Why do all Missile Troops have impetus 0

I'm playing 100 years war scenarios. The army lists for the 100 years wars has all the missile troops with Impetus of 0, so they cannot generally charge.

This feels odd to me in that I've read on several occasions of Longbowmen entering combat after their arrows were spent, for example.

I'm curious about the thoughts behind all the missile troops having impetus of 0.

There are some Missile troops that do have Impetus. First, there are several types of Missile troop types. FL javelinmen, mounted archers etc.. By Missile troops I am presuming you mean T troop types. Even here there are exceptions. Indian archers in some of the lists in EI4 have Impetus. Also, archers that form back rank of FP, FL or T have Impetus gain impetus from their front unit. There are other examples (Samurai for instance in EI5.) As to why specifically English Longbowmen don't have impetus I think you need to take that up with Lorenzo.

HYW is not my area of specialism but I thought most instances of archers 'getting stuck in' was after the enemy had essentially made contact and mostly defeated.

I can't off-hand think of any examples of archers charging into contact to start the combat. And that would be the main difference of I=0.

There may be a case for allowing HYW I=0 archers to pursue based on the evidence ... perhaps.

Zippee wrote:HYW is not my area of specialism but I thought most instances of archers 'getting stuck in' was after the enemy had essentially made contact and mostly defeated.

That is my impression too. More of a counter punch than a punch. The rules are written for more generic situations but perhaps Impetus 0 units should be able to charge exhausted opponents. Maybe it requires a DT to do so. Personally I am ok with most T units not being able to initiate melee with the enemy.

Agreed,
I'd be fine with some mechanism that allowed them to continue the fight but not to initiate a new one.

I think it might get squirrely when possible contact with other units comes into play.

All-in-all it's simpler just to consider that in the (very generous) amount of space represented by the engaged units' bases the archers are indeed getting stuck in and chasing down struggling men-at-arms.

It's just not happening at a unit/base level.

just consider also that giving them the impetus bonus would increase their cost (altready not so cheap) by 3pts per Unit. Say you field 8 Longbowmen Units and the extra cost would be 24 pts, maybe just to have the chance to make a single desperate charge in a game...