Mounted archers

[The Storyteller]

Everytime I invade the peeps of Nov I get this problem - horse archers in abundant quantities. Steppe Heavies, Boyars, plain old Horse Archers... Its irritating. There are so many of them that my archers run out of ammo. Their morale is stupidly high. I can chase them all around the field running myself ragged (and their general's dead, mind you) and they STILL won't rout I can beat them... by waiting in the trees until their arrows run out. But its slow and most annoying. Is there a faster way to kill them?

[ShaiHulud]

The answer is largely dependent on HOW MANY you face.

Alans, any of the fast hand-to-hand cavalry, are best for chasing down HA. Otherwise, I have the same complaint you've voiced.

For my money, Horse archers are the only good candidates for 'counter-battery' fire. They die very easily under ranged fire. Berber camels are soft targets, too, but I rarely see those.

So, I target HA with my archers, when they come into range and, when the time is right, send whatever cavalry I have to chase them or catch and kill them. A Cannae-type envelopment is hard to manage but it rounds them up nicely, when you can pull it off.

[Hurin_Rules]

For me, the counter to Horse Archers is foot archers. The more heavily armoured the foot archer, the better. Pavise arbalesters, Longbowmen, Bulgarian brigands, etc. Horse archers have fewer men (40) compared to infantry archers (60) and they are lightly armoured. If you can't chase down the archers with AMC or Steppe Cav, just make sure you have superior numbers of infantry archers, and just sit back and watch them wear down the horse archers.

[Ironside]

If you have troops that CAN handle it show thier backs to the enemy, the comp will attack them and then you can slughter them. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
It's best to use crossbows and arbs. If in early you can get ALOT of archers and some spearmen, get a defensive battle and fire, withdraw your archers when out of arrows and replace them with fresh ones. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
Tried this with great success aginst hordes of jinettes and it should only give some more casualities agianst any HA. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[squippy]

I'd have to go for pavise arbs; nothing else is as reliable and nothing so resiliant to their fire. But I definitely agree that horse archers are amongst the most tactically powerful unit types, and present severe problems to anyone they engage. My only wish is that units had more autonomy so I could use them as effectively as the AI does; I can only really concentrate on a couple of HA's at a time and certainly would not field many more.

Incidentally. one thing to bear in mind is the Crusadre tactics at Arsouf. In this battle, the knights charge was held back (with some difficulty) till an opportune moment arrived - that moment being when two units of HA's came too close to each other in their fire sweeps. The charge was unleashed so that the unit falling back's own dust-cloud obscured the oncoming crusader cav to the advancing HA unit, and thus smashed the two HA's into each other. I try to use this if I see an opporunity, I try to drive HA's into another unit and slaughter them pinned against their own allies.

[katar]

HA are very, very annoying. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif

using multipe units of archers behind a screen of spearmen or in trees is the best way to cope with them.

concentrate as much of your arrow fire on one HA unit at a time and decimate the wee buggers. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

enveloping them with your own horse units is nice, but difficult to accomplish alot of the time. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[hoom]

If you have enough men (reasonably easy on huge unit size) & there are few enough of the HAs, you can spread your army across the map & corner them.
Just block off like half the map first, then shrink it bit by bit down to a corner & then tighten until they either charge or they have nowhere to run & have to defend your charge.
The trouble is if you leave too big a gap somewhere/a stretched out weak unit/slow unit that doesn't get into position quick enough, then the HA will likely take advantage, pop through & leave you to start again but this time with the HA having about 80% of the map to run around in to start.

[bighairyman]

get a few HAs ur self target the oppenonets HAs with ur HAs, instead of firing at them, press alt the icon should change into a sword. while u may not kill them, but it will get them out of the battle and stopping them from shooting at u. then u can grab ur foot archers and engae the remaining HAs. to do better, get better Has like the byzatine cavalry, heavy steep cavalry or the maluke cavalry. these guys have good attacks. and can defeat enemy HAs in a H-H battle

[DemonArchangel]

Well, use PA's or Steppe Cavs

[Oaty]

Quote[/b] ]Their morale is stupidly high. I can chase them all around the field running myself ragged (and their general's dead, mind you) and they STILL won't rout

I feed my army horse burgers after such a battle seems to reduce there morale in future battles http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[The Storyteller]

The beginning of the battle is not a problem. Roll up the foot soldiers, let the cavalry impale themsleves on my spears... no problemo. But when the enemy reinforcements take the field... because of the bug (at this stage I'm wondering if its REALLY a bug&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif the AI fields 16 units of HAs all at once, all of whom operate independently Boy does it irritate. Thanks for the advice anyways. Shall give it a go.

[lanky316]

I ALWAYS take at least one group of light cavalry into battle, depending on the range from home I am going and what sort of enemy I'm against (I tend to not use them so much against the western nations as they are less likely) It's always useful that way you can pepper them with arrows from your archers from afar and once you lure them in close enough a swift outflanking manouvere will usually have them slaughtered rather quickly. If you time it right.

They have proven to be my most hated and agrovating enemy though http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/angry.gif

[Aurelian]

Fighting horse archers is annoying because you have to be careful, but they're pretty easy to mow down. I use standard Crusader tactics. Bring along lots of crossbowmen (and their upgrades), several spear units, and a few knights or their equivalent. Form the spears into half a hexagon (if that makes sense). That way you have your front and two covered flanks that slope back. The crossbowmen form in thin lines directly in front of the spearmen. If you have some bowmen place them directly behind the spears for additional fire support. The knights hide in the back to countercharge if the enemy gets too close.

Horse archers don't want to get close to the spears, so they usually ride up and engage in a long, losing firefight with the crossbowmen. If I use just bowmen I find that I run out of ammo too quickly. If the enemy doesn't want to engage simply advance the whole formation a short distance until they do. If the crossbowmen are charged they simply run behind the spearmen for protection until the enemy is driven off.

In my last campaign, I used these tactics with a late Polish army against the Mongols. The Mongols outnumbered me in each battle and brought on waves of horse archers, but the crossbowmen kept them from doing any real damage. Mongol heavy cavalry and infantry can be dealt with by the spears and by short, controlled flanking charges by the knights. The only thing you have to worry about is not bringing enough archers and running out of ammo.

The one battle that got dicey was an offensive raid into a Mongol province against a larger Mongol army. I intended to move in, shoot down as many as I could and retreat if necessary. Before the battle the Mongols moved in a huge number of reinforcements and I found myself running out of ammo and having to fight a very interesting rearguard action as my troops made their way to the edge of the board.

Good fun.

[Vanya]

GAH

Vanya sez... HA can be unnerving, but can be dealt with.

Assuming you have either crushed the foe's initial wave, and are seeing the HA as reinforcements, or you outclass the enemy first wave and feel quite confident in your position, this is what youz can do...

Traditionally, when facing hordes of HA, you can bank on your pavs and missiles shouldering the load of counterfire for a while. But, the enemy rarely sits back and takes it. They'll creep up close to your line... and if they get too close, they'll charge your missiles to scare them silly.

You can use this to your advantage as does Vanya.

You must have at least 3 cav units of your own for good efficacy. Although the following CAN be done with infantry, it is fairly challenging to pull off and often results in men whining about being overworked.

When the HA settle into their arrow spitting and start to creep towards your lines, send 2 cav (Hobilar, mounted sargents, mounted xbows, whatever you have will do) perpendicular to your line in one direction, say to the left. Send the lone other cav in the opposite. Then, direct them to turn and take up positions behind the enemy. Make sure you use a WIDE circular path... you DO NOT want to disturn the HA from their routine just yet. Don't dwell on details like "He has many more HA than the 3 cav you're sending out..."... its irrelevant. Now, position your 3 cav so you have one outside each flank behind the enemy HA. The 3rd must be directly behind them and opposite your main lines. Now, simply instruct your cav to charge towards your lines. Doing so will force the HA to skirmish away from your cav and INTO your infantry When they get close, have your infantry or other backup cav sally forth. The result: Youz catch all the HA in a swarm and massacre them. Sure, many will escape as they flee screaming like Justin Timberlake, but heck, you routed them, and they are fleeing

Don't chase too long if other reinforcements are arriving. Just pull back, reset yourself and repeat. It helps if you have spare cav to rotate this duty with, as they become a tad ineffective at this when they are "totally exhausted". http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

This works very well for Vanya vs Golden Whores and other HA heavy foes. At some point, you'll run out of arrows, and this will save the day. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

GAH

[Orda Khan]

What a horrible thing to do to Horse Archers
Vanya just highlighted their worst point....their stupid skirmish path http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

.....Orda

[lancer63]

Don't you love to hate those MEGA annoying (my kid begged me to write that, so gimme a break. ok?)horse archers?

They have disrupted my plans me ever since I decided to look east for land. The more to the east you go, the more annoying and offensive they are, and the Mongol archers take the prize home.

My anti-HA tactic is to use foot ranged units to wear them down, light cav. to flank and pursue and at least two mounted x bows to hold the fort while I rotate out of ammo units for fresh ones.
I find Biz cav., Faris and Mamluk HA are great counters for them and can hold their ground pretty well on melee, since inside each formation of mongol HAs come 1 or 2 MHCs, like great white sharks among the pack of barracudas. For them heavies I always try and have a couple VG, halb or heavy spear units waiting in the forests. I've had too many battles where I counter with me own cav., they lock horns just to be sorrounded by the MHAs and shot to pieces. Nah not anymore. My heavies go against melee infantry, medium cav. pursues and lights chase archers.
GOD, I love this game http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Leet Eriksson]

Ordinary archers outrange horse archers,even an ordinary archer unit can beat turcoman or ordinary HA's.But mamelukes,Faris,Boyars,Byzantine Cavalry and Steppe heavy are a problem,you'll need to combine fast cavalry with foot archers.Crossbows and mounted crossbowmen are good counters to HAs too.Terbizond archers,Nizari,Turcoman(and other turkish hybrid archers),Bulgarian Brigands,Pavise arbalesters and Pavise Crossbows handle mounted archers pretty well.Alan Mercenaries become plentiful when you reach the steppes,you can also recruit hobilars,they only need a small amount of infastructure investment and you can get them(also if you hae a steppe territory recruit steppe cavalry).