Need advice, Rebels vs. Northerners

[Mattimeo]

Hey, I'm a new player and i've recently been playing as rebels against my cousin who started off playing as the knalgan alliance. When he used them we used to have close and hard-fought matches almost every game. He has now switched to the Northerners and in the 2 matches we've played ive gotten overrun very quickly and pwned. The second match i used more archers since most of the northerners cant defend ranged attacks, but it didnt help at all. I also try not to attack them at night time but doing so usually allows them to gain the middle position in the map, so im hesitant to not attack them at night. Is there something else im overlooking or has anyone else had problems handling Northerners as Rebels?

Thanks.

[commanderkeen]

The other thing to remeber is that elves are quite feeble in open ground. If possible, try to keep your elves in forest, and try to avoid open land. If the enemy is using trolls, then use a few (1-2) mages. If the enemy have grunts, use archers. And don't forget that shamans can heal your units.

And during the night, you don't have to retreat. Just stay where you are and don't attack the enemy unless you can kill them or deal more damage than they will.

Scouts are bad except in larger maps. Woses can sometimes be good instead of mages vs. trolls but you do need one or more mages. Fighters aren't so good vs. northerners but they can be used as cheap meat shields and, to a lesser extent, cannon fodder.

I heartily recommend JW's How to play... Guides. I believe it is stickied at the top of this forum. His advice is better and more reliable than mine. Also, you could check out EP's(Elvish Pillager's) Unit Guide too. It is also stickied.

[Fiach Dubh]

I heartily recommend JW's How to play... Guides. I believe it is stickied at the top of this forum.

It is, there's no specific 'Rebels vs xxxxx' sections yet though, just a bit of general advice on playing Rebels.

I'd say that Woses against Northerners are a bad idea, they get killed too easily by cheap Orcish Archers with ranged fire attacks.

You need Shamans - Orc Assassins rarely manage to directly kill anyone, but have an annoying habit of poisoning everything in sight, and they're extremely hard to kill because of their high defense. Keep them out of the way, but close enough to the fight to be able to help - and if you ever have a chance to level one up, do it - the Druid's ability to cure poison, rather than just delaying it, almost completely negates the Assassin's usefulness, and the improved healing is very handy too.

[troodon]

Do not always rush ahead. Use hills and other defensive terrain, especially forest, to your advantage. Guard your archers and shamans with your elvish fighters. Of course, I only play against the AI....

[Mattimeo]

Do not always rush ahead. Use hills and other defensive terrain, especially forest, to your advantage. Guard your archers and shamans with your elvish fighters. Of course, I only play against the AI....

The thing is, whenever I dont rush in, I am overrun by his units very early. Whenever i try to play defensive i end up not having the village advantage and i have to jsut wait for gold to slowly trickle in as he amasses more guys to send at my defensive elves. This always leads to me losing, even if i use terrain to my advantage, especially forests. Every game i jsut feel like im outnumbered and overpowered in combat.

[Krispos]

Ok, here's what you do:
Don't throw all your units in one basket.
Find villages on the front line and throw a shaman on one, then put a fighter in front of her, and an archer on her most vulnerable side. That should be easy enough to hold, unless he puts more units in your direction, say like five to your three, or even four. Then take other units close by and take them from behind so they can't easily escape. Outside of that, just use a clear head and don't do rash things out of fear or indecisiveness.

[troodon]

If you don't have enough villages, use Elvish scouts to get the ones far away. You just recruit 1 or 2, maybe more if it is a huge map. They are fast, and they have a ranged attack, which you should use against the Wolf riders.
Could you post a replay?

[Yogibear]

We can't really give you specific advice, only general rules, unless you tell us what map you are playing on and which settings you use.

A replay would be even better.

[Glowing Fish]

I would say, the key to the Rebels is their specials. On default era, you can recruit units with slow, magic, ambush, regenerate and heal. Recruit some Shamans to slow down enemy units. This can be risky, since you are spending 15 gold on a unit that can't do much actual damage. But if you use it well, it can give you a big advantage.

[Mattimeo]

Thanks for the advice guys. I was finally able to get a win by taking into account the terrain more often, using smarter unit formations, and making sure I sent in a shaman with at least one fighter, archer, and a scout or merman. Let's hope i wasn't jsut lucky.

[F8 Binds...]

Try to lure your opponent into forest, where you have better defense/movement, and you can cut him off from behind. Slowing grunts is quite effective, as it halves their damage. Avoid finishing trolls till last if possible, because their resistance and regeneration can be a problem if you can't finish them off in one turn. However, they only do 7-2 impact, so they don't do much return damage. Basically this is how it works-

archers/shamans (not alone!) on grunts
mages on trolls
fighters on archers/assassins (backed up by shamans!)
woses don't recruit- archers with fire attack, grunts/assassins with blade attack.
merman hunters- don't recruit UNLESS there is a significant lake/river. They will tend to lose 1on1 with nagas.

[Maeglin Dubh]

Slowing halves -everyone's- damage.

[F8 Binds...]

Slowing halves -everyone's- damage.

true enough