Yeah, throwing knives are pretty useless at the moment. Everything about them just says to run up to the guy and hit them with a big stick instead.

the problem is the dmg, its irrelevant, range doesnt change much

i just added a small bleed effect and it works for stuff like bandits etc or it could be poison etc

for troops it need a full rework to make it viable but tbh i dont see the need to have trained troops with throwing knives... thas a weapon for skilled assassins not troops

The problem specifically is that the damage does not scale with the unit group size, but the cost of equipping them with it does. This makes it one of the worst items in the game to use on your unit designs.

Throwing Knives in and of themselves are not a very strong ranged attack. If an additional +1 range were given, I think that would go a long ways into their effectiveness.

The problem might lie in the fact that they treat throwing knives as a spell.

I thought I was being a genius when I made my anti-Gilden anti-armor pikemen and gave them Throwing Knives and the trait where you get +X% vs damaged enemies (vicious? brutal? bloodthirsty? cheeky? something like that). Run up and hit 'em with knives on one turn and then get the bonus for melee the next. Little did I know they would only do damage about 10% of the time. Oh well.

Also how do you tell when you're getting those sorts of enemy-specific bonuses (e.g. fallen-vs-men, etc)?

You can check the damage you are about to do while hovering over the enemy, the rest is us ppl with a head for numbers or a lot of time who tests and notices something is wrong with them.
I don't think there is a visual cue although that might be a good idea.

I hope throwing knifes becomes a line of weapons (throwing axes, throwing spears, throwing shrills, throwing slaves, whatever) and I would like to see atleast a slight buff to the current knifes, as I never see them deal real damage. Also the tooltip should state how much damage and what type of damage they are about to deal.

I like the idea of having trinkets and stuff to give to your units and soldiers to make them feel unique and special, they don't have to be overly powerful, just... have a chance of actually dealing damage

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

The first issue for throwing knives is the price. If i have nothing better to fill a slot and it cost (almost)nothing why wouldn't I just throw them on. Then it is a very situational use, ie very occassionaly I may want to throw the knife instead of something else. Particularly if its a crap unit. Maybe the free town militia could have them or something.

I am not however  paying metal for it.

It could I suppose have some sort of power, like poison or something.

The real problem for me is, as has been pointed out above, the lack of scale. Bandits throwing knives at my lvl 1 sov is doing something. At  lvl 10 is pointless. Even if if its a whole comapny its still the same tiny attack.

I understand its a 'magic' attack not a weapon. So rather then impossible balance it for the starting bandit and mid game troops I like the idea of scale thru upgrades as suggested above.

A start bandit gets a throwing knife, mid game u could throw axes (or javelins or spears whatever) for a lot more damage. A powerful one shot attack.

It wouldn't be too much on the kiting issue given there is a 3 turn cool down, but I suppose it could be exploited.