How do we save archer characters? Either their bows turn into swords and they stop being archers altogether...

How do we save archer characters? Either their bows turn into swords and they stop being archers altogether, or they just shoot things at close range which defeats the point.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=7RR6I-BLKbQ
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Make them like the Vanadis guy, and have them win by pulling crazy trick shots and beating longbows with their short bows.

You don't, because archers are only useful in formations.

Trick arrows and sharp bows

That's part of a larger problem:

It's much easier to write power levels than tactics.

Anime and manga fights are all about who's "strongest," which is very silly. What matters far more is who has the situational advantage in a given engagement. Numbers, positioning, logistics, and intel all matter more than who your "strongest" guy is. But in an anime, if a force with superior numbers, equipment, and intelligence ambushes someone with a "high power level," the latter will win.

Ranged combatants have an important role in any story that acknowledges tactics. If the only thing that's important is "power," the advantages of archery are ignored.

I don't see how that's a problem. It's anime and it isn't supposed to be realistic. It's cool seeing the person with the high powerlevel win.

By not placing them in 1vs1 battles against short range fighters.

Or give him teleport, wormholes and illusions to keep his distance.

>archers are only useful in formations.
In group battles, yes.
If it's 1on1, and you start at a range of 200 meters to the archer, you're fucked (unless armor has advanced past the point where a bow can reliably puncture them).

>Either their bows turn into swords and they stop being archers altogether,
Which is stupid because carrying a bow does not stop you from also carrying a sword - which is one of the advantages of swords.

This. So much this. That was stupid and awesome at the same time. Shooting down an arrow with an arrow and then owning the dude right between the eyes

Best archer char I've seen in Animu, Manga , LNs so far who isn't too over the topyet

>It's anime and it isn't supposed to be realistic.

Anime isn't a genre, it's a medium. There's room for all kinds of different stories, more and less realistic, more and less complex.

The problem is that since "simple and unrealistic" is much easier to write, we get a lot more of that. Complex tactics and countermeasures, enemy soldiers who are a significant threat because they're professional combatants (not because they have names, absurd backstories, and crazy outfits); these things are highly satisfying, but rare.

Anyone can rip off Dragonball Z. It's much harder to effectively rip off Ghost in the Shell.

make them shoot swords.

The problem isn't archers but the constant fellating of swords. Bows and Polearms are the overwhelming primary weapon in both war and hunting for most of human history. The fantasy that we have of swords is so overwhelming that few seem to realize that they are overwhelmingly treated as sidearms and domestic weapons. Swords aren't on the level of Bows and Polearms.

Just make them all like Tigrmvovomuv-sama.

>ghost in a shell is realistic and complex

It is not. It is just a futuristic fantasy just pandering to more autistic audience.

Your taste is shit and Japan recognize that. Just accept nobody wanted to pander to your shit taste if anyone can help it.

Oh boy, can't wait for armchair historians to wank bows and spears, what a fun thread this will be.

4th volume was the best for me in terms of combat and shit.

Too bad about the anime adaption in general.

They will never face the fact that they are wrong and a lot of evidence support that the "facts" they rely on to build their cases are actual fictions written by basement nerds to pander to them for all their money.

They are worse than Apple fanatics since their ego is bigger and they actually believe nobody is laughing at them.

Hunter x hunter does that. Stereotypical fighting manga just use weapons for 'style' since there is no real point to their application. Same with short and long range, ambushes and tactics.

Spear and shield is godlike.

The best part was the guy seeing Tigre being surrounded by the aura of a black dragon, that was simply badass. Plus all the crazy shot that Tigre pulls are really amazing, like killing a horse while rescuing Ellen and taking a slash with a lobbed arrow while riding sideways, or that time he caught an arrow and shot it back instantly at a knight.

The thread isn't about that. Its about grounding combat and spending time doing cool scenarios for your characters

Sup Forums is full of off topic posting and newfags today for some reason

My favorite was the Asvarre arc, where things like the longbow fight happened, Tigre was amazing there.

Naginata best weapon for woman

But your archers need a line of spear fighters to shield them from the enemy.

Ever see anyone hunt with a sword? Spears have a 400,000 year history with mankind, were historically the most deployed weapon in war (the Chinese "King of Weapons"), and even HEMA sword autists acknowledge that spearmen will typically defeat swordmen in duels.

And yet you watch any random fiction; Bleach for example, and pretty much 99% of the weapon representation are magical swords. Worse in that Katana are objectively not even good swords from a global standpoint despite their high representation.

The advantage of bows really should not need to be explained. Fantasy needs to also acknowledge that due to potential high drawing weight bows can easily be the most physically demanding of the ancient weapons. Hercules is frequently depicted with a bow for damn good reason.

The entire scenario is fucking retarded.

Upgrade them to musketeers

Real life isn't a video game, kid.

>Upgrade
>musketeers

A trained army of archers will ruin an equally large army of musketeers.

The advantage of muskets was that you didn't need to train your soldiers anymore.

>archers didn't need protection
Retard.

I can fap to this sword so swords are better.

Just shut the fuck up, you don't know what you're talking about, you're just wanking your imaginary dick here. You do not deserve to be treated with any sort of courtesy, you are scum and a blight.

Real archers were mostly skirmishers who would be at the front of the army or its flanks. They would retreat anytime the enemy's main force began to move. If the enemy's main force was approaching then you'd only be able to counter that with your own force. This stupid scenario in your head of a wall of spearmen in front of archers shooting at retards who charge blindly up a hill is something you only see in video games. It's not real life.

>not noticing the bow in her hair
Even your sword knows what's sensible.

Sidearms are a thing. If the guy charging him is a sword asshole then it will just become a sidearm vs sidearm battle.

Why is vorpal blade so hot?

>Real archers were mostly skirmishers who would be at the front of the army or its flanks.
That's because Europeans had very little archers among their ranks and relied mostly on melee fighters.
When the Persians attacked Greece, they had an army consisting almost entirely of archers, with a thin guard of spearmen in front of them.

>If the guy charging him is a sword asshole
Why is the guy charging you using his sidearm?

Using a bow efficiently means being forced to use armor that allows for certain arm movements. An archer is less protected than a fighter with armor designed for close combat. If your troop of archers is assaulted by a team of designated melee fighters, they are going to get wiped out.

Early arquebuses, yeah, that's true. But later muskets were a lot better. Slower to reload and fire than a bow, but musket balls caused bigger, nastier injuries than arrows. Take an arrow in the arm, you're wounded. Might die if it nicks an artery or gets infected. Take a musket ball to the arm, you're probably losing the limb if you don't bleed out immediately.

Muskets are far more devastating than bows. They pierce through light armor like nothing, requiring you to outfit your entire army in steel or at the very least iron if you want them to not be cut down in waves by volley fire. Even then muskets can still devastate an infantry line in a way that bows can't.

And the best part is muskets can reach that level of devastating efficiency with near total consistency. Unlike archers, it doesn't rely on the individual skill of the shooter to be really effective. A master archer can definitely out shoot a musketeer who only picked up a gun a month ago, but there's thousands of musketeers for every mater archer and they're arguably more effective than he is.

It's cute how you people treat warfare like a videogame.

It's a systemic anomaly in the matrix, people don't know, but they've all been autistic for a long time.

...

Why isn't he wearing pauldrons?

Do you get literally all your information from video games and movies? Europeans made extensive use of archers, especially the English who were famed for their longbows that they used extensively in their armies. And that's also not even to mention the famed Genoese crossbowmen. But Europeans had this thing called heavy armor that made piercing and cutting weapons mostly useless, especially in the late medieval period plate armor had advanced to such a degree that not even heavy crossbows could penetrate it. While archers and crossbows were still useful for cutting down the rabble, once the heavily armored cavalry and infantry got in your face it made little difference.

>When the Persians attacked Greece, they had an army consisting almost entirely of archers, with a thin guard of spearmen in front of them.
You can't even name the battle where this happened, can you?

Pauldrons aren't part of the aesthetic yet?

I am more surprised he isn't barefoot, wearing sandals, or wearing cheap sneakers.

>use armor that allows for certain arm movements
Are you seriously one of those retards that thinks armor was so cumbersome it made people wearing it slow and clumsy?

Give them some reasonable upper body strength for pulling bows.

archers were never long ranged killers or marksmen like portrayed in movies. they never rained death in formations either.

>especially the English who were famed for their longbows that they used extensively in their armies.
These British longbowmen have always depended in their efficiency on how well they were guarded by cavalry and infantry troops, just like the Persians, though unlike with the Persians, those were not part of the same unit.
The fame of the British longbow stems precisely from how rare it was for a European nation to focus so extremely on ranged fighters. That was extremely uncommon.

This was by the way also a reason why Nomads from the east (like the mongols) were so utterly devastating to the European forces. Not only were they cavalry, but they were shooting at the Europeans from a distance.

>You can't even name the battle
Is this your attempt at an ad hominem?
Fuck off.

>An archer is less protected than a fighter with armor designed for close combat. If your troop of archers is assaulted by a team of designated melee fighters, they are going to get wiped out.
Doot doot in my video game archers have less armor and HP so they can't fight up close like my melee units! Fucking retard. Archers didn't wear heavy armor because they couldn't afford it usually. The exception being the English yeoman class which actually had the money to buy decent equipment.

Also in real life archers were expected to join the melee once it started, since it's pointless to shoot into a crowd of your own troops. Archers usually carried long knives or swords or axes, some kind of side arm. Also the technical classification for most of them is "skirmisher," since relatively few armies had dedicated "archer" roles.

No, I am not.
Are you one of those retards that think armor had no effect on mobility at all?
youtube.com/watch?v=7RR6I-BLKbQ

This. We need more brawny bowmen.

>since it's pointless to shoot into a crowd of your own troops.
>allowing the lines to break up
Yeah right.

>Doot doot in my video game archers have less armor and HP
How nice, another ad hominem. Refer to .

>These British longbowmen have always depended in their efficiency on how well they were guarded by cavalry and infantry troops
Meanwhile in reality, every battle that was actually determined by longbows (like Agincourt) featured little or no cavalry by the English, and armies consisting mostly of archers (about 2/3s in some cases). Agincourt was a wet dream for an archer. Muddy earth impossible for enemy to use their cavalry to any effect and a nice slope to deploy stake palisades. It was a total massacre, raining arrows down on heavily armored knights and infantry as they waded through mud, then when the charge failed they just draw swords and go out and hack them up. The French couldn't even reply with their crossbows because the English position was too far across the muddy field.

This fantasy scenario in your head of spears forming a wall to protect archers, I can't find a single example of it. That's why I asked you to name the battle you described. You can't do it because it never happened.

>(about 2/3s in some cases)
So, 1/3 people without ranged weapons to guard them AND perfect territory that protected the archers further because it slowed down the enemy progress towards them?

I am not sure what your point is. Archers need protection. Period.

The thing is, in anime people almost always have ways to close the distance almost instantly or they have bullet-time reflexes. Being a ranged character is difficult under such circumstances, especially if the opponent is faster than you and a better close-ranged fighter.

This. World Trigger does ranged/modern combat better than any series I've read.

Not same user and the scenario you are describing sounds like a disastrous friendly fire scenario. I would not want to deploy infantry in front of shooting archers as a meat shield simply because the archers are just as likely to hit my own guys.

They shot apaches down like 3 seasons ago. They are doing fine.

Ballistics say that arrows can theoretically fly in arcs, though that has never been observed yet.

Maybe part of the problem is people thinking that spear formations were static and defensive. The Swiss Pikemen for example were known primarily for their charges rather than being an anti-Calvary wall that you typically see in video games.

Thats the entire problem though. They are firing in the general vicinity of the battleground rather than displaying fine marksmanship. If the enemy is far away enough that friendly fire is not a concern they are not really slowing down the advance anyways.

>this thread

>That's why I asked you to name the battle you described. You can't do it because it never happened.
I can't find the source I'm looking for, but look at it sensibly:
The Persians fielded first tens of thousands and later hundreds of thousands (or millions, if you trust the sources) of mostly archers, because the Persians were mostly archers.

You can't just line them all up in an impossibly long line because with that many soldiers in a row most of them will never even see the battlefield. So they were evidently standing in formations. Which means 's point is completely pointless.

We also know that our modern movie depiction of formations breaking up upon first contact with the enemy is bollocks. When the lines broke, that's typically when you lost the battle.

Now, are you going to tell me that those tens, nay hundreds of thousands of archers stood around doing nothing while there was a battle going on in front of them? I may not have a source for a designated team of guardians holding the line for them. But why shouldn't they?

Formations are pretty big.

>doesn't provide any counterarguments

Have them grow up to be snipers, when they get to megalopolis to draw a bow.

[again]
I won't be available for anyone looking to prove me wrong because my little sister just invited me for Indian food. Sorry.

I never said they were not in formation though. I am talking about Archers using Infantry to actively slow down an enemy advance. Better to use static defenses, retreat, or place the archers at the flanks of a larger infantry formation rather than have archers behind the infantry. You certainly are not going to continue firing once there is an engagement if you are placed behind the infantry.

Wait, is this Tougou-san?

>Better to use static defenses,
On foreign soil?
>place the archers at the flanks of a larger infantry
When 90% of your troops is archers, that does not work.

Why are you in a weapons thread if you don't want to read about weapons

i thought ishida is one of few archer character thats done right? give archer a teleportation and it will fix most of problem

That's Washio Sumi, Sup Forumsnon. She is a Hero.

Okay /k/, I'm writing something atm and one of my characters has a collapsible spear. That is to say, it's made of a certain metal that's light to carry but strong, and collapses like a telescope after which she stores it in her jacket. Would this be feasible (i.e. would it still be functional as a weapon in a fight)

Oh of course, I should have known. She's too happy in that pic

>On foreign soil?
The wooden stakes served the English well in Agincourt.

>When 90% of your troops is archers, that does not work.
I never asserted 90% archer composition. This deployment of archers is even illustrated here
You do realize I am arguing AGAINST the idea of using a wall of spearmen to protect archers right?

I don't know much about military/combat history, but I guess the takeaway from this thread is have a variety of weapons in your army rather than everyone carrying the same weapon that's assumed to be endgame.

Fucking Japan

>... have a variety of weapons in your army rather than everyone carrying the same weapon that's assumed to be endgame.
While true, this rarely applies to swords seeing as it was primarily a sidearm. Even in Japan the Katana only really gained it's popularity post-Sengoku.

>Anime and manga fights are all about who's "strongest," which is very silly
Confirmed for only having read the bottom of the barrel in battle shonen/seinen.

>inb4 it's all shit because fighting is for kids

Yeah no fuck your boring ass normalfag life stories. I can really enjoy SOL, but only if it's about characters who are exciting and already have an interesting life. Seeing people who fight supernatural powers fuck around at school or a mall is much more interesting than seeing a bunch of boring faggots with boring, normal lives fuck around at school or a mall.

See Ikkau from Bleach, wooden spear with a steel cord inside
If it's bait, sorry but im too tired to think

Yes, of course.

Spears are functional hunting weapons. Depending on the setting a person carrying around a hunting weapon isn't THAT odd, although it would always be more conspicuous than a sword of course. Pretty much rifle vs pistol scenario.