Introduced in Stronghold 2, these mercenaries are the first units in the game that can travel o­n water! Each o­ne of them comes with a little boat strapped to their back - when they get to the waters' edge, they get in to their boat and paddle to their destination...

Submitted by Aubergine

Unit Summary

• Recruit at: Mercenary Post
• Cost Required: 40 gold
• Honor Required: None
• Melee Weapon: Double-headed Axe
• Ranged Weapon: None
• Attack Strength: Poor
• Speed: Average
• Special Abilities: Can travel o­n water
• Nationality / Language: Scottish / Gaelic

Special Abilities

As the name suggests, these chaps can travel not o­nly o­n land, but also water (rivers and sea)!

Rivers are no longer impenetrable barriers to melee troops - simply send some of these chaps across the river to take the enemy by supprise!

Invasion from the seas

Note: Since the 1.10 patch, this little trick has not worked and they will appear o­n the nearest land to the invasion point flag.  Firefly are looking in to updating the game so that an invasion of 100% boat warriors can arrive o­n sea or rivers.

One of the most impressive features of these warriors is that you can now script invasions that start o­n water!

Place a o­ne flag o­n water (the invasion point) and another o­n land (the target point) as shown below:

Next, go in to the scenario editor and script an invasion - o­nly include boat warriors and set the invasion point and target point to match the flags you have placed:

(click for bigger image)

It's up to you whether you use them as reinforcements, attacking or siege, etc. When the invasion occurs, the boat warriors will appear at the invasion point, already in their boats, and make their way to the destination:

Defending against them...

These units are not very strong so a few armoured units, especially horse mounted knights, will make short work of them. In the picture below, a few foot-mounted knights are systematically killing an entire invasion of boat warriors with significant ease:

In addition, they are also vaulnerable to ranged attackers such as archers and crossbowmen.

Building walls (or other obsticles) along shorelines will reduce their attack options.

Attacking with them...

Put simply, use loads of them! They aren't all that strong so numbers count! Stay well clear of ranged attackers and armoured melee units.

They should o­nly really be used in cases where their special water crossing ability is essential. Look at all the rivers and sea o­n your map and locate obvious targets that could easily be destroyed by a supprise attack.

If possible, use these units to attack farms and other easy targets that are not heavily defended. Set to defensive stance, they will make short work of farmers and other civilians and generally cause havoc in lightly defended areas.