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pyhhricvictory
02-04-2003, 19:45
Hi all

I have a great series of battles to tell about, unfortuantely I suck at the stories. This series of battles uses LK's unit addon (which is incredible) and is being played by the English on HARD in the EARLY period. The campaign started out innocuously enough with me gaining the upper hand in Wales and Scotland consolidating my hold on the British Isles. I am feeling good. It is about 1120 and I have the isles and am starting to build some great trade through the North Sea and the Baltic and am starting to make money. My people love me and I am well liked by the rest of the nations, thanks to a crusade against the Almohorde that gave me control of Portugal. All of a sudden, my continental holdings are simultaneously attacked by the French, Anjou and Aquitane both fall quickly as my men retreat to Normandy and Brittany. I reinforce both of those provinces with a contingent of Houscarle Spearmen and Feudal Bows as well as some light and heavy cavalry since the French have massive stacks of troops everywhere around me. I brace for the attack and try my hardest to get peace. Finally it comes, the Frogs attack Normandy with 4100 troops consisting of around 1000 Barbacon Spearmen, 2000 archers and about 1000 cavalry. I set up my defenses on a hill with the spears in front backed by archers and flanked by heavy cavalry. I put 4 units of Hobilars in two tree lines on either side of the anticipated approach path. The French start to move in with the first wave and my archers begin to cut them down as they get within range. Their archers set up and begin firing back, causing huge losses in my front rank of spearmen. Their cavalry decides that they have had enough and charge my center causing a hole to form as my spears melt awain front of the charge http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif I counterattack from the side with my heavy cavalry and begin to take the upper hand http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif I then notice that thier general has broken away from the rest of the force and is dangerously close to my hidden Hobbies http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif I charge him with two units, killing the general on the charge http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif This causes the whole first wave to break and run. My cavalry follows and starts to cut down the fleeing frogs. I begin to reposition my remaining troops and bring up a couple of reinforcements to bolster my line. The next wave comes on and it is almost entirely spearmen and archers and suprises my tired cavalry. I run them to some trees and rest them as the froggies go marching by. They begin an assult on my newly reinforced position so I bring my cavalry to their rear and charge home. Once that assault begins, I caharge downslope with my spearmen, hoping for a coup de grace and catch them in between all of my troops. I absolutely crusheds them, not a soldier from wave 2 got out alive. wave 3 comes in piecemeal and is cut down by my cavalry reinforcement as it comes up. The battle fianlly ends 69 minutes after it begins. Totals are French losses 1200 dead 2500 captured to my 800 dead. The best part was this was approximately 2/3 of the French force and it sent the Kings influence so low that they went into a civil was and lost. The Once mighty frogs were defeated.

I decide to take advantage of this and attack Flanders with a force of primarily Light and Heavy Cavalry from all over my Empire. I attack and the defending army is 100% archer. Almost 2800 rebel archers. Needless to say, my horsies fought valiantly but were cut down in droves by the archers. Every time I attacked one formation, the others just cut him down in a hail of fire. I take my defeated men back to Normandy after losing about 600 of the 700 that attacked while only killing about 300 of thiers. To make matters worse, two turns later, the French reappeared in Aragon and the whole of the former French empire rejoined them without a fight. I now face a pissed off frog king that has almost 10000 troops total under his command. I am beginning to pray that he takes on the HRE or the Swiss or Burgundians first, but I will see when I get homew from work.

Night Fox
02-04-2003, 19:55
Woooo that was fun to read, good job I absolutely suck at large scale battles. Well, that's not totally true. I dominate early game, but eliminating 1/3 or more of the enemy troops while taking minimal losses myself. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Mid-game i start to waver, take more casualties as enemy rallies his routing units and launches a devasting counter-offensive.

Then late-game i get totally crushed, units running everywhere, dead or captured general and no hope of bringing my troops under control. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

Let us know how the story ends http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Beelzebub
02-04-2003, 20:42
Where can I find more info about, or dl this unit add on?

Beelzebub
02-04-2003, 23:24
nm found it, very cool

Lord Romulous
02-05-2003, 00:44
Great Story

One thing i did not understand was why you got deafeated when facing only archers ? especially when your forces composed exclusivly of cav.

my strat for this encounter is to have all my cav charge as soon as they are in arrow range and hit the archers simultanously from front, sides and rear. in every encounter the archers have just folded and routed after 30 secs of battle.

obviously there is some factors i am not aware like they were all camping on the top of a mountan with no way to flank etc.

sorry if this sounds like me sayin you lead a poor attack. It is not ment to, rather im curious as to what strat you employed and how the archers countered. that dam ai can be dam crafty at times.

pyhhricvictory
02-05-2003, 01:22
I lost because of really poor tactics on my part. I let my cavalry engage in one on one battles with archer units but got shot down by the guys around them. By the time I regrouped after the initial charge, the French were at the top of a hill and my guys were exhausted and got shot down. Basic stupidity lost the battle. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif

Xicote
02-05-2003, 03:18
I had the same situation when I attacked an all Rebel archer army in Navarre. I was the Almohads, and attacked the province with about 800 Saharan Cavalry. It was a great battle. My main objective was to try and lure the archers into one group, then attack on all sides. Great strategy against all archer armies.

Edit- Rebel army had 2000 archers. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif