Beating Horse Archers

I've been lurking around this forum for a while now and I've really enjoyed your posts. First question for you. How do you beat a fast horse archer force (Turks) with a slower army (England)? I know how to not lose the battle using archers and cavalry, but then how do I finish off any remaining HA? Nothing is fast enough to catch them and if they don't want to come fight, what do you do?
I usually end up with several turk HA units running around that I try to corner one at a time using 2-3 cav units. If I don't have cav, I don't know what to do. Delivering the coup de grace becomes an irritating process.
Any ideas?

well u can use light cavalary from different sides and get them cornered in the end, or u can use infantry archers which are great at destroying horses especially unarmoured ones like HA.

If you're playing as England, Longbowmen with stakes ar the perfect anti-HA troops.

Yeah about longbows, but the question is not how to merely defeat them, but how to finish them off after you've whittled them down.

Nothing will do but fast cavalry for that, which may require hiring some mercenaries.

Hopefully, somebody will disagree with that. Discussion would be interesting.

Why don't you train Hobilars/ They're usually fast enough to catch HA's

If you're out in that are, Turkey, Anatolia, then you should be able to buy Alan Cavalry mercenaries (They have the trait fast moving and a very good cavalry unit despite being light.) I believe the Albanian cavarly could work to but I'm not certain where you'd buy that. In the Steppe provinces you could buy fast moving (but weak) Cuman Horse archers.

Without hiring mercenaries I reccomend trapping them in a corner of the map. Strech out your forces and try to trap them by encircling them. If you can get the right, left, and center to keep closing on them you'll catch them. Archers, esspecially Longbowmen, are good against horse archers. Let them whittle them down to nothing if you can. Hope this is helpful. Being a cavalry man, particullarily a missle cavalry man I've come to learn their strengths and weaknesses. (Now if anyone can find a good way to counter Polish Nobles... I'm all ears.)

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Originally Posted by Heraklios

Why don't you train Hobilars/ They're usually fast enough to catch HA's

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Hobilars are not particularly fast and are not armored well. They'd be shot to pieces -- if the HA have any arrows left, and their ammo's been notably reduced.

alan light cavalry is my answer. decent charge, good speed/stamina...

just try to kill as many as possible with your own missles because chasing them is a rather costly affair.

I would not recommend hobilars. They're among the worst cavalry units in the game. They are not fast (mailed knights' speed), they lack armour and morale. Some horse archers laugh at them in melee... If you wish to catch HAs you want some Alan light cavalry. Once your Alan have engaged in melee send in your knights and then withdraw the Alan from melee. Playing as England, your own cavalry options are pretty limited. Basic mailed knights are suitable for the job. They are as fast as Sipahis, for example, and have enough staying power. Demi lancers are pretty much like mailed knights. I admit I've never used them in campaign.
I like to chase HAs down with "tanks". Utterly, extremely armoured heavy cavalry, immune to those ridiculous arrows. Chase them around and let them empty their supply of arrows on your iron men. When they run out of arrows and stop to think what to do next...

- Guru

i have to agree with all the others light cavalry would be the best way to go.

The only fast cavalry that any faction can recruit are Border Horse (Scotland), Stradiots (Venice), and two more I can't remember. You're best to just hire Alan Mercenary Cavalry, or use you're own horse archers. Or even better javelin cavalry.

Usually i use the "between Hammer and Anvil" strategy with HA units. U need two heavy cavalry units. Send one circling around the enemy while the other goes for a charge on the HA. As the HA, faster, tries to stay away from my heavy cav, the other one cuts its escape. Hard to manage but deadly.

Hey thelmp.
Perhaps you should delete the very last word of your signature. There are still people reading the Song of Ice and Fire. Besides you should never be too sure about anything that isn't 100% sure in those books ;)

Sorry for beeing offtopic, but that signature is very much a spoiler...

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Originally Posted by Sir Losealot

I've been lurking around this forum for a while now and I've really enjoyed your posts. First question for you. How do you beat a fast horse archer force (Turks) with a slower army (England)? I know how to not lose the battle using archers and cavalry, but then how do I finish off any remaining HA? Nothing is fast enough to catch them and if they don't want to come fight, what do you do?
I usually end up with several turk HA units running around that I try to corner one at a time using 2-3 cav units. If I don't have cav, I don't know what to do. Delivering the coup de grace becomes an irritating process.
Any ideas?

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I've have'nt any direct recommendations that have'nt been covered in one way or another. Only thing I can say is focus on the HAs first with your missile fire and start a wide encirclement with your own cavalry early in the battle.

I observed that artillery weapons(taller the better - trebs - or wider the better -mangs) block missiles quite well in one of my battles. I'm not 100% sure but decoying a siege engine or two against one or two HA may be a viable way of making them waste arrows. Unorthodoxed though.

Sometimes, when i use nations how rely on heavy cavalry and heavy infantry I use this strategy to fight the mongols: put the hourse archers firing at your heavy infantry, they will take some casualties but with a good shield and armor the casualties can be minimized. Now, use your heavy cavalry to turn around the enemies' fast cavalry. They will obviously outrun your heavy cavalry, but if you round them right, they will run right to your infantry. Then, advance your infantry, but while your center only walks, your flanks run, and with your heavy cavalry you completly surround the enemies' missile cavalry. Then, well, your heavy infantry will destroy them in melee, and if they rout they are trapped. Ok, they will fight to death but they are light cavalry without space to run so they will be the ones to be dying. The only problem with this tactic is that a human player will understand what you are doing and avoid you, unless you are good using ambushes. Yet you can more or less pull it out against the AI. By the wya, i copyed Alexander's strategic, just in case it looks familiar lol.

Note: thanks for adding me to the status of member. It's good to able to correct my mistakes :)

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Originally Posted by Thurak

Hey thelmp.
Perhaps you should delete the very last word of your signature. There are still people reading the Song of Ice and Fire. Besides you should never be too sure about anything that isn't 100% sure in those books ;)

Sorry for beeing offtopic, but that signature is very much a spoiler...

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Sorry for the spamming guys, it's just to give a bit of explanation here.

I'm not revealing anything about the books, be sure of that. It is just a conviction based on what i read and what other people think. And as i live in a world where i can give my opinion, i use this right here. So i won't erase the last word of my signature cause it is not a spoiler. End of the story.

"A lannister always pays his debts"

The way i do it , is that i try to out gun them with my own archers, i try to use foot archers in 'loose' , who are supported by spear or pike units.. It only works well if you can get it so that ur archers stay their ground and the enemy gets scared away from getting too close and caught up by ur infantry.. The idea is that as they adjust their position they will lose troops.

sorry I guess Hobilars was a bad answer! I never play as England so I thought they were better then they appear to be! On a side note, if you play as Byzantium your HA are usually better armed then the other HA so you could charge them into Weaker HA.

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Originally Posted by ixidor

Sometimes, when i use nations how rely on heavy cavalry and heavy infantry I use this strategy to fight the mongols: put the hourse archers firing at your heavy infantry, they will take some casualties but with a good shield and armor the casualties can be minimized. Now, use your heavy cavalry to turn around the enemies' fast cavalry. They will obviously outrun your heavy cavalry, but if you round them right, they will run right to your infantry. Then, advance your infantry, but while your center only walks, your flanks run, and with your heavy cavalry you completly surround the enemies' missile cavalry. Then, well, your heavy infantry will destroy them in melee, and if they rout they are trapped. Ok, they will fight to death but they are light cavalry without space to run so they will be the ones to be dying. The only problem with this tactic is that a human player will understand what you are doing and avoid you, unless you are good using ambushes. Yet you can more or less pull it out against the AI. By the wya, i copyed Alexander's strategic, just in case it looks familiar lol.

Note: thanks for adding me to the status of member. It's good to able to correct my mistakes :)

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Bah it's fine! :laugh4:

I never thought about using the infantry like that really. I generally use my abundance of cavalry to catch my enemy horse archers. But the infantry are a viable option to. Does the tactic work good for you?

If its late on in the game use demi lancers to counter horse archers there much faster than any other cavalry unit England gets (including guilds).

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Originally Posted by 18zulukiller

If its late on in the game use demi lancers to counter horse archers there much faster than any other cavalry unit England gets (including guilds).

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I think demi lancers are as fast as hobilars, mailed knights and merchant cavalry/cavalry militia.

- Guru

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Originally Posted by Czar Alexsandr

Bah it's fine! :laugh4:

I never thought about using the infantry like that really. I generally use my abundance of cavalry to catch my enemy horse archers. But the infantry are a viable option to. Does the tactic work good for you?

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It works decently against the AI at least, I have no idea against a human opponent.

I think most viable tactics have been mentioned already, use all of them to good advantage. Interestingly, what hasn't been mentioned yet is that a lot of times it makes sense to just take the hits from the HA.
A lot of units will heal after the battle and the horses will tire, especially if you lay them under fire and they form a cantabrian circle (which is also good because it reduces their accuracy by a huge margin). When they're out of ammo you can usually even catch them with a fresh bodyguard or at least shoo them into a corner with two or three cav units to take them out.

You could also try using ambushes (drive them into the woods where some inf is waiting) but that's a bit hard to pull off as most areas where you find HA aren't exactly very wooded.

Besides, catching them when they're using the circle often works, too. Just make sure you run through and don't hit attack because that'll make the skirmish distance shorter and more often than not this won't allow them to reform and run away properly.

Lot's of good input. Sounds like most folks are using cavalry to circle and push HA into corner or into infantry (I've got to try that). That's similar to what I've been trying. When I've gotten really stuck though is when I've found myself with almost no cav left after a particularly tough battle.
Take this scenario. After starting badly outnumbered, I've barely beaten the main Turk force and I'm left with a winded and decimated spear line, a few archers who survived the HA (with almost no arrows left), and my general with a few bodyguards. My cav gave their lives in desperate charges to save the rest of my force. At this point against a Western power I would now eliminate the few scattered enemy forces and have a victory to be proud of. The problem is there are 2 or 3 Turk HA that are still roaming about. Without the cav, I can't corner them. Do I hit escape and take a loss? Do I try to sweep them with my few spearmen and general and probably lose the rest of the spearmen? I own the battlefield but I can't win.
I guess this just reflects reality. I've used up my fast moving units to save my army, and I don't have a tool left to tackle the fast horse archers.

In that situation the best thing is just to form up and sit still in loose formation. Let them use up their arrows and see what they do, probably nothing. By this time you've got some stamina back up and you can start trying to corner them.

The best thing is not to be in that situation in the first place, by targetting them first. They will usually come ahead of the main enemy line so you will be able to deal with them before the rest.

When I play Westerns I always line up my archers ahead and shoot the enemy HA down as quickly as possible, hence I've only been in the situation you described once, or twice.

If you have an Eastern All Cavalry Army:

• Target the enemy missile cavalry with your own at a preferable ratio of 2:1 in your favor.
• Start a wide encirclement with melee cavalry on the enemy missile cavalry.
• Close the encirclement with melee cavalry, and switch your missile cavalry to melee.
• Take as many units of enemy missile cavalry out at once as is feasible according to battle conditions.

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Originally Posted by Sir Losealot

Lot's of good input. Sounds like most folks are using cavalry to circle and push HA into corner or into infantry (I've got to try that). That's similar to what I've been trying. When I've gotten really stuck though is when I've found myself with almost no cav left after a particularly tough battle.
Take this scenario. After starting badly outnumbered, I've barely beaten the main Turk force and I'm left with a winded and decimated spear line, a few archers who survived the HA (with almost no arrows left), and my general with a few bodyguards. My cav gave their lives in desperate charges to save the rest of my force. At this point against a Western power I would now eliminate the few scattered enemy forces and have a victory to be proud of. The problem is there are 2 or 3 Turk HA that are still roaming about. Without the cav, I can't corner them. Do I hit escape and take a loss? Do I try to sweep them with my few spearmen and general and probably lose the rest of the spearmen? I own the battlefield but I can't win.
I guess this just reflects reality. I've used up my fast moving units to save my army, and I don't have a tool left to tackle the fast horse archers.

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Yeah I have to agree to Sinan, that's a situation you don't want to be in in the first place. There's pretty much nothing to win here, but sometimes the AI will charge you with their HA once they are out of arrows so I'd try to wait it out. I always play with battle timer enabled to avoid a "draw" in these situations (well if you're attacking and you can't destroy the enemy army you lost the battle).

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Originally Posted by Guru

I think demi lancers are as fast as hobilars, mailed knights and merchant cavalry/cavalry militia.

- Guru

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My bad ive just run some tests basically a race from one side of the map to the the other side (custom battle on grassy plains) and demi lancers came in slightly behind hobbilars every time (very last). Templars, Hospitilars, Feudal & English all come in about equal with late period generals body guard normally always winning by a horses lenght.

God i dont know why i said use demi lancers (i think i just though they were faster) before as i never normally use them i normally always use English knights or Templars and they work a treat at killing horse archers. Even the Mongol & Timurid heavey HA are mince meat as long as you send your general with them (just pull him to the back when you've caught them)

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Originally Posted by Czar Alexsandr

Bah it's fine! :laugh4:

I never thought about using the infantry like that really. I generally use my abundance of cavalry to catch my enemy horse archers. But the infantry are a viable option to. Does the tactic work good for you?

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Yep. To be honest i had tried it as much as, what, 3 times? But until know have been working fine (against AI). You just have to adjust well the timings and the distances because you can't pass too close from the HA while you are rounding them or they will run out of your trap, but you can't go too far or they will have room to flee. But if you move them right and if you have a decent coordinated attack, thus avoiding escapes from your trap, they are doomed.

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Originally Posted by ixidor

Yep. To be honest i had tried it as much as, what, 3 times? But until know have been working fine (against AI). You just have to adjust well the timings and the distances because you can't pass too close from the HA while you are rounding them or they will run out of your trap, but you can't go too far or they will have room to flee. But if you move them right and if you have a decent coordinated attack, thus avoiding escapes from your trap, they are doomed.

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Just a few days ago I had a battle where the enemy had a lot of the pesky Turkomen horse archers... Needless to mention they escaped my Boyar Son, Druzhina, and General's Bodyguard trap. Well.. I got em back eventually but horse archers are particullary more difficult to kill with the trait Fast Moving. Just a reminder. Gotta take caution when dealing with the exceptionaly nimble.

Try to target some units instead of all the army at once. It will take more time but it will be quite more effective.

It is just a matter of using what you have.

If you have crappy hobilars you need to use them properly against HAs. Send the hobilars in to drive the HAs away and absorb arrows. They will chase the HAs all over the map and make them waste half their arrows. The hobbies will eventually route but who cares, they are terrible anyway.

If you have "fast moving" units, sick those on em to start a melee. It doesn't matter if they are terrible in melee (desert cav) because you will send some heavy units to kill them once they are bogged down.

Meanwhile your main force can crush the rest of the enemy's army without them pesky HAs.

In MP, it is more of a pain, but you usually have high quality foot archers and heavily armored units to counter them.

And remeber, you have something terrifying to HAs, something real ones never had to fear. You have a red line that they can't cross and that they can be smashed against... use it!

This is a big problem for me as I rarely play big HA factions.

What I do is either bring enough archers/artillery to thoroughly out fire any HA that comes near or I just send my heavy cav to chase them until they get cornered at the red lines

personally, as i play with western fractions with weak/no horse archers, i simply pile everything into the main static enemy lines. so while i am wiping out their main units, the H.A. will either run back to help, which is when their wandering units will be too slow to respond to my counter charges from my victorious mounted units, fresh from plowing into enemies from their behinds, who will be re-ploughing into the uncautious h.A.

if the H.A. choose to duel with my supporting archers, they will lose the archery competition. if they choose to charge, they will be caught behind by another reserve unit.

sure i will lose men, but if i choose to chase them off with my little ponies or my armoured tin-cans i will lose even more men. better for me to catch them with their pants down when they try something stupid.

EDIT: I do believe I was still talking about the battle, not the...private entertainment *cough*.

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Originally Posted by IvarrWolfsong

And remeber, you have something terrifying to HAs, something real ones never had to fear. You have a red line that they can't cross and that they can be smashed against... use it!

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Wise words, these, and funny too.

This is in reply to a specific question. It deals with strategy and unit usage. If you don't want to read a hint then roll on by.






You have been warned











This is kind of a reverse post for me as I normally write about how to use HA's.

Some tricks and comments
You seem to be able to beat them but you want to obliterate them. Well, that tis hard with any unit especially fast ones. You should settle for making them so small that they are not a threat to you and then taking the cities associated with that faction. Once they become bandits they are easier to kill

Here is what I do when facing lots of HA. Some of it is counter intuitive and will only work against the computer or a VERY stupid player. It often works against the computer because the computers sees the high value unit and says "Aha! an isolated unit" which is exactly what you want it to do

General rules
1. Unless you are using lots of HA's yourself then let them attack you. You'll never catch them if they can run away so why try? Instead move to a spot where you threaten the faction that controls the HA's and let them attack you then you don't have to be fast just tough. You might call this an offensive defense.

2. Fire begets fire and archers fight other archers. But, foot archers have a longer range and are more accurate than horse mounted ones. Elite archers have an even longer range. An archer unit on a hill top will have even more additional range. So, Elite archers, Longbow men, Trebizond Archers, Guard Archers etc on a hill can, or so it appears have nearly double the range of a horse archer. Horse archers are also easier to hit than a foot archer because they are on horses and horses are a big target.

How to get them
Put your archers on a hill.

About 1/3 way down the hill in clear view and between your archers and the enemy units; place a well armored high value unit with outrageous moral that carries a huge shield like a Varangian Guard but a heavily armored Spear or pike unit that can form a defensive circle will work even better. Cheap units won't stand there long enough and you need a unit that won't break. Their job is be a target. However, because they have good armor and shields they are hard for archers to kill and can soak up lots of arrows. Set them on "HOLD" If you have a general in the group it is even better.

Wait for the HA's to come because you are on a hill you can start killing them way before they start shooting back. The AI will normally try to attack the high value unit by flanking it. So what? Let them come it is what you want. When they flank the unit down the hill they are perpendicular to your archers and easier to hit.

Have three groups of archers shoot at a single group of the HA's the few that survive a single volley from 180 Trebizond archers will route. Most HA units have a morale of 5 and are easy to break

If the HA's actually get behind your bait unit then charge a few infantry down the hill if you want. It is a good way to maybe kill some enemy without using arrows

If the enemy attacks with melee troops then you are still OK because a single Varangian guard unit can easily beat two or three units of most other infantry. And, you can still decimate the approaching units with your archers. As the melee units get close then charge your remaining heavy infantry.

Here is kind of a typical Byzantine Infantry army that I will often use.

1 X General
7 X Militia Spearmen or Byzantine Spearmen (preferred) or Mercenary Spearmen
7 X Militia Archers or Trebizond Archers (preferred)
4 X Heavy Infantry (Byzantine Infantry or Dismounted Lancers)
1 X Varagian Guard or Dismounted Latinkon

That is an army that if used properly most horse archer units are really scared of

I like how this topic has been a part of every game since the original STW (of course it was easy then, when the medium Cav could just run them down). Suppose it is going to be a topic with ETW too? Dragoons (equivalent to Crossbow HA I suppose) maybe even true HA from the Sick-Man of Europe. Too bad it is too early to get Sioux or Cheyenne warriors. I'd love to use them on the plains of central North America (where I'm from) to kick the muffins out of whitey.

Anyway, I just hammer away with my own archers (I'm a big fan of archers which is why I like the English and Byzantines so much). If I don't have Longbows or Trebizonds I try to tech up very quick to get the Pavise crossbows (like when I'm waiting for the Mongol horde) and just let the HA make fools of themselves.

However, that does't anihillate the HA. Only thing I can do about that is ignore the HA, smash the enemy core, and then make an HA sandwich between what is left of my infantry and cav. And that usually fails.

Basically I hate facing HA without fast melee cav. But that is all I can do to help.

Azi

Gray Beard pretty much said it all. The key to decimating horse archers is regular archers, but if you really want to kill a significant number, you need to keep the HA's stationary, and rain them with multiple units of archer fire at once. 3+ units of archers focusing their fire on stationary targets will kill a significant number of HAs. Of course remeber to take the quality of your archer units into account, so your milage may vary.

I'm looking forward to E:TW as well. Cavalry will still have impact, I'm sure.

When I was playing as Norway vs Mongols in Kingdoms Teutonic campaign, I simply set a few units of war clerics or merchant cavalry militia at the horse archers at full pelt at the start of the battle. They usually chased them off the battlefield or at least removed them from the main battle area, where I attacked the Mongol infantry and other troops.

If there were any horse archers left once the main Mongol force was destroyed then I took my leisure going after them.

One thing I found in Kingdoms was that the Mongol armies tended to rout very quickly if hit hard enough all at once. (With all that missile power you don't give them time to shoot you to pieces.) So they actually took relatively few actual casualties as so many ran off.