Light Cavalry seige tactic

**Askthepizzaguy** · 03-05-2008, 15:54

So, you want to destroy a huge garrison and your nation can only afford a few light cavalry?

Watch as Scotland's Border Horse demolish a massive early-era English full-stack garrison filled with a General, 8 spearmen, 3 archer militia, peasants, and town militia.

The highland rabble in the battle serve only to deploy the ram and smash the gates. You don't need to have them, as the battle is won without them.

Just defeat their garrison, sneak inside the gates, and claim the town. In this custom battle, not all of the enemy sallied. I could have forced them to sally by sending 1 unit of border horse to the town center, and then ran away inside the settlement to force them all to sally, as is typically the case on campaigns. Since this was a custom battle, they were not forced to sally, but did anyway because they had the better troops and numbers on their side.

It is not necessary to have hills, as border horse are faster on level ground anyway, but I still used them. You get the basic idea.

I slew every single last one of them, and never took the city center.

1 early era general, 4 border horse. Probably possible with 1 border horse. See how massively I pwned them.

You can also take any settlement that does not have a single mounted unit using only your general, using the same tactic. It's too easy to seige with cavalry and win.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/wzhoze

If the link doesn't work, private message me and I will send the file to you.

**Askthepizzaguy** · 03-05-2008, 19:01

Jimminy Crackers!

Try viewing this particular seige battle!

2 units of horse and 1 infantry unit take on an entire stack of the HRE's finest troops. Dismounted Imperial Knights, Pavise Crossbowmen, Spearmen, Spearmen, Spearmen, More Dismounted Knights, More Pavise Crossbowmen, and town militias.

Much bloody death, and by the way, a total victory. I left NONE ALIVE.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ml64qm

Here is the link to the replay file you can download. Any questions as to how to download and view it, please ask!

**Old Geezer** · 03-05-2008, 19:03

Using Border Horse, especially if they have experience, is an exploit. The AI just can't seem to do anything right against Border Horse except try to pin them by charging with spears, which will backfire when othe Border Horse charge them from behind. The light cavalry is too quick for the AI to counter it, if one is careful to micromanage their movement. I am not at all surprised by your results in view of your skill and experience. Was your general's bodyguard equal to the AI's?

**Askthepizzaguy** · 03-05-2008, 19:07

Originally Posted by Old Geezer

Using Border Horse, especially if they have experience, is an exploit. The AI just can't seem to do anything right against Border Horse except try to pin them by charging with spears, which will backfire when othe Border Horse charge them from behind. The light cavalry is too quick for the AI to counter it, if one is careful to micromanage their movement. I am not at all surprised by your results in view of your skill and experience. Was your general's bodyguard equal to the AI's?

Yes, none of my units had any armour, chevrons, or upgrades of any kind.

In fact, my general charged their general and fought for a little bit without any assistance, and routed the other one. They were exactly equal.

However, I completely SHAMED the Ai in my next battle, where I had one unit of Scouts, one unit of Huscarls, and one unit of infantry, and they had some of their finest troops imaginable. Not bloody bad, if I do say so myself. Not to mention I didn't do the "take the city center and hold it for 3 minutes" trick. I slew them all. Did I mention I slew them all? I think I mentioned I slew them alllllllll.

This is the only way to demonstrate how insane I am.

EDIT: P.s I don't consider using chevrons and armour because that wouldn't be much of an accomplishment if you defeat weak, weak troops with great ones.

**ataribaby** · 03-07-2008, 02:56

I love your battle replays ATPG. I've still got the Zipper, the Triple Hammer, etc. that you posted a while back.

It's a shame the M2TW engine doesn't allow you to save campaign battle replays: I bet there's been a few epics including proper stars and bars generals and real world settlements.

The Denmark vs HRE one... blimey, those HRE spearmen were a bit limp. I was expecting your cavalry to come a cropper on some of those Armoured Sarges. But nope. Only one unit of Spear Militia managed enough nouse to form a schiltrom.

I'm really not getting as good performance from the Huscarls in my Danish game. The Scouts I love - they're dreamy - but Huscarls always seem to get creamed on their first contact. I'm playing the Retrofit mod because I really liked the Kingdoms rebalance. I'd fully recommend it as it breathes new life into vanilla.

**Askthepizzaguy** · 03-07-2008, 03:10

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Some info on the 2 horsemen versus the HRE replay:

In a real seige battle, the enemy captain or general would have sallied as well, and I would have played the "catch me if you can" game that I did with the Scotland V England "4 horsemen" replay and caught their general outside the main formation, slaughtered him, and then routed the rest.

For the 2 horsemen battle, the captain was too far away to make a difference to the morale of the troops, so it was as if the captain was already killed. The reason the HRE troops attacked my lone infantry unit and chased them till their own deaths was because I would have lost that seige battle without anyone to operate the ram. It would have been a draw.

So they tried to force a draw at the very least by destroying the ram infantry first, who intelligently ran away.

Had they not done that, they would have gone after my Captain's unit, and my other unit, the Huscarls, would have done exactly the same thing as before, picking off troops like the Genoese crossbowmen first, then the archers (those two are the only actual threats to my horsemen), followed by town militias, spearmen, (to gain more experience) and finally the exhausted and shaken Imperial knights, who by then would not stand a chance to my then silver-chevron scouts or Huscarls.

I probably could have won that battle without the Huscarls, in fact. If you notice, there are several points where I only use one horseman to attack, and the other one is just mopping up routers. One horse unit could systematically do both.

One light horse and one infantry unit are all that it takes to beat a non-cavalry army.

Remember, Huscarls don't have lances. They are primarily flanking cavalry and router destroyers. Use them also to slay other cavalry. But attacking spear formations with Huscarls is not recommended except from the side or rear. Even scouts have "lances", long spears. The Huscarls don't.

**Askthepizzaguy** · 03-07-2008, 03:15

PS- you still got those old replays?

I'd love it if you'd send me a link so I can have them back. I erased them a while ago.

**ataribaby** · 03-07-2008, 17:59

Originally Posted by askthepizzaguy

PS- you still got those old replays?

I'd love it if you'd send me a link so I can have them back. I erased them a while ago.

Sure. Here you are:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/sikqmv

http://www.sendspace.com/file/nucnif

http://www.sendspace.com/file/5shro0

http://www.sendspace.com/file/4mnry2

http://www.sendspace.com/file/69z6rf

http://www.sendspace.com/file/dox2ya

http://www.sendspace.com/file/d6iijw

http://www.sendspace.com/file/i2kfb9

**cassu** · 03-09-2008, 00:19

Watched the 2 first ones and impressed how you slaughtered the enemy army but must have been annoying to loose the general in the 2nd battle

.

When you charged the routing enemy infantry wouldnt it been better to click in front of them so the horses would just run trough them? because they always run halfway into the enemy and stop

but still impressive handling with the horses

**Askthepizzaguy** · 03-09-2008, 01:48

Was version 1.02 and not LTC where the cavalry automatically destroys routers properly. So I had to manually destroy them. And was juggling 3 separate units simultaneously.

**Askthepizzaguy** · 03-09-2008, 04:57

http://www.sendspace.com/file/5lxjrw

OK!

Check out Askthepizzaguy's EPIC battle allied with SirRobbin. Versus: Mordred and Joshua

I am the leader of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the great and fearless Timurid horde. My ally is the French heavy infantry.

My enemy is the (cheating, as no gunpowder was supposed to be allowed) Holy Roman Empire with a mixed bag of gunpowder troops and heavy infantry and cavalry, and the Sicilian Pavise crossbowmen and knight battalions.

Almost all the action takes place when following Askthepizzaguy's horsemen of death around the battlefield. SirRobbin follows my orders and attacks the Germans while I deal with the Sicilians. I double back around his troops, while rendering some aid with some of my cavalry. His honourable troops fight willingly until death, as brave men should, and they succeed in holding back the HRE for a time.

I entirely surround and pound to death the better half of the Sicilian army, the cavalry, while being pelted with crossbow bolts. Then, I give chase to their weakling infantry, and rout half of their forces.

The HRE appears to be gaining the upper hand over against SirRobbin, and so I break of my massacre of the Sicilians and allow them to live... for now.

Then I smash the German commander, but he escapes with his life for the moment. Then the Sicilian fool tries to hide among the German cheaters, and I slay him most mercilessly. Then I encircle and destroy the German commander. The French, morale boosted by my efforts, fight on to their last men standing, and the Germans who once held an advantage begin to flee!

Their commanders lie dead, and SirRobbin's general rides into battle unscathed. We encircle, destroy, and rout what is left of the Imperialist scum!

Over 80 percent casualty rates on both sides! EPIC WIN.

Truly enjoyable if you havent watched it before. Fun to replay and zoom in and around the action.

Guys, watch closely when I slay thier commanders. Zoom in and look at the angle of attack, as it is totally deliberate.

If I had not slain their commanders, or if SirRobin's general were dead, the battle would have ended in a close defeat. Get your popcorn ready...