Saxon Huscarles

[Josephus V]

This is my second campaign with the Irish (the first ended abruptly when I had no heirs. I'm playing on Hard with the Irish of course and I was cruising along defeating Scots, NU, even helped crush the Welsh. I control Ireland, a couple provinces in South England and I was about to finish off the Picts, which would give me all of Northern England. The Mercians controlled all of Southern England, with a huge army and huge economy.

I knew it was going to be difficult and when they broke our alliance and attacked I never imagined how strong the Huscarles are. They slice through my army like a knife in butter. They've crushed me in 5 battles but most of them they outnumbered me anyway...most of my strong army is in the north. But one battle had me in awe. I had a defensive force of 8 unit of armored spearmen fully upgraded as well, and the Saxon army of 100 frydmen and two 60 unit Huscarles made mincemeat out of them. Sadly, with my 4 star general there, my army wouldn't even run so they accepted death til almost the last.

I've done some research and it seems the only way to stop them is with armor piercing missles. But how do I do this in battle and what units should I use? Now I see why the Irish are considered hard...I can defeat other factions early but in the one on one showdowns they seem outdated

[King Edward]

Kerns and Bonnachts are the best, if some what tricky way to deal with Hurscarls as their missiles are armour piercing, but very shor range.

Give it a try and i hope it helps

[SwordsMaster]

The huscarles ARE tough.If you let them attack.

So shoot them up with longbows, bows, stones, even spit them if you can... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Cavalry is quite good against them as well, and I think you could try using unarmoured spears to stom em, to negate their armor piercing bonus...Never tried that, tho.

Flank them, destroy the general, rout them instead of butchering them.

[mfberg]

Huscarles are VG in disguise. Kerns and bonnachts work well, but mercenaries that you don't care about work best. Buy some horse archers/jinettes/mtd xbow.

mfberg

[octavian]

jinettes and HA are not available in the viking campaign. as irish use speed, ambushes, and general superiority in tactics VS. the AI to beat them. best units would really be the only quality ones you can get, Kerns and Bonnachts.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif Octavian

[mfberg]

In viking age kill the huscarles with the kerns, bonnachts, and mercenary archers. Or charge them with gallowglasses at 3:1 (in your favor) odds.
With kerns the only way I have had success was letting them chase 1 kern while chasing with another.

mfberg

ps that was a long time ago on normal, I haven't played on Irish/hard or expert yet.

[KyodaiSteeleye]

Yes - i always concentrate all of my archer firepower on the couple of huscarle units that saxon kingdoms usually bring along - the key is to try and make sure they are substantially depleted before they make contact. If you don't have decent merc archers, then hold them and deploy bonnachts i guess. Only other way is to totally surround them with decent troops - a charge from behind with nobles whilst they're engaged usually does the trick.

[Josephus V]

This is what I was figuring, although the last battle I had 6 kerns and they're cavalry ran three down quickly. I could only do a little damage on the Huscarles before they plunged into my spearmen. What would be a good army to use in numbers. I had 20 units in one battle but didn't know who to choose intitially.

[CountMRVHS]

There's a couple of threads on this somewhere, if not here then over at totalwar.com. I won't give you the really big drawn-out explanation (if you want it, do a search for those other threads), but here's basically what I do as the Irish:

Armoured Spearmen.
Bonnachts.
Gallowglasses.

These are the 3 Irish units that you will use to do most of your huscarle-killing work. In short, use the Armoured Spearmen to pin the huscarles in place. Quickly move your bonnachts around to the rear/flank and heave in those spears. Then rush with your bonnachts and gallowglasses from the rear and flanks.

Obviously you won't always have the ideal conditions in which to do this, but do what you can to isolate and surround huscarles in the above manner. If you include a unit of kerns in your initial 16, use their speed to draw the huscarles into a trap and tire them out.

I wouldn't rely on your kerns so much. Their javelins are armour-piercing (I think) and they have better range than Bonnachts, but they're not as good in melee and there are 40 fewer of them in a unit (60 vs 100 bonnachts). When you're lining up an initial 16 units for your army against huscarles, it helps to have all the bodies you can get.

The Irish are a great faction because they allow you to defeat heavily-armoured units like the huscarles; you just need to change your tactics due to the absence of archers.

It's hard to say exactly what your initial lineup should look like without knowing exactly what you'd be up against. If the enemy has huscarles and archers, you're going to want to have some cav, to keep the archers distracted. But basically, for each unit of huscarles in the enemy army, you should have 1 unit of armoured spearmen, 1 unit of bonnachts, and 2 units of gallowglasses. Again, that's not written in stone.

Well, good luck and let us know how it goes

CountMRVHS

[Lord Godfrey]

I just finished (successfully, but it was close) a campaign on VI Hard as the Irish - so I know where you are coming from. Count has some good advice in his post above. I used kerns more that the bonnachts, but also used calvary to lead a unit or two of the Huscarles away from the main battle area. Give your Gallowglasses armor and weapons upgrades and charge them from the flanks while you use your armored spear units to hold them in place. Kerns behind the spears to hit them with missiles.

I was out numbered in a few battles and made the mistake of chasing the routing army as reinforcements were arriving on the battlerfield. Wait for the reinforcements to come to you instead of getting hit by them when you are all spread out (learned that one the hard way).

From a strategy point of view – take advantage of wars between the Saxons and Mercia to make sure one of them doesn’t become too powerful. That was a mistake I made and I had to deal with a very strong Saxon faction at the end of the game. I almost lost a war of attrition but instead changed my tactics. I launched a seaborne invasion that just pillaged and burned southern England until a civil war erupted and divided the Saxons. Mopped up the rest of the map after that.

Good luck.

[katank]

also be sure to switch the javs off fire at will and skirmish.

manually fire the javs.

try to be defense and park the javs on nice fat hill to improve their range.

also, another way to artificially improve range is to target unit ahead of huscarles and if low valour, the javs will often miss and hit the huscarles.

bait and shoot with several units of kerns playing tag team works wonders too.

just know that often a single volley from the kerns pays for themselves.

you can win the war of attrition easily through economics.

[Matthevv]

It will help a lot if you can tire out the huscarles before engaging them. Kerns are quite good for this, if you run them to a point very close, and get the huscarles to charge at them (they usually will). They will tire quite fast if you keep doing this, as they are armoured. Keep some spearmen nearby if the enemy has cavalry, that will usually keep them from charging your kerns - they won't want to risk getting caught by the spearmen. When the huscarles are tired from running after your kerns, charge them with some fresh gallowglasses, and try and get some mounted nobles to their rear. If you can get a unit separated from the rest that is good as well. Use your armoured spearmen to engage and pin in place the lesser troops while you draw the huscarles out to an isolated position with your skirmishers.

Matthew.

[Josephus V]

Thanks for the advice. Last night after numerous battles I was really starting to hold my own. It was great watching my Kerns and Bonnachts chase after 3 units of Huscarls after my army routed them.

In another major battle both sides had over 1700 casualties. It's great stuff.

The best part though is that I caused a rebellion in South England and lo and behold, the Welsh have reappeard. Down with the Mercians

[katank]

too bad no HA in viking map.

otherwise they woudl be too easy to kill.

fast inf like kerns are the way to go though.

also, isn't it ironic that the mercians get better facilities and thus end up fielding more saxon huscarles than the saxons? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-anxious.gif

[Defensor Pacis]

I also played as Irish in VI on Hard, and after taking over most of Wales and the South-West, was suddenly attacked by the Saxons AND the Mercians together, with Saxon Huscarles cutting a bloody swathe of death through my ranks.

I consolidated and was helped by the fact that the AI isn't too clever and didn't press home its strategic advantage on the map.

Still, there are further things you can do to help.

Look out for archers under Hire Mercenaries

Use your bonnachts and kerns as suggested above.

Be prepared to lose a lot of troops against the Huscarles - make sure your economy is working well.

Use assassins against your enemies' generals before you invade provinces: get the morale bonus in the battle.

See if you can split up the enemy army by drawing off some troops from the main group. Divide and conquer - or to be more precise, divide and flank and conquer.

And remember that you can still win the war even when you lose a battle: if you hurt your enemy a lot by killing his troops, you can weaken his economic or strategic position.

It *is* satisfying to win with the Irish Good luck http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[CountMRVHS]

Yeah, what is it about the Irish?? I'm not even remotely Irish in background, but they were probably my most satisfying win in VI. I just won a 2/3 victory as the Vikings tonight. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-zzz.gif Ehh. I just couldn't get very excited about it. But with the Irish, I don't know; I think it's the thrill of eventually coming out on top and routing your first huskies with your hordes of spearkchucking peasants. Good times, good times.

Katank, I usually see the Saxons cranking out the huscarles rather than the Mercians for some reason. In my game tonight I left both the Saxons and the Mercians alone -- the Saxons were going to town with hordes of huscarles, and the Mercians barely made any until much later. Although I guess it can go either way.

CountMRVHS

[ElmarkOFear]

If you want to save unit losses, the best thing to do when fighting Huscarls is to shoot at them (with kerns, bonnachts, or dartmen)and then make the huscarl units chase a few of these units to fatigue the huscarls to tired, then hit them with Mounted Nobles. 4 Bonnacht units late in the game, once the Huscarls are tired, will also be able to win the day.

The Irish are more fun to play since you have to maneuver so much more, compared to the other factions, to be successful.

[katank]

@ count, mercia starts with close to enough facilities to huscarles and it depends on who wins the war between them as to who pumps mucho huscarles.

for my games, it's usually the mercians. reminds one of hojo. hmmm.

@ ElmarkOFear, this is so true.

Irish are fast, short ranged missile faction and needs to maneuvers to win.

sounds almost like early hungarians except that is more with HAs.

[ElmarkOFear]

One faction which has a unit that can get the best of a Viking army is the Mercian, which has the militia sgts. They are very cheap to upgrade, and have a real good bonus vs. armored units, but you have to make sure they do not get flanked. They are lower morale than viking units and have a tendency to run quickly if flanked.

[squippy]

I managed to whack some Saxon huscarles the other day... tried to ambush them with Viking Carls but it was not going well*... that was ok, they were a mercenary unit being thrown away. They broke and the Saxons streamed after them over a hill... where my horsemen were lying in wait. I wiped out that whole unit of Saxon huscarls in short order.

* the carls managed to kill all of 4 enemeis for 50% losses

[Oleander Ardens]

@Some very good answers here, I may add some more ideas;

- Gain cavalry superiority over the enemy: This way your Kerns are well protected without your army loosing speed during the skirmish.

- Check on a regulary basis the mercs: Archers are good, but there is one unit which is worth all the upkeep it has - the mounted pictish crossbowman. This unit gives you a whole new set of tactical options; Don't sacrifice it for whatever reason.

[CountMRVHS]

@squippy, what sort of horsemen did you wipe out those Huscarles with? I assume you don't mean Horsemen horsemen... I have a hard enough time keeping those guys on the field as it is, especially when a main part of my army routs.

I've never gotten far enough with the Picts to use the Pictish Mounted Crossbowmen, but I'll have to just stick with it and do it one of these days. Lately I've been having fun with a Scots campaign. I've got basically all of Scotland and half of Ireland, and just *crushed* a unit of Northumbrian huscarles when they foolishly tried to re-take Reget from me. I had about 9 units of partially upgraded Highland Clansmen hiding in a wooded hill, 2 archers out front, my king and a couple princes to the rear & flanks. It wasn't much of a challenge; the Northumbrian king had 0 command and I had like 4 -- but still, so much fun to send those guys howling out of the trees and watch a unit of huscarles turn tail

CountMRVHS

[katank]

that's pretty sweet, gotta love those clansmen.

@count, I find horsemen/medium cav to be quite fine. they do their job as cheapo shock cav.

just maneuver and charge flanks/rear.

I have to ask what you woudl expect though as it's hard to ask those cav to stay when a section of the army is routing, they aren't mtd. nobles after all. they are cheap so you get what you paid for.

[squippy]

Yeah, the horseman only worked becuase the setup was sweet, and they had 2 armour/weap upgrades. The mercenary carls got routed, and the huscarles chased them in a long, thin line and got hit in the side by twice their number of horsemen, and they had no support nearby. And they were fighting up hill. They went straight to Losing Badly and then got gobbled up.

I'm just glad the Saxons only had the one unit of huscarls, its not a trick I would have been able to pull off twice.

[CountMRVHS]

Yeah, Horsemen can work ok in the right situation. I don't expect miracles from them, but was just a bit surprised to hear of them routing Saxon huscarles. But if you do get the right situation, it's possible, like with my clansmen http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif .

I guess I never really bother to upgrade my Horsemen... don't know why. Especially when I'm playing the Welsh; they can't train Mounted Nobles... but I guess I'm usually busy trying to upgrade my Celtic Warriors and forget about the Horsemen.

That's a nice setup Squippy. I love it when those badass enemy units get all spread out and out of formation and you've got the right men for the job in the right place at the right time. Sandwiching with cav works great, doesn't it? In fact, you even need to sandwich when you're sending RBs after archers in VI Silly weak VI cav. I like it this way though; it seems more accurate.

CountMRVHS

[shakaka36]

i've always found the eaisest way is as amny have said to use an unimportant but durable unit to hold them up then concentrate your missile fire on them. after that the remainder shoudlnt be to much of a prob http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif