How to beat horse archers in real life?

**Megas Methuselah** · 05-15-2008, 03:29

Originally Posted by Cyclops

...Of course the Byzantines eventually succumbed to Turkic nomad armies, notably at Manzikert, and the Bactrians were swept into India by the Saka.

Hahaa. Yeah, you can't beat horse archers.

**Clovis** · 05-15-2008, 03:36

Though you can go behind big stone walls and hope they bore themselves to death running around outside

**Ibrahim** · 05-15-2008, 03:43

I third the opinion, and fourth it.

**Megas Methuselah** · 05-15-2008, 03:47

Originally Posted by Clovis

Though you can go behind big stone walls and hope they bore themselves to death running around outside

Pfft! Horse archers can easily charge through the walls of Babylon!!!!

**cmacq** · 05-15-2008, 04:32

In real life; rocky, broken, and mountainous terrain is a very good start. Never fight them on their terms, force them to fight on the ground of your choosing. If one does not, ones head may windup, tossed as a prop in a play.

**Romano-Dacis** · 05-15-2008, 05:12

RTW is rather limited in this regard, but I believe the pavise was a good start to defeating horse-archers. I recall the Persians actually made formations where one man wielded a bow and hid behind another man holding a shield. That is the single best tactic to deal with horse-archers: fortify and shoot. If you have equal or better bows, position archers directly behind shield-bearers. If you have inferior archers, have the infantry fortify themselves as solidly as possible, form an orb around siege weapons and have those weapons take care of it. If you lack siege weapons and archers, the most you can do is slowly retreat to a forest and wait for them to come to you.

cmacq however got it right with terrain. Also, forests really help.

**craziii** · 05-15-2008, 05:14

good foot archers behind a wall of well armored spears. of course the foot archers needs to outrange the HAs, other wise this would not work. some will tell you to use light cavalry, but HA eats them alive as they have no armor vs the arrows.

**Parallel Pain** · 05-15-2008, 06:49

Real life, craziii, real life.

In RTW for some reason HA is faster than light cavalry I don't know why. Neither has armor, but HA has to turn his body around and try to shoot, distracting him a bit. And the way-too-high percentage casualties means light cavalry get chewed alive.

Not true in real life. Of course the light cavalry when chasing HA often run into nomadic heavy cavalry (who were also HA) and get their ass kicked.

I think to beat them on open plain one use a combination of barriers (carts, chariots, carriages, pavise shield and the such) surrounding your formation, archer/crossbow behind shooting, artillery also shooting, and spearmen for support against a charge.

Of course until gunpowder, no culture could readily beat the nomads. All the empires would push them back and even invade the steppes at their height of power, only to be conquered by the nomads when weak.