Boyars and royal knights

[muffinman14]

Which unit is better?

P.S. Is playing Russia fun or lame, because I am going to need a new fction to play and Im considering Spain and Russia.

[Nobunaga0611]

They're kind of hard to compare. Boyars have missles, and are also pretty good at attack, and defending themselves. Royal Knights are good, but theres not many of them in a unit. Due to their cost I usually take good care of them, as its simply not worth it to let even a few of them die while capturing running enemies.

[Nelson]

As the Danes I have had several opportunities to engage boyars while conquering Novgorod. They are very tough and must not be mistaken for other horse archers. I had to surround them to break them. I had no royal knights in the region so I could not compare them directly.

[MizuKokami]

boyars are deadly, head to head they beat my feudal sargeants in trees. heavily armored, they kill effiently with both bow and sword. the only time i ever beat boyars is when i get them surrounded, but being on horse, good luck. they are very good at holding back superior numbers as well.

[Gustav II Adolf]

The boyarunit is powerfull but it is so expensive. You can never keep more than a few at a time, at least in the beginning.

[sassbarman]

I can remember in my first campaigne as denmark I easily pushed novograd all the way back to moscovy and finland. Unknown to me in typical russian fashion they where falling back forcing me to overextend myself while holding back their best units in reserve. After playing shogun way to much I thought this wasn't going to be much of a challenge and then the boyars showed up. I was moving in for the kill in moscovy with about 750 men consisting mainly of peasants, urban milita and archers NO SPEARS as it was still fairly early in the game and i only had denmark as troop producing province. Well when it was all over their 300 plus boyars killed and captured over 700 of my men I was in shock in all my time playing shogun that had never happened. this trend continued until novograd had pushed me all the way back to prussia and had they continued most likely could have taken denmark itself. needless to say i have a certain respect for the boyars. Sorry for the drawn out response just felt I had to share.

[Hakonarson]

Yeah - Boyars came as a shock to me when playing Denmark too - I remember one battle where 1 unit ran over a couple of hobilars and Alans before shooting up an urban militia and running it down.

[G0THIC-Lobster]

Its hard to say, boyars have the range advantage so they could nailed knightz from a far and see em chase them and become tired, then charge home againist them but if the knigt with stand the punishment and rammed em then the knight would win with few deaths. Well you could always use loose formation to dough the arrows

[Orion]

When I was playing Turks my light-mounted army well beaten by Russian Boyar&Steppe Cav. army. But my Ghulam's get good care of them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif .

Boyars is one of the best mounted unit in MTW IMO (because of the facts already posted - have bows which is used well by Boyars, armoured and have good attack and defence).

I have no battle where I can compare Boyars with RKs directly but according to my seperate experieces with both of them I would prefer BOYARS .
Also, playying Russia have other advantages like you can advance into Europe or prefer Anatolia to Egypt rout giving you quite different strategic fun (most of the other factions especially the ones in the west europe have less alternatives) and you can experience a Horde fight if you didn't have one yet http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif .

[muffinman14]

Is russia a fun faction to play?
Because i dont want to worry about the pope again even if he is always a target for my assasin. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[LordKhaine]

Problem I see with russia is the Mongols... Be ready to lose a lot of land to them.

[Orda Khan]

Hehe....This is why I campaign as Russia. Using Mongol tactics http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Oh BTW I would say Boyars

........Orda