im typecasting my armies! no good!

[sakuraoni]

I am playing the russians in late period. so far i have taken all of eastern europe, starting to dig into asia minor. All has been working well, but my troop setup lately has been failing me frequently in trying to keep up with its good quality. So far, my combination of Boyars for their versitility and speed, pavise arbalesters (which did wonders early on when i was fighting the horde) and halbeirdsmen for their ability to deal with calvary and infantry with reasonable success. But now as I am fighting the turks, and the combination of my slow infantry, elite enemy foot soldiers like Ghazi infantry, and anti calvary units have been inflicting far greater casualties than my previous opponents. It seems like the russians have little access to decent infantry?

are there alternatives? or am I relying too much on Boyars for the punch?

thanks in advance

[Brutal DLX]

I am afraid there is not much choice for Russian armies, infantry-wise.
It would be good to include more spearmen and less halberdiers, they are wasted in these conditions.. they are armoured that will make them tire quickly in hot areas plus there is the armour-piercing infantry of the Muslims. Use Militia Sarges for flanking while putting spears in the frontline more, they are both less armoured, cheaper and more available when retraining or reinforcing. Keep using the arbalesters, they are a fine fire support.
Get cavalry heavy, but not too many boyars, they are too expensive, try using the excellent Steppe Heavy Cav (if you are playing VI), and the other swift light and medium cav units. Don't commit the boyars too early.
As a last resort, you can try to hire some good mercenary units to help you out, but watch the overall loyalty of your generals.

[fruitfly]

If you train druzhina cavalry, they can dismount before battle to give you feudal footknights. They may not be brilliant in the later periods, but they'll make a mess of most enemy spear units and have a decent unit size too (I play with large units and you get 100 of them compared to 66 of normal cavalry).

Steppe heavies are also your friends since they're cheaper to train and maintain than boyars, but almost as good.

[Fragony]

FOOLS http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Boyars are it. They don't fear no archers. Use them a LOT if your country can support it, use halbs for the slashing, and commit boyar when you see fit.