View Full Version : Creative Assembly Varangian Guard can stop knights?
DoggFood
12-16-2002, 02:53
The other night I played in a 2 v 1 game. The defender was Byzantine while I played as the Spanish in the Early Period. My ally and I had 20k and he had 30k to play with. His main units were 8 or 9 units of Varangian guard while I decided to go with 9 units of Knights of Santiago as my main unit. They are 8 charge, 5 attack, 5 defense, 8 morale, 5 armor, and have are equiped with a lance while Guard units are 4/5/5/8. My knights had no valor so I group them into three waves of three units a peice. I charged his lines in 2 deep formation and my knights would kill maybe 1 or 2 Guard on the charge then get slaughtered and run. Since he used more then 4 units of Guards he suffered a florin penalty and couldn't upgrade his Guards more then once or twice.
Varangain Guard are axe units why didn't my charges do more damage?
Did u do a frontal assault ? Was there any flanking involved ? Sword unit at 4-5 ranks depth can hold a frontal cav charge quite easily,especially if put on hold formation. Anyways there is not enough info for this maybe put a replay and I'll look into it.
Btw, isnt this a jousting field material ? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
TenkiSoratoti
12-16-2002, 04:10
Pfft vang guard i say banish them
Over powered killers.
DoggFood
12-16-2002, 07:42
I used the first wave of (which is 120 knights) as a frontal attack against one of his units then when he commited more Guards to attack my knights from the side I flanked them with my second and then flanked another unit with the third wave. That means I hit each unit of Guards in the flank with 120 knights going full speed and it didn't do jack shit.
Maybe a mod can move this topic to the Jousting Fields?
TheViking
12-16-2002, 08:57
Citera[/b] ]Pfft vang guard i say banish them
Over powered killers.
without them the byz wouldnt stand a chance. all their other foot units are crap
Citera[/b] ]I used the first wave of (which is 120 knights) as a frontal attack against one of his units then when he commited more Guards to attack my knights from the side I flanked them with my second and then flanked another unit with the third wave. That means I hit each unit of Guards in the flank with 120 knights going full speed and it didn't do jack shit.
Maybe a mod can move this topic to the Jousting Fields?
you should only have charge with one unit at the time it doesnt do any diff if you charge 1 or 3. there cant be more then maximum soldiers to fight at the same time (lets say 20) so if you charge 1 unit, 40 men, and 20 of them fight them it doesnt matter if you charge 3units, 120 men, still only 20 of them fight, thats why you shall flank enemy so another 20 can fight, and then if you make a rare attack another 20 can fight.
Leet Eriksson
12-16-2002, 09:28
you probably got flanked,even lancers can't beat varangian guards if used properly.
good ol vikings
first rule is not to field a purley cavalry army unless you are AMP
seccond rule is dont let them flank you
third rule is... hmm... dont listen to me http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
The charge bonus typically only lasts for the first two combat cycles out of probably 50 or more for the whole fight. The varangian guard get an armor piercing bonus. In this case it's (5 - 1)/2 = 2 points. The var guard have 4 charge to the knight's 8 charge, and the att/def stats are equal at 5/5. During the charge the knights have a net +2 point advantage, and after that they have a -2 point disadvantage. Even if the var guard doesn't charge, you won't beat them with a frontal charge by knights. In order to win, the knights must rout the var guard during the charge or soon after, and that's not going to happen with a fresh morale = 8 unit. You have to hold the var guard with something and come in from behind with the cav, and preferably after the var guard has been weakened a bit from fighting as you see that even a flank charge didn't rout them.
There are a few infantry units that can stop cav. If you didn't have that, all you would see in MP is all cav armies.
DoggFood
12-16-2002, 21:53
It doesn't make sense to me why Guard units can stand a charge like that. Lets say a Guardmens weighs 200 pounds his armor/weapon another 100-150 pounds. A horse weighs about 1110 lbs along with 100 lbs of armor along with a rider that weighs another 200 lbs with 150 lbs of armor and a weapon. Don't quote my historical accuracy there but it's close enough. So imagine a mack truck with a pole on the front of it hitting a honda at 35 mph, you do the physics.
Medieval has a rock, paper, scissors combat formula. Spear units beat cavlary but lose to sword infantry, archers beat spear and sword infantry but lose to cavlary, sword infantry beats spear units but lose to cavlary and archers. All units expect Vagangian guard can fit into the formula. They need to either be toned down or cost more.
Spetulhu
12-16-2002, 23:27
They take two years to build, why penalize them more?
edit: in SP, that is.
Quote[/b] ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It doesn't make sense to me why Guard units can stand a charge like that. Lets say a Guardmens weighs 200 pounds his armor/weapon another 100-150 pounds. A horse weighs about 1110 lbs along with 100 lbs of armor along with a rider that weighs another 200 lbs with 150 lbs of armor and a weapon. Don't quote my historical accuracy there but it's close enough. So imagine a mack truck with a pole on the front of it hitting a honda at 35 mph, you do the physics.
Medieval has a rock, paper, scissors combat formula. Spear units beat cavlary but lose to sword infantry, archers beat spear and sword infantry but lose to cavlary, sword infantry beats spear units but lose to cavlary and archers. All units expect Vagangian guard can fit into the formula. They need to either be toned down or cost more.
it all goes down to whether you believe in the 'myth' of the cavalry charge or not...
If the VG were weakened against cavalry somehow, the Byz would have to be given a real spear unit (Instead of the pathetic spearmen they have now) to make up for it. The whole reason VG can hold so well is they're the only good defensive troop the Byz get.
-Musashi
Playing with huge units, 120 Varangian Guards cost 1000 florins and take 4 years to raise. They had better damn well handle anything
Javalins do them a treat so getting some kerns on them or jinetes will work. Arbs too of course.
A.Saturnus
12-17-2002, 15:33
Don`t forget that Var Guards can`t be build after 1321. So the Byz loose a big advantage then. Usually I try to charge Guards from two sides with knights and send in some CMAA or halberds too. Fighting the byz the Guards are your main problem.
I just took v0 Chiv Knight (40 men) 20 x 2 deep and charged into the ai's v0 Varangian Guard (60 men) 15 x 4 deep who countercharged in custom battle at normal difficulty. The knights killed about 11 of the var guard in the charge. After fighting for about 15 seconds, the var guard routed at 34 men left at which point the knights had 33 men left. The knights killed 27 and lost 7 men. I ran the test a second time and the knights killed 13 var guard in the charge and routed them immediately loosing 3 men themselves. These units are both fresh, weather dry on a flat map in temperate climate. It's possible that custom battle doesn't give the same results as online MP. If units are tired as they often are in a MP game, it does lower combat ability. Also, in a full battle there are all kinds of complicated morale bonus/penalty interactions occuring. I'll run this same test online with a buddy later and see what I get.
TheViking
12-17-2002, 17:29
Citera[/b] (DoggFood @ Dec. 16 2002,20:53)]It doesn't make sense to me why Guard units can stand a charge like that. Lets say a Guardmens weighs 200 pounds his armor/weapon another 100-150 pounds. A horse weighs about 1110 lbs along with 100 lbs of armor along with a rider that weighs another 200 lbs with 150 lbs of armor and a weapon. Don't quote my historical accuracy there but it's close enough. So imagine a mack truck with a pole on the front of it hitting a honda at 35 mph, you do the physics.
Medieval has a rock, paper, scissors combat formula. Spear units beat cavlary but lose to sword infantry, archers beat spear and sword infantry but lose to cavlary, sword infantry beats spear units but lose to cavlary and archers. All units expect Vagangian guard can fit into the formula. They need to either be toned down or cost more.
they already cost 500fl and it takes 2 years to build them, thats more then enuff
a horse with full armor plus a rider with full armor doing 35 miles/hour. do you live in a fantasy world
The speed of the charging knights in the game is less than 20 mph.
longjohn2
12-17-2002, 22:11
Historically speaking the VG stuffed Norman knights at the battle of Durazzo in 1080 something. Unfortunately the rest of the army let them down, and the were surrounded and died almost to a man.
DoggFood
12-17-2002, 23:50
Quote[/b] ]"they already cost 500fl and it takes 2 years to build them, thats more then enuff
a horse with full armor plus a rider with full armor doing 35 miles/hour. do you live in a fantasy world"
I said not to quote me on my historical accuracy and I was talking about guard in MP not in SP. Please read my posts before you try and insult me.
Musahi, Chivalric Knights cost 650 in MP, Spearmen with 2 valor upgrade and 1 armor upgrade cost 600 and they will beat the knights.
Whitey, I'm not sure what myth there is surrounding a cavalry charge. Elobrate..
Hey longjohn... had a good vacation? Or was that ECS?
Well, the VG kicked Norman rear during the whole peninsular campaign. And they also beat them during a Sicilian invasion of Greece a couple of times. They got defeat a few times themselves, so I think it is fair that they beat the knights at times and get beaten at other times.
DoggFood: MP is meaningless to me. I'd rather not see anything rebalanced for the sake of MP, cause I don't play it and don't care about it.
In SP the Byz have to rely almost entirely on the VG, because standard spearmen aren't worth much in SP.
-Musashi
DoggFood
12-18-2002, 08:53
Well I should have put this topic in the Jousting Fields so you would never have been bothered by it Musashi.
vBulletin® v3.7.1, Copyright ©2000-2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.