Death of the guards

[A.Saturnus]

Yeah

Yesterday I fought a decisive battle in my Italian campaign against the Byz. He had a 9 star general in Moldavia and I wanted them dead to have a free back in my invasion on Constantinople (which is defended by 4000 men). The problem: Varangian Guard. He had 200 of them, some of them valour 7 ( ). I had 2900 against total 2000 of him, my units had all valour 3. The battle was a counterattack of him and he brought all his Guards in the first wave. I charged them with chiv knights but they slaughtered all in their way, so my first row of troops ran. I deployed the following units a bit away from the fighting zone so that he had to reform his attack. I had now mainly cav and could take out his units that were spread across the field. The guards were only defeatable by charging them in the back for a couple of times. I lost all my Hospitaller and maybe 4 units of Hobilars and mounted sgts but I managed to kill them So his best troops are dead and I will have easy way conquering Constantinople.
Maybe this doesn`t interest you, but I just had to tell this victory someone...

[maroule]

no no, we're interested http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

anything involving desperate fighting against elite troops is interesting by my standards

[Kraxis]

Well I experienced the exact opposite result when I faced a Valour 7 Byz Inf with my Ghazi and Armenian Cav... I killed about 65 of them and lost about 300 troops doing that. One of my Ghazis lost 60 men and killed no less than 1( ) Byz Inf.

[Furtrapper]

I agree - we like to hear this

I was shattered the other day when invading Almohad Flanders with my Danish troops. All was going well until I had my Chiv Knights (admittedly Valour 0) charge a group of 32 militia sergeants.

Hah, I thought, you lot are toast...

Oh no, they turned out (I found out later) to be Valour 7. Needless to say they TRASHED both units of my chiv knights. In fact the whole army was mashed to pieces including losing a small unit of Chiv MA to a Valour 4 Peasant unit

Needless to say I had my revenge later, but it just shows that double numbers and superior armour/weapons are not enough against battle-hardened veterans...

[Satyr]

Ha ha ha ha, I have valor 7 Almohad Urban Militia that just wipes everything off the map in 1150. It really helps that I have 6 companies of them in one stack and the other stack has 5 more. They kill everything that dares to attack them and many troops just run away before contact. Oh yeah, the 8 star general and his 7 star bother probably helps too.

[Daevyll]

I'm training some uber-elite peasants in Provence now, with fully-upgraded armor and morale levels hehe.

I wonder how they'll do if sent in en-masse under a 9-star general...

[hoof]

The Byzantines recently decided to move south from Turkey into my lands (as Egyptians), early period. I had about 1500 men in each of the two main threatened territories with 4-star generals, and a 500-man garrison in the other route. Facing them was no less than 10,000 men, which were threatening my two 1500-men units.

So on came the onslaught. The Byzanties devoted about 7,000 men to the attack, 2,500 in the first province and 4,500 in the second. After an epic 2 hour battle, the first smaller battle had me crushing the assault with 2:1 win/loss ratio. Feeling confident in my defence strategy, I plunged into the 4,500 man assault. This time he came after me with about 5 units of Guardsmen, supported by oodles of Byz Infantry let by a 7-star general (mine was 4-star). Facing this first wave were 5 units of Sacaren Infantry, backed by 6 units of bowmen 3 units of veteran Ghazi (love those guys), and some assorted cavalry. I had a good hill, in the desert, but it made no difference. The slaughter was horrific, and I'm still kicking myself for not recording that fight (even resounding defeats can be good to watch&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. It's so rare to have the Computer walk all over you in a battle

In about 5 years, 1205 rolls around and I can get Arbalesters. Then those Varangian Guard will pay http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[RunAway!!]

I must confess, I've been humiliated by peasant hordes in the past. I really thought two units of spears, two units of archers, and a royal knight unit could beat off the rebellious hordes, but it didn't work Fanatics somehow managed to beat the crap out of the knights, and after that it was history. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[Al Qasim Hussein]

Uber-elite peasants? You're not the guy from the 'my +1 bonus woodsmen from Novgorod can't beat byzantine infantry' post are you?

[Kraxis]

No that was Anderschm... and he made fun of the whole Guild. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Sainika]

I have a 11th valour unit of Kataphraktoi. It's a 7th star general. He kills everything that moves. Once 26 of this heroes smashed 240 steppe cavalry and a unit of Mongol Heavy cavalry (another 40) and lost only 10 men. Spears or something else - he doesn't care much because he wins all the time. Monsters

[Daevyll]

Quote[/b] (Al Qasim Hussein @ Dec. 10 2002,18:29)]Uber-elite peasants? You're not the guy from the 'my +1 bonus woodsmen from Novgorod can't beat byzantine infantry' post are you?
No I'm not, but I must admit he was the one that gave me the idea of raising an uber-elite peasant army http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Tried it last night, it's actually quite entertaining.
With a Level 9 general they can do quite some damage on the initial charge, and there's just so bloody many of them (I had 2 full stacks) that you can simply choke the battlefield with them.

Your own casualty levels tend to be atrocious though, hehe

Classical Pyrrhic victories.

[A.Saturnus]

It`s amazing how fast it can go. My army wasn`t bad, but still these guards just frightened the hell out of everyone. My CMAA were slaughtered so quickly, I know now how the AI must have felt when I used to hack through its knights with halberdiers.
But soon its 1321 and his Guards are history. The heads of the last of them will decorate my desk http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif