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I was Continuing my Russian campaign Last night and I fought my 1st battle Against DFK with Dismounted Boyars (BD). If im not mistaken Axes have a bonus against armor! Am I correct? Yet My DB were routed so easily! I know Russia is Cavalry based but for City/Castle battles I need my good olde DB's to count on. Dont even get me started on Axemen that are complete waste of florin.
Problem is that their base attack rating is worse (due to AP, per CA's "balancing" decision) in addition to them of course having generally worse ratings than DFK, so they aren't really a match for them.
Few units actually have a high armor rating, so it doesn't make much of a difference.
According to FBE’s guides, the formula for working out the armor piercing bonus against a specific target was as follows:
(target armour - 1)/2 = bonus added to attack.
Dismounted Boyar Sons have an unmodified attack of 11 and Dismounted Feudal Knights have an armor of 7, so that would be a bonus of 3 to the DBS for a modified attack score of 14. DFK have an attack score of 13 and both units have a charge bonus of 3. So the end result is that DBS have a one point attack advantage with the armor piercing bonus over DFK. However, DBS have an armor score of 5, defense skill of 4 and shield score of 6, whereas the DFK has an armor score of 7, twice the defense skill at 8 and a shield score of 6, for an overall 6 point defensive advantage. As FH posted, head to head, DBS have less than an 8% attack advantage over the DFK but only 71% of the defensive capability, so one might expect the DBS to be at a disadvantage against the DFK.
I usually pin stronger units with weak units and flank them from their right (where they are not protected by their shield) with the axe unit. As the saying goes, “If you find yourself in a fair fight, then you have done something terribly wrong.”
Axes are almost always better for flanking as they almost always have a lower overall defense rating. Use axes against spears and horses against swords.
i never use them since dismounted dvor are basically the same unit but with bows so they can soften the knights before they reach them
So I guess I should change my formation? let me show you my current one.
S=spears
DB=Dismounted boyars
B= mounted boyars
A=Arrow units
E= ENEMY
............................................B B
S-DB-DB-DB-DB-DB-BD-S..........B B
A..............A..............A
E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E
E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E
thats my standard formation as for my enemy formation its just arbitrary. I usually put all my cavalry on one side so I can sweep them from right to left or vice once im engaged. Doing this usually makes the side w/o mounted support take more casualties but my DB usually always flee
I have only limited experience with the Russians, but here goes.
Most tactics are basic to all factions. As in chess, if you can control the center of the battlefield, then you have advantages in maneuver. An army must move almost twice as far to flank an enemy than if it simply charged straight through the opponent’s center. If you can charge through your opponent’s center, then you have split his force. This will give you the opportunity for your entire force to turn and fall on one half of his before the other half of his army can react effectively. Divide and conquer.
Therefore, to prevent this, I usually put a line of five spear units in my center, with a second line of three behind them. The second line is staggered so that the gaps between the units of the first line are covered by the second line. My General is behind this line to keep morale high and the skirmish line of archers can fall back behind this spear wall. This is really good at stopping charges. Even militia units can hold pretty well in this situation. The axmen/specialty units go on the flanks of this line with the cavalry outside them. So I know that my center will hold long enough for my flankers to out maneuver the enemy or I may just smash through my enemy’s center as above.
Using your abbreviations, it looks like this (G for general):
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
…………….....A..A..A
B.B.DB.DB.S.S.S.S.S.DB.DB.B.B
………..……...S.S.S
…….....…………G
So this spear wall might hold a little better than a line of axmen.