Assains or warriors

[Lord_Napis]

Which is better?
Assains which use sneak to kill their enimies, often using ambush, nightstalk, or concealment to hide nearby. They have weapons specalized to kill fast and in one turn. Often chaotic, the assassin is often used to asssinate enemy leaders while your leader is a safe distance away.

Or

The Warrior, which usually has high health for absorbing multiple attacks. Has high attack power for grinding his way to the enemy leader, and usually goes straight into the fight. The warrior is usually found in a group, and rarely fights alone.

If any of these descriptions is inadequate, please feel free to add your idea of assassin or warrior in your post.

[Insinuator]

What does this have to do with Strategy or Tips? Or even Wesnoth, specifically? I'm not even sure which units you're referring to, though I assume the Orcish ones.

[Lord_Napis]

In wesnoth, your main objective is to kill the enemy leader, so is it better to kill him with one stealthy unit or a whole horde of powerful units.The stealthy unit can avoid enemy units, and the warriors can just cut, slash, and crush their way to the king, although by then the king would have gotten enough guard units to make that harder.

So, which is better for winning the defeat all enemy leaders objective
Assains or warriors?

[TheScribe]

Well, if you want to look at it that way, I'd reccomend a combination of the two. There aren't really many units that fall under your classification of assasin though. It also depends on your map and opponent.

[Radh]

As expected, it honestly depends on the situation. The terrain can cause favor to use either one more aggressively, or even the amount of money you have.

Although, I'd like to say the opposite about your "definition" of the assassin. I usually see and use the assassin in groups, because of their low damage and many hits. The point is to get the highest number of hits you can and across all of the assassins, you may get the kill. I wouldn't say the same about warriors, but that could just be me.

[Insinuator]

In wesnoth, your main objective is to kill the enemy leader, so is it better to kill him with one stealthy unit or a whole horde of powerful units.The stealthy unit can avoid enemy units, and the warriors can just cut, slash, and crush their way to the king, although by then the king would have gotten enough guard units to make that harder.

If you're speaking in generalized terms and referring to "stealthy" versus "non-stealthy" units, the vast majority of times the answer is the "non-stealthy" units. In most maps, combat is head to head. Ambush is not even effective against the computer, and that is the only mainline stealth ability. So trying to sneak a unit, any unit, behind enemy lines is unlikely to succeed. Lone units are easy targets.

In some extremely rare scenarios, the designer will create the scenario in a way that encourages the use of stealth. Perhaps at a time like this a stealthy unit would be advantageous. But these scenarios are heavily modified to make such a tactic even possible, let alone viable. Do not think they are the norm.

End point: far, far superior to have a "whole horde of powerful units" than one measly "stealthy unit".

[TheScribe]

Also, there aren't any stealthy units other than the Wose that are level 1. And yes, the horde is generally the way to go.

[taptap]

Ambush is not even effective against the computer, and that is the only mainline stealth ability. So trying to sneak a unit, any unit, behind enemy lines is unlikely to succeed.

Even if repeated often this is simply not true. Ambush works very well against the AI - given a suitable map, look around in Legend of Wesmere for several good examples. However most assassinations in SP are done with fast units (e.g. silver mages, gryphons, cavalry) not with stealthy ones. So with northerners you would like to do assassinations with a pack of wolves not with assassins.

Other than that, it always depends on the circumstances.

[Insinuator]

Ambush works very well against the AI - given a suitable map, look around in Legend of Wesmere for several good examples.

Key words: "given a suitable map". It does NOT work well given a common, well-balanced map. As I said earlier, the designer has to deliberately skew the map and positioning to afford such a tactic. The OP is looking for a general rule, not the piddling exceptions. Does it depend on circumstances? Of course it does, as does virtually every tactic in Wesnoth. But when we're generalizing, as we most certainly are, strength beats stealth.

[Lord_Napis]

Lets assume that you can recruit level2...

[TheScribe]

Still go with the horde option. It works best.

Resistance is futile. You shall be assimilated.

[maredi316]

Assassination is not the way of winning in wesnoth in general.
Also I advise you to specify the terms of an assassin-type unit.

Assassin-type units should be more utilized as village grabbers and flankers. Almost every stealth unit have low hp, high mobility, okay cost, high evasion, weak attack, and usually abilities. The saurian skirmisher, fencer, thief, ghost(?) are such good examples. As it is quite obvious, these guys can rarely hit back and kill anything by itself. They're too weak. Also they die very quickly against most units anyway. Thus assassinations rarely succeed, and assassin-type units should be utilized as killers of the wounded. they should be considered like the miseraconda knife(medieval knife used to kill wounded enemies who try to fake death and escape after soldiers leave), and unlike the sniper rifle which goes for one-shot kills.

Assassin-type units should always threaten villages, be with warrior-type units, and always go for the wounded enemies. They should even be kamikaze troopers as it stops the enemy units from attacking your main army.

The conclusion is that warrior type units are more common and basic, and can be used in most situations. Assassins are for special cases, and you won't need more than one or two of them.
An experienced player of the game knows that 3 recruits of spearmen is good, but not 3 fencers

[TheScribe]

Also I advise you to specify the terms of an assassin-type unit.

Assains which use sneak to kill their enimies, often using ambush, nightstalk, or concealment to hide nearby. They have weapons specalized to kill fast and in one turn. Often chaotic, the assassin is often used to asssinate enemy leaders while your leader is a safe distance away.

The stealthy unit can avoid enemy units, and the warriors can just cut, slash, and crush their way to the king, although by then the king would have gotten enough guard units to make that harder.

[taptap]

It is completely obvious who of the commenters mainly plays multiplayer and who campaigns Also, obviously everyone is talking about different units. Too general question = strange answers.

[Aelaris]

Wesnoth is a game built to provide interesting warfare. It is not built for stealth gameplay. Ambush and other stealth abilities are useful to set up the interesting warfare situation, but if they were sufficient, then players would play a game of stealth vs. stealth, which Wesnoth's mechanics are ill-equipped to support.

I would vote stealth if the stealth was to tilt a multi-player combat situation such that people commit badly because they do not have full information, but for assassinating leaders... no. Warriors are for that.