Buffers to use

What is a buffer?
Its a troop/monster you send along to slow down the monsters from getting to your ranged troops/monsters.

If you have played any MMORPG's you will understand the tank, support, dps rolls.
The tank stands up front to keep the mobs off the rest of people. The support jumps in to help.
But in all of it, its the dps that is ones who really do the fighting, and take down the mobs.

Now to understand how to use a buffer correctly you need to know the range and speed of the monster/troop your dealing with.

Wiki - Monsters

By looking on that chart you can see gargoyle has range of 15, speed of 90.
So they are kinda fast, but must get in close melee range before can do any dmg.
Lets use axeman for example against them.
Axeman range 60, speed 30.
If you look at your reports you can see things move in the 15's. (Don't matter if you have wheel trained up, that is for transporting not used in battles)
Battles always start with everything accounted for. Highest range or speed on one side added to highest speed or range on other side then add 15.
So battlefield will be 90+60+15=165

Battle would be: (this is not exact just example)
Round 1
Axe Thrower move:30 attack:xxxx
Gargoyle move:90 loss:xxxx
Round 2
Axe Thrower move:-15 attack:xxx loss:xxx
Gargoyle move:90 attack:xxx loss:xxx

What we see is both moving forward. The Axeman can attack cause range, but gargoyles cant yet.
In next round they can while the axeman is trying to back up. If you don't have enough axeman to take them out in 2 rounds this fight is over, with loss or wipe.
Now lets do same fight but with militia added in. Only need 1 cause game is kinda dumb in way. When you think of fighting hundreds of mobs you cant think of them as separate. They all move together. If just 1 troop or monster gets in way. They all stop to kill that 1 and therefore lose a round.
So by sending in multiple troops with varying speeds, and ranges. It will space them out. If done right you can get in 3-7 rounds. More rounds, more monsters you can take on with less troops.
With all that knowledge the only reason for melee or low range troops is for buffers. The key is to have huge army of ranged.
With practice you can get the buffers down. Play around with it, watch report.

By using the wrong buffer you can actually lose the fight when normally you would win.
For example I captured some lizards. First time use figured hey they got high range 120, I was using just bowmen at time with buffers of militia and axeman. Doing same mobs over and over no problem all was good.
Captured few lizards thew them in batch see what they can do. And I loss bowmen.. I was like wtf!
Well what happen was the lizards range made the battlefield bigger. Which made the bowmen have to travel farther to hit there target. By time they got to where did damage all the buffers was dead. So it was like fighting with no bufffers at all. Same thing can happen when used to fighting with axeman and you decide to throw in some bowmen. Or decide to use hussar. With the speed of hussar they can make the battlefield bigger also. Wouldnt recommend using hussar with axeman, bowmen ok but not axeman.

Questions? Post or ask me in game

Gamesmen

Another good buffer to use along with axe throwers is goblin. Capture a few of them. Send 1 goblin, 1 militia. Will give you a 3 round attack. 4th round they are on top of axe throwers.

Gamesmen