100 Marksmen or 100 Orc Chieftains (H3)

[UndeadHalfOrc]

If you had to start a scenario map with either 100 Marksmen or 100 Orc Chieftains, which would you choose? Damage or durability?

[Banedon]

Marksmen, no contest. Damage is way superior to durability unless you're in a situation where you can't help but take damage, and sometimes even if you can't help but take damage.

[MagusofStars]

Marksmen without hesitation. At the start of a scenario, shooters open up the map and clear through neutrals. If your shooters are taking serious damage early in the scenario, you're probably not playing properly (use Slow or hide them in a corner if they're in danger). So the durability of Chiefs doesn't do much for you, so you might as well take the high damage.

The math, if I've calculated it right (no guarantees) works out thus:
100 Marksmen do 4-6 damage each, so average 500 total damage.
100 Chiefs do 2-5 damage each, so average 350 total damage, but they've got 2 more points of attack, which equates to +10% damage, so your end result is 385 damage.

That extra 115 damage is huge early game.

A better question IMO might be what would you take later in the scenario. If you have a mid-game army from a different town (so either way, you're sacrificing the "same alignment +1 Morale" bonus), but you get the choice to take 100 Marksmen or 100 Orc Chiefs from a Seer's Hut reward, who do you take? Here, Marksmen's damage is still of course useful, but the durability would come into play as well.

[csarmi]

I dont remember the stats of the creatures. Where can I find them?
Marksman is probably more useful, but I can show you a lot of situations where you will feel bad about choosing them. Without more information, this question can't be answered.

If the question is: which one would I pick blindly, without knowing anything about the map: I'd pick the chieftains. They seem like a safer choice to me.

[Kilfire]

Definitely the Marksmen - unless your first task on the map is to assault a castle, or to take on something that would get first strike (Grand Elves, pair of Titans, horde of Dragonflies)

[Kristo]

Stats are available on the main CH site (Castle and Stronghold). The Marksmen will deal more damage, but the Orc Chieftains have double the HP. I guess it depends on what you need to do with them.

[Storm-giant]

Marksmen, they just take down to much enemies
However, everything depends of the situation, of course

[darknessfood]

100 marksmen of course. They shoot twice. Let them battle each other, the Orcs won't get near without losing much...

[csarmi]

Well orcs have the statistical win 1v1, but it's completely irrelevant.

[darknessfood]

Just put them in battle. No battle begins face to face. The Orcs need to walk. Meanwhile, they get shot and they die...

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Why would the Orcs want to walk when they can shoot too?

[Pol]

Maybe he meant walk faster, like being able to start the shooting first?
If so, that's an everlasting question for Sir Mullich

[darknessfood]

Why would the Orcs want to walk when they can shoot too?

Allright, but the Marksman shoot twice, so they can potentialy have double damage...

[Yurian Stonebow]

I consider this a very tricky question. The Marksmen do quite nice damage but they can't take damage. The Orc Chieftains are quite mediocre unit with no superb shooting skill/stats. I guess their real power is their durability.
With this said, I'd take the Marksmen with me 66% of the time. But (yes, there's always a "but") if magic is involved the situation will look quite different. Well, this dilemma is a nice puzzle to solve, anyway.



Yurian

[Kristo]

UndeadHalfOrc usually makes these threads when he's designing a new map. Given that people have mostly been choosing Marksmen, I think he should go with 100 Orc Chieftains just to make everyone's life difficult.

[Corbon]

Orc Chieftains aren't really durable. Piss poor defense and average HP for a Lv 3. On top of that, they're slow. For a shooter, damage is by far the most valuable stat but the difference between Marksmen and Chiefs is fairly small, 8 Atk and 3.5 damage vs. 6 Atk and 5 damage.

I'd pick Marksmen if most targets are melee units and Chieftains if the targets are shooters.

[maygwan]

it really depends on the scenario and hero ect.
orc chieftans would defnately help sieging a castle where as the marksmen would be a choice factor in ground combat vs another hero.
likewise if your opponent as expert tactics then orcs would be better but if you had expert archery then marksmen may be the choice.

having said that i think marksman would be my first choice, well sharpshooters would be but there irrelevant in this thread lol.

[Bandobras Took]

What kind of hero is leading them?