what crossbows should be.
They already are different. Guns have shorter range and significantly more LOS issues, but they're also basically impossible to dodge. Bows are much better for shooting over your own troops or onto and over siege walls.
Back in Empire, there was nothing better than waiting until the enemy was well within your range before enabling fire-at-will, seeing the massive, instant damage just destroy both health and morale, sometimes causing instant breaks on the first volley. edit- And yeah, the point this video makes is VERY true. I've always known range effects accuracy, but I pretty much never move ranged units closer to take advantage. I get within bare minimum range and start blasting.
I cant undertand why these stats are secret and you have to search them yourself to know they exist, if CA wants to keep things simple they can just make it toggleable and disabled by default.
I guess an additional consideration would be move time (for units who cannot fire while moving), especially if your units will likely be interrupted before the job is finished. Every second that ticks by while moving lowers the usefulness of getting closer. It would be a more complex test, but I would be interested to see a test where ranged units start from the same distance from their target, one starts firing immediately, and the others move closer to the target before starting to fire. How long does it take for the damage output of the closer units to catch up to that of the units who never moved.
Yes, one of my biggest pet peeves is that calibration distance and area aren't shown in the unit panel; they can make a world of difference in how a unit behaves, but they're all too after hidden and never even talked about. A pity, since they're a great way of representing ranged skill and accuracy; far more so IMO than the systems that Warhammer currently uses (which basically boils down to arbitrarily altering range).
Calibration distance is just the distance used for the calibration area. Projectiles are notably more accurate at point blank than at their calibration distance, as demonstrated in the video here, so the accuracy scaling is linear; it doesn't start getting worse when the target is beyond the calibration distance. IE; even if a unit is 10m in front of the missile unit, it's calculating accuracy at the calibration range, with the "path" set through the target.
I think it only really matters when firing on stationary targets, if the enemy is closing in, the time between max distance and optimal distance is generally less thn 2 shots fired.
To be fair, the advantage to keep units further away is to obviously make sure you aren't an easy target for enemy units (be they ranged units trying to snipe yours, incoming magic or even charging infantry/cavalry/monsters/heroes). In addition, when a line of enemy units is charging your infantry you might as well start shooting when they come into range, if you take the time to micro every unit individually to only open fire when they are in ideal range you actually may miss out on a little bit of extra early damage (meaning, more casualties for you and a worse performance) and if you mess up your micro then that's going to hurt even more. In addition, since you will often want to pepper priority targets that you may need to hold in place with a melee unit of your own, those early shots might actually do the most damage because depending on the "blob situation" you may not be able to get a lot of damage in once a unit of your own engages the target. Also, in PVP some of the most effective archers are skirmishers, so being close to an enemy usually isn't something you have to worry about. ...Of course, if you do have the opportunity to do so, then you should indeed just ignore all the above and move a unit up and let them deal more damage. Is there a time when you do want to never fire early or use auto-fire? Yes, first of all in sieges. You want to avoid wasting ammo by having your units hit units in cover on a wall, or units that are running towards a wall or units that are suddenly changing postions chaotically (AI tends to do that a lot) or units that walk near buildings. Secondly, in battles where your archers are going to have to make every arrow count to stand a chance at winning the battle. In an ideal scenario where you do want to apply your advice: try using V shaped wedge formations of your infantry with V shaped ranged units behind it. That way the "left arm" of ranged units can shoot enemies approaching the right arm, even up close and vice versa. If the enemy tries to focus the tip of your infantry V shape, they should still either get in wonky formations that makes it easier to hit them and/or they will take a longer time chewing through your "long" formation. As a final bonus: having such formations usually makes it harder for line-shape magic attacks, although you do need to watch your you don't blob your ranged V too close to your infantry V because that may invite your opponent to use circular AoE spells on ~4 of your units. Checkerboard square formations work alright for this as well, but can be somewhat undone with magic.
In the example at 1:24 I don't see a huge drop off past the calibration range. The 3 units, from furthest to closest, have about a 1.0 : 1.4 : 2.0 ratio of kills, which seems pretty even, instead of something like 1.0 : 1.8 : 2.0. Just going from the one example it's not clear if the calibration range is very relevant, or if it's just the closer the better.
Max calibration distance makes a lot of sense considering the physics of antique firearms. A great example is how at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, the French army under the Marquis de Montcalm fired too far in advance of the British, resulting in their shots being mostly ineffective. However, the British Army reached a suitable range and fired a deadly volley that decimated the French lines. This, combined with Montcalm's decision to pull back his snipers and pickets from their advanced positions when such fire provided by these sharpshooters could have kept significant pressure on the British forces, maybe allowing for Montcalm to jockey his army into a much better position, were some of the factors for the French to lose the city of Quebec and the colony of New France along with it.
With ratling guns I typically wait until they are halfway to the rating guns but that's more so they can fire on the target unit longer since they tend to route fairly quickly when exposed to such withering fire. The target being suppressed helps alot too
Used to put archers in frontline and shoot enemy before they engage with infantry. Then pulled archers behind my front line on the flanks and do their thing. Altought with horse archers always micromanaging to shoot with them close as possible - then best way is go around and aim on enemy rear when they are locked in combat.
good question. i could see +range techs/skills/etc. increasing both the max range _and_ the max calibration range proportionally, but afaik "max calibration range" is recorded as an independent value (not e.g. as "0.70*max_range", or whatever), so unless the tech/skill/etc. code specifically references max calibration range as well, it might only work on max range
Interesting. That makes horse archers a bit more useful as they can really get close without the danger of being charged.....I never use them but might now due to my understanding. Thanks!
I’d say this works best when an enemy unit is bogged down by your infantry, and is either large enough that you can shoot above your own units, or is on the flanks so you can reposition your ranged units out on the sides. That second one also avoids any shields the enemy may have, which means you’ll do more damage than if you were simply shooting from behind your front line
Only 1/3 less damage at max range is is rarely worth the trade-off of exposing your units to damage. The only time it might matter in regular battles is with skirmish cavalry but due to prevalence of ranged units in most race's rosters, majority of time moving skirmish cavalry closer also puts the enemy ranged closer to your skirmish cavarly which usually have much lower HP. The example of the bloodthirster only matters if battles end after a unit has used all its ammo. In my experience ammo capacity is quite high in TW and it is very rare to end a battle other than a siege with ranged units running out of ammo, taking the time to move ranged unit closer gives up 1-2 shots which at -33%% damage will take roughly 6-8 shots to surpass or roughly 1/3 ammo capacity of most units where TW gives 18-22 ammo as the most common amounts. Given that ranged units will frequently have to shift targets during a battle, moving forward does not result in a constant increase in damage output but quite often zero gain for increased risk of taking damage if your average battle ends with 90% of your ranged units still having ammo, moving forward will more likely reduce your total damage output. Fast ranged skirmish units with stalk like chameleon skinks, shades, gutter runners or just very fast units like Empire pistoliers this does actually matter and is worth the micro- rarely otherwise.
It totally makes sense the unit kills more when close range, but it doesn't make sense that they use less ammo at different distances. The shot either hits or it doesn't. I make sure to get my shooting units close when possible. Most of the time it's not possible due to enemy having shooters of their own so closing the distance just means I'm getting shot. Once combat starts and enemy units are pinned, I almost always run my shooters to the flank or rear and shoot into the enemy.
That is fine, the problem is that if you get closer with a range unit, until they move to the right position, use a protractor to fine exactly the right angle (because who needs hips), prepare a coffe, take a nap, prepare to shoot and finally (thank God) shoot, you have the enemy breathing at your neck so it is a bit difficult, at least for me, to get closer unless you are in a contention situation in a city or something like that.
id like that tip with one exception, when you move your units they sometimes tip toe for many second to reform before shooting, had that with horrors, since they are so many it took quiet long until they started shooting again wich was sad
@@graydenboad574 Accuracy is the size of the calibration circle so higher XP units have a smaller calibration circle as range increases. This is hugely important in artillery duels but matters for all ranged units.It is also why 9 XP AP archers are the most efficient units in TW. They get almost the same size calibration circle at min and max ranges while their fire rate increases and most of their damage ignores armor and can ignore shields if you fire across the field rather straight in front, and being archers taking aim at various targets does not require perfect LoS.
@@graydenboad574 only confirmed calibration size but it might well be center of the area as well since it definitely seems like artillery circle hits closer to aimed spot not only a smaller circle but I don't know how that math works because there can still be clear misses that go quite wide while the calibration circle itself remains tight.
why mobility can be good for any troop type even archers when the enemy is coming to you, more widows to get to the sides or rear of engaged enemies to shoot them and time to get closer for more devasting accuracy and to conserve ammo
Interesting mechanics that I didn't think the game implemented, although in game it's easy to notice that the closer you are to the target the higher the accuracy. However, this risks are obvious when too close; easier to attack, ranges units need to stop firing to move on skirmish, more micromanaging units/less time to react.
Yeah, as a very specific example, I was a bit worried when he moved closer to the Plagueberers. Less ground for them to cover to launch their own projectiles.
Using at closer range of not isn't the only important thing, Reserving ammo to take care of cavalry or to use briefly for psychological to make a unit route that and also accuracy is a problem but not when you can't miss meaning they don't dodge fire also fire used by bullet units should be used on heros or monsters because if timed correctly you can one tap kill or stun with a follow up, Especially something good against heavy units or hero's which then if use spells that trap said heros the goal for the quickest battle is kill the commander then the ammo has true value and makes fronts that cavalry and infantry can't move without being suicide.
the problem is if you get your range units closer, they will be under enemy archers fire, and you will waste both ammo and your units, because dead units cannot fire and their ammo will "die" with them.
Heres the think if you bring your ranged infantry close when dealing with somthing like ogres they ALMOST all move much faster youll get in to melee and youll lose rapidly
accuracy only matters when you fire at single entities. if you shoot infantry, it doesn’t really matter if your shots are accurate. actually you want less accuracy so multiple shots dont hit positions of already killed entities
Depends on how much ammo you think you'll use up If you're likely to run out of ammo for the fight, save for when you get the most kills If you're not going to get to use all your ammo anyways, just loose whenever they're in range
Depends on how easy you can win the game. How much ammo does your unit have? Skink skirmishers have 3 javelins each, they better count. Vampirates can give more ammo to some units while fighting, they can fire more with abandon. Also depends on how fast your missile units can run, how far they can run, and how strong your melee units are when holding the line.
@@Canadian_Zac if it comes doon to winning u just follow cheese kings guide and camp sites but its boring so i wanna man the walls and pretend imma a scared unfortunate soul who in a minute will be mincemeat in a khorne bakery.
Range and unit matters, for instance irondrakes, they have a range just a little longer then they are tall, ALWAYS fire if they are in range unless they are retreating, but skirmish cav with small ammo reserves? Get a little closer, it will let you get more out of there shooting before you run out of ammo, in general short range weapons witb good ammo are always let lose, but if they are low ammo you may want to try and save some by falling back, or a close range flank
Then it's pretty clear that shorter ranger units can fire very precise coz their range under limit caliber range. As long as i play TTW, i love to use gun/spear unit. Just some volleys in right angle, the battle is decided
The time it takes to move means you aren’t shooting, so I mean, what’s the sweet spot to balance this out presuming you are able to manage the attackers against your ranged units
I can see this being useful if the enemy isn't moving towars you, but if they are then firing at max distance is still predered as you didn't use all your ammo. Ammo is replenished after a fight.
Huh, I knew that accuracy dropped with range, but I assumed as long I was shooting at a full sized infantry unit (as opposed to a single entity like a Lord or a cavalry unit where the models are larger but there are less of them), it would be irrelevant since I'd expect most of the shots to hit anyways. What is the meaning of calibration distance? In your test, 2 units were within it and 1 was outside it, but the closest one still did the most damage per volley instead of being in calibration distance an important threshold.
It probably has to do with the firing arc. The closer you are the lower the firing arc is. A unit with a lower firing arc is less affected by accuracy. A 3 degree difference in accuracy will have very little effect with a low firing arc but will matter more for a unit with a higher firing arc. So even though the two units were both in calibration distance and had the same accuracy the unit with a high firing arc is far more likely to overshoot or undershoot compared to the closer unit with a low firing arc.
To quote Kamacho's guide, calibration distance is the distance that the model will land its projectiles within the calibration area reliably. The smaller the area and the longer the distance the more accurate the unit is, but we don't have a good idea which stat is more important or exactly what 'reliably' really means. Units are always more accurate at closer ranges so far as I can tell. There are also accuracy and marksmanship base stats, but nobody really knows what those do and they are identical for most units. Why are there 4 difference ranged accuracy stats? Who knows. Firing arc matters, but mostly because flat arcs tend to hit something else when firing at a unit while high arcs have a much larger chance of hitting the ground. Unless you are firing at a tall or flying single unit, or the target is heavily packed together in melee. This tends to reverse for artillery, IMO.
So regiments of renown that have increased range or other increased range units compared to similar counterpart basically perform better because they have a higher max calibration distance? Maybe it'd be useful to use those units at the same range as their counterpart instead of using them farther back in your line.
Idk why everyone’s trashing the advice; it’s specifically if you’re worried about missing. There’s some corridor style battles where your units do literally nothing but fire until they’re out of ammo, so if you move them up a bit???
I feel so dumb for not realizing distance changes accuracy. I mean, yeah, it makes sense, but I don't think the game ever tells you that... Unless it was in the tutorial and I was like "Aw, I'll remember this!"
Yes, being closer to your target means you save more ammo and kill them faster, but it also means you are way closer to a bunch of angry daemons with big swords who want to turn you into sushi
Yeah, I've often found that getting close to the enemy in Warhammer 2 with a missile unit often doesn't go well even if your speed is nominally higher than what you're shooting at. If you're Wood Elves, or you're playing anyone else but you're shooting Chaos Chosen or Drwafs, you can get away with it. Other times, if the enemy isn't already in melee walking up will mean getting a volley off before awkardly trying to change formation when running away only for the melee infantry to reach you. It's usually best to use your full range.
Swords? nah. He got closer to the demon that has a precursor weapon. "Why not get closer?" well, cause then you're in range of their javelins and will get your unit wiped. lol.
It is even worse in TWWH3 with the average speed of melee units being higher and also having a higher damage output.
obviously, but it's certainly better to move closer if a locked down enemy is what you want to kill.
@@LevattWolfheart yeah. This exactly.
When lines clash you move your units in the way that they are close enough to deal 100% of possible damage. Many times I seen people flanking enemies with their archers and instead of getting closer for more DMG they shoot at the maximum distance
The best part of this video is there is 0 seconds of filler introduction. Straight to the point, that gets a like from me.
In the case of ranged infantry it makes sense to still fire at them as they're closing the distance from far away because you don't know how many shots you'll get before you get interrupted.
not really. Remember that ammo pays it's role as a weight in balance of power so more efficient you are at spending it - the farther ффн you are from losing to army loss.
@@dimas3829 and having less enermys mean its harder for them to kill your guys
@@dimas3829 thanks for the tip friend
@@dimas3829 The only case I would argue is it depends on if your army is often expending most/all of your ammo during most battles. If you using Ratling Guns, then you probably don't need to worry about that.
I think it's useful advice if you're behind you front line. Just move up as far as you can.
You never waste ammo with rattling guns… you just keep adding warpstone…
Ammo is by default not a concern when using weapons that achieve accuracy through volume of fire.
In other words: MOAHR DAKKA.
yes-yes
A big shoutout to the Klissan's All Stats Meaningfully Revealed mod. This mod shows all kinds of hidden stats, including the calibration distance for ranged units.
Zerkovich. I watched your videos on overwhelming sides and focus fire and has helped vastly improve my win rate when it comes to battles i would usually think i would lose. These videos are great info on how to tactically take advantage of units. Great stuff.
Yes, this is actually something useful to know and to keep it in the back of your head. But it is highly unpractical too. When the enemy comes rushing into you with full stacks and you got little to no time to move your units or plan something, you want to get as many shots in as you can. There is very little time to move and get your units into a better position, the 2 or 3 seconds that you spend to do this, the AI will get more shots into your ranged units and thus killing more overall while you try to get the perfect shot in. You want to get as many shots in as you can before they come crashing into you, good range or bad range, the few seconds that you kill more of them counts. There are some cases when you have the luxury to move your ranged units for better shots like with the dwarfs who can hold the front lines to move their guns around to get a better aim. In general a bad shot that makes it towards the enemy is the most useful thing. Cause it can kill more of em before they reach you.
skirmish stance
@@BazzBrother Never use skirmish mode, maybe for ranged cav but that's it. Your entire formation will fuck up, your units will block eachothers shots and everything will go downhill quickly. If you mean to kite, it's better to do it yourself
@@famulanrevengeance3044 We kinda need something like "Skirmish Direction" Mode like "Move Back/Left/Right if possible" to chose from..... would make Skirmish way more practical usefull. So you could at least get them move in a Bit of Formation. "if Possible" here means such basic things like: As long as Terrain allows it but also they dont collide with another unit. But i doubt CA would be able to make such a Function withou massiv Bugs xD
I agree with you in terms of having made at least a little damage to the enemy vs no damage at all cause they could smash the missile having said that I see the good opportunity here to use this tactic combined with a Lord or hero attack as they could bait the enemy troops into the battle immobilising them.
to simplify your comment for those who don't get it (i'm positive there are some) - even a bad shot is better than no shot at all ;)
I love positioning handgunners or just rifle type of missile units to point blank or near flanks. So satisfying to watch while units melt
The waste depends on the type of battle you're playing. If you feel like the battle will last long enough for your units to use all of their ammo, then sure it's a good idea to wait a few seconds to get the most out of it. But sometimes you don't have time to wait 10/15 seconds, you are facing a powerful enemy with a lot of very dangerous units that need to be taken out quickly. In that case, you have to shoot them as soon as you can, even if you miss a bit more on the first few volleys
I’m usually ok with sacrificing some accuracy to get a few extra volleys in before the melee starts. Especially if I have higher range than me opponent. Any other time getting in that range is a great idea especially with highly inaccurate units. The first thing I think of is grenade cav. Very Short range but seem to miss a lot of you arnt really close to the enemy but wow that damage when they hit.
"Good ol' real life" did in fact make me chukle
These kind of stats feel mostly usable by Kislev cause they aren’t paper sheets on melee combat. Or on skirmish can cause those can outrun melee. But yeah totally good video
Dwarfs, Ogers, Norsca, Nurgel, Darkelfs can all make very good use of this advice depending on your playstyle. Also i May need to start doing this in my campains since my warpfirethrower is allways out of ammo.
They are usable by every faction that can field a ranged unit. You do know you can protect your ranged units? You don't have to just put them in front of a charging enemy. You can put something in-between. Bind enemy units in combat, then maneuver your ranged units to find into the sides and back. In which case, you get even more out of it because you're not only close but also firing into the flanks.
6:28 this shows another aspect of positioning, namely friendly fire. the arrows of the earlier games fired over your own troop's heads (for the most part, the games varied in the specifics), but firearms did not (again for the most part), and Warhammer splits the difference. when you are close to your own units and they are also close to the enemy you tend to do some friendly fire, more so with cannons. having a clear line of sight to your enemy helps, especially when close, which makes setting up skirmishing formations rather important in that you allow them lines of retreat and open lanes of fire.
Vampire Counts: write that down, write that down!!!
Late to the party but just wanted to say I love this series. I feel like so much of the content for total war games focuses so specifically on say a specific race and what strategy to use, but doesn't touch on the more fundamental things. I've been looking for this kind of "teach a man to fish" series so I can play with a more broad understanding and then have fun just learning the different factions etc., this has been a great help in understanding the common puzzle pieces to look out for and when to apply different concepts, rather than just trying to have a bigger army (or more armies) and auto resolve.
I love your videos man. Started listening to them while I work. They are just super informative while also keeping a nice tone.
Looking forward to the next one! See you in the future!
CA should really make stuff like this more obvious
It's bizarre to have an accuracy stat and then this. They could put it in the accuracy tooltip at the least. My guess is this only affects guns and not bows.
Edit: Nevermind, apparently bows too... weird.
If not in the unit card to avoid to try and avoid information overload and clutter, then AT LEAST make the change and put it somewhere like the unit browser so it's visible *somewhere* in game
this video shocked my prostate
Interesting vid. Sometimes I make my frontline hold down the entire army and I will rush my ranged units behind the enemy line and point blank them in the rear. It's devastating!
Hidden stats like these are so damn annoying. Why should players have to rely on game files and UA-camrs to find out that 75% of their ammo is being wasted at max range. There’s literally nothing in-game that alludes to this conclusion.
As always, thank you for going above and beyond Zerkovich 👑
I mean... Overall i agree, but in this case it is basically "It's harder to hit at range than it is to hit upclose" so they get a pass imo.
@@rafaelcastor2089 it makes sense IRL but it's a freaking game! I've never watched warhammer youtubers and I never knew this was in the game and I feel robbed. why the heck game doesn't tell me how it works? is there a reason for that? I can't think of one.
I'm not opposing mechanic rather I'm angry I had no meaningful ways to discover it ingame.
@@guffi00 "it makes sense IRL but it's a freaking game"
It's a Warhammer Fantasy* game. For as much as it has magic, gods, superhumans and whatnot, the universe is still pretty grounded when it comes to thinks not related to magic. Plus, it is a RTS battle simulator for the most part so it makes sense for them to have this in game.
And you do have a way to discover it in game, through experimentation and paying attention to the flying missiles since it does use a physics engine for everything ranged.
Yes, i agree that they could've done better tutorials or just add a line in the firing cones to tell you more directly, but it's not really something to get worked up about by itself.
Great material! I remember how much it changed my target priority when you realesed your first video about calibration distance. And happy that you mentioned how risky it is, especially against human enemy in Multi for example, was silently mumbling about it for first half of the video 😅
Why isn't there simply a second line in the cone of fire, so you know the calibration distance? It would be pretty self explanatory and people would know that you can shoot at the max distance, but it'd be better to get closer.
Because it is Creative Assembly, and they just love to keep a lot of stats invisible or impossible to understand
Every gun in real life has a max range and a max effective range. Idk why they can't just list it in the stats if that's how they made it behave in game.
Probably just not worth the time and effort to add it because it's really not important. It's an interesting mechanic but in the heat of battle not at all worth thinking about.
I just want to see what vigour loss does.
@@skorpikion Devs love doing that kind of shit so they can stealth nerf. They'll tweak those values and push updates without patch notes so you don't even know what they are changing. Its probably far more common than it seems to be and its already a common thing.
In more recent times a big example of that is the Helldivers 2 devs, guns have dozens of stats but only show a handful to the players, and the devs have outright argued against showing the players those stats in any way with a mountain of excuses. Of course, data miners have proven they tweak them secretly and even the devs have admitted to shadow nerfing stuff using those values (all while gaslighting players about it too).
“Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes”
Excellent vid zerk. One think i think you could have pointed out though and helps with the micro is using the command orders. If you hold shift and click a location, then click attack, the archers will move to there and then start shooting. That way you dont have to keep coming back and re issuing attack order
Wait... that's a thing you can do!? Since when? I've not seen a single youtuber mention this, and I've watched a bunch of videos highlighting hidden/advanced movement orders over the years.
@@drafezard7315 i dunno.. i've been doing it since Total war: Rome Lol xD
This is why I wish the cone stopped at calibration range rather than max range, or had some sort of colour change past calibration distance :( having to dig through unit files to figure out how best to use them always sucks
exactly. another option would be to list optimal range when you hover over range stat in a unit card to show where that max calibration distance is.
Dungeons and Dragons has a neat way of showing effective range on weapon or monster statblocks, which two numbers with a slash between, for example 30/60 (ft). The second number is the max range, and the first is max effective range, and between those two numbers your attacks are at a disadvantage.
Unit veterancy is also something to keep in mind, they become massively more accurate at rank 9 and you really don't have to worry about this anymore, it would be a waste to run them forward when they have improved firerate as well
Usually the enemy is charging at me, so range isn't exactly a constant :P
At best you could move closer to busy enemies while flanking
Worst part is that when you get too close the enemy might charge at you which gives them a speed boost and might make it so that you can NOT outrun them anymore
It's kind of you, to assume my missile units survive long enough to use ammo. Distraction carnifex? That's every unit I bring. See these archers? Nuh-uh sorry friend too fast for you, they're routing off the map already and BAM sucker that's GG I'm uninstalling this f-
that would be a nice feature/button to have for ranged units where you can set full, medium, and close range as a fire setting
I like flanking pinned melee units with ranged units up close. Also I think that what is being described at 4:25 is circular error probability otherwise known as CEP, which although it is being simulated in a fantasy game here, is a real life effect that artillery takes into account when working out ballistic properties.
As a lizardman player I do use this, for example shooting melee infantry who are stuck in combat from point blank in the back is awesome. However the kiting type of missile units do too often need that extra range.
I think this is really important, as someone who likes to play as Kislev often times the battle comes down to how well I use my ranged units. I recall in a really hard battle, my melee line was pretty much destroyed and it was my streltzi vs their lord + some infantry and if I'd known this early, I probably could have kept casualities much lower than they needed to be since I thought it would be best if my streltzi kept maximum distance to avoid entering melee but it probably would have been ok to be somewhat close for that damage opportunity.
Shooting at optimum range is only practical if you have the speed to get away from a retaliatory response or if you have an impassable obstacle to hide behind like a cliff.
As LoTW says, conserve ammo as it impacts the balance of power, the more ammo you use the less killing power you have to keep that balance of power in your favour
Very curious to see if gunner type units suffer from this less due to the higher velocity and flatter arc of their shots. Bows have to worry about not just aiming in the correct direction, but not under or overshooting their targets. For missiles with a flat arc, they can instead just draw a line through them meaning that under or over shooting isn't usually a problem.
I think gunners still have this in relation to accuracy issues. I've noticed several Empire gunpowder units deal more damage when they're closer than when they're at almost max range.
"gunners" are not really gunners in WH TW. They don't reload and they shoot through each other. They are basically archers with more limited animations and trajectory. Same with "crossbowmen"...
I understand why they didn't do it for this game, but I'd like to see more strategy games portray gunpowder units as fundamentally different to archers/crossbowmen. They should be low range, low rate of fire, that do high damage, slow and do massive morale damage to enemies. They should essentially function as anti-infantry pikemen, very good at holding a position from the front especially against low quality enemy infantry. This isn't necessarily more "historically accurate" but I do think in games that include both gunpowder and traditional ranged units it gives guns a more interesting role on the battlefield instead of just "bows but AP" which is really what crossbows should be.
They already are different. Guns have shorter range and significantly more LOS issues, but they're also basically impossible to dodge. Bows are much better for shooting over your own troops or onto and over siege walls.
They literally did this in shogun 2.
Back in Empire, there was nothing better than waiting until the enemy was well within your range before enabling fire-at-will, seeing the massive, instant damage just destroy both health and morale, sometimes causing instant breaks on the first volley. edit- And yeah, the point this video makes is VERY true. I've always known range effects accuracy, but I pretty much never move ranged units closer to take advantage. I get within bare minimum range and start blasting.
I cant undertand why these stats are secret and you have to search them yourself to know they exist, if CA wants to keep things simple they can just make it toggleable and disabled by default.
I had no idea about this but it totally makes sense. Like "good old real life" 😂. Thanks.
I guess an additional consideration would be move time (for units who cannot fire while moving), especially if your units will likely be interrupted before the job is finished. Every second that ticks by while moving lowers the usefulness of getting closer. It would be a more complex test, but I would be interested to see a test where ranged units start from the same distance from their target, one starts firing immediately, and the others move closer to the target before starting to fire. How long does it take for the damage output of the closer units to catch up to that of the units who never moved.
Yes, one of my biggest pet peeves is that calibration distance and area aren't shown in the unit panel; they can make a world of difference in how a unit behaves, but they're all too after hidden and never even talked about.
A pity, since they're a great way of representing ranged skill and accuracy; far more so IMO than the systems that Warhammer currently uses (which basically boils down to arbitrarily altering range).
Calibration distance is just the distance used for the calibration area. Projectiles are notably more accurate at point blank than at their calibration distance, as demonstrated in the video here, so the accuracy scaling is linear; it doesn't start getting worse when the target is beyond the calibration distance.
IE; even if a unit is 10m in front of the missile unit, it's calculating accuracy at the calibration range, with the "path" set through the target.
I think it only really matters when firing on stationary targets, if the enemy is closing in, the time between max distance and optimal distance is generally less thn 2 shots fired.
To be fair, the advantage to keep units further away is to obviously make sure you aren't an easy target for enemy units (be they ranged units trying to snipe yours, incoming magic or even charging infantry/cavalry/monsters/heroes). In addition, when a line of enemy units is charging your infantry you might as well start shooting when they come into range, if you take the time to micro every unit individually to only open fire when they are in ideal range you actually may miss out on a little bit of extra early damage (meaning, more casualties for you and a worse performance) and if you mess up your micro then that's going to hurt even more. In addition, since you will often want to pepper priority targets that you may need to hold in place with a melee unit of your own, those early shots might actually do the most damage because depending on the "blob situation" you may not be able to get a lot of damage in once a unit of your own engages the target.
Also, in PVP some of the most effective archers are skirmishers, so being close to an enemy usually isn't something you have to worry about.
...Of course, if you do have the opportunity to do so, then you should indeed just ignore all the above and move a unit up and let them deal more damage.
Is there a time when you do want to never fire early or use auto-fire? Yes, first of all in sieges. You want to avoid wasting ammo by having your units hit units in cover on a wall, or units that are running towards a wall or units that are suddenly changing postions chaotically (AI tends to do that a lot) or units that walk near buildings. Secondly, in battles where your archers are going to have to make every arrow count to stand a chance at winning the battle.
In an ideal scenario where you do want to apply your advice: try using V shaped wedge formations of your infantry with V shaped ranged units behind it. That way the "left arm" of ranged units can shoot enemies approaching the right arm, even up close and vice versa. If the enemy tries to focus the tip of your infantry V shape, they should still either get in wonky formations that makes it easier to hit them and/or they will take a longer time chewing through your "long" formation. As a final bonus: having such formations usually makes it harder for line-shape magic attacks, although you do need to watch your you don't blob your ranged V too close to your infantry V because that may invite your opponent to use circular AoE spells on ~4 of your units. Checkerboard square formations work alright for this as well, but can be somewhat undone with magic.
In the example at 1:24 I don't see a huge drop off past the calibration range. The 3 units, from furthest to closest, have about a 1.0 : 1.4 : 2.0 ratio of kills, which seems pretty even, instead of something like 1.0 : 1.8 : 2.0. Just going from the one example it's not clear if the calibration range is very relevant, or if it's just the closer the better.
Max calibration distance makes a lot of sense considering the physics of antique firearms. A great example is how at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, the French army under the Marquis de Montcalm fired too far in advance of the British, resulting in their shots being mostly ineffective. However, the British Army reached a suitable range and fired a deadly volley that decimated the French lines. This, combined with Montcalm's decision to pull back his snipers and pickets from their advanced positions when such fire provided by these sharpshooters could have kept significant pressure on the British forces, maybe allowing for Montcalm to jockey his army into a much better position, were some of the factors for the French to lose the city of Quebec and the colony of New France along with it.
With ratling guns I typically wait until they are halfway to the rating guns but that's more so they can fire on the target unit longer since they tend to route fairly quickly when exposed to such withering fire. The target being suppressed helps alot too
Used to put archers in frontline and shoot enemy before they engage with infantry. Then pulled archers behind my front line on the flanks and do their thing.
Altought with horse archers always micromanaging to shoot with them close as possible - then best way is go around and aim on enemy rear when they are locked in combat.
Does increasing range through stuff like spells, research and skill tree proportionally increase the max calibration distance, or is it always static?
good question. i could see +range techs/skills/etc. increasing both the max range _and_ the max calibration range proportionally, but afaik "max calibration range" is recorded as an independent value (not e.g. as "0.70*max_range", or whatever), so unless the tech/skill/etc. code specifically references max calibration range as well, it might only work on max range
I looked at database from wh2 and it is based on the projectile type and not the unit.
Interesting. That makes horse archers a bit more useful as they can really get close without the danger of being charged.....I never use them but might now due to my understanding. Thanks!
That's why I like horse archers, you can fire up close then run away.
I’d say this works best when an enemy unit is bogged down by your infantry, and is either large enough that you can shoot above your own units, or is on the flanks so you can reposition your ranged units out on the sides. That second one also avoids any shields the enemy may have, which means you’ll do more damage than if you were simply shooting from behind your front line
Only 1/3 less damage at max range is is rarely worth the trade-off of exposing your units to damage.
The only time it might matter in regular battles is with skirmish cavalry but due to prevalence of ranged units in most race's rosters, majority of time moving skirmish cavalry closer also puts the enemy ranged closer to your skirmish cavarly which usually have much lower HP.
The example of the bloodthirster only matters if battles end after a unit has used all its ammo. In my experience ammo capacity is quite high in TW and it is very rare to end a battle other than a siege with ranged units running out of ammo, taking the time to move ranged unit closer gives up 1-2 shots which at -33%% damage will take roughly 6-8 shots to surpass or roughly 1/3 ammo capacity of most units where TW gives 18-22 ammo as the most common amounts. Given that ranged units will frequently have to shift targets during a battle, moving forward does not result in a constant increase in damage output but quite often zero gain for increased risk of taking damage if your average battle ends with 90% of your ranged units still having ammo, moving forward will more likely reduce your total damage output.
Fast ranged skirmish units with stalk like chameleon skinks, shades, gutter runners or just very fast units like Empire pistoliers this does actually matter and is worth the micro- rarely otherwise.
When a bunch of Khornate brutes run at my line I'll take every volley I can get. In ranged on ranged combat? Depends.
As a massive missile player, I never knew this, and so glad I now do.
If you can get away with being very close to your target when you shoot them then that's great. Being able to fire while moving is a good perk.
It totally makes sense the unit kills more when close range, but it doesn't make sense that they use less ammo at different distances. The shot either hits or it doesn't.
I make sure to get my shooting units close when possible. Most of the time it's not possible due to enemy having shooters of their own so closing the distance just means I'm getting shot. Once combat starts and enemy units are pinned, I almost always run my shooters to the flank or rear and shoot into the enemy.
That is fine, the problem is that if you get closer with a range unit, until they move to the right position, use a protractor to fine exactly the right angle (because who needs hips), prepare a coffe, take a nap, prepare to shoot and finally (thank God) shoot, you have the enemy breathing at your neck so it is a bit difficult, at least for me, to get closer unless you are in a contention situation in a city or something like that.
Super important tip. Thanks man!
It's cool bro, my mist-walkers have stockpiles
Excelent video, wasn't aware of this
Bring your ranged forward! Blood for the blood god!
Nice and Clean Vids. Thx for the vid.
fun fact: streltsi is just a slavic word for shooters (strijelci in croatian, strijela - arrow)
This is really good information for sieges.
I have never had a battle where missile troops in any faction, ran out of ammo. Battles just end too quickly
id like that tip with one exception, when you move your units they sometimes tip toe for many second to reform before shooting, had that with horrors, since they are so many it took quiet long until they started shooting again wich was sad
Dr Zerkovich is in the house.
What’s the effect of unit level then? Can a lvl 7 unit kill effectively at a farther distance within their range than a lvl 1
level increases fire rate and accuracy.
@@graydenboad574 Accuracy is the size of the calibration circle so higher XP units have a smaller calibration circle as range increases. This is hugely important in artillery duels but matters for all ranged units.It is also why 9 XP AP archers are the most efficient units in TW. They get almost the same size calibration circle at min and max ranges while their fire rate increases and most of their damage ignores armor and can ignore shields if you fire across the field rather straight in front, and being archers taking aim at various targets does not require perfect LoS.
@@AlanLamb11 Do we have confirmation that the "accuracy" from leveling is to calibration area and not calibration accuracy?
@@graydenboad574 only confirmed calibration size but it might well be center of the area as well since it definitely seems like artillery circle hits closer to aimed spot not only a smaller circle but I don't know how that math works because there can still be clear misses that go quite wide while the calibration circle itself remains tight.
Always cool to see real world tactics functioning in game.
why mobility can be good for any troop type even archers when the enemy is coming to you, more widows to get to the sides or rear of engaged enemies to shoot them and time to get closer for more devasting accuracy and to conserve ammo
You'll save even more ammo by going into melee sooner by bumrushing the infantry charging you
Great tips for all those super common battles where the enemy just stand still and get shot for you 👍 😏
Interesting mechanics that I didn't think the game implemented, although in game it's easy to notice that the closer you are to the target the higher the accuracy. However, this risks are obvious when too close; easier to attack, ranges units need to stop firing to move on skirmish, more micromanaging units/less time to react.
Yeah, as a very specific example, I was a bit worried when he moved closer to the Plagueberers. Less ground for them to cover to launch their own projectiles.
Using at closer range of not isn't the only important thing, Reserving ammo to take care of cavalry or to use briefly for psychological to make a unit route that and also accuracy is a problem but not when you can't miss meaning they don't dodge fire also fire used by bullet units should be used on heros or monsters because if timed correctly you can one tap kill or stun with a follow up, Especially something good against heavy units or hero's which then if use spells that trap said heros the goal for the quickest battle is kill the commander then the ammo has true value and makes fronts that cavalry and infantry can't move without being suicide.
Melee units in WH3 seems to bypass your front line a lot easier thank in WH2, so getting closer is harder to do without getting caught
the problem is if you get your range units closer, they will be under enemy archers fire, and you will waste both ammo and your units, because dead units cannot fire and their ammo will "die" with them.
I absolutely love your content. as I always say... KEEP IT UP!, so I can see you in ze future!
I do not get closer because the enemy have ranged troops that decimate mine before i have a chance to run back again.
Heres the think if you bring your ranged infantry close when dealing with somthing like ogres they ALMOST all move much faster youll get in to melee and youll lose rapidly
accuracy only matters when you fire at single entities. if you shoot infantry, it doesn’t really matter if your shots are accurate. actually you want less accuracy so multiple shots dont hit positions of already killed entities
If the ranged units are on a wall would it be safer to fire immediately or do i wait till i see the white( or any other color present ) of ther eyes.
Depends on how much ammo you think you'll use up
If you're likely to run out of ammo for the fight, save for when you get the most kills
If you're not going to get to use all your ammo anyways, just loose whenever they're in range
Depends on how easy you can win the game. How much ammo does your unit have? Skink skirmishers have 3 javelins each, they better count. Vampirates can give more ammo to some units while fighting, they can fire more with abandon. Also depends on how fast your missile units can run, how far they can run, and how strong your melee units are when holding the line.
@@Canadian_Zac if it comes doon to winning u just follow cheese kings guide and camp sites but its boring so i wanna man the walls and pretend imma a scared unfortunate soul who in a minute will be mincemeat in a khorne bakery.
@@priyank1811 Then loose all those arrows at every Daemon you can see as soon as possible, lol
Range and unit matters, for instance irondrakes, they have a range just a little longer then they are tall, ALWAYS fire if they are in range unless they are retreating, but skirmish cav with small ammo reserves? Get a little closer, it will let you get more out of there shooting before you run out of ammo, in general short range weapons witb good ammo are always let lose, but if they are low ammo you may want to try and save some by falling back, or a close range flank
Then it's pretty clear that shorter ranger units can fire very precise coz their range under limit caliber range.
As long as i play TTW, i love to use gun/spear unit. Just some volleys in right angle, the battle is decided
Play like the movies "HOLD! HOOOLD! FIRE!!"
Is there a spells tips/winds of magic how they work video? I know these changed somewhat and can't seem to find a video explaining them.
The time it takes to move means you aren’t shooting, so I mean, what’s the sweet spot to balance this out presuming you are able to manage the attackers against your ranged units
checkerboard formation with gunners in between the ranks let’s them fire for longer and into the sides
very helpful video, thank you
i agree with what's said but for some reason part of my brain says no bad idea
cool video! is there also a differece between wide and narrow formations (rectangle) of ranged units?
I can see this being useful if the enemy isn't moving towars you, but if they are then firing at max distance is still predered as you didn't use all your ammo.
Ammo is replenished after a fight.
Huh, I knew that accuracy dropped with range, but I assumed as long I was shooting at a full sized infantry unit (as opposed to a single entity like a Lord or a cavalry unit where the models are larger but there are less of them), it would be irrelevant since I'd expect most of the shots to hit anyways. What is the meaning of calibration distance? In your test, 2 units were within it and 1 was outside it, but the closest one still did the most damage per volley instead of being in calibration distance an important threshold.
It probably has to do with the firing arc. The closer you are the lower the firing arc is. A unit with a lower firing arc is less affected by accuracy. A 3 degree difference in accuracy will have very little effect with a low firing arc but will matter more for a unit with a higher firing arc. So even though the two units were both in calibration distance and had the same accuracy the unit with a high firing arc is far more likely to overshoot or undershoot compared to the closer unit with a low firing arc.
To quote Kamacho's guide, calibration distance is the distance that the model will land its projectiles within the calibration area reliably. The smaller the area and the longer the distance the more accurate the unit is, but we don't have a good idea which stat is more important or exactly what 'reliably' really means. Units are always more accurate at closer ranges so far as I can tell. There are also accuracy and marksmanship base stats, but nobody really knows what those do and they are identical for most units. Why are there 4 difference ranged accuracy stats? Who knows.
Firing arc matters, but mostly because flat arcs tend to hit something else when firing at a unit while high arcs have a much larger chance of hitting the ground. Unless you are firing at a tall or flying single unit, or the target is heavily packed together in melee. This tends to reverse for artillery, IMO.
I use my range to thin out melee units before they engage my line. Then I turn to their range units.
Just get closer to the Bloodthirster, he says...
Getting ranged troops dead wastes ammo too lol
Turns out I typically only waste about 5-15% of my ammo thank you very much.
and then you see pinkys miss 70% of their shots at 3meters
So regiments of renown that have increased range or other increased range units compared to similar counterpart basically perform better because they have a higher max calibration distance? Maybe it'd be useful to use those units at the same range as their counterpart instead of using them farther back in your line.
Idk why everyone’s trashing the advice; it’s specifically if you’re worried about missing. There’s some corridor style battles where your units do literally nothing but fire until they’re out of ammo, so if you move them up a bit???
I feel so dumb for not realizing distance changes accuracy. I mean, yeah, it makes sense, but I don't think the game ever tells you that... Unless it was in the tutorial and I was like "Aw, I'll remember this!"