Hungarian Sandwich

[Tony Furze]

Started as the Hungarians : Normal/GA/Early.

Remember them from my "mucking around"days. They re cav oriented, so the double sided ambush works quite well, with support from inf in the middle. And they ve got javelins, whom I enjoyed using in the Spanish campaign.

Szekely are easy to get, and just looking at the pic reveals them as serious business tacticswise. Any tips on how to get the best out of these guys?

[matteus the inbred]

I like 'em, make the switch from Horse Archers to Szekely as soon as you can, assuming your economy can hack it. Which, if you've used the standard Hunagrian 'Venice' gambit, it probably can.
Basically, they're much tougher and harder to break than standard HA, so they can scrap a fair bit as well as shooting people. They are impetuous though, so you have to watch them carefully, and they can't take on everything!
I can usually get most of my Szekelys up to valour 4-5 (under a good general), plus armour and morale boosts, and they really do kick butt.

I have used a 'rolling barrage' tactic, where they form line in front of the rest of my army, fire volleys, and either pull back (and then move to the wings) or advance depending on the enemy reaction. If the enemy charges, a swift countercharge on top of a couple of volleys will often rout them, unless they're elites or anti-cav. Horse archers wouldn't stand well enough, but Szekelys are tougher and can 'multi-function'...

[mfberg]

Szekely/horse archers, Heavy Spears, Jav Infantry. Some Mounted Crossbows instead of the horse archers if you need to take care of that pesky Kataphract. Your swords are the same as other catholics, so don't expect much from them. Learn to use the HA/Szekely and you will dominate the Early battlefield. Your GA goals lack except for the conquering part, which is about 1/1 I think. You can head East without any problems until the Horde hits, and the only problems you can expect are the HRE, Byzantine, Italians, Turks, Egyptians, French, Sicillians, and anyone else who grows larger than their starting area. In later times you might learn to use the HA as disposable troops. Keep Hungary and Carpathia as weapon enriching countries, Hungary is also about the best farmland around. Moldavia and the Avar Nobles produced there are your best Heavy Cavalry, worth more than any other until Chiv Knights, or even better than them.

mfberg

[Roark]

Szekely are wicked.

Micromanage them in pairs to tease units out of formation and even for harrying general's units.

They can dive in, destroy siege equipment, and get back out again before the enemy even blinks.

Love 'em.

As stated above, Avar nobles will dominate the field in Early.

[Knight Templar]

You can read Ludens's giude How to use Horse archers (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=33313).

Some quick tips: you can use them as matteus said ('rolling barrage' tactic), or in pairs (for example, to isolate one strong enemy unit and constantly shoot it with arrows- why one Szekely unit shoots, the other one retreats from the enemy). And turn off the shirmish mode, else they'll run to the edge of the map and got engaged there because they have nowhere to run.

[matteus the inbred]

And turn off the shirmish mode, else they'll run to the edge of the map and got engaged there because they have nowhere to run.

Yeah, forgot to mention that. Ye gods, it's a pain in the butt...! Of course, if you've turned skirmish mode off, be sure they don't get splatted while you're not watching, I do that all the time...:oops:

[Marquis de Said]

I turn the skirmish mode off while I'm managing the horse archers, but turn it back on when I go to check my other units. Then every once in a while I check to see that my horse archers are alright, turning skirmish mode off while I point the horse archers in another direction, away from the edge, and then turn it back on.

If they are being chased by a unit of infantry they should be OK for quite some time. Against other cavalry, you have to escape before they begin charging you, as their charge speed is enough to keep up with the fleeing HA, and eventually the HA will get cornered at the edge of the map.

[Tony Furze]

Some nice advice there-thanks.

I've been trying them out (the Szekelys) and they're quite tough to handle well.They're a bit less fragile than Horse Archers, and have more versatility than meets the eye.

[Tony Furze]

I ve extended right up to some where in Russia against the rebels, hoping to get a fight using the Avar Nobles. (It was in fact Chernigov.)

I pressed begin battle . I had 660 against their 642-pretty equal. I thought. Mine was a cav based army with a handfull of jobbagies, and a couple of archers.

I deployed the Hungarian sandwich: 2 Szekely left round the trees, a Szekely and HA to the right round the other trees. The whole of the rebel army was jammed between two forests.
Then the Avars. I had four units. I neatly line them up to face the enemy. Now archers, lets put them out front in a line to fire at the...wait a minute, where is the enemy?

I looked at the mini map only to see them gradually disappear...and up comes the victory music.

Weird, and I didnt get to use my Avars.

[ajaxfetish]

Sometimes the enemy will abandon the field if they decide they can't win, especially if they see you outmanouvering them and/or you're on a harder difficulty level. Oftentimes it can be a pain as their army lives to fight you another day, combined with other forces, but sometimes you can get a nice surprise. I remember a few times when they enemy decided to quit the field on me without realizing they had nowhere to retreat to. I've gotten some nice hefty ransoms, or a brand new province with undisturbed infrastructure, from time to time.

Ajax

[matteus the inbred]

Sometimes the enemy will abandon the field if they decide they can't win, especially if they see you outmanouvering them and/or you're on a harder difficulty level. Oftentimes it can be a pain as their army lives to fight you another day, combined with other forces, but sometimes you can get a nice surprise. I remember a few times when they enemy decided to quit the field on me without realizing they had nowhere to retreat to. I've gotten some nice hefty ransoms, or a brand new province with undisturbed infrastructure, from time to time.

Ajax

It is nice when you can manoeuvre that sort of thing, but I've had some very frustrating experiences chasing the AI's army around the map trying to get it to fight! Of course, if you have horse archers you can make them pay for this sort of unsporting behaviour...

[Peasant Phill]

In my Volga-Bulgarian early game on hard (xl mod) I fought the rebels in Khazar. The number of troops was almost equal ( around 500 each) with the slight advantage on my side. They had a decent army (2 units Khazar royal cav, 2 units spearmen, some steppe cav and horsearchers) but mine was 'designed' to crush the rebels. I had some mercenaries melee troops (byzantine inf and voi) against the spears, steppe heavy cav against the KRC, steppe cav against the horse archers and some more horse archers just because I was a steppe faction.

The real battle (not the deployment and some manoeuvring) took about 1 minute before the rebels marched off the field. All in al I killed 12 rebels with no victims on my side. I didn't bother with pursuing as a battle would've been costly and the siege would've lasted longer.

[Sensei Warrior]

Right now I'm playing XL as the Scots. I did the manouver dance with the Egypts and all of the sudden they quit the field. The good thing is I didn't have to fight them.

The bad thing is when I attacked I saved the game, went to work, and got myself all set up for a nice 1-2 hour battle. We both had full stacks, the Generals we the same stars I figured I was gonna have a fight on my hands. I was looking foward to it because I hadn't fought anything in a bit. I was less than amused.