There been some previews shown about this unit. It appears to be a spearman crossed with a hand cannoneer.
For arguments sake let’s say they have similar stats to the pikemen. Same vulnerability to archers due to the bonus damage they receive. Get 60 HP, 0/0 base armor, same as a Halberdier. Cost per unit, 15 gold and 55 food. 5 gold cheaper than militia, but 10 extra food than a militia with supplies.
Base melee 5, one less than a Halberdier. Charge attack of 17 (same damage as a Hand Cannoneer) every 15 seconds. Starts fully charged upon unit creation.
What do you speculate the unit would be like? Would this unit be effective on the battlefield?
Cropped from Youtube. This is the unit. Alongside a new cavalry unit. Could possibly be something like an Imperial Steppe Lancer. Or maybe a Cataphract Lancer.
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Other spear unit in the game are not as fragile as the spearman line so I don’t think they have to be weak.
I assume that they will have a charged ranged attack that is likely stronger then the normal hand cannon attack but doesn’t do bonus damage vs. Infantry.
And then they have some relatively boring melee attack with a little bonus damage vs. cavalry similar to Flemish Milita.
I don’t think they will be cheaper then Milita (with Supplies) and I assume they will have some base armour like almost every Infantry unique unit.
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If it’s essentially a melee spearman, then its charge attack would have to have range (even if very short) , otherwise it wouldn’t really fit in with how a fire lance work.
I feel like giving a non-UU unit (guess it may be a regional unit) the ability to charge is a bit too fancy. It can work, but a bit wasteful.
After all, I didn’t see it directly hitting the enemy with its weapon but just firing closely, so my guess is that it is just a simple ranged unit, but holding a long-handled weapon makes it easy to be mistaken for having the nature of spearmen. This could also be wrong as more information will be released in the future.
It has a different posture than the Steppe Lancer. Looks like it has the same posture as the Coustillier.
It’s more likely the Iron Pagoda of the Jurchens, or it could be the Iron Hawks of the Tanguts. In contrast, the grenadier and the catapult camel is more suitable and possible to be trained at Castles as they’re more unique and special, so the Iron Pagoda/Iron Hawks may be the UU at Stables. I guess it’s the unique upgrade to the Cavalier, but again it has a different posture than the Cavaliers, so…
Technically posture cannot determine whether units are on the same line, but currently units on the same line seem to have a consistent posture. Maybe it just replaces the Knight line, I don’t know.
Chinese get split into different Chinese civs? I saw Singijeon alongside with fire lancer.
This could be a regional unit shared among Chinese, Tanguts, Jurchens, and potentially other East Asian civs
Would be great if Koreans finally get Singijeon / Hwacha after all those years. If so, what happens to the War Wagon?
Nothing will happen to the war wagon. Same thing with the Persian war elephant.
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I definitely like the Fire Lancer unit and I think they’re quiet suitable as a regional unit for East Asian civs, however what I don’t like is that they depicted it wearing heavy iron lamellar armor.
While medieval East Asians definitely made and used a lot of iron or steel lamellar armors, they weren’t ubiquitous. Such armors were quite expensive and time-consuming to make, and only the elite soldiers and the generals had access to them.
It’s better if they depicted it as wearing the large-brimmed felt hat and the paper armor, which were the quintessential equipment of medieval Chinese Song era infantrymen. Although most typically associated with Southern Song infantrymen and militia, similar attires were worn by the Jurchens, the Mongols, the Koreans, and likely by the Tanguts and the Dai Viet (Vietnamese) as well.
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