ja33 wrote:
Thanks for the informative replies. I was leaning toward 4 bows in each of 3 warbands, but going 6,6 0 might make more sense with my elves. My concern with putting all 12 together is I've seen lots of times where those bows either get left too far behind the rest of the army or the flow of battle plus trees & buildings blocking off line of sight can make all those bows grouped together much less effective, and thus, only maybe 50% or 66% of the army is able to contribute...
Putting the archers in the right place during the deployment phase is extremely important. As a rule of thumb, they are the last units I deploy.
In my last game, Domination, I managed to pick the perfect spot for a warband of 12 orc trackers, and they made their points back very quickly by concentrating their bow fire on rangers and supports. Had I split them up, half of them would have had to made far more difficult shots at harder targets. Plus, they are worthless in a fight, so there's no reason for them to be even near the frontline. Even if those are orc bows, I found out that 12 shots on a small area each turn can be a thorn in my opponent's side: they thinned the line enough to allow the infantry to break and encircle
Rangers are different. They have a higher fight value then their soldier counterpart and have access to spears, which means they can make the difference in a fight.