Looking advice on fighting Mounter Archers

[Bob the Insane]

I have problem with a particular type of battle and usually end up just blasting through with serious casualties...

This is attacking a enemy army made up primarily of mounted archers of some type and a few spear units thrown in for good measure...

Defending against these guys is pretty straight forward, but attacking an army like this always leave me a little worried...

Any advice???

[Ironside]

Shouldn't a spearwall with ranged foot units (pref arbs or crossbow) work? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif Why is that different from what you're using in defense?

[Mysterium]

You just have to do the same thing as you'd do on defense, but make sure you keep the formation tight when you're moving it around. You're not going to catch them flat-out, but you can punish them when they come to harass you.

[DojoRat]

http://www.totalwar.org/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=15;t=15257;hl=horse+archers

This thread has some good info

[Loki]

It's very simple really.... Horse archers are fast, but not fast enough to outrun arrows

Foot archers typically have longer ranges/better accuracy than their horse based counterparts. They will win a duel every time. Of course if you didn't have any archers in your army to begin with then.......

[The_Emperor]

Ahh the eternal question of catching Horse Archers and Jinette Skirmishers... They are very annoying

As has already been said, use foot archers (or your own cav Archers) to pelt them... if you haven't got any or they are out of ammo, then you must use Conventional Cavalry.

Should you have no ammo and only slower Cav units you will have to be cunning, try to lure them into pursuing one of your units (they get very brave when your backs are turned to them and advance quite close, but turn when confronted).

If done right you should be able to bait them with one unit and surround them with at least two others approaching from the diagonal-rear... Don't chase them around too much, let them come to you and then when the timing is right surround and charge them, they should skirmish away into your waiting troops and rout pretty soon after impact.

I have managed to use this baiting tactic with Infantry against AI Horse Archers (I had no other choice at the time), but it works best with fast Light Cavalry.

Goodluck. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[lancer63]

Yes. Foot archers, or any long ranged unit for that matter, are the answer to those annoying HAs.
But hobilars, steppe cav, saharan cav. and/or your own HAs who have run out of ammo (jinetes included), will render enemy HAs useless by chasing them all over the map. Light cav. is as fast, or even faster, and doesn't tire easily. If they don't catch up, at least they run them out of the map.
And as a final defense, when I don't have anything left, I take cover in a forest and let them critters shoot at leisure. Casualties are ludicrous and when they run out of arrows, they have to either charge or retreat. It takes forever that way, but I prefer that to using med/heavy cav. as slow practice targets for HAs.

[kawligia]

Its hard to find a forest to hide in when you are in the desert. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[Martok]

Quote[/b] (kawligia @ Feb. 18 2004,20:20)]Its hard to find a forest to hide in when you are in the desert. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
Very true--especially when you're going up against the Turks Oh, how I hate them.....

[kawligia]

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif

[Seven.the.Hun]

wow, good info here, nothing much to add, i do remember another thread about this somewhere, sometimes a counter with your own mounted archers is good, afterall, the one guy in a duel with the pistol did always have that other dude with the pistol looking back at him,
and beating up on those HAs with footarchers and mounted archers does indeed ruin their already bad moral...
just position to surround when they flee so u can surround better if they happen to rally,
sometimes those pesky ones will rally, run, rally, run, or some nonsense, i say they make better prisoners and corpses... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[R'as al Ghul]

Hi all
Just recently I battled the Turks as Italian.
I was attacking, the Turks positioned on a hill.
I didn't bring any units to successfully deal with HA.
But my troops were good armoured and the HA don't do much armour piercing.
What I did was to completely ignore them, marching stoically
towards his Gen and 3-4 Inf units. On arrival I could quickly finish his inferior infantry. His mounted Gen was finished by simple Italian Inf.....
I don't think this works every time but may be worth trying in desperate situations.
Cheers

[Aelwyn]

If you want to save your ammo, make sure you have at least 2 cavs, and the Horse Archers are in the open somewhat. They'll most likely shoot at one of the cavs, spread them out until you get the other cav in place on the opposite side, then rush with both cavs. They'll get confused, run back and forth, get sandwiched and rout.

[Chaffers]

I always like to have at least one unit of mounted Xbows or even vanilla HA in my armies for just this reason. Send your own HAs straight in to h2h against the oppo HAs and they skirmish, ie run until they rout. Dosn't take long at all.

Otherwise an archer duel works reasonably well, though I very rarely use pavs they are perfect in this role. Don't just slug it out though as you'll rarely find a single unit of HAs in an opposition force. Most annoying is 3 or 4, though entire armies of HAs are easier to counter. Russian armies full of Boyars and Steppe cavalry are a different matter.....

[katank]

archer duels and light cav is definitely the way to go. either make em pincushions or chase em off the map. if equal speed, you can inflict a stiff morale penalty and often cause em to rout off the field.

the tough thing is when you are out of ammo and don't have too many fast cav.

best bet is then to circle behind them with the fastest units you have while not spooking them and then charge these units towards your own lines and cause them to skirmish into your main force so that your troops have some mangled horseflesh for dinner. lol

[Kaboom]

Well, sometime you just have to stand the arrows and wait Then use trees to cover and use loose formation. I am just too lazy to use loose formation until I face the Horde in Wes mod But these Mongol horse archer shoot very hard and very far

[Brutal DLX]

Luckily the map is limited. You can split your army in half and maneuver carefully until you have them cornered. Then start shooting and after that rush in to mop up.
Takes time to set them up, but always works.
If you are really unpatient, you can bring a spear heavy army and set them to loose and spread them out across the map in one single line, move forward until they are trapped, then engage with your cavarly while you reform your spears.
Dangerous but when done right will be much quicker.