Wow Equites!

[Hold Steady]

Had a peculiar battle last night campaigning as Scipii. While my armies were bouncing through the parched deserts of Africa, Some rebels thought the better of it and showed up in my home city on the mainland of Italy. Just a few peasants I thought.. I despatched a general with his bodyguard and 2 Principii and a town guard to wipe them out. It turned out there were 2 hastati, a velitii and an Equiti unit.

quite an opposition from rebels I thought and went straight at them, thinking I should be able to win with my principi straight on collision with hastati. That might have been, but in a suprisingly good show from the AI, or just bad form from my side, (go figure..) The AI bent of one of his hastati, went with two of them into one of my principi en went head on with his equites into my other principe (and threw away his velites in a charge on my town watch, who actually won that fight, but routed later along with my 2 principi just for good measure). His equites practically ate up my fresh armoured principe while they were charging each other! It melted like snow.

Now I know the principi are swordsmen, so a bit of against horsemen, but that equites are capable of this! Luckily, I managed to kill his equites, the two hastati and the remainder of his velites with a single generals unit, with only 4 men down from the original 25, but that is side-info. Wow equites!

[Craterus]

Not bad.. lol

[Kraxis]

Your failure was that you charged back at the Equites. Don't countercharge cavalry as it leaves you very vulnerable to their charge (it gives you a negative bonus to the total defensive value if I'm not mistaken).

[Craterus]

Yes, true. The best way to absorb a cavalry charge is to have the unit stationary..

[pezhetairoi]

oooh, never knew that. My Germanic axemen lost 60 men in hacking to bits a gaulish general, once, in a one-on-one fight... maybe I could've minimised casualties if they stood still?

[Oaty]

Where cavalry become nasty is in cities. Due to pathing issues you can occasionally get light cavlry mowing down 300 men and another 300 men when the route begins.

[katank]

Cavalry is nasty when charging. The equites have 7 charge and actually pack quite a punch when charging. When dealing with AI cav charging, have stationary infantry line with your own cav behind.

Time a countercharge by your cav so that your cav hits theirs right at your infantry line. Your infantry then move into their immobile cav and chop them down. The mass ratio for horsies is very high. However, horsemen are less vulnerable to other horsemen. You are frequently better off countercharging heavy horse with light horse and follow up with infantry in support than have medium/heavy infantry eat a charge (phalanxes excepted who get a charge bonus on their weapons vs. cav charge and thus made for eating charges).

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Equites perform quite well against the Principes, because the Principes are horrible against cavalry once you get to hard difficulty. On normal or easy the Principes last long enough to bring their superior staying power to bear, but once you reach hard difficulty they melt before they can slaughter the Equites. I have had that happen to me a few times...

[Hold Steady]

Thanks for the comment and info, usefull! And it happened on very hard..

[MajorFreak]

Your failure was that you charged back at the Equites. Don't countercharge cavalry as it leaves you very vulnerable to their charge (it gives you a negative bonus to the total defensive value if I'm not mistaken).
mmmmmm...yeah, that's a lessen learned the hard way. When playing any TotalWar series one gets into the habit of using the "STOP" hotkey...alot. Oh, and knowing the rock_paper_scissors routine...swordsmen sorta fall into the cracks. Never knew why the romans preferred sword over spear. (guess they never played the game. hehe)

[Hold Steady]

Never knew why the romans preferred sword over spear. (guess they never played the game. hehe)

LOL, Maybe they would have seen the Germans and Vandals coming. Put some legions in ambush at the foot of the alps..

[Rodion Romanovich]

oooh, never knew that. My Germanic axemen lost 60 men in hacking to bits a gaulish general, once, in a one-on-one fight... maybe I could've minimised casualties if they stood still?

Chosen axemen is a two-edged sword here, as they have a tremendous charge bonus, and lose that if they stand still, so it's not entirely certain they'll gain from standing still. Of course, making the axeman formation deeper than the standard 3 rows is in my experience a good idea vs cavalry. I believe I had most success when I waited with the charge until last moment, so the axemen still kept a good, tight line formation but still got the charge bonus.

[Marcus Maxentius]

Regular axemen or night raiders might fare better holding for a cavalry charge with their 5 point shields. Chosens are really vunerable with their wide formation and no shields. They're screwed either way so it would be best to take your punishement and then unleash some unholy revenge afterwards.

[katank]

Chosens are horrible for eating cav charges. They die too quickly due to weak defense. They are definitely awesome flankers but not line infantry.

Use thy spear warbands to eat cav charges and then wade up to them with the huge axes, preferably from the rear or flanks.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Chosens are some of the best flankers though, they are horrible against missile fire though...

[Husar]

Chosen axemen are the only unit(except for phalanxes) I found to be able to kill Cataphracts. Tried several times, I think they always won in a 1v1 fight.

[Craterus]

Are you sure? Cataphracts would annihalate a unit of chosen axemen if they were charging.

[Marcus Maxentius]

Chosens are armor piercing. The only thing bad with chosens is that they seem to be the slowest infantry on the field. I noticed when chasing down routers that my naked fanatics were outrunning them.

[Rodion Romanovich]

If you REALLY want to keep down losses for the chosens when taking a cav charge, put two units over exactly the same area so one end up on the other. That formation for any barbarian unit - falxmen, swordsmen, axemen, chosen axemen etc. - can stop almost any cavalry charge. That's what I did in an early battle in my Dacian campaign when I wanted to destroy an army of perhaps 10 macedonian light cavalry plus some footmen with my 8 falxmen and 2 cavs, and it worked well.

[Craterus]

Sounds good, I'll have to remember to do that with my Scythian axemen vs. Macedon.

[pezhetairoi]

Chosen axemen is a two-edged sword here, as they have a tremendous charge bonus, and lose that if they stand still, so it's not entirely certain they'll gain from standing still. Of course, making the axeman formation deeper than the standard 3 rows is in my experience a good idea vs cavalry. I believe I had most success when I waited with the charge until last moment, so the axemen still kept a good, tight line formation but still got the charge bonus.

Nay, I was speaking of normal axemen. When I was fighting Gaul I wasn't advanced enough yet to build anything more remarkable (that was my first Germanic campaign, before I changed my strategy to the charge-to-Rome). My axemen lost 60 men to destroy a 60-horse General's bodyguard.

Craterus, what are you doing with axemen in Scythian armies? :-p The only use I make of Scythian axemen is as a last line of defence for my onagri...speaking of the future, of course. My first archery range just got completed yesterday.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I would use axemen, need someone to man the siege weapons. I always use towers, partly to defend myself if they sally...

The double dense formation works really well for any pure-melee-non-phalanx units.