The HOTT Tactical Manual
Shooters
Summary
Foot troops. Cost 2AP. Move 400p on road, 300p in good going*, 300p in bad going*. Combat factors are +3 vs foot or Stronghold, +4 vs mounted.
If they lose a close combat to mounted troops then they are destroyed. Otherwise they recoil.
If they are doubled in combat they are destroyed.
*Semi-official amendments have reduced this to 200p
Alan Saunders writes:
In my view shooters are, with behemoths, one of the best value troop types
in the game. Their factors are OK against anything, and they can put up a
good fight against the one thing they are vulnerable to (mounted). They are
at home in any terrain, and move faster than any other foot. They can
affect an enemy at range, breaking up an attack before it can hit any
line. They can be defeated - a determined attack by blades or spears can
push them out of the way, and mounted can take them on by exploiting a
vulnerable flank - but it's not easy. They are, prehaps, not a troop type
to fill your army with, but in reasonable numbers they can be very useful,
protecting flanks of slower, close formation foot, or acting as the centre
for a more mobile army.
For the cheesy player, try this. Place a shooter so that part of it is behind an enemy element's rear and blocking its recoil. Then target the element's flank edge. As the shooting is not on its rear it recoils into the shooter and is destroyed.
Graham Harrison writes:
Shooters are also excellent at protecting
your flanks and rear against fliers and airboats. My elves have seen off
many aerial flank attacks with careful use of my two elements of shooters.
Joel Gregory writes:
What I like about shooters is that they do not suffer in combat in bad
going, and thus are very effective against more superior troops that get too
close to that area. I have used them to stop a group of blades that had no
choice but come into the bad going and confront my shooters, and who had the
general with them, who was also a shooter.