Lothern Sea Guard

Lothern Sea Guard is a High Elves missile infantry unit in Total War: Warhammer II. Unlike other levied citizen militias, the Lothern Sea Guard remain armed and ready at all times.

Description
The Lothern Sea Guard can fight as effectively on land as at sea, and are equally resolute when defending the walls and fields of Lothern as they are as when battling on the deck of a ship. These dangerous duties require the Sea Guard to maintain a flexible armoury. The vast majority are well-trained in the use of spear, shield and bow - the better to combine the finest aspects of the spear and archer regiments of other cities and realms. Indeed, it is a point of pride in Lothern that the discipline of their warriors far surpasses that of any found elsewhere in Ulthuan. When the armies of Ulthuan go to war, the Sea Guard play a crucial part, crewing the many warships and acting as the vanguard for the oncoming host.

Strategy
The Sea Guard are a dual-type unit equipped with a bow and spear. They are a good multi-roled unit that is recruited by the High Elves from any High Elf Rally Field. At a War Hall, they can be recruited with shields equipped, unlike that of Warhammer 1 factions where you would usually need an armory-type building to get shields. This unit generally replaces High Elf Spearmen in garrisons when you level up cities and settlements, eventually completely replacing even High Elf Archers as well. Later game, High Elf garrisons will mainly compose of shielded Sea Guard and some sort of elite infantry like White Lions of Chrace or Swordmasters of Hoeth, but no archers or spearmen.

Two things to remember are that their range is lower than that of archers, but still good compared to most ranged infantry, and that they come in ranged infantry unit sizes (ie 75% as many models as melee infantry). This means they are really range infantry with spears, rather than spearmen with bows. The loss in numbers will have a dramatic impact on how they perform in melee and means they cannot simply be substituted for spearmen unless you expect your extra missile fire to even things before melee. They are very useful in making your backlines more secure as even if flankers or flying units penetrate the attackers will have a rough time. They can also back up your front lines in melee if they need help. If you don't think your backlines will be under that kind of pressure and feel confident in your front lines holding the extra cost of Sea Guards may be difficult to justify.