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

[Aelaris]

I think the weakest are berserkers. Sure, they do damage, but only 4 (IIRC) a hit, so they lose vs most melee units, and they can't defend against range. Even in melee, at the right ToD some archers can beat them up.

Oh, and don't forget, they cost 19 gold!

Of course, they are absolutely great units. They are like super-slow horsemen on steroids. No, on steroids that are on steroids. You don't use your horseman against full melee units, you use him against archers and mages and scouts.

And thus, with one Urfserker hiding in your defensive line, your opponent has to re-think how he or she attacks with archers, mages, and scouts. Because if the Urfserker can get them and still be protected (or get the mage at all), then that's not an attack that's going to be very happy. They are a unit that says "Nope, all those aggressive plans are a terrible idea, try something a little more tame."

The best part is that they are going to have a bunch of ranged units, because the alternative is fighting dwarven fighters in melee.


They aren't that impressive on your side, but talk to your opponent about how they felt about your lurking Urfserkers after the game.

[sadlyknight]

I think the worst units are the zombie and berserkers. The berserkers even if they mange to kill a unit they will get killed by a fighter. Zombies can by killed by any unit.

[Deki]

Zombie is probably the weakest unit, but there could be good use of them if large numbers are available. I do not use them much though. Footpad on the other hand is weak but great to use as guerrilla fighter. In any case, I would not think of removing and unit from the game, each unit has it purpose and role to fulfill. That is also indicator how great game Wesnoth is.

[Ranger]

The "Great" Mage. The only thing great about him is the amount of micromanagement needed to get one.

[WesnothNewbie]

The "Great" Mage. The only thing great about him is the amount of micromanagement needed to get one.

The "Mage Magister" unit in Delfador's Memoirs has to be exempted though: he does 16:4 magical ranged, 14:2 magical melee (with staff of power), has 6 movement hexes, 65HP, Leadership (at level 4!) and +4 healing to boot.

[Eagle_11]

Honestly, this would be the troll rocklobber. Deals much lesser dmg on hit(unless facing skeletons) and has same problems -read that as: one chance to attk that almost never hits- as its dwarven counterpart(and in the case of skellies you are better off with the troll-grunt line anyways.)

[myte7]

From my multiplayer perspective: the Loyalist Bowman.
It's the only unit in the default era which does not have a strong point. It does not shine at any task. It's just all around mediocre in a game where most of the time you need a specific unit for a specific job.

[Rigor]

Finally somebody mentions the good for nothing bowman. It took some time and a ton of insignificant characters first but what we all know just as 'aquabow' trope can be finally dismantled as a joke. He is just not that good is the end of the story.

Take lvl2s - whos far up on ur red list? For me its the gladiator drake If thats his name. Many mediocre hits without first strike means plenty retaliation eaten. And no flight. Grrrr.

[Chief_Chasso]

The troll rocklobber can be useful in SP campaigns. I generally go with a 2:1 ratio of troll/rocklobber. It seems the enemy thinks twice before attacking a rocklobber because of their potentially hefty melee and ranged retailation damage. Put rocklobbers on the front lines as good defensive wall.

[Coffee]

Have to agree that the troll rocklobber is useful to deal 'psychological damage' to opponents (fearing retaliation damage on melee/range).

Speaking as a player the worst units are IMO in order from worst to least worst: ghost, bat, bowman, merman hunter, heavy infrantryman, *footpad, *elvish archer (*with notes).

I don't know what it would do to balance, but IMO ghost should be one gold less, bat 1 extra hp to make up for feral (as he would have gotten likely strong or resilient as second trait anyway), bowman an extra damage in melee or less xp to advance, merman hunter an extra hp point, heavy infantryman (well... it's fine if we keep him for jokes in water ), footpad should switch nerf on melee to nerf on ranged instead, elvish archer should be 16 gold. Again, saying all this is as a player.

So in short, a vote for ghosts as worst unit here.

[iceiceice]

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.

[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?