Spearman

Spearman/Man-at-arms
General Information
Available in	Stronghold games
Type	Weak melee unit
Cost	8 gold 1 spear
Unit Statistics
Health	Low
Damage	Low
Speed	Medium

The spearman (known as a man-at-arms in Stronghold Legends) is a light infantry soldier who is equipped with a spear.

Description

Spearmen are light units that cost 8 gold and 1 spear which means they can be trained in droves. A single spearman is weak and can easily be eliminated with archer or crossbow fire. The only troop weaker than a spearman is the armed peasant. Despite this, spearmen have several plus points.

Usage

Spearmen are cheap and easy to train in large numbers. A spear does not take long to produce and requires only 1 wood so spears should be readily available and the only issue with training them will be if you have enough gold. Spearmen and archers are the only units that can knock ladders off wall, and one of the few units that can climb them. They are also the unit with the fastest speed for digging/filling in moats.

The cheapness of this unit comes at a price however. These soldiers have next to no armour so they are heavily vulnerable to missile fire and the only unit that they can kill on their own is the armed peasant. Even large forces of spearmen can be destroyed with a carefully planned missile barrage. Be wary of when you use spearmen because of their weaknesses but these men can really change the outcome of a battle.

How to defeat

To defeat even the largest forces of spearmen, first build a wall with several towers and build mangonels/ballistae in them. Then put as many archers and crossbowmen as possible in them. With so much missile power, no spearmen stand a chance. If they do break through, just use several knights andswordsmen to kill them.

Make no mistakes though, to a flimsy defence, large armies of spearmen can wreak absolute havoc.

Game differences

Stronghold, Crusader:

• Spearmen move at average speed. They are among the few units that can dig moat, however.
• They are the only unit to pick ladders off walls, leaving laddermen useless, who will disband.

Stronghold 2:

• Spearmen move very fast and they move even faster when moving in formation.

Stronghold Legends:

• Spearmen are replaced by men-at-arms, who have the ability to throw their spear, making them somewhat of a long-range unit and supplementing the lack of hireable outlaws. After the spear is thrown, they will use their short blade for hand to hand combat. Their spear regenerates after a short period of time, which they can throw again.

Trivia

• Spearmen are fast, but weak due to armour and limited training, but if you look closely it resembles mail armour, which grants excellent defense against slashes, blows and thrusts, but slows down speed of walking due to being made of thousands of iron rings.
• The spearmen in the other Stronghold versions sound unintelligent, even stupid, but in Stronghold Legends they sound like experienced warriors, yet most of the time they lose.

• The outlaws in Stronghold 2 resemble the spearmen in Stronghold Legends.
• In Stronghold 2, when they have been selected several times the spearmen will begin to say that they're confused and get really panicked after selecting them a few more times. Then they say 'what is going on' three times and then back to normal speech. 

Gallery

Men at arms, READY!

Spears, forward!

Moving... out?

A man-at-arms waiting