Horse Archer Armies...(long text)

In my latest Turkish campaign (Early, Expert) I have come to realize the power of the speedy mounted archer... specifically, the power of MASSED speedy mounted archers.

A full army of Turcoman horse is capable of destroying pretty much any opposition in Early with minimal losses. I took a zero star Turcoman Horse General, and after 8 victories he is a 4 star Specialist Attacker, with a full corps of battle hardened Turcomans under his command. Below, I will list my observations on using an all-horse-archer army. Ironically, the only units that I would not recommend using are the Szekely, as they are impetuous and tend to get themselves into too much trouble.

1) The morale, valor, and melee capabilities of your HA army will not have much of an impact. All you need is speed and bows, which means that even though I was using Turcomans, there is nothing to prevent this strategy from working with vanilla HAs.

2) The strategy is based largely on the fact that the AI is an absolute moron in combat (even on expert) and is incapable of fighting a highly mobile opponent.

3) The presence of Archers will *not* counter this strategy. The presence of Heavy Cavalry will *not* counter this strategy. In Early, the only units that will reliably counter Massed HAs are the massed top speed light cav (i.e. Saharans, Steppes, Alans) or the Massed *Heavy* Horse Archers (like Steppe Heavies). Once Pavise units make an appearance in High, the viability of HAs takes a nosedive, but nonetheless, in Early they are VERY hard to beat.

4) Most important tip on the battlefield: BREAK UP YOUR ARMY. Yeah, you heard me, split 'em. 16 HAs lumped together are a recipe for disaster. Normally, at the start of the battle (offensive, or defensive, it doesn't really matter) I would split them into subgroups of 4 and spread those groups around. By doing that I have given myself ALOT of room to maneuver (which is absolutely crucial for my survival) *and* made it impossible for the enemy to conduct a decisive attack/counterattack: if they split their army to attack all your subgroups, you win. If they send their entire army against one subgroup, you also win.

5) Skirmish AI absolutely ROCKS. It is true that you *gotta* watch your HAs, but Skirmish AI is absolutely indispensible. It auto-pulls your HAs at the LAST possible moment allowing you to hoodwink the enemy units into chasing you, and once they do it, they are doomed. If an HA pulls more units than it can handle, assign a few other HAs as 'caretakers' for those extra units (all on skirmish AI of course). Generally, one caretaker per pulled unit is enough, unless you've managed to pull a general, in which case concentrate a few HAs on him at once.

6) Escaping from a corner. Nobody's perfect, and occasionally, you'll get a unit of yours cornered. No worries, chances are, you'd still be able to take it out of the harm's way: switch to engage at will, change formation to wedge, and run, run, run in the least cluttered direction. Why wedge? Because it is the most compact formation possible. In the process you might lose a couple of men, but that would be the extent of it. If you have a solid posse of, say, heavy cavalry chasing you, head towards one of your unengaged subgroups, where you will assign caretakers to the heavies and get pressure off the original unit. Once out of harms way, get back into regular formation, turn on Skirmish AI, and go back into the fray. If the situation is hopeless, go ahead and hit the ROUT button. Sure, your men will leave the battlefield, but they'll get to fight another day and rob their chasers of whatever fatigue they might have left.

7) Dealing with archers. Attacking a defensive position that has plenty of archers can be a daunting task, but by no means impossible. Ther is no perfect defense, so make those archers move. Approach from both flanks at once, and watch the AI pull the archers to the side in order to hit you. They got the flanks covered? Move your flank HAs a bit away and position a couple of HA units head on and start shooting. They got archers on flanks, remember? While those archers are scrambling back to the center, you are letting your arrows loose, and those archers aren't. They are back at the center? Approach from the flanks.... Basically, make your enemy try to cover himself completely with a blanket that isn't quite long enough. In the meantime, if you've managed to hit a few melee units, they might charge you, which is exactly what you're hoping for. Also, read the terrain. You are commanding the most mobile army possible, thus you are capable of utilizing the best features of the map. Don't be afraid to engage the archers in a duel, if you got the high terrain advantage. Also, if there's a forest within the archers' shot range, park your HAs there and let the archers pelt your men. Sure, you'll lose a few, but most of those arrows will be wasted, and an archerless army is a sitting duck vs HAs. Finally, if the situation is favorable (i.e. an archer unit has ventured a bit away from the main body), charge 'em. Unless you're facing some really badass archers (like mongol warriors or futtuwwas) they'll break, run, and be slaughtered to the man before help can arrive.

8. Dealing with Slow and Normal Cavalry. Basically, the heavier the cavalry, the easier they are to deal with. If you get charged, send them on a wild goose chase, skirmish them until they are exhausted, then shoot them to tatters at your leisure. In the meantime, you can concentrate on decimating their footmen. Katanks and Camels can be treated as regular infantry since their speed is so lacking. Any armored unit is guaranteed to run out of wind before you do. Mounted Sergeants are much more dangerous in this respect, since they can run around for a looong time. I try to assign an extra caretaker to the MS unit and watch the skirmishing HA VERY carefully. If you do things right, the Sarges won't touch you, but they leave little room for error.

9. Dealing with FAST Cavalry. Your only choice here is to supplement your core troops with heavy HAs such as Steppe Heavies. If you see a bunch of Steppe Cav or Saharans on the pre-battle screen, put a few Steppe Heavies in your initial battlegroup.

10. Attacking an army full of Knights and Pavise Arbalests perched atop of a mountain led by a multistar general....I will leave this one as an exercise for the reader.

The End.

Edited for Spelling

Nice guide, rvg. I still have two questions, though:

1) In my experience, AI skirmish pretty sucks in MTW. It's somewhat better in RTW but still not really good. The reason for this is mainly that once you assign them to attack a unit (or they choose one themselves on fire-at-will), they'll skirmish only in relation to that unit, so if either it changes direction resp. is overtaken by a faster unit (both of which happens quite often) or the enemy sends a unit from another direction, the HA is pretty much doomed. At least that's what I have seen. So....even with that obstacle it's still possible to direct an all-HA army but how do you avoid getting crazy because of all the necessary micromanagement?

2) Shorter: If the terrain is woody and the enemy chooses to deploy most of his troops in the cover....what does one do? Often they're smart enough not to be easily provoked to come out. I remember defeating 3 Mongol HA and 2 Mongol heavies with just one crappy unit of Byz infantry hidden in a nice piece of wood (okay, my guys were at valour 2 already, but still...). In PMTW two light Cossack infantry troops under cover managed to hold off an entire Tatar army which spent all their arrows, then tried to charge with two or three units and finally retreated after their spearhead had been annihilated.

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Originally Posted by Deus ret.

Nice guide, rvg. I still have two questions, though:

1) In my experience, AI skirmish pretty sucks in MTW. It's somewhat better in RTW but still not really good. The reason for this is mainly that once you assign them to attack a unit (or they choose one themselves on fire-at-will), they'll skirmish only in relation to that unit, so if either it changes direction resp. is overtaken by a faster unit (both of which happens quite often) or the enemy sends a unit from another direction, the HA is pretty much doomed. At least that's what I have seen. So....even with that obstacle it's still possible to direct an all-HA army but how do you avoid getting crazy because of all the necessary micromanagement?

2) Shorter: If the terrain is woody and the enemy chooses to deploy most of his troops in the cover....what does one do? Often they're smart enough not to be easily provoked to come out. I remember defeating 3 Mongol HA and 2 Mongol heavies with just one crappy unit of Byz infantry hidden in a nice piece of wood (okay, my guys were at valour 2 already, but still...). In PMTW two light Cossack infantry troops under cover managed to hold off an entire Tatar army which spent all their arrows, then tried to charge with two or three units and finally retreated after their spearhead had been annihilated.

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1. Easy... You *don't* order the HA to attack any particular unit. Leave it on autofire and it'll skirmish away from whoever gets close. Once an enemy unit is isolated, THEN order your HAs to attack it and you're golden.

2. A.I. is a moron. If it gets hit by arrow fire, it'll have to react. All you need to do is kill one guy in one unit, which is doable even in the thickest terrain. Second, you can move your HAs into the forst as bait.....A.I. rarely resists it.

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Originally Posted by rvg

1. Easy... You *don't* order the HA to attack any particular unit. Leave it on autofire and it'll skirmish away from whoever gets close.

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This is what I do as well. Works wonders. IMHO using too much HA against the AI feels like cheating to me. I try to restrain myself to use only a couple to disturb AI formations.

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Originally Posted by Biggus Diccus

This is what I do as well. Works wonders. IMHO using too much HA against the AI feels like cheating to me. I try to restrain myself to use only a couple to disturb AI formations.

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With the exception of Jinnettes, I usually use only 1-2 HA units in an army as well. In my last couple Bohemian campaigns, I used a total of just 2 mounted x-bows the entire time, simply because I don't have the patience to give them the amount of micromanagement they need.

Still, a pretty thorough guide, rvg. Let's hope the Turks in my Eggie/Byz campaigns never read it. ~;p

I usually like decimating the AI HA units, but certainly the AI doesn't do a great job keeping them out of harm's way. I use missile cav morefor the irritation factor and as normal cav after the AI usually starts routing.


I'm surprised you haven'thad routing problems yourself as I find HAs to be chickns; i.e. too many feints and retreats and they usually run off the battlefield on their own power, sometimes even with no losses in their unit:furious3: !

Nice guide.

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Originally Posted by gaijinalways

I'm surprised you haven'thad routing problems yourself as I find HAs to be chickns; i.e. too many feints and retreats and they usually run off the battlefield on their own power, sometimes even with no losses in their unit:furious3: !

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It has nothing to do with losses in the unit, or morale. The developers made it this way so the player could not win defensive battles purely by running a fast unit around. If your HA unit makes some kills during skirmishing they should not rout.

I tend to take a lot of Pictish Mounted X-bows in my Pictish Viking era campaigns - proper horse archers would probably work better, with their faster fire rate, but I don't think any exist in Viking era, do they? :)

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Originally Posted by gaijinalways

I'm surprised you haven'thad routing problems yourself as I find HAs to be chickns; i.e. too many feints and retreats and they usually run off the battlefield on their own power, sometimes even with no losses in their unit:furious3: !

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This routing (due to Benny Hill code) usually only happens when you manually command the Horse Archers excessively. When you set them to "Skirmish", and let the A.I. control them, it doesn't happen. Only take over yourself when they start to get into trouble - like almost getting stuck in a corner, etc. Once they're in the clear, reset them to "Skirmish" and leave them to the A.I.

No, I have had them get kills, they still tend to rout with the text, 'lost morale due to constant retreat' (as if getting slaughtered would be better).

I'll try it with them on skirmish though, and see if that make a difference.

I rarely have any problems with the benny hill code and HA's. I avoid it by ordering them to attack then pulling them back again intantly. This tends to reset it. I micromanage all of my HA's exclusively due to the fact that HA's never react fast enough to even charging spearmen and get caught out. The maximum HA's I'd use and micromanage at once is two groups of 3 Turcomans/Szkeley/Faris etc. Beyond that they tend to be unmanageable. I set them to hold fire and move them in range and then select fire at will, letting them find their own targets, then back them off at high speed, dragging out their formation on the battle field and setting them to run, before the enemy gets too close. If you use manual targetting they tend to bunch together alot. I only use this if desperate to decimate a particular unit.

caravel do you find yourself using pause while making those micromangement type moves with your horse archers? i rarely hit pause and maybe that is why i can not manage intricate manuevers. i really like your reset ploy by attacking then moving away. i will have to remember that one.

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Originally Posted by highlanddave

caravel do you find yourself using pause while making those micromangement type moves with your horse archers? i rarely hit pause and maybe that is why i can not manage intricate manuevers. i really like your reset ploy by attacking then moving away. i will have to remember that one.

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I never use pause unless trying to target a single enemy general amidst a swirling mass of other troops (or if I need a break). I find that, for me, pause disturbs the flow of battle and feels wrong somehow.

A few months of MP and you'll be able to micromanage at least 8 HA (vs the AI ofcourse, vs a human player it takes a bit more practice heh).
Skirmish is also something I turn off at the beginning of every battle; better keep your HA back, get a few good shots and when the fast cav with decent valour comes, just withdraw from the battle, if the terrain doesn't help any evasive maneuvres.

i use skrimish when i can trust it, when playing on MP i put them on skirmish when they are facing enemy, but never when cav are too nearby, i switch between,

HA's are easy enough to use without pause, just takes a bit of practice :2thumbsup:

How do you tell if skirmish is on or not? In the manual it says "S" activates it, but ... that's all I know. :sweatdrop:

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Originally Posted by Galagros

How do you tell if skirmish is on or not? In the manual it says "S" activates it, but ... that's all I know. :sweatdrop:

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When you're fighting a battle, click on a missile unit. If it's set to "skirmish", the Skirmish icon (located on the top of the screen) will be highlighted.

A few comments I would like to make:

1. The Hungarian Sezkely is a very powerful units that should not be ignored. They can be trained out of 3 provinces, of which one is under Hungary's control right at the start (which is Hungary). This means that they can benefit from weapon upgrades, making them valuable even till High. They only require a Horse Breeder, which means that building a Master Horse Breeder and thus gaining a +1v a very easy task. Toss in their fast speed and they will rip through enemies.

True that they are impetuous but a good commander will be able to keep them in line.

2. The Benny Hill code is activated when you command your unit to move in such a way that its flanks (rear quadrant I think) is facing an enemy unit that is within a certain distance will trigger the counter. Once the counter reaches a certain value, the unit will enter an unrecoverable rout. Thus, care should be taken when micromanaging your units.

As Caravel said, ordering the unit to attack and then cancel will reset the counter.


"1) The morale, valor, and melee capabilities of your HA army will not have much of an impact. All you need is speed and bows, which means that even though I was using Turcomans, there is nothing to prevent this strategy from working with vanilla HAs."

I disagree. The morale, valour and melee of the HA will matter. Your HAs will eventually run out of arrows. That is when you will need to switch to melee to rout the enemy.

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Your HAs will eventually run out of arrows. That is when you will need to switch to melee to rout the enemy.

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Or withdraw and use them again next round;)

With regard to Turcoman Horse in particular. They are invaluable in melee in certain cases. The tactic is, to shoot up your enemy then hit them hard in the flanks when you have the opportunity. By this time their morale should be failing anyway, and it will be a matter of mopping up routers, something that light cavalry excel at. Turcoman Horse are ideal for picking off those vulnerable isolated infantry and missile units such as UM and archers etc. You really only need to check the 'flag count' on the unit itself to ascertain your chances of success, Turco Horse should not even attempt a flanking attack against high valour, good quality elite infantry under a good general (suicide). I regard horse archers as "morale destroyers", they wear down the enemy, provide distraction and lead a few wild goose chases. They can be used to draw enemy spear units out of position, while you pepper them with arrows, and finally send a good flanking unit in to finish them off. They are invaluable at messing up your opponents back ranks, espcially his missile units, and because, unlinke Vanilla HA's, they can melee and it is a viable strategy.

Even though THA are fairly weak you can use them to conquer from Egypt to Byzantium in Early. A few things to remember though:

1: Don't forget about enemy morale; if an isolated, disorganized unit (hopefully not a spear unit) is down to less than 50% strength and you can do so safely you should sandwich them. Their low morale from all those effects makes them an easy target, you can also do that with standard HAs.

2: HAs get their first valor point by emptying their quiver; usually they get enough kills to score their first point of valor making them more effective in combat.

3. Units skirmish from an opposing unit's center (or maybe flag); this is more likely to happen if you're using those tactics. If an enemy unit is totally disorganized, refer to #1.

4. Remember that Turks + THA in Early = Victory :knight: :charge: . But I still like to have a small "anvil" of spears and maybe archers, mostly to protect my general (which is usually an heir in Early) so he gets credit for the victory.

When I play the Turks I don't even get the chance to build many Turcoman Horse before I have blitzed the Eggys and the Byz. Vanilla HA are more than good enough, with some spear and camel backup for the katanks.

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

2: HAs get their first valor point by emptying their quiver; usually they get enough kills to score their first point of valor making them more effective in combat.

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I never knew that, thanks :bow:

:balloon2:

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Originally Posted by Biggus Diccus

When I play the Turks I don't even get the chance to build many Turcoman Horse before I have blitzed the Eggys and the Byz. Vanilla HA are more than good enough, with some spear and camel backup for the katanks.

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You manage to blitz both of them in 8 turns? :inquisitive: THAs have low build requirements. Maybe the higher farm incomes in XL have something to do with my experiences. Of course you start out with horse archers but you should aim for the territory that gives THAs a valor bonus and be producing them en masse before you set your borders at Egypt and Big C.

It's easier to just blitz the Byzantines at the very start, just build some horse Archers and tear into them, you ought to take Constantinople before the tenth turn if you do it right. The Gyppos aren't really a threat, some horse archers are more than enough to deal with their peasant armies.

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

You manage to blitz both of them in 8 turns? :inquisitive: THAs have low build requirements. Maybe the higher farm incomes in XL have something to do with my experiences. Of course you start out with horse archers but you should aim for the territory that gives THAs a valor bonus and be producing them en masse before you set your borders at Egypt and Big C.

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I blitz the Eggys at turn 1, and they are basically gone a few turns later. After that I take over Asia Minor. It takes more than 8 turns of course, and I build Turcoman Horse when I can. But early on I basically rely on Vanilla HA. And with the help of some mercenaries to bolster my armies the Byz don't have a chance.

The Egypt blitz is more profitable in short term than the Byz blitz in my opinion. Done right, you can get some hefty kings ransoms. Good money base first!

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Originally Posted by Peasant Phill

The Egypt blitz is more profitable in short term than the Byz blitz in my opinion. Done right, you can get some hefty kings ransoms. Good money base first!

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True! In my last Turk campaign I managed to trap the Egyptian sultan in the fort in Egypt and had a loyalist rebellion in Arabia the same turn. I attacked the fort and autoresolved, then ransomed the egyptian sultan to arabia. I moved all my troops out of egypt and had a loyalist rebellion in egypt the next turn. Attacked arabia and ransomed the eggies to egypt again. The next turn I finished them off, though I wonder how many ransomes I could have pulled off this way....

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The Egypt blitz is more profitable in short term than the Byz blitz in my opinion. Done right, you can get some hefty kings ransoms. Good money base first!

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True, but the Byzantines are more of a threat in the long run, and since horse archers have cheap upkeep better to got West than South at the start in my opinion. Work before play and all that.

With the Turks in early, you're sitting between a gold bar and a hard place. There's absolutely no question the Egyptians have to go first. What those six turns or however long it takes you provide you with is much too good not to have against the Byzzies: A one province border in the south (Egypt), tons of money from plunder and sultan ransoms (around 20.000 fl usually, sometimes more), and a lot of provinces that help you in the war effort. Meanwhile, what do the Byzzies get? Some steppe provinces and relocation of some good fighting troops to a far land, from where it'll take them some turns to get back to the action in Asia Minor.
Besides, I'd not wanna take on Katanks and Byz Inf and Trebs with vanilla HA. Give me Turcomans, preferably with Mosque and Ribat to counter their low morale, and I'm set!

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Originally Posted by rvg

3) The presence of Archers will *not* counter this strategy. The presence of Heavy Cavalry will *not* counter this strategy. In Early, the only units that will reliably counter Massed HAs are the massed top speed light cav (i.e. Saharans, Steppes, Alans) or the Massed *Heavy* Horse Archers (like Steppe Heavies). Once Pavise units make an appearance in High, the viability of HAs takes a nosedive, but nonetheless, in Early they are VERY hard to beat.

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Sorry to go all the way back to the first post, but one point worth noting here - if your HA's can manage to get close enough to charge the pavise units (and assuming that tougher help is not close enough to hand) you should be able to cut them to ribbons. I have had some success with both Turcopoles and Mounted Xbows. True you can't get involved in a shootout unless you want to see your guys get shot up, but the charge works wonders. Worth remembering that when you have a "softer" target in sight, your HA's can be used as light cavalry (giving them a second string to their bows if you like....sorry that was bad....).

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Originally Posted by bamff

Sorry to go all the way back to the first post, but one point worth noting here - if your HA's can manage to get close enough to charge the pavise units (and assuming that tougher help is not close enough to hand) you should be able to cut them to ribbons. I have had some success with both Turcopoles and Mounted Xbows. True you can't get involved in a shootout unless you want to see your guys get shot up, but the charge works wonders. Worth remembering that when you have a "softer" target in sight, your HA's can be used as light cavalry (giving them a second string to their bows if you like....sorry that was bad....).

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Of course, if charging is an option, that is a great way of getting rid of the Pavise units, but the A.I. is usually smart enough to keep its pavise units well protected.

The pavise units have a problem as the shields that keep them from being killed by missile fire; the same slow them down when they attempt to retreat. I have beeen surprised by regular ab unts that ripped cav units to shreds and routed them (while my own ab troops barely hang on until reinforcements come, maybe secret AI training camps?).

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Originally Posted by rvg

Of course, if charging is an option, that is a great way of getting rid of the Pavise units, but the A.I. is usually smart enough to keep its pavise units well protected.

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Once on the field, yes....BUT the AI hits a problem when these units come on as reinforcements. If you can get a unit or two of HA's positioned in cover near the AI's supply route, you will have no end of targets presented on a platter. Even if several AI reinforcements enter the field together, the pavise units move quite slowly, and so will soon be left a ways behind any companion units. Time to charge boys! By the time the AI reacts, your HA's should be scooting either back to cover or away to safety.

Charges are also great against AI artillery units, once you have lured all of the other units well away.

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Originally Posted by bamff

Charges are also great against AI artillery units, once you have lured all of the other units well away.

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yes, but especially in defense battles I prefer to let them live as long as possible - their range won't threaten my position most of the times and since the AI tends to deploy quite a number of them in their starting line-up, they facilitate many battles considerably simply because the enemy won't have as much to throw at you as if he left the artillery out. the same counts for incoming reinforcements where again their number is restricted by remaining artillery units. the only downside to this is that battles last somewhat longer, but hey, if it helps to overcome that 1:5 disadvantage :sweatdrop: ....

I agree if I am on the defensive, I leave the siege engines sucking up air, but on the offensive, it depends on where the AI siege engines are. If they are set up for a killing filed, I have to bring my cav up and risk them gettting attacked if they can take the siege engines down

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Originally Posted by gaijinalways

If they are set up for a killing filed, I have to bring my cav up and risk them gettting attacked if they can take the siege engines down

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yep, even more so since AI artillery units display a terrible proneness to hit your general. I don't know how it's done but if I deploy siege equipment, most of the times I'm happy if they manage to inflict at least some damage, whereas my general seems to magically attract enemy missiles. Probably I don't employ him correctly, but openly attacking siege equipment often remains a risky task for me.

It's a known that generals have a higher chance of being hit by siege engines than other units. It works on both sides. It is however considered a cheesy tactic to use in combat.

AI controlled siege engines have been a pain in my behind whenever I've happened to deploy my forces in range of them. Almost every shot hits at least something, whereas my own siege equipment can be said to follow the reverse statement...
But I never lost a general to siege engine fire, not once in playing M:TW extensively for years. I managed to kill the odd AI general with a large rock from time to time, though. Just yesterday, it happened again in my Aragonese campaign, killed a five-star Italian prince defending against my two-star captain with a zero-valor Catapult.

I usually have found siege engines to be pretty useless for hitting things, instead preferring regular troops that are easier to control.

The catapult towers are great at shooting their own gatehouse to pieces.

I only train an occasional catapult, until gunpowder is invented.