Ambushes what types of troops do you use

I just read the ambush threads and am wondering, what kinds of troops do most people usually use?

I have used peasants, some spearmen, cav, and archers. Peasants are peasants, and often need an accompanying unit to keep them from panicing if the enemy comes nearby. Cav have a problem that if they are forced to fight in the woods, they are somewhat useless.

I have had a few recent battles when I was defending where the ambushers seemed to help, though I was worried about them getting to the battle in time. Though when they hit the enemy on the flank, it saved the day as my soldiers were near to routing.

I know I have read previously on people positioning cav, especially horse archers to harass troops and attack their rear positions. I often like to use them as distractors, but are many having success with ambushes?

Ghazis are good for wood ambushes in defensive battles. You have to position your main force next to a wood and hide the Ghazis there. If you keep your general at that side and leave your flank seemingly exposed (apart from the forest) the AI may start maneouvering up that flank, if you're lucky... straight into the waiting axes of the Ghazis. Basically in the confusion of the wood, and with the element of surprise they can be quite devastating, especially if it was cavalry that blundered in there.

I use any unit of fast cav, preferably something that has missile capabilities as well.

Ambushing is dishonorable.
Really, that was way into the 13th century a common concept.
But to be honest, I just suck at it, be it in MTW or RTW. I´ve given up even trying.

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Originally Posted by Caravel

Ghazis are good for wood ambushes in defensive battles. You have to position your main force next to a wood and hide the Ghazis there. If you keep your general at that side and leave your flank seemingly exposed (apart from the forest) the AI may start maneouvering up that flank, if you're lucky... straight into the waiting axes of the Ghazis.

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The way I usually like to use the ambush strategy with infantry is on the edges of my spearwall. Whether I'm attacking or defending, if I have many spear units with ranged units (which I usually do), I will almost always line up my spearwall so that one flank is near the edge of the woods. I then hide an infantry unit or two within the woods, so that if the enemy attempts to flank my spearwall with cavs, which oftentimes they will try to do, I will ambush them from their side or rear. The results can be most devasting... for the enemy that is.

Lately, I usually play as English, so I find the clansmen built in Scotland to be a highly-effective unit for such ambushes when used in early or mid. They are also very inexpensive to build and support.

I agree about the Ghazis-in-woods. I've disposed of quite a large cav armada that was trying to attack from the rear using the forest as cover. And that with only one unit of Ghazis at 2 valour.

I also like to send cav on a gentle trot round a forest as cover and attack from the rear. I ve discovered you can be quite slow with it too. That way you can either trap the enemy gen. or run down the routing army as it flees your main force.

There are 2 types of untits I put in woods in order to ambush:


1) infartry with high att and charge and low defence like Ghazis, Highland Clansmans, Gallowglasses, Nizaris or Futtuwas.
2) cavarly- with good att and charge :charge: . In my recent battles I used Armenian heavy cavalry.

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Originally Posted by Alexios

The way I usually like to use the ambush strategy with infantry is on the edges of my spearwall. Whether I'm attacking or defending, if I have many spear units with ranged units (which I usually do), I will almost always line up my spearwall so that one flank is near the edge of the woods. I then hide an infantry unit or two within the woods, so that if the enemy attempts to flank my spearwall with cavs, which oftentimes they will try to do, I will ambush them from their side or rear. The results can be most devasting... for the enemy that is.

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That's the one! :2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Tony Furze

I agree about the Ghazis-in-woods. I've disposed of quite a large cav armada that was trying to attack from the rear using the forest as cover. And that with only one unit of Ghazis at 2 valour.

I also like to send cav on a gentle trot round a forest as cover and attack from the rear. I ve discovered you can be quite slow with it too. That way you can either trap the enemy gen. or run down the routing army as it flees your main force.

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It helps to hav fast cav to deal with routers. As soon as they begin to rout you need to (try!) give the Ghazis a new target to get to work on if there is one. Those routers fleeing the wood can be mopped up by your cav.

The thing to remember is that while any decent cavalry can charge down Ghazis and destroy them due to their weak defense, in the woods it's a totally different scenario, with the Ghazis usually having the upper hand. Futuwwas are good for surprise flanking attacks also.

I am going to agree with alot of people on this one.

Non-Cav Ambush Units = High charge, moderate to high att, decent morale, and faster than most like the (6-12-13) units. These units would be Muwahid Foot Soldiers, Ghazi Infantry, Fanatics, Highland Clansmen, and Nizaris. Hashishin and some of the skirmishers, Although I have toturn of the fire at will on those or it blows the element of surprise. There are also Galloglasses and Woodsmen.

Cav Ambush Units = I prefer speedy with a High charge, like Steppe Cav, but will take slower with a high charge like Mounted Sarges.

I will also state I am not very good at staging ambushes to this day. I try, but more often than not, it ends up in failure.

I find playing on expert the AI will search woods etc with scouts before committing to battle, if all your units aren't on plain view. This seriously undermines your ambush ability because you lose the surprise bonus.

Still, I do like to anchor one end of my line in woods so there is a nasty surprise for enemy flankers. I recently held off a two-stack Mongol invasion with such a scheme. Had a unit each of w2 CMAAs and Swiss Hallbs in the woods, and with the cavalry penalty in woods these two units chopped up a lot of MHA, MHC and SHC. At least ten units in all, for the loss of about 20 men. But you have to be very Zen fighting the Mongols - a "Do nothing" defence always works best. Hold ground, fire at will, don't chase, let them do all the work, use woods and high ground, and start with your best missiles. Don't target anyone, unless you're ready to pull them back into position every few seconds. The AI has the Mongol feigned-retreat down quite well..... and will pounce as soon as your formation is disrupted.

Where I have a good cav general and cav missiles, I try to put good cav missiles in woods somewhere and use the general to lure the enemy past the ambush, then go for a few missiles in the back, followed by a charge. Preferably downhill and from more than one side and with a mix of fast and heavy where possible. Aim to break morale so the cav are mostly mopping up routers. Apart from buried flanks in woodland I prefer to stand in the open with a good view when it comes to an inf vs inf battle so I am less likely to try an ambush there.

The hard part is always getting the enemy into the ambush!

Definately have some strong opinions, surprised at the number who use cavs. Often my cavs will rush from behind, but they are often visable as bait, out on far flanks. Always difficult to know how far to place them; too far, and it takes them a while to join the battle, too near the center and sometimes they get caught:oops: .

As to ambushes, it definately does depend on the map. Any ideas on which provinces are best:help: ? I saw some in the threads naming Eastern Europe, but no specific places.

Of course it also depends on where the woods are on the map. Hills too can hide troops, though the hills need to be high enough to conceal troops there from approaching enemy cavs.

The idea of using woods on the end of a line is a good one, one I have used a few times myself. It does work nicely as the AI doesn't always realize where the end is:idea2: .

I almost always use the swords/axes in the woods. Usually militia sgts or highlanders/fmaa, whichever unit I am also using to reinforce my spear line. If I have a light cav unit that can't hack it in the later eras I will have it on the far side of the field, wait for the enemy to come up, and move it to woods in the enemies side to ambush the reinforcements as they come on field. It works if they are surrounded by their own men who are running away.

mfberg

Just had the perfect ambush terrain playing as al Mohads /Normal /Early.

In Leon against the Spanish with their jinetes and javelins. Put a mix of troops in a forest and behind a hill i.e. a hill-covered forest.I only had two cav to spare-some bodyguards and merc mamluk archers at 3 valour. So I added desert archers, counting on their speed, and murabitin inf.

If you hide behind a hill I ve noticed the AI doesn t really notice except by accident-on Normal anyway.The Spanish went straight for my main army out in the open.

It was great to watch my guys come over the hill behind the Spanish. Charging downhill really has a devastating effect! And the height adv with the missiles...

I was actually caught out by an AI "ambush" yesterday. Almohads/Early/Hard. They were hiding in the woods and my army blundered right into them. I managed to turn it around though, luckily. My Ghazis got isolated, flanked and decimated though.

Yes, for as dumb as the AI seems to be, it does set up some decent ambushes. I like the way the AI uses siege equipment to set up traps when you chase their routers too far. It will sometimes be far from the main action of the battle, but the AI has some good ideas.

I like also using the landscape to ones' advantage, which is important for correct ambushing and baiting. I had a recent battle where I felt I didn't do that. The Byz had no missile troops with all Byz troops and a Kat general. I had the worse of the landscape as an attacker, and I didn't feel I was patient enough trying to bombard the enemy. I tryed to use some bait, but I probably should have held more of my troops farther back and delayed the 'crunch' time. It was just frustrating as I had mostly xbows whose range isn't that far, especially uphill. I finally did end up winning, but it was more due to winning a brawl with my archers and xbows pitching in toward the end and routing the Byz off, with almost equal number of casualities on each side. Not one of my more convincing battles:sweatdrop: .


I had another battle in a funnel. I was actually trying to move past the top of the funnel, but the enemy came after me and enagaged me quicker than I had expected:help: . Having the enemy in the funnel made things easier though, I almost wish I had just set up at the top of the funnel to begin with:oops: . He was at a disavantage as the AI came up the funnel as well as fighting up hill. Won that one pretty convincingly.

Using bait correctly can often take troops away and get troops out of the way. A small peasant unit I had was great for that, they kept attacking archers, sometimes killing a few, but mostly making the archers run out of range. The AI actually did the same thing, though I chased his peasants off, he seemed to be trying to get me out of position.

In this last battle, I had about 700 troops aganist 1700. My biggest problem was dealing with wave after wave (even after the general was taken) and my ammo didn't last of course. So the chasing and battling was tiring, though I of course tried to get the AI to tire himself out coming to my end of thebattlefield. A few times after I had troops chase off routers (had only 6 cav to start with, units that is), I left those chasers (archers and foot soldiers) in the woods on the edge of the map. They managed to catch some routers several times with them being ignored mostly when the AI came down the field as the AI tended to focus on my main troops at the end. Ended up killing about 1100 of the Byz plus versus a 160 for my side:2thumbsup: .

Am I correct in thinking you only get the ambush bonuses if your hidden troops are officially 'hidden' (ie with the little tree symbol showing) immediately prior to their attack? Obviously they'll become visible when they move. I usually play on expert and the AI always sends out a scout - if you kill the scouting party (they don't get back to their lines to report) does the AI now know where my men are, or do they return to 'hidden'?

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Originally Posted by Matty

Am I correct in thinking you only get the ambush bonuses if your hidden troops are officially 'hidden' (ie with the little tree symbol showing) immediately prior to their attack? Obviously they'll become visible when they move. I usually play on expert and the AI always sends out a scout - if you kill the scouting party (they don't get back to their lines to report) does the AI now know where my men are, or do they return to 'hidden'?

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Correct. Basically trees. And once they return to hidden the rest of the AI units seem to forget about them until they discover them again.

That's useful to know, that the AI troops don't get suspicious when the scouts don't return. Sometimes it is difficult though to kill all the scouts:oops: .

One of my favourite ambush teams for moderately forested areas is actually a pair of Steppe Cavalry units.

I keep them hidden for as long as possible and use them to assault infantry scouts in open areas. Because of their speed, one can ensure that no infantry will return to the main body of the army.

Sometimes the scouting team is a cav unit, so in that case, it might be more difficult to ensure no survivor gets back to the AI main body of troops. Also on the expert level, the AI generally always sends cav units out together, so you might find your cav units getting overrun, especially when you meet the jedi knights (I had 1 run off 20 of my own).

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Originally Posted by gaijinalways

That's useful to know, that the AI troops don't get suspicious when the scouts don't return. Sometimes it is difficult though to kill all the scouts:oops: .

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The A.I. will be aware of the ambushing troops. In fact, at hard and expert difficulty levels it will actively search for them if the number of visible units does not equal that on the pre-battle screen. It is just the enemy units that will be suprised when the ambushers reappear.

Ah, so the Ai is aware enemy units are missing but the AI is still surprised when the enemy units do finally appear on the radar :idea2: ?

Yeah I think they tried to mirror a humans reaction on this one. If you fought a battle where the enemy had 16 units in the pre-battle screen, but only 10 on the battlefield, you know that there are probably 6 hiding somewhere.

Now you could probably figure out the most likely spot for them to be. If you scout out to look, and the ambushers charge out, your scout is going to be surprised. You knew they were on the screen you just didn't know where.

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Originally Posted by gaijinalways

Ah, so the Ai is aware enemy units are missing but the AI is still surprised when the enemy units do finally appear on the radar :idea2: ?

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Sensei Warrior pretty much explained it. The A.I. (at higher difficulty levels at least) will be aware of the missing units and will search for them. But its units will still suffer a morale penalty when ambushed. However, this penalty only applies when you order your units to attack while they are still in hiding. If you first give another order in between, no matter how trivial (like slightly repositioning them for a better angle of attack), there will be no morale penalty other than that caused by the presence of an enemy unit. On the other hand, it doesn't matter how long the ambushers take to reach their target. As long as they went directly from hiding to attacking, their target will suffer a morale penalty, even if the ambushers have to run half the map to reach them.

The A.I. basically has the same view as the human player. It doesn't need its scouts to report back: if one of their units can see something, the A.I. will see it as well.

Some interesting notes on ambushing here ~:cheers: Thanks! Never knew how ambushes really worked.

That is surprising that the ambush bonus applies even if someone is running half way across the field toward an AI unit. Good to know though, for those back hitting times:2thumbsup: 、though I have seen times when the AI sees my units coming and reacts, sometimes with my unit having to veer off :oops: rather than get swamped in a frontal assault. Usually of course, I try to hit units from behind that are already engaged.

Wow, this is quite surprising to me!

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Originally Posted by Deus ret.

Some interesting notes on ambushing here ~:cheers: Thanks! Never knew how ambushes really worked.

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I did not know it,too.Thanks for the info!

Have to agree with Knight Templar - whatever you use has to be fast and have a high impact charge.....and able to stand alone for at least a short time (just in case the enemy don't follow the script and break and run immediately)

As for terrain, Eastern Europe provides lots of nice flat ground between clumps of forests.....

Like others have mentioned - I go for the high attack, high charge units like Woodsmen for ambushes. I also really like Mounted Sergeants. They're not very expensive, but have moderate stats and an excellent charge rating, making them great for surprising and obliterating the enemy forces. Plus if it all goes wrong, you haven't lost too much. I don't often ambush though, depends if I get the chance. More often than not the AI goes scouting for my ambush units and I end up having to move them back to my lines. However, that said, I've also lured their scouts away from my hidden units before they were detected using a few crappy units from my main army. Then I spring the trap on the scouts and aha, you didn't see that coming did you Mr. AI!

A "double ambush", Professor Spatula? Nice thinking.....no wonder you're a professor...I will have to try that...any suggestions as to exactly what type of "goat" should be tethered to draw the scouts?

Hey that was post 100 for me.....that happened quicker than I expected....

:2thumbsup:

I usually use light fast cavalry for ambushes but it really depends on what units I have to use.

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Originally Posted by bamff

A "double ambush", Professor Spatula? Nice thinking.....no wonder you're a professor...I will have to try that...any suggestions as to exactly what type of "goat" should be tethered to draw the scouts?

Hey that was post 100 for me.....that happened quicker than I expected....

:2thumbsup:

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Something cheap is my recommendation. Probably something that will stick a bit so your ambushers aren't chasing after units that are chasing after your routing goat.

Congrats on the 100th post. My 200th snuck by me not to long ago and I wasn't even paying attention.

I try to take advantage of the distance doesn't matter principle in my ambushes, for instance sending hidden cavalry to hit enemy archers in the back once the infantry line is engaged. I keep the cavalry far enough away that they won't be stumbled across during the approach, so the archers should have plenty of time to see them coming across open ground, but I still should get the ambush bonus. The biggest problem is their units will move around and my ambushers will usually run into some other troops (even if they only get other archers in the way) and so lose the bonus. I can't order them around the other unit(s) because that would also lose them the bonus. Grrr.

Ajax

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I can't order them around the other unit(s) because that would also lose them the bonus. Grrr.

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Very true - does anyone know if using waypoints removes the ambush bonus, too?

My favorite faction is the Polish. If I have steppies, they are my absolute favorite to ambush with. They help with an ambush problem I often have. It seems to me that sometimes it's difficult to get ambushers to arrive at the right time. Oh, and I hate it when your ambushers get flanked by the unit trying to go way around to flank what it thinks is your main line. Anyway, steppe cavalry are wicked quick and you don't generally have to think to much about when to strike. They can also redeploy quickly if the ambush idea goes to pot. :furious3:

Yeah, that ambush going to pot seems to happen to me on occasion, though my cav ambush units sometimes :dizzy2: enjoy being chased around ther map. I noticed the jinnetes one time ran off the field after getting the message that they were discouraged from constant retreat as the AI troops kept moving out of position to try and tackle them.

I had in one battle some cav have faster type of soldiers chase them completely around the battlefield while I had a horsearcher and xbow cav shooting at them, eventually routing the cav:furious3: , though the 60 AI unit was eventually depleted to the 13 level (tough unit).

My favourite ambushing troops are Mounted Crossbows. Because firstly they have crossbows and are decent at melee, way better than HA.

I like xbow cavs too, but they are slow and sometimes mine get chewed on by AI RKs. The xbows do okay for killing and annoying from a distance, though in melee sometimes they get beat up by ordinary cav (not HAs).

I like having a unit of Napthas out there in the woods. Get too close and BOOM!!! :bomb2: :bomb2: :bomb2: :bomb2: :bomb2:

I've not EVER used naptha throwers... Heck, I rarely build the seige weapons bldg anyway--usually I just take one over and use that one (and rarely at that!).

Fast cav is the best for ambushes v. infantry. If you're up against a cav heavy army, medium infantry with high attack modifiers work REALLY well if you can position yourself behind a wall of trees. Wait for the attacker to bring his cav up, then you mob them in the trees, and down go the horsies. This works quite well v. the Mongols.

always cav, sometimes light for line flaning and sometimes heavy for taking out the gen --> it really depends on map

I'm joking about the Napthas, I only play the Catholic factions (well, that is). I do think it would be cool as hell though... "Okay, Hans, you and your Swordsmen sneak those woods over there... quiet, quiet.... BOOM!"

I actually use whatever swordsmen I've got (typically w/o armour though). I don't like using Cav. Yes, good speed, but if they themselves get caught in the woods, lots of dead horsies.

Yes, dead horsies:laugh4: . I seem to abuse my cav units as I often lose quite a few of them, though some are merc units though. I often use them as bait, though I like them to try and ambush too, but it doesn't always work out, more like I get ambushed! But they work out well, and I miss them when I am trying to run down those AI retreaters!

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Originally Posted by danfda

Fast cav is the best for ambushes v. infantry. If you're up against a cav heavy army, medium infantry with high attack modifiers work REALLY well if you can position yourself behind a wall of trees. Wait for the attacker to bring his cav up, then you mob them in the trees, and down go the horsies. This works quite well v. the Mongols.

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After reading this thread in the afternoon I continued with my English GA campaign and implemented some of the advice concerning ambushes/woodfighting when the opportunity presented itself. I besieged Livonia castle with my crusade when I got an uprising consisting of 500 vanillia spears, 6 units of boyars and a sh*load of Proloi totalling 2700 men. The crusade could not move out and I had troubles influence/loyalty-wise so how to rescue the 2 units of Templar, 1 orderfoot and 1 fanatics? Livonia=wood and Highlander and Gallows rule the wood :idea2: So I moved all units I could spare of these to Livonia. Battlemap had as expected lots of big connecting woods and I picked a roughly square one to the end of my mapside deploying the orderfoot just outside with the highland/Gallow mix in the woods with 4 units forming an angel on the far side of the orders. My gen and two Templar units behind the middle of the line.

The rebs sent in 5 proloi to scout me out and as soon as they made contact (well got ambushed) I saw how the combination of wood and surprise works - after less than 2 min on normal battletime about 20 of the 100 proloi made it back to their battleline (and continued beyond) with losses of about 15 on my side. Keeping my units in the woods I massacred wave after wave of them winning with a 1:10 loss ratio with most of my units having 80 kills or more - the boyars were useless as I noticed only slight arrow losses as long as I kept my units in the woods.

To get to the point of the thread (finally;) - as mentioned fast and high attack but depending on opponent a bit of antiarmor makes for better results if in the wood and not outside of it - so in vanillia MTW I d say Vikings/Gallows/Gazi prob woodmen if from Lavatia and morale up then Highlanders and Fanatics if ambush in the woods. On hilly maps with no/little wood any fast Cav from behind a hill (fast as not to get into an ambush themselves if the AI smells something rotten) - so steppe/Jinnies on engage/Saharan cav - with caution HA and MXB (the morale thingy again)

My favorite ambush ever occurred on one of the first times I faced the Horde. I had my battle line up against some woods on my right flank. I was playing as the English, and I had some of those wonderful English billmen with a valor bonus and some extra armor and attack points positioned forward of my lines so that they could hit the enemy in the rear and the flank after he made contact.

Instead of coming after my battle line though, the Horde sent unit after unit of their heavy cav into those woods. I was simply amazed at how quickly those billmen laid them to rest. The Cav couldn't even flee out of the woods before each unit was reduced to a couple of men. I was also amazed that the Horde didn't decide to go after my left flank after awhile, but it seems as though once the AI has chosen a flank, they stick with it. I think the only units to get any kills from the main battle line were my archers.

I also have a slightly different ambush technique which works well against the horde, and to a lesser extent the cav-heavy muslim nations (as long as you're not in the desert). I get very bored with the attacks consisting of 4 stacks of Mongol Horse Archers. The shoot up my men, and I have trouble catching them when they skirmish away, which they do any time a unit gets anywhere near them. So. . .I set up Mounted Sergeants in Ambush positions ahead of and to one or both flanks of my main line. When the HA get within bowshot of my line, I order the Cav to come out of hiding and engage them. Then, just as quickly as I can click my orders, I send the billmen out of the line to attack the same unit. If I'm lucky, and all goes well, the Mounted Sergeants will be able to hold on to them just long enough to let my billmen get there and make some kills. It can be a tedious process, but to me it's one of the only ways to eventually whittle down that huge, fast army when you're playing a slow, armored Catholic faction.

Yeh, I've just finally realised ther joys of mounted sarges, especially with weapon upgrades!

I'm a long-standing English fan, so all those trees don't help my Longbows one bit... (nor my favoured massed catapults / canons!)

There are two ambush tactics I tend to use. First is the trees on one flank (usually right up against the edge of the map). I'll stick my melee troops in the forest and the spears exposed. This gives everybody a bonus against cavalry (not so worried about infantry with my ranged weapons chewing them up) and also against missiles (either shield or tree defence), but I also do it because I thought spear units suffered penalties in trees themselves (since it ruins their pretty formations). In Viking Era, I find myself doing this a lot against the Irish with all their (short) ranged weapons.

Second is to put a cav unit in a treeline far away from my main line, off to the side and front. Once the enemy's army have passed them, I send my cav to take out any totally-exposed artillery before sending them behind the enemy army to either make them the filling in a sandwich or to draw off / stall parts of their army, making the main fight that much easier for my men (but that much harder to control, with my force now spread across the map!) I also seem to use javelin troops for this (good against enemy foot, but not against cav!) After sending a crusade across to eastern europe last campaign, I found myself fighting many defensive battles with some Slav Javelinmen who had joined the cause. Even if they only drew away a single unit of melee troops each battle, it made the job easier for the rest of my army.

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Originally Posted by nick_maxell

After reading this thread in the afternoon I continued with my English GA campaign and implemented some of the advice concerning ambushes/woodfighting when the opportunity presented itself. I besieged Livonia castle with my crusade when I got an uprising consisting of 500 vanillia spears, 6 units of boyars and a sh*load of Proloi totalling 2700 men. The crusade could not move out and I had troubles influence/loyalty-wise so how to rescue the 2 units of Templar, 1 orderfoot and 1 fanatics? Livonia=wood and Highlander and Gallows rule the wood :idea2: So I moved all units I could spare of these to Livonia. Battlemap had as expected lots of big connecting woods and I picked a roughly square one to the end of my mapside deploying the orderfoot just outside with the highland/Gallow mix in the woods with 4 units forming an angel on the far side of the orders. My gen and two Templar units behind the middle of the line.

The rebs sent in 5 proloi to scout me out and as soon as they made contact (well got ambushed) I saw how the combination of wood and surprise works - after less than 2 min on normal battletime about 20 of the 100 proloi made it back to their battleline (and continued beyond) with losses of about 15 on my side. Keeping my units in the woods I massacred wave after wave of them winning with a 1:10 loss ratio with most of my units having 80 kills or more - the boyars were useless as I noticed only slight arrow losses as long as I kept my units in the woods.

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On a somewhat similar note, I am playing a Volga-Bulgar campaign in the XL mod. I had been having massive troubles with boyars in the campaign (notably those from Novgorod) and had yet to find an answer for them (massed arrow fire works, but they would always run away :wall: ). Naturally I invaded Chergonov (or whatever that province is between Peresylavl and Lithuania) owned by the Kievans, who retreated and then sallied with reinforcements: three units of boyars and a 3:1 numerical advantage. Yippie.

I set up in a roughly triangular section of clearing between thick woods. I hid some anti-armor soldiers (woodsmen) in the front section, and stationed my archers and javelin men some distance behind the treeline, to give them some firing time, followed of course by my lovely heavy cavalry. The AI (only on hard) sent scout HAs into the woods and found my woodsmen, but the HAs retreated and I left my troops in there.

The attack was a large wave of spearmen, Rus spearmen, HAs, and the boyars. The spearmen and such came first, so I pulled my guys out of the woods, waited until the enemy got into the clearing, and bombarded them with arrows. A javelinman charge, a couple flanking assaults by my cav, and the enemy infantry reteated. I left my archers to fire on the HAs, and charged my woodsmen and javelin men into the woods after the boyars.

To my delight, they nearly wiped out those bastardly horsies. The general's unit was killed, and another boyar unit was reduced to 2 or 3 men. The third had 21 when it ran off. My casualties were low; most of the damage was taken by the woodsmen when the general's unit got out of the woods just a bit and really stuck them. But the javelin men really carried the day for me. I ended up with a 3 to 1 kill ratio, which was good enough for me with mostly cheap, expendable troops.

Anyway, not really an ambush, but it does relate to the tree topic.

I like to keep a unit or two of Woodsmen with my armies. That way if I find a good spot for an ambush I can bring them on the field and wait for the fun. Woodsmen work great because of there great charge.

Sadly, I rarely find myself defending and ambushes are hard to set up when assaulting. I've never had much success with defending, compared to attacking before I get attacked.

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Originally Posted by m52nickerson

I like to keep a unit or two of Woodsmen with my armies. That way if I find a good spot for an ambush I can bring them on the field and wait for the fun. Woodsmen work great because of there great charge.

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Can't say I'd use the same unit....

I always loved alans for the job, good charge and speed,getting them out of harms way...

woodsman don't have the morale to be on their own imho...

The Ai on expert continues to surprise me sometimes. In my current English campaign, I attacked the HRE in Freisland. What was interesting was that the AI pulled back into the woods, except for his cav. I kept taking potshots with my front archers at the cav I could hit while slowly bringin my troops up. Eventually the AI cav ran into the woods as well.

Hmm, can't see where the other AI troops went, and their cav quickly disappeared. I slowly bring in all my troops, soon see some arrows. A total battle took place in the woods, with some limited missile shooting and hand to hand. Of course, the pc would crash near the middle of it, but it was still exciting while it lasted.

Thought the AI might pull something like this, probably I had more missile type troops ( we were almost even in number of total troops), and the AI wanted to avoid being a pin cushion (no hills either for a good defensive position on the particular battle map we were on).

The Ai likes to set up these ambushes, so as dumb as the AI is supposed to be, watch out. Another type is the artillery trap, where you'll be chasing some routers, and suddenly you have rocks start hittting you. The AI will set up siege engines near its troop entry point, making them almost impossible to take out, though as noted in another thread, you can just leave them there and give them a wide birth (especially if you're defending) and the AI has to fight with a few less regular units.

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Originally Posted by gaijinalways

Hmm, can't see where the other AI troops went, and the cav quickly disappeared. I slowly bring in all my troops, soon see some arrows. A total battle took place in the woods, with some limited missile shooting and hand to hand. Of course, the pc would crash near the middle of it, but it was still exciting while it lasted.

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Sometimes the AI makes some really smart moves when it retreats into the woods for cover. I hate to fight big battles in the wood because it is hopeless to get a good overview of the battlefield and it is really hard to tell units from each other.

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Originally Posted by Mithrandir

Can't say I'd use the same unit....

I always loved alans for the job, good charge and speed,getting them out of harms way...

woodsman don't have the morale to be on their own imho...

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Very true, but I normally set up my ambushes so I can spring them near the main battle. That way my woodsmen are hitting enemy units that are all ready engaged in battle with my main force. I have never set up an ambush any real distance from my main force.

A few times I have had peasants rush out of the woods some distance from my regular troops, but they were more for diversionary effect than the actual ambush. But actually, they got the AI archers running and held on long enough with the AI footsoldiers to allow me to bring in my other troops and eventually rout the AI.

Wow, peasants actually have a use.

Yes, they do. They actually are quite fast, so if you can build up their morale a bit and armor them, they'll hang in there longer (instead of running as soon as they see an arrow or sword). They are also great for plowing into the back of someone. But as noted earlier, they are great at chasing archers, as even if they lose, they'll tie up the archers (if they can get close enough) and they might kill some of them. So instead of getting your more expensive troops killed, you have attackers for pennies (as long as they live) who keep archer, even xbows or alabasters, tied up.