Your multiplayer armies

Let's try to get some positive talk about multiplayer for once ~:)

What armies do you usually use, and what strategies do you usually use with it? I know it might be "revealing your secrets", but for one I don't mind.

I use Scythia mainly, alongside with Pontus, Thrace and Briton. I have a great record with Scythia, and... err... less so with the others :embarassed:. I tend to use different factions depending on the amount the host has set, because some factions don't work well with very low or very high denarii (100k denarii games with barbarian factions is pretty much suicide for example). I also play mostly 2v2: I love the cooperation part of the game, but I'll play 3v3 or 1v1 occassionally. I'll do my Scythia army first, I'll put the others later. Feel free to post yours!


****** SCYTHIA ******
Denarii amount: From 10k to 25k denarii (12.5k prefered, it's a perfect fit).
Army size: Anything but Small.
Army composition:
6 Head Hunting Maidens (Including general)
6 Scythian Noble Women
2 Scythian Nobles
2 Axemen
2 Warhounds
2 Chosen Archer Warband
Upgrades: Army is a perfect fit at 12.5k, so usually none. If higher denarii, priority is set to upgrade weapon on ranged units and warhounds, then fully upgrade Head Hunting Maidens.
Work best against:
Artilery-heavy armies.
20 cataphrac / 20 chariots / 20 cheap units armies.
Work fine against:
Pretty much any standard army setup: You are fine against any army type (that I faced up to now anyway).
Work worst against:
50k denarii and up armies, due to boosted urban cohorts and the like being unroutable. Completely unusable in Small unit size.

Strategy: Mobility is the key. There's 2 reasons for using Scythian Noble women instead of the "better" Scythian Noble Archers:
1) They are faster: Being able to disable the tribe before a charging cavalry and run away succesfully as the enemy cataphrac / praetorian cavalry (Nearly always those) is charging point blank is critical.
2) There's not enough female units, and I wanted to make a functional army with as many of them as I could. A 100% female army would be cheap beyond belief (100% cavalry), and I want both players to have fun, so this is the best compromise.

For Head Hunting Maidens, it's quite simple: Fastest unit in the game, and that beats Cataphracs and Praetorian cavalry handily. They will rout any and all horse archers without breaking a sweat. They are your most important units, so never throw them away.

My beginning army formation is VERY untiddy, but it is the most efficient for this army type. I place the 6 foot units together, next to my ally flank (Center when 1v1). Behind them some distance away, I have 2 Head Hunting Maiden + general maiden unit. I place a group of 3 Scythian Noble Women, 2 Head Hunting Maidens and 1 Scythian noble on the other extreme flank. At the center (or other flank in 1v1) I have the other 3 Scythian Noble Women, and behind them some distance, 1 Maiden and 1 noble.

The result is that the enemy has no clear place to charge, except for the foot army. The Chosen Archer Warbands are a charge magnet: If the enemy charge there, they get surrounded in seconds by the 3 separate cavalry groups, from all sides. If they don't, the archer warbands are very potent archers, and will cause good damage to the enemy during the whole battle. Late-game, they are decent melee too. The axemen are fast, strong "pinning" units: they will always hold long enough to do the maneuver you need. In late-game, they are also handy battle units.

Note that any of the following is only when facing "standard" armies: 20 cavalry units will charge at you, but you are faster than any of them. Make them in a nice little column while they pursue you and position your 3 cavalry regiment for flanking: You have many less units, but you can still surround them by making them in a big blob. Their other option is to charge your foot soldiers, which will hold any charge for some time (Axemen are soo underrated), which makes your flanking job even easier. Send in the dogs for morale penality when the huge enemy cavalry blob is surrounded, and viola! Instant victory. Now for the more interresing battles...


The key is deception, ambush and mobility. Since you don't have much firepower with this army, you need to have complete control of the match. Once you have disabled the enemy cavalry, you are free to do as you wish. Luring the enemy cavalry out is harder against good players, in which case you have to force them to do it. To force them, you need to gain the missile advantage. In short, be an annoyance. Take out enemy artilery first (if applicable): Send the dogs at them. It's a great deal, and you keep the handlers while they have nothing left. If the onagers are behind enemy lines, just shoot the crew with the Chosen Archers and the Noble Women, doing the tribe. Don't be afraid to be very close to enemy lines; the closer the better in fact. If the enemy has no art but lots of archers, same strategy, but send the dogs at them instead. When they send their cavalry to drive your horse archers out (They HAVE to), you have to make them overcommit, which is something Scythian Noblewomen do far better than Scythian Noble Archers. Stay in tribe mode until the last possible moment, then run away, preferably toward the center (If 6+ cavalry groups) or right toward the zone edge. Be sure that the enemy are mere inches from your noble women; it will make them pursue a second more, and that's all you need (Zone edge helps for that too). If you need more time for some reasons, make them catch one of your cavalry. If they don't commit at all, just keep shooting at them: they'll have to move sometime).

If it's a huge enemy group and that they might seem , send one Scythian Noble to charge at them head-on, to stop them.. Smack the Maidens on their flank. If they look like they are determined to pursue (Cataphrac and Praetorian cavalry users just don't understand that Head Hunting Maiden (ie. Light cavalry) can beat their "uber heavy cav"), just flank them directly. No matter what happen or what method you choose, you'll be hitting on both flanks at once.

Once that is done, you have control of the game... But you have to go carefully. You still don't have firepower: You have light cavalry best suited to beat other cavalry, with weak charge bonus, and your infantry aren't too strong. You can flank and encircle them and shoot them however: You have all these advantages. They will almost certainly now go for your foot units: Let them, and fight them.. Just make sure to always at least double charge from the back any unit (Dog handlers are engage the enemy in front): A mass charge at them will make you lose. It needs to be precision charge, and know how to disengage your cavalry very early: You need to keep your casualties to a minimum, since you don't have strong melee units. Don't be afraid to melee with your Noble Women and archer warbands either, if it will make a unit rout. Be precise and avoid meleeing for more than 10 seconds with your cavalry: If you have 2 units behind and enemy, it is better and safer to send one cavalry charge in, melee for 2-3 seconds (so they do damage but don't get entangled), pull back, and as soon as they move away, charge the other one in. Repeat. It saves lots of your precious Head Hunting Maidens. The matches aren't as long as my description might make it sound either: Usually, my Noble Women will still be at half ammunition by match end. I could definitively take much longer to shoot the enemy is down to their infantry (to save myself lots of casualties), but I don't want to drag the game and be too mean to my opponents... It's still a game and I want everyone to have fun: them being shot at by cavalry archers for 10 minutes when they have no hopes of ever catching them because they only have their infantry block left is certainly not fun for them. So I keep it at a minimum.

I highly recommend to keep an eye on your ally at all times: I nearly always send at least 2 Head Hunting Maidens to help my ally at some point: either to beat the enemy cavalry, to completely destroy their archer/skirmishers or to turn the tides on the main battle line. Your maidens are fast enough to be back on your side in an instant if you need them. I'll nearly always take out the artilery of both enemy armies if my ally seems like he/she would need help taking them out. And don't be afraid to send actually most of your army help your ally: No matter if your "designated" opponent becomes stronger than you because of it, the result is that it will be 2v1. With fast cavalry, helping your ally is easy.


And... I think I wrote more than enough :) The way I play my Scythia is VERY micro-intensive, especially during the "lure enemy cavalry out" phase. It's very much a "finesse" strategy, not a brute strength one at all. It's also very effective: I have never lost a 1v1 match as Scythia (Doesn't say much since I don't play too many of those), and the only 2v2 I lost were the ones I had a very bad ally (In which the end results were always like this, even if I did all I could to help them):
Men Men lost Casualties inflicted
Ayra 540 535 1263
Ally 860 860 83
Enemy 740 632 720
Enemy 825 690 635

Yes it's smaller in men due to Wardogs only counting the handlers, and the Scythian Noblewomen being an undersized unit. It's also very fun to play :) I never saw anyone make a Scythia army remotely like mine: The few Scythia players I saw did an horrible 20 unit Scythian Noble / Scythian Noble Archers combination that just doesn't work too well... Scythia is about finesses, not headlong charges. I'll do my other armies later, but I definitively don't have as much in-dept (or succesful) strategies to offer for those factions :) Feel free to contribute yours!

Interesting Scythian army but i feel the wardoogs and axemen are too crappy for a good army.

I play many game as scythian and as u said a scythian army has to be very fast and maidens are really good for that.
But Scythian Nobles are a must in a scythian army cause for the priece they cost they are just great (charge bonus is great).

I play Scythia alot. My army is somewhat different from yours. Howver, I concur that it requires Micro - management. I would suggest that Scythia works best at 10k and alright at 12.5k. Beyond that I am more successful with Armenia & Parthia which I believe better suit 15k armies. However Scythia is interesting where the rule is 4 max or 5 max (of any one unit amongst the twenty) as it has an interesting unit rosta.

I'm not playing R:TW until I have finished Sengoku Jidai, but still I would to complement you on this excellent post. :2thumbs: It reminds alot of tactic articles in miniature wargaming magazines. What I am missing though are diagrams. Some time ago I tried to encourage members to use them with this thead: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=30598 But perhaps this is just me liking books with pictures.

Still a very nice post!

AyraWinla, if I would play against scythia in 12.5k I would:
Play as romans and:
Only take Early Legionary Cohorts or better, because of testudo.
1-2 Onagers
4 Archers Auxillia
Praetorian Cavalry.

You can't really outshoot me, FootArchers beat the crap out of Horse Archers, and my onagers would shoot your best cavalry to pieces. IF manage to shoot my missile units, you wouldn't be able to shoot my infantry. I've played today against my friend who was scythia, total victory for me ( and my friend isn't excactly a bad player... ) :duel:

This is also my normal setup, although I would take propably Principes because they are a bit cheaper and I would get more units then.

Thank you very much for the comments everyone :) I'm still in the process of trying to make my Briton army works more than just half the games, so I'll wait a little more before doing a strategy description of it :)

For the last comment, there's one part I don't understand. An army like that couldn't possibly overshoot my scythia army: Foot archers do not beat cavalry archers, at all. A scythian noblewomen unit will lose maybe 2 to 3 soldiers (at normal size) to beat a archer auxilia when they use their special skill: they simply never get hit. 6 scythian women + 2 choosen archers vastly overpower 4 archer auxilia. If the artilery are near the front to shoot farther, just send the wardogs at them: instant onagers down. Else, send the dogs to help against the archers to keep casualities to a minimum.

If the onagers are in the back, just send the Noble Women closer in tribe mode and ignore the rest for now: even if they are only a few meters from your front line, they are fast enough to run from anything you have in that army. The praetorian aren't an issue against Head Hunting Maidens either. So what's left is the Early Cohort, that have to stay in testudo: this make it easy to focus all the head hunting maidens and scythian noble at a single point to break one, run away, and repeat, or even send the wardog handlers/axemen in semi-suicide mission to hold the cohort attention during charges.

I know that my Scythia army isn't invincible, but I have faced armies composed like you mentionned, and they didn't stand much of a chance: onagers and archers go down very fast, no matter where they are located in the enemy ranks (Excluding onagers to the front which is about instant: wardogs just tear them). The only way I saw anyone being able to save them for some time is to charge with their cavalry to drive the noble women away: in which case, their cavalry simply die first.

Maybe it was the strategy used by my opponents that were wrong, but the army style you described is usually about the second easiest to beat (All cav being easiest). If you have any counter-strategy to offer, please do so! I'm pretty curious at what they would be, and listening to new, different strategies is always pretty fun :)

Excellent thread :2thumbsup:

And it looks like we are heading towards our first RTW challange. :duel:

Meet up online and try it out. ~:cool:

Actually using Testudo will just make things better for the Scythians in the long run....exhausted Legionaries aren't really the best way to deal with enemy cav... ~;)
The best way to deal with the Scythians is a Parthian army supported by a unit of Elephants. The Scythians don't really have a proper counter against the elephants..and some Cataphract Camels can do some nice damage and they're pretty much immune to damage from ranged units.. ~:)
(even though Head Hunting Maidens can do nicely vs the Camels)

Hmm. Well when I played against scythia, he parked his HA in the front and at the flanks of my army and started to shoot my infantry. I shot with my auxillia and ongers most of his close combat cavalry to pieces, and the horse archers were no match for roman legionaries and praetorian cavalry. :charge:

GAH!

To beat Scythia, use ARQUEBUSIERS!

:charge:

In the rain... charge in wedgie formation!

Unbeatable!

(Too bad Romans don't have any...)

GAH!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vanya

GAH!

To beat Scythia, use ARQUEBUSIERS!

:charge:

In the rain... charge in wedgie formation!

Unbeatable!

(Too bad Romans don't have any...)

GAH!

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Lol wernt we undefeated in 2v2s with 32 Arbs oo Shogun.

Devastating.

:charge:

Ayra Winla,

"For Head Hunting Maidens, it's quite simple: Fastest unit in the game, and that beats Cataphracs and Praetorian cavalry handily."

You mean use the speed advantage to beat the Cataphracts? That would be good to have an counter to Cataphracts because phalanx inf doesn't seem to work very well against them.


Spoon,

STWmod + Samurai Wars

I'm sorry for intruding (I don't have the game yet} but I'm familliar with the units {downloaded the unit guide made by Soluflame}, I was curious about your strategy with sythia, & it sounds good, I still remmeber MTW With the Turks {very deadly}, If you don't mind I'd like to propose a counter.
What if I line my troops{early legionnari cohorts} in a crescent with the ends of it having Triarii or auxilla, the cavalry as the string of the bow & the missiles in the middle with onagers like so: [IMG]C:\Documents and Settings\أحمد\My Documents\My Pictures\Formation.bmp[/IMG]

Sorry the image is down
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

The picture didn't show, that's embarrasing,
_____________L__L
___________L_A__A_L
_________L_____G____L
_______L_______O______L
_____SP__CV CV CV CV___SP
I guess that will have to do it.

Sorry.

Yuuki their speed ain't what makes them so deadly, but it's their Armour Piercing axes that make them so darn good. ~;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 1pain1Duck

Yuuki their speed ain't what makes them so deadly, but it's their Armour Piercing axes that make them so darn good. ~;)

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Well I just let Cataphracts chase Scythian Noble Women all around the grassyflatlands map for half an hour and they lost 22 men before the Maidens ran out of arrows. The Cataphacts couldn't catch the Maidens, but the Maidens lost badly to the remaining 32 Cataphacts in melee once I decided to end it and attack. It seems there is no Benny Hill code in RTW because the Noble Women would have skirmished forever without any arrows. The more I think about this need to try and use cav to beat cav the more I see RTW is shifted toward cavalry dominance.

Note: Louis pointed out that I used the wrong unit. It's the Head Hunting Maidens that have the axes. My mistake.

Yuuki,

Maiden got no arrows... You must have mistook them with Nobles Archers...

Louis,

Yep......Head Hunting Maidens have an axe

......Orda

Thanks for catching that mistake. If it's done the same as MTW, the Maidens will get a big attack bonus vs heavily armored Cataphracts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Puzz3D

Thanks for catching that mistake. If it's done the same as MTW, the Maidens will get a big attack bonus vs heavily armored Cataphracts.

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Yes they have armourpiercing axes. I think in RTW that means armour only count as half effect so a Cataphract with 18 in armour will mean it has 9 less defense when facing such a unit.


CBR

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CBR

Yes they have armourpiercing axes. I think in RTW that means armour only count as half effect so a Cataphract with 18 in armour will mean it has 9 less defense when facing such a unit.

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and at equal cost the Maidens are only 5 combat points less than the Cataphracts.

Well... AFM984, usually what I would do in a situation like that is nearly ignore you (I keep an equal size cavalry unit to yours in reserve) and help out my ally with most of my army so that my team has the soldier advantage. :) If you go to help your own ally, that's when I turn back to attack when the defensive formation is broken.

If it's a 1v1, well... I'll admit it's trickier, but the strategy stays the same. Turn off fire at will and skirmish, put the Scythian Noble Women on tribe mode, then go right next to your legionary line to shoot the archers and onageers. Even a quick rush by the legionary standing a few steps away will be too slow before the noble women move away. Of course if I mess up my micro then, it's probably over for me. Having a defensive line of infantry in front of the archers doesn't save them from the noble women, unless the distance between them is very long. If so, I'll circle around with most of my army out of arrow bowshot to shoot at the "unprotected" back units. If the archers move foward to counter, I go shoot them again. If the cavalry counters, then the rest of the standard plan works. If I mess up at any point (Like forgetting to put back Skirmish mode on when the real fighting starts, mistiming a retreat, not noticing a smaller cavalry charge against a group of waiting head hunting maidens, ect), I'll probably get beaten.

I'd say it's a good counter-strategy :) It wasn't the exact same as yours, but I faced in a 1v1 a relatively similar strategy. I won, but let just say I hadn't too much left at the end. Even a formation like that with a passive defense like that isn't hard to beat, but an active one (Short counter-attacks all the time, with 2 or more at once) is very hard to micro against. And with Skirmish off at times against formations like that is pretty dangerous I'll admit.

thanks for answering AyraWinla,
You are forgetting the pila with the legionnaries, add the distance Btw the onager & the Legionnaries to the range of the pila & it should be, on all sides of the Crescent, slightly higher than the range of NW, the archers have a distance advantage against the NW, so they will be Able to shoot them Unless you come from the back, in that case the archers will shoot whom ever is in range, & don't forget, that the main threat the onager is still active, I can sacrifice one or two cohorts to get cavalry auxilla, they are fast and expendable, you will have to move out of their range and that will add to your burden of micro management, in the meantime my onager is still alive & kickin.

In 2v2 I have no hope what so ever, but in 1v1 I think I'd have a fair chance.

Thanks, :bow: