Ruffians?

[edgar55]

Sometimes I like to think about the worst unit of the game. I think that there a unit that is completely useless: the ruffian.
An attack 5-2 and the 16 hitpoits make this unity worse than a peasant. Have anybody a different opinion?

[Turuk]

One question mark would have sufficed for the title, not 5.

The ruffian has the same melee attack as the peasant but is indeed without a ranged attack and has 16 HP instead of 18HP. However, it also costs 2 gold less, which means that you can buy 4 ruffians for the price of 3 peasants.

[palloco]

I wonder how do you play Wesnoth if you only take into account 2 parameters. Do you wait for the enemy to surrender after you state your brute superiority?

[Darkmage]

First of all, i'm not a lvl0 units player, but, when your money runs low you can get those without losing income, ok all lvl0's do, but, can be used as cannon flodder during daytime, or take them out off battle to captur villages, ok they have low attack as walking corpse does, and those are weaker against arcane, but goblins can only level up to lvl1 and ruffians to lvl3... and goblins have the traits of weak and silly while ruffians don't.

I'm not saying ruffians are good units, only that there are some uses for lvl0s, against shkeletons, poachers are "the prey" while ruffians have impact, saying that those are cheaper and more effective, i would chose them.

Appart to this, i don´t use them...

[Araja]

They are alot better against skeletons, and can advance into something fast and agile...

[csparrow]

it depends on what your fighting whether to use ruffians or not and if you have footpads,thugs, and cash ruffians shouldn't be used but if you don't have some of those then ruffians may be handy

but against walking corpses they will join the rank of the undead

[edgar55]

ok, so I think that now I can give a little utility to the ruffians If I use them against skeletons only...

[LightAlkmst]

How does Ruffian defence compare to Peasant?

[Araja]

Less damage, less health, no range attack.

Not counting their different advancement paths, the only good thing about them is the impact, and that can be as much of a weakness as everything else.

[manored]

How does Ruffian defence compare to Peasant?

Its all equal, both on resistences and terrain afinity. Ruffians need 5 less xp to advance, and since lv0 units are mostly cannon fodder that might get a chance to shine if they advance a level, thats a lot

Whenever its worth recruiting then or not probally depends of the options... after all, some units are meant to be part of special situations (such as campaigns) and not to be balanced for normal competitive play

[ElvenKing]

In addition they have no upkeep, which can make them useful in some situations, such as at the start of the High Seas scenario when you have to fully crew your ship with a low income.

[Araja]

Don't Peasants cost 0 upkeep too?

They have equal resistences and terrain affinity...well, yes...So they have less health, -1 damage, -6 range attack , but they require 5 less exp to advance so they're equal?

Hmmmmmno.

[manored]

Don't Peasants cost 0 upkeep too?

They have equal resistences and terrain affinity...well, yes...So they have less health, -1 damage, -6 range attack , but they require 5 less exp to advance so they're equal?

Hmmmmmno.

Unless the current unit guide, wich I am using for reference, is outdated, they have only 2 less hp, same meele damage (except its impact) and -4 ranged damage, costing 6 while peasants cost 8. Not that different to me, what makes the -5 xp needed to advance, what is close to meaning one less unit to kill, considerable

[Araja]

If I was thinking of a strong peasant....
Hey wow, I've achieved Failure #2.

So, -4 damage and -2 HP, but also -5 exp...cheaper and weaker, but with more potential if they somehow survive.
Although impact is generally better than pierce except in special cases such as Mudcrawlers or Cavalry.
Ending Note: what does it matter, we can't recruit either of them anyway

[manored]

Well, I think in this thread we were all assuming we could recruit all units off the main mod, incluiding the normally unrecruitable ones... with so many units to those from its hard to decide But, compared to the units I know, they dont seen useless, though their uses are indeed few. I personally hardly ever use lv0 units (except for bats, wich are freaking awesome flying binoculars).