Conquistadores aka Death on Hooves

I started my first real Spanish campaign in Americas. Every mission i get, i get rewarded with 6 Conquistadores and some money, so at this point (turn 8) I have about 20 units of them and the upkeep (185) is killing me. The Mayans send an army into my easternmost province (Xicalanco), i decide to declare war and attack them instead of letting them siege (btw Why must I be at fault for starting the war? When, in any time, in any land, has marching an army into another nations territory without permission NOT been a declaration of war?) Anyway the stacks were something like
Friendly: 176 - 3 star Prince, 5x Conquistadores
Enemy: 804 - Captain, 2/3 various militia (Nacom, Al-hopop) and 1/3 missiles.
I'm outnumbered 4:1, the pre-battle odds are still 3:2 in my favor. Interesting.
Still, I'm hopelessly outnumbered in the jungle with an all-cav force, i will surely take heavy losses.
I disregard any fancy flanking movements which might leave a unit isolated and chewed up by the multitude of militia, and go for a straight charge into their missile line. Kills and routs through and through, no losses for me. I was slightly worried at this point because there was no time to reform before engaging the infantry line, so i ordered them in regardless. Luckily, the flank of the main enemy line was a javelin unit which skirmished away, leaving one of my cav unengaged on the flank of their main line. He wheeled around and simply ran behind and parallel to their entire line, routing each of them in turn as he passed by.
Results:
Enemy Killed: 360+, Captured: 380+
Losses: 11. Eleven!!!!. 11.

These guys made over 30:1 kills before the rout, and all without any proper charges due to the jungle terrain! Later I tried them in a siege and although they weren't as spectacular, still caused massive kills with minimal losses (10:1 or so). Needless to say, I will be using Conquistadors much more freely from now on.

In another siege battle the enemy had a single unit coming out a side gate, a ran some Conqs over there and destroyed them, and came in through the open gate. My conqs took ~10 losses from arrows before engaging another unit, destroyed a unit of jaguars and another half unit of native warriors before they were down to 4 men and I pulled them out. They routed and all but 1 died in retreat. End of battle: that unit of Conqs took 29 losses and healed 28! What sort of magic medicine are these Spaniards using?

You guys clearly haven't seen Spanish Dragoons in action.

Conquistadors have 2 HP, and on top of that armor and shield. AND they have same unit size as any other cavalry or even dism. conquistadors. They don't die.

Indeed, i killed/captured over 1000 Mayan troops with just a generals bodyguard and 2 units of Conquistador's, its the American Natives complete lack of pikes/useful spear units which hurts them so badly against heavy cavalry. Then again, the opposite can be said about the Spaniards when it comes to recruitable units, since militia pikemen are useless, and militia swordsmen are much more fragile then they appear (especially when outnumbered over 2-1 by Native units)

They die if you leave them in a mêlée to long. But they are sure killing machines. I was attacked by two Tarascans stacks. I had one stack which consisted of one general, 6 conquistadores, 7 dismounted conquistadores, 5 musketeers and one culverin. My problem was that I had not enough infantry to hold the line and that almost all the Tarans infantry was frighting my infantry. Because of my infantry collapsed under the weight of the enemy troops I was soon left with only my cavalry. So I charged, pulled out and recharged until my troops were exhausted and I had to retreat to save this brave men. These are the results of all these charges:
Cong 1: 207 kills and 58 prisoners (this unit was lost and routed because it got stuck in mêlée.
Conq 2: 250 kills and 0 prisoners
Conq 3: 331 kills and 22 prisoners
Conq 4: 372 kills and 27 prisoners
bodyguard: 421 kills and 14 prisoners
Conq 5: 554 kills and 75 prisoners
Conq 6: 584 kills and 16 prisoners. (My heros)

It was an average defeat, but it was the best cavalry action I ever had.

@antisocialmunky: Yes I have seen Spanish dragoons. They are the New world equivalent of a machine gun. They run out of ammo very soon but man can they kill. They can easily kill some 250 enemy per battle.

They must be strong, they are expensive(1100 for one unit) and theyre the only weapon that europeans have againts mesos elite units. jags, eagles and other animals have excelent morale and are not affraid of gunpowder weapons unless they loss 90% of men in unit.

Heh. Not long ago I saw a thread complaining that cavalry in Kingdoms is underpowered.
- Guru

It depends on which campaign. The Crusader Campaigns have better cavalry while Teutonic have higher armor values and Brittania has weaker cavalry.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Guru

Heh. Not long ago I saw a thread complaining that cavalry in Kingdoms is underpowered.

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I was thinking the same, but then some one said conquistadores have 2 hit points. That could make all the difference. 2 hit point heavy cavalry has been God-like from RTWs generals onwards.

Like I said Conquistadors have 2 hp but in GENERAL cavalry was nerfed, all charge bonuses were lowered by 1 point (lancers have 7 charge, conquistadors have 5, albanian light cavs have 4) and unit size from max 80 to 60. But in the relative sense conquistadors come out much stronger by comparison.

Ritterbruders are probably the only cavalry that beats Khan's guard 1v1 so I wouldn't underestimate them either.

i must be one hell of a cavalry commander because i use conquistadores like crazy against the mayans, they send thousands of men in each stack and i ride mine out to meet them and slaughter them losing about 85-100 and them losing 1200-2300 and thats not even the ones i capture (even though they are dead men too:laugh4: )