Shield Maiden - Stronghold Legends Game Units

Cost in Gold	50
Cost in Honour	10
Recruited From	Ice Tower
Ranged Attack	No
Recruits needed	1
Requirements	N/A
Available Factions	Ice

Shield Maidens are a special unit in Stronghold Legends, and only available to players who are currently playing as the Ice faction. They are recuited from The Ice Tower, costing 50 gold and just 10 honour. You can find out ways to generate Honour in the game here.

This makes the Shield Maiden an excellent unit to mass produce, as Shield Maidens are very durable during attacks and can deal out a lot of damage to enemy units.

The armour worn by Shield Maidens is more durable than Leather Armour, and a Shield Maiden can easily advance on an enemy Crossbowman taking both ranged and melee hits while still defeating the Crossbowmen with fairly minimal damage.

Archers deal even less damage, both in ranged and melee attacks. While it takes a little time for the Shield Maiden to start dealing out some damage, she will quickly deplete the health of enemy units, especially if they are vulnerable unarmoured units. In larger groups, the Shield Maiden can do some real damage to even the most heavily armoured units, significantly causing damage and slowing the enemy assault.

The Shield Maiden is well matched with the Saxon Warrior from the Evil faction in single combat, although due to the delay in the Shield Maiden attacking a unit, the Saxon Warrior is likely to take a very slight advantage just surviving the Shield Maiden. On the other hand, in single combat a Shield Maiden will slightly outlive a Maceman.

Shield Maidens are great units for protecting choke points on your map in smaller groups. They will significantly hold back enemy advances and if you use these units in conjunction with White Witches for this purpose, it makes them even more valuable.

Shield Maidens also have the special ability within the game of being able to walk over and destroy Rose Gardens. While there is no way to place these during a standard Custom Skirmish or Multiplayer game, Rose Gardens do appear during some official game missions, and can also be placed through the map editor.

Shield Maidens are the only unit in the entire game that can successfully walk over Rose Gardens or destroy them without taking damage. The Ice Queen can also walk through Rose Gardens without taking damage, as can all female units, but she cannot attack them in any way. Only Shield Maidens possess the ability to safely attack and destroy Rose Gardens.

Tip: The key to using Shield Maidens is to use them in numbers. A large number of Shield Maidens will be overwhelming for any enemy army and especially against the standard troops in the game, as they will deal significant damage to those units receiving little damage in return.

They are especially useful for quickly scaling walls during an invasion, taking care of enemy defenders, or also for recapturing estates from enemy units because they are equally able to attack and defend.