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Class: missile · Category: infantry · Men per unit: 40

When the Emperor Augustus' reformed the Roman army and created the Auxilia, various kinds of auxiliary troops were recruited or re-organised into cohorts. Most of these units were heavy infantry that were equipped and fought in a manner similar to that of the legionaries, but archers were also organised along the same lines. During the Roman Republic, most archers that the Roman army employed were either from Crete or Numidia. As Rome's territory expanded, this began to change, as large numbers of archers were recruited from the eastern provinces of Asia, Cappadocia, and especially Syria. From Augustus' reforms onwards until the second century AD, the number of units of Cretan archers in the Roman army fell to one (Cohors I Cretum Equitata Sagittariorum stationed in Moesia), and the vast majority of auxiliary archers came from Syria or Asia Minor, though a significant number hailed from Thrace. Like the regular infantry cohorts, the archer cohorts were either "quingenaria" ("five-hundred-strong") or "milliaria" ("one-thousand-strong"), which were 480 men, and 800 men strong respectively. The need for more archers meant that the Romans trained their archers all over the empire, not just in areas that traditionally excelled with the bow, such as Syria.

	Primary	Secondary
Attack	10	6
Charge bonus	5	5
Type	missile · archery	melee · blade
Damage	piercing	piercing
Projectile	arrow	—
Range	170	—
Ammunition	25	—

	Primary	Secondary
Total	25	—
Armour	11	—
Defence skill	14	—
Shield	0	—

Hit points	1
Ground: scrub / sand / forest / snow	0 / -1 / 0 / -1
Charge distance	30
Formations	Square

Technical stats

Time between blows (primary / secondary)	2.5 s / 2.5 s
Extra fatigue in hot climates	2
Collision mass per man (1.0 is normal)	1.17
Spacing between men: close / loose	1.1 × 2.6 m / 1.98 × 4.68 m
Default ranks	5

In battle: Very good stamina

This unit cannot be recruited from any building.