battle between horses and shocktroops

[Peasant Phill]

In my current HRE early campaign I have to reïreinforce Friesland fast. So I'm forced to take on Denmark as I can then move most of my units in Saxony, Norway and Sweden (bribed Rebels in both Scandinavian countries). As I wasn't prepared for such an action I don't have the appropriate units to face the Danish king and his family.

The danes have 321 men. 101 royal knights (5 units king included), 100 spearmen, 60 vikings and 60 landsmen.
My force is more than 4 times as big, above 1300 troops. A walk in the park wasn't it for the fact that they are mostly shock troops and that I want to end up with a still seizable force. I have 100 spearmen, 40 mounted crossbows, 20 royal knights (general), 60 archers, 60 slav javelin men and then a mass of vikings, landsmen and slav warriors.

I will win no doubt about it but as I said my force has to be battle ready the moment they slayed the Danes.

I was thinking about letting my archers and mounted Xbows concentrate on the king. He doesn't have heirs yet so the Danes will turn rebel and I don't have to worry about the siege so much, besides this will mean that the rest will rout faster and more of my men will be spared.
To face their army I'll divide the rest of my force in 5 groups (=> 5 knight units). I need to split the Danes in order to benefit as much as possible from my my superior numbers and if they don't split up I can at least swarm them from all sides. The groups will use the 'hammer and anvil' tactic with a landsmen in three or four ranks ( one group will have spearmen) and two other units that will do the flanking. The javelin unit will also hit the pinned knights and my general will help where needed or charge in the back so the men will rout quicker.
I didn't forget about the Danish lands- and spearmen but the group that will be attacked by it will hold long enough for help to arrive.

Are there any better suggestions as I'm well aware the plan is far from perfect.

[Kommodus]

Try to catch the enemy knights in the forest, where your axemen will fare reasonably well against them. Since you have a few bowmen and the enemy has none, try to use this to your advantage by forcing them to come to you and fight on your terms. You don't have enough bowmen to truly damage them much, but it's worth a try.

Your plan to swamp the enemy knights with large numbers of infantry on all sides is sound enough, as long as you time things well and don't let the unit leading the assault be broken before the support arrives. The divide-and-conquer tactic should work too - as before, use your bowmen to lure one unit at a time out of the enemy line.

Of course it's always advisable to focus as much firepower as possible on the enemy general/king. His death can cause a chain rout, and the fewer enemy RKs you have to fight, the better. Expect them to inflict quite a few casualties on your army no matter what; however, if you achieve parity in the kills/losses ratio, you'll be doing well since you outnumber them so much. This is an achievable goal.

[Peasant Phill]

Well I considered the deployment in the woods but unfortunatly I don't a large enough forrest in the snapshot to hide my entire army in. Maybe I can use it for an ambush.

[macsen rufus]

The one thing I learnt in my HRE early was how to use mounted Xbows, they can do a lot of damage to the RKs, but they require micromanagement, and can be a bit fragile on the morale side. They also can whittle down the Danish Landsmenn quite nicely.

I'd go with the "prick and run" tactics, and try to pull individual units out and swamp them with your own shock troops if they stray far enough. A few rounds of this and the Danes will start getting tired, whilst hopefully your infantry will be just watching your artful missile troops do their goading dance. If you want to keep your army pretty intact you're really aiming for a rout rather than a slugging match, so evey morale trick you know will be needed. Maneouvre, terrain, surprise, and even a mounted xbow behind the enemy lines can be useful....

[Vladimir]

I almost wet my pants! You're taking on the faction leader and he doesn't have any missile troops?

Take your army and fortify on a good defensive position. Then take your mounted X-bows and pin-cushion the faction leader. If possible try to goad his knights into your kill zone and use your archers on those horsies! If you do this right (and take your time) you should suffer ~5% of the total casualties and make them go rebel.

I love archers!!!

[Alexios]

I would also advise a divide-and-conquer method, if you want to win this one without losing too many men. Your biggest obstacle, obviously, is going to be those nasty RKs. Unfortunately, you don't have very many missile units or spearmen to use on them. But RKs are well known for taking the bait on hit and run tactics, so I would use your mounted crossbows to lure them out one at a time - lead them away from their main army toward your vikings and warriors positioned in the small forest, then hit their flank.

Obviously, you should keep trying to lure the King's unit out first, because the faster you kill him off, the sooner you can rout his army, thus avoiding the bloodshed and achieving your objective. In fact, I would suspect that in order for this strategy to work, you're gonna have to kill him off fairly early, because MX-bows are usually of low morale and probably won't stay on the field long (and there's only 1 of him vs. 5 RKs!)

I think it's worth a try, though. And if it doesn't work, then you can still use the method you're speaking of, which would probably result in more casualities.

Whatever you decide, mate, good luck! And let us know how it turns out.

[tigger_on_vrb]

Set your army up in the best defensive place you can find. Spears and vikings in the centre landsmen on the flanks with javlins in the centre behind your battle line and archers just behind them.
I'm not a fan of slav warriors, but if you have to field them protect them near your general (behind the archers) until a good moment to use them arrises.
Place your mounted crossbows in front of your army.

1. Harrass the enemy with your mounted crossbows aiming mostly at their monarch and knights. Using hit and run tactics try to coax a unit towards your main army.

2. If this works and they send one unit at a time they should be easy to deal with.

3. Keep this up until they eventually have to attack your strong position (or you run out of arrows by which time their knights should be a mess). Hold the line with spears and vikings and send the landsmen on a short hook to their flanks. Once all their units are engaged send your general, mounted crossbows and any slavs on the long hook into their rear. The timing of this last move is really the make or break. Time it right and their morale will collapse and you should suffer minimum casualties. If you wait too long your low morale troops may waver.

[Peasant Phill]

That's sound advice tigger but why use defensive? The defence of the landsmen is better and both vikings and landsmen have the same attack. So wouldn't it be better if the landsmen held the line and the vikings flanked?

[Peasant Phill]

So I fought the battle and right from the start I saw it would be hard to minimize the casualties. Only one forrest worthy of that name and it lay behind the Danish line, no real hills and apparently I miscounted the RK's (there were 6 units).

It seems I'm more of an armchair general. Casualty count: 328 dead and captured Danes (including the king) to my just over 300. Unimpressive I know and you haven't heard the worst part: I lost my 4 star general.

How this was possible?
Like I said there was no decent defensive spot that I had access to. Secondly when I tried to lure some RK away their line didn't break but they came 'en masse' (so far the 'divide and conquer' tactic). To make matters worse my mounted Xbows did lure two units of RK's away when I was ordering the flanking of the Danish right flank. Unfortunately my general (RK) was at that moment positioning himself in the back of the Danes. I noticed the attacking RK's to late to evade them and the uneven fight began. The fight was steadily going my way but my general found himself with a rapidly decreasing number of bodyguards. I charged in with my Xbows but they couldn't save the emperors brother and at the end of the battle they even got routed. After some more king swarming he went down and what was left of his men fled.

Every cloud has a silver lining (or however this English proverb goes). the rest of the Danes went rebel and I made a good deal when I bribed them. I disbanded the bribed landsman, the viking and 11 spearmen but I kept the 3 royal knights that survived (two 3 star generals and a 2 star). I'm moving them in order to retrain them. And as a last token of good luck and the Lords favour the Italians rebelled so I can fulfil my GA goal without excommunication.

[tigger_on_vrb]

That's sound advice tigger but why use defensive? The defence of the landsmen is better and both vikings and landsmen have the same attack. So wouldn't it be better if the landsmen held the line and the vikings flanked?

The reason the landsmen are on the flank is they have better morale and better armour (IIRC). For this particular battle its vital that no units rout and the flank units are the most likely to do that for 2 reasons. Firstly the units in the centre have both their flanks protected and so get a valour bonus and also things dont always go perfectly and they may rush your flank. I'm relying on the landsmen to stand their ground whatever.

I agree that the landsmen would take the charge better, but I think its more important for them to be on the flank for this battle. In other situations (like you have enough cavalry to cover your flanks for example) they belong in the centre.

[Kommodus]

It seems I'm more of an armchair general. Casualty count: 328 dead and captured Danes (including the king) to my just over 300. Unimpressive I know and you haven't heard the worst part: I lost my 4 star general.

Ah, don't worry about the casualty count; that's to be expected given the numbers and types of troops involved. As I said, achieving parity in the number of casualties on each side was a realistic, achievable, and perfectly acceptable goal. You still have most of your army left.

Pity about the general, though. It hurts to lose a quality man early in a campaign. At least you got some 3* men in return; add a star to each and you've come out ahead.

Overall, not a bad performance at all. Congratulations!

[Peasant Phill]

Thanks but I feel really stupid about the death of my general. Normally I hold him back and only let him join in in the end or when I'm in a pinch. Because he was the only decent cavalry I had I wanted to use him immediately but sloppy pathing kept him from fulfilling his goal. At least he died as a hero taking on double his numbers in knights.