How do you kill Sassanid Immortal Cavalry? [Archive]

Grumfoss

02-13-2006, 12:22

Help Please,:help:

I have just attacked a Sassanid city with a large army consisting of Heavy infantry , Dessert Archers a three Star general and finally units of limenatei spearmen. ( I'm playing the Eastern Romans)

Defending army:
Peasants, Mountain Slingers and One unit of Immortals

Well I seige the city, attack with seige towers, and ladders, I kill all the defenders on the wall ( mainly peasants and Slingers) I capture the gatehouse and all the surrounding towers. When I move my infantry towards the town square ( with archers giving covering fire) they are then attacked by a single unit, The enemy 2 star general and his immortals ( 85 of them), These charge into my infantry and wipe them out to a man - without loss to themselves! :oops: My archers have fired volley after volley into them again no casualties!!! The infantry behind throw their pilla but again 1 or 2 casualties are sustained by the immortals. This one unit destroys my entire stack of troops what can I do.

I have attempted this assault about 5 times now trying different tactics but I cannot kill this unit.
Can someone please help?:wall:

Watchman

02-13-2006, 12:55

In my experience the best way to deal with the Immortals is to swamp them with spearmen - Legio Lanciarii seemed to work pretty well, especially if you can get the Clibs to charge into them when they're "braced" - and hit them in the flanks and rear with Household Bodyguards. The HBs have armour-busting maces as secondary weapons too after all, and often seemed to be able to make quite short work of the Immortals. Mind you, Dromedarii (nevermind Armoured Camel Mercs) are surprisingly good as flankers too thanks to their horse-scaring bonuses. Immortals stuck in Lanciarii and enveloped by HBs and Dromedarii usually rout pretty fast and die a dog's death. When I played the ERE I made a point of always having at least two camel units in every field army at the Sassanid front.

Garvanko

02-13-2006, 13:08

Surround them with spearmen and pummel them with heavy Cav or camels.

Cras

02-13-2006, 14:07

I agree... they are a pain!

I swarm them with infanterie... try to get behind them, on their sides....

btw, chariots with catapults work quite well too... (I never tried them in a siege though)

Antagonist

02-13-2006, 14:24

I played a strange "to the ends of the earth" campaign as the Celts in which I lead a large force around the northern and eastern edges of the map to attack the Sassanid empire, during which I discovered that the Hounds of Culann are Immortal-killers par excellence. Obviously they have a very strong Attack rating, but their sledgehammers give them an additional bonus against armour as well. Pin the Immortals with... anything really as long as it won't instantly break, and then set the Hounds on them from behind. The Clibinarii Immortals will go down like heavily armoured horsemen being hit by giant purple men with sledgehammers.

Of course, that's not very useful for most factions campaigning against them, but might be worth noting for custom battles or multiplayer.

However, it is relevant in that you should look for units which have an armour-piercing attack. For example, most of the ERE heavy cavalry (including the Imperial Household Bodyguard) have an armour-piercing secondary attack (To attack with a secondary weapon, hold Alt and right-click the target) I found this useful when going up against Sassanid generals.

Antagonist

Watchman

02-13-2006, 14:36

It's only the Households and Equites Clibanariis, AFAIK.

Grumfoss

02-13-2006, 15:35

Thanks for all the advice.

I'll try to crack this city tonight. I didn't know about the alternative attack that heavy cavalry have....:shame:

Is there a Link to a site with a unit list for each playable faction? I'm sure there are other units which have an alternative attack that I don't know about.

Watchman

02-13-2006, 15:39

Looking through the export_descr_unit.txt is a pretty good way to get a general idea of what which units can and can't do, IMHO.

Ordani

02-13-2006, 16:31

The best way to kill the Immortal Cavalry is with an assassin.

Paul Peru

02-13-2006, 20:16

Generally, you need really, really sharp pointy things to kill immortals.

teja

02-13-2006, 22:45

As any cavalry they are worser against deep packs of spearmen. Prepare spearmen well and positionate them at a good place. If possible use shildron formation (hedgehogged?) for that. Then go on with fast missle units, fire at the immortals and when they come to charge you run behind your spearmen. Make sure the enemy is NOT fighting at the citys center, they do nut flee for long then! Make sure you fire some flame arrows into the attacking enemy. If you have 2 spearunits prepared it is not too much of a loss if some arrows accidently hit your own men. If possible have your general near to back up your forces with morale, same goes for priceps legio and priests! Scaring the enemy with camels and stuff is also useful. It is always a good idea to attack the enemies flank....
It is not required to use any part of my tactical list to win. But challanging them with ranged weapons and pinning them with deep designed packs of spearmen out of the citys center is a must. Any other parts are fine and will help a lot. In your case it may be good to use your poor limenatei spearmen with a very small front of each unit close to each others. Also try to send heavy infantry in another way into the enemies flank or rear. IF this does not work, sacriface one unit of your limenatei spearmen and throw fire arrows into the enemy so they will get disrupted before charging the next of your spearmens pack... Again: Don't fight AT the citys center!.. I hope it helps.

BTW: As a Sassanid I never had units with more but 50 men (for the king), or do you use big units?

antisocialmunky

02-13-2006, 22:48

Those P. guys(I forget) that the Eastern Empire has. They are probably the best heavy infantry in the game, due to their ability to rain obscene amounts of javelin on something.

Garvanko

02-13-2006, 22:54

Plumbatarii.

antisocialmunky

02-13-2006, 22:58

Yes, thanks. Plumbatarii take care of just about anything with those javelins. Throw a meat shield up and toss away.

Vanya

02-13-2006, 23:51

Braden

02-14-2006, 13:48

Oh, lots of options. Ok, before you even attack them - target the unit with assassins en-mass. On the battlefield - Swamp them with Lanciarii (initially on Guard, then turn that off) AND/OR, use Plumbatarii behind a line of Lanciarii to pelt them with their iron "darts" OR take a General on a trip down South East in the desert and see if you can get some Merc Elephants.

OR just besiege them until they have to come out. In the open field they are less effective as you can encircle them and stop them doing damage (or lead them away with skirmish cavalry).

Cras

02-14-2006, 13:53

I think the best way to prevent fight the sassanids is to become them..

I actually just did that in a new campaign :-)

teja

02-14-2006, 20:26

GAH!

Vanya adds... Avoid clashing with Imortals in the streets of the city, where flanking them will prove difficult. By the time youz swing some help to their rear, they've mopped the floor with the heads of your pig-dog warriors!

Stick to city centers, or better, the open field of battle.

GAH!

My option is to fight them close to the center, but not AT the center. With the open field behind the enemy you can lead lots of your forces into their flanks and rear! It is a matter of timing only. That's the reason you call for their charge when shooting at them with ranged weapons and well prepared lines!

This offers you both:
- Small streets to form a reasonable spear front with no chance for such a big unit of immortals to flank you or even engage with any of thier mens.
- A wide open field in their back to manouver your other units into their back or even try to call them into another well prepared unit when they turn back and give your first front line a good break.
- Any time (unusual) the immortals break their attack and go for a(nother?) target, you have the next time to shoot your missles and fire arrows...
:p

I think the best way to prevent fight the sassanids is to become them..

I actually just did that in a new campaign :-)

That's for sure, I enjoyed this too already. Some kind of similar traits to Roman fractions with your charakters and in my experience more upgrades in battle. A fraction anusual for BI and closer to vanilla RTW. Small but potent, I favor them over Romans in BI!

KrooK

02-14-2006, 21:14

Try good spearmen (with val 2 or 3) - you will need about 2 or 3 units.
Good option is give them support from units with arour piercing bonus.
And check your general (he might have virtues with negative morale bonus)

BHCWarman88

02-14-2006, 22:22

I beaten a army of 685 guys with 60 Clib and 20 Immotal guys,I know,they tough.. I fought off 685 Eastern Roman guys on SP..

Grumfoss

02-15-2006, 10:41

Well I have tried fighting these Immortals with spearmen. 4 units (Legio Lanciarii) surrounding the cavalry. I also had units of heavy infantry behind throwing Pila...Still lost. My spearman routed after about 10 seconds. Closely followed by my heavy infantry.

I finally killed them by taking the walls of the city. ( including all the towers and gatehouses) I then moved all of my infantry up onto the walls using many ladders and seige towers, I then used a unit of light cavalry to get the Immortals attention, and then proceeded to lead the Immortals on a journey of death around the the walls, where they were hit by 4 units of archers, 5 units of Heavy infantry, all using missiles from the walls. I got a lucky hit and killed the General, once he was dead I could kill the rest of the immortals ( 10 ) with my Legio Lanciarii. Hooray!!!
( I still ran out of time and had to seige the city again the next turn!! But that seige was over quickly as they only had 1 unit of peasants defending the square.):2thumbsup:

Cras

02-15-2006, 13:06

congrats!!!

you think they tried that trick in real roman war too? *wink*

fallen851

02-15-2006, 23:32

Silly, you can't kill them, they are immortal. Duh.

KrooK

02-16-2006, 01:30

talking about spearmen i meant units with bonus fighing cav
lanciatii doesn't have these bonus
anyway i invented smart tactic :2thumbsup:

econ21

02-16-2006, 02:04

talking about spearmen i meant units with bonus fighing cav
lanciatii doesn't have these bonus

Lanciarii do; limitanei don't. (Yeah, it's all Greek - or Latin - to me too).:shrug:

Cras

02-16-2006, 10:54

I must say... I am playing the sassanids now, the good thing is you can make the immmortals very soon in the game...
the bad thing is you are right next ERE, and they are mighty agressive. The only city so far I conquered I had to let go again because of rioting..
Also the assassins are quite agressive, already lost 2 family members...

Musashi

02-16-2006, 10:56

I would be terrified to be on the other side of these guys... I used them one unit of Clibinarii Immortals to wipe out four units of spear and a unit of heavy cavalry once. The AI could probably be beaten if it was using them but I'd hate to be up against them in the hands of a truly competent opponent, because they can shoot your infantry or heavy cav, or charge and wipe out your ranged units or light cav (And honestly will wipe out most heavy cav units in a head on fight... I'd really not bet a unit of Roman household bodyguard against them. They'll get pwnd).

One of my offensive armies is actually nothing but Clibinarii and onagers... Break the walls/gate and just charge on in... Clear the walls from ground level with archery once you're inside where they don't get the ramparts for cover... Or just charge into the town square and lay the smackdown...

Cras

02-16-2006, 10:58

if you cant beat them.....

econ21

02-16-2006, 11:01

Are bucellari (the crossbows) any use? I found them hard to use playing WRE because they are short range. But playing Alemanni, I found WRE bucellari had an alarming effect on my general's heavy cavalry. Not Immortals I know, but maybe the crossbows have an AP attack that is useful? Kinda like arbalests in MTW?

KrooK

02-16-2006, 14:36

Simon sorry but you aren't right;
on BI 1.6 lanciarii doesn't have bonus against cav - they are just light infantry.
And bucelarii (protected by heavy infantry) are best option against heavy armoured cav. They have armour piercing bonus - in mine clan we tried bucelarii (val 1) vs equites clibinarii (def 32). After one shot of one unit 4 clibinarii died. These clibinarii can stay under 4 archers fire for 2 minutes loosing 4 men.

Leonin Khan

02-16-2006, 14:58

archers are way underpowered in BI...i shot 100000 arrows at a unit and i killed 5 men...even heavily armoured units can handle such amount

econ21

02-16-2006, 17:26

Simon sorry but you aren't right;
on BI 1.6 lanciarii doesn't have bonus against cav - they are just light infantry.

Have you looked at the export_units_descr.txt file? Mine is 1.6 unmodded and has:

type legio lanciarii
...
stat_sec_attr spear, spear_bonus_8

and starts by saying:

spear & light_spear = The unit when braced has various protecting mechanisms versus cavalry charges from the front
; spear_bonus_x = attack bonus against cavalry. x = 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12

Just checking now, one thing I had not appreciated is that the limitanei are light spearmen, so they do get some protection against frontal cav. charges and a +4 bonus to attacks on cav.

KrooK

02-16-2006, 18:46

I won't be arguing about it - i checked it into unit descripcion into multiplayer.
Anyway lanciarii are bad option against heavy cav - they got quite weak morale and can be easy routed.

NihilisticCow

02-16-2006, 20:59

Krook, the unit description for MP doesn't take into account the bonuses for secondary weapons, which is the case for some of the Roman spear infantry that also has the pila.

As for the original post, I find the easiest thing against armour is anything armour piercing, chosen axes rip immortals to pieces for example if their charge is withstood, it would help to have a bit of cavalry as well to try and limit the charge and withdraw and recharge tactic. Spearmen are good, but they get less effective with the super heavy cavalry, though the good spearmen will probably still win in the end, but more importantly they counteract the charge. So probably the best would be mixtures of spears and armour piercing units. Though against the AI it's pretty easy to get local superiority, so you often don't need to worry too much about it I find.

Archers are far from weak btw, try firing into the sides and backs of units.

teja

02-16-2006, 23:05

Best way to use lame spearmen against powerful cavalry is to fight in the streets with 2 units side by side with a small front and many rows of men deep. This will fix the enemy for a while, you should use to bring in more units. Flame arrows do affect the morale of anybody.

KrooK

02-17-2006, 00:00

OK guys - i agree you are right :idea2:
Anyway i think best on clibinarii and immortals are tough spearmen and crosbowmen :)

Braden

02-17-2006, 13:32

Ahhh...the Medieval tactic of Spears receiving the charge and then running your Axemen unit into the cavalry units side....still works.

Conqueror

02-18-2006, 10:31

Regarding crossbowmen: they fire a flat trajectory which means that they must have a clear line of sight to the target - you can't place them behind infantry like you could do with archers. If the LOS is obstructed then Bucellarii will still play the "firing" animation, but they won't actually fire any bolts. And they will get tired from just doing the animation. It's tricky to use them but they can be effective, just make sure they're always targetting a unit they have a clear LOS to.

econ21

02-18-2006, 12:02

antisocialmunky

02-18-2006, 15:50

archers are way underpowered in BI...i shot 100000 arrows at a unit and i killed 5 men...even [b]heavily armoured[b] units can handle such amount

I think you mean the other way on that...

There's a small thing called a shield bonus that applies missile defense to the front-left of a unit...

Watchman

02-18-2006, 19:29

I've buried isolated Clib Immortal units under massive saturation fire from hordes of Toxic Hippoes. Even in night battles. Shoot enough, and they'll die eventually.

If there's softer targets around though, shoot those first. Clibs are arrow-proof enough to make anything else a waste.

Although the topic's never came up in my games, one has to wonder how hard it is then to kill those ERE Equites Clibanarii without AP weapons as they have the same armour rating as the Sassanid Clibs, and a shield on top of that...