How to fight Horse Arcehrs?

[Drag0nUL]

Hi.

I am playing as Seleukids and I have a pretty serious horse archer problem

My first serious attempt at conquering Parthia just ended in a blood bath. I sent a full stack (consisting mostly of light troops(persian archers and archer-spearmen, horse archers, eastern axemen, eastern/median medium cavalry and a couple pantodapoi phalangitai) and it got massacred by 4 units: 2x armored horse archers, 1 parthian FM and 1 dahae nobles.

My archers don't even scratch those armored horsemen while my lightly armored troops drop like flies. And when they run out of arrows and enter melee, my units are so depleted that they rout pretty fast, despite the AP on the axemen and cavalry.

The thing is that I can only recruit light troops in the east due to type 3 and 4 gov (pretty much what I had in that army,+ parthian spearmen, dahae skirmisher cavalry and eastern slingers/skirmihsers) and even if I manage to win with them, they will probably suffer too great casualties to make a longer campaign viable.

So, what should I do to beat the parthians? So far my only idea is to get some Katas of my own and some Thorakitai or Hypaspistai and just put them in front to absorb the enemy arrows. But my closest settlement that can produce that is Antiochia

[ARCHIPPOS]

Go for the head ... hunt down the enemy Parthian FM (your Seleucid Hetairoi are faster so that should be easy) go straight ahead at the Parthian warlord and KILL HIM in a few ferocious charges !!! ... Meanwhile the rest of your army should be kept in reserve on an elevated surface ... my advice for you is to NOT use your conventional foot army but instead wipe out the armored enemy horse units one-by-one by using your Hetairoi en masse...also Dahae riders are great to hunt down the utra-light shivatir(your FM's are too slow for them) and slaughter them.Dahae are excellent horse archers/light lancers and they have decent survivability in missile duels against unarmored foes -not to mention they look badass (get 2-3 of these if you can afford them) ...

if you opt for a foot-oriented army you'll need lots of missile units...
2-3X long-ranged eastern archers and 2-3X slingers (great for taking out armored enemies)-don't use any pantodapoi (they're practicaly useless in such cases) but instead use 2 units of pantodapoi phalangitai as missile absorbers (stretch them to a thin long line in front of your missile troops)... against horse archers skirmishers are not particularly useful either but keep 1-2 units of them to perhaps cover your flanks.

ALSO... never never never attack horse archers (or any missile unit) on elevated terrain (serious bloodbath) ... better to lure them out of there or read the terrain and find a ridge or sth that can offer you some edge...

[burn_again]

To take out armoured horse-archers use slingers. Pantodapoi Phalangitai have axes too, so use them as main melee infantry. Don't use Pantodapoi, skirmishers, parthian spearmen or eastern axemen, they don't have enough armor. In Antiocheia-Margiane you can get Dahae Riders (the horse-archers, not the skirmisher cavalry) which are also pretty good to fight other horse-archers, in Asaak and Hekatompylos you get parthian horse-archers.
With about 6-7 pantodapoi phalangitai and lots of missile units (don't forget the slingers) you should be able to defend yourself. You don't reallly need heavier troops if you have enough pantodapoi phalangitai.
Before you get Katas your best cavalry to counter the Parthians would probably be Prodomoi, all cavalry you get in the East (except for the Kinsmen) is no match for the armoured parthian units.

Oops, ARCHIPPOS was faster - I agree to what he says.

[Drag0nUL]

Hmm, never thought about using Pantodapoi Phalangitai out of phalanx for the axes, that's actually a very good idea, thanks.
Also I'll give slingers a try, was unaware they have AP.

As for the dahae riders, sadly my holdings stop right at the edge of dahae AOR

Hopefully, not for long :)

Also, @ ARCHIPPOS: Are Seleucid Heitaroi faster than Seleucid Katas?

[ARCHIPPOS]

Also, @ ARCHIPPOS: Are Seleucid Heitaroi faster than Seleucid Katas?

I dunno abt that but for the upkeep of one cataphract you could be able to recruit 2 dahae (not as grandiose i know but very effective hehe!!!) ... i tend to use 2-3 FM members together (early Baktrian bodyguards which are inferior to the Seleucid ones ) instead of catas and it works fine (not to mention they get chevroned and gain ancillaries and cool warlike traits pretty fast) .

in fact i have been able to devastate Parthian and Saka halfstacks with 3 family members and 3 Dahae riders...(with minimal casualties ranging from 0% to 5% at each battle playing with medium or hard battle difficulty) ...

btw have you checked if you can recruit MERCENARY Dahae riders ???Perhaps you can invade Parthian territories and get a unit or two there (they'll take very little casualties anyway so you'll use them for quite long-but they'll cost you a small fortune) ...

also when taking a ridge with nomad enemies standing close occupy with Hetairoi ---> send the phallanx --->finally deploy the missile troops and start shooting ...
Don't use archers on armored foes (you'll just waste ammo-turn their "fire-on-will" thing off) DO use the slingers first instead...
I said earlier that you should NOT frontally charge enemies on elevated terrain... disregard that for your catas and hetairoi (they can do it taking minimal losses) .ALWAYS aim to kill the enemy general on the initial stages (using your Hetairoi)as this will make routing the enemy easier...

[WinsingtonIII]

Hmm, never thought about using Pantodapoi Phalangitai out of phalanx for the axes, that's actually a very good idea, thanks.
Also I'll give slingers a try, was unaware they have AP.

But try to keep the Pantodapoi Phalangitai in phalanx mode when they are getting hit by missiles, because it seems that phalanx mode gives a bonus to the shield value, greatly reducing missile casualties. Since HA arrows are not armor piercing, as long as your phalanxes are in phalanx mode and only getting hit in the front by missiles, they should take casualties quite slowly.

Yeah, slingers are your best friend in many situations, with a few chevrons they can tear through even quite heavily armored units.

[Drag0nUL]

btw have you checked if you can recruit MERCENARY Dahae riders ???Perhaps you can invade Parthian territories and get a unit or two there (they'll take very little casualties anyway so you'll use them for quite long-but they'll cost you a small fortune) ...

Tried that: no mercenary dahae riders in the 2 or 3 parthian provinces i checked. Only dahae skirmishers.

Thanks for the useful advice btw:)

[athanaric]

A few corrections and observations:

Parthian Spearmen are actually useful - their big shields deflect most arrows and they can destroy light cavalry on their own. You can use them for guarding the flanks of your Panda Phalanx.

Axemen can be of great use against the heavier cavalry types. If there are woods present, they can spring deadly ambushes there. Just protect them from arrows.

Hetairoi are very good in melee - but only against cavalry.

Get Rhodian Slingers if you control Rhodes. Of all slingers, they are most suited to beat HAs (best range and armour).

If money isn't an issue, get Katapeltai (the light ones, which are the cheapest also). They outrange all archers and are excellent general killers (often, the enemy general mysteriously is the first casualty of the whole battle if you use them).

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Hi.

I am playing as Seleukids and I have a pretty serious horse archer problem

My first serious attempt at conquering Parthia just ended in a blood bath. I sent a full stack (consisting mostly of light troops(persian archers and archer-spearmen, horse archers, eastern axemen, eastern/median medium cavalry and a couple pantodapoi phalangitai) and it got massacred by 4 units: 2x armored horse archers, 1 parthian FM and 1 dahae nobles.

My archers don't even scratch those armored horsemen while my lightly armored troops drop like flies. And when they run out of arrows and enter melee, my units are so depleted that they rout pretty fast, despite the AP on the axemen and cavalry.

The thing is that I can only recruit light troops in the east due to type 3 and 4 gov (pretty much what I had in that army,+ parthian spearmen, dahae skirmisher cavalry and eastern slingers/skirmihsers) and even if I manage to win with them, they will probably suffer too great casualties to make a longer campaign viable.

So, what should I do to beat the parthians? So far my only idea is to get some Katas of my own and some Thorakitai or Hypaspistai and just put them in front to absorb the enemy arrows. But my closest settlement that can produce that is Antiochia

"They wore no armour, carried no weapons, they did not know how to fight, and they did not understand".

The words of Herodotus describing the Persians, by 270 things have changes; but not much. Your natural strength lies in your Greek infantry; of which you used none. Your foot archers (Persians), or sligners (also Persian) will outrange the horsemen, but they need to be protected by a wall of pikes. So, 6-8 units of Greek pikemen (i.e. Pezhetairoi or Silver Shields, not levies), and then a mix of fast easterners and some Greek heavies for cavalry.

Leave the light infantry and the skirmishers in barracks, they're pointless against either heavy cavalry or archers, mounted or not.

[Grade_A_Beef]

If you insist on a foot army, you'll probably need nothing but pantadapoi phalangitai against horse archers. I consider this an exploit, but here is the trick anyhow. Just recruit at least a half stack army of pantadapoi (in huge settings) and make a line long enough to prevent skirmishing escapes. Then you just continuously shrink your line as you walk towards a corner.

As soon as the horse archers touch you it's game over for them, and as you are slowly closing in on them in one solid line they have less and less room to maneuver. You won't take a lot of casualties from missile fire, and if any sort of heavy cavalry charges your (probably) thin line, you can halt all troops and have the two nearest units assist the charged unit. Their AP axes will take out the enemy heavy cav in no time.

This trick works wonders on horse archers and avoidance style fighting in general. Gotta love a any sort of map with borders.

Now if they had the ability to feign retreat for weeks at a time, like the Mongols in history, then this tactic wouldn't work at all.

[Scutarii]

Does any faction have heavy armoured/shielded foot archers?

I'm thinking like the vanilla M2TW Russian unit, foot Dvors. They rocked at taking out enemy missile cavalry.

[athanaric]

Does any faction have heavy armoured/shielded foot archers?

I'm thinking like the vanilla M2TW Russian unit, foot Dvors. They rocked at taking out enemy missile cavalry.

Thureopherontes Toxotai. Armour 10 (IIRC), Shield 2, Range 180, Ammo 35. Deadly sword for melee (0.225 lethality, beats all other archers).
Recruitable by all factions in Maeotis, Skythia, Bosporion Tyrannesis and Taurike Chersonesos (or however that one was called).

Your second best bet are Toxotai Syriakoi (recruitable from Antiocheia to Seleukeia/Babylon), with a similar armour (and shield) rating, but weaker morale and melee.

Toxotai Kretikoi have lesser armour but higher range, equal to the best HAs. 35 arrows, too. They can be recruited in Kydonia, Antiocheia, and Alexandria.

[Genava]

-Fight them in the forest. The arrows are less strong in forest.
-Fight in defensive to hide your troops in forest.
-Fight in offensive only to take the towns.
-Use a cavalry army to take them in ambush.
-Use more archers and slingers in your army.

[Macilrille]

I guess Geneva's advice goes for Getai as well. I just started a Getai campaign and I know I will have to face the HA at some point...

[Skoran]

Lightly on the same topic:

What has influence on the damage of arrows?
I thought shield. But I have seen troops with shield defence 3 die twice as fast as other troops with the same shield defence. Does armor have so much influence?

[antisocialmunky]

Massed Slinger/Archer in a box of spears.

[Nirvanish]

Lightly on the same topic:

What has influence on the damage of arrows?
I thought shield. But I have seen troops with shield defence 3 die twice as fast as other troops with the same shield defence. Does armor have so much influence?

Armor always comes into play when a unit is being hit by projectiles. If they are being hit from the front and or left side the shield value will also be added on top of the armor value.

[antisocialmunky]

Elevation gives you some sort of missile bonus ontop of range.

[Ludens]

Armor always comes into play when a unit is being hit by projectiles. If they are being hit from the front and or left side the shield value will also be added on top of the armor value.

Furthermore, shield value is doubled against missile weapons.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Back on topic, massed persian archer spears worked for me. Add in some slingers to target Parthian fm's and some Parthian spearmen to tackle the melees against the heavier cavalry and you should be fine. Tbh, you don't need much more cavalry than a family member though some definately do help.

Personally my army consisted of one slinger unit, a general, a median cavalry, an eastern axemen, 4 Persian archer spearmen, one Parthian spearmen, one Pantodapoi Phalangitai (which was useless, too slow to ever catch anything and not that great against cavalry), and then some various mercs from the region, generally Hyrkanian Hillmen, Persian Archers, and Persian archer spears to replace my losses and keep my army in the field which is important in the wastes of the east.

[Cambyses]

One trick I learnt is that if you can catch and engage one or two enemey units then nearby enemy horse archers will sometimes charge into the melee to try and assist their buddies. This is great news as it means you can start the hand to hand stuff before the AI has fired off all its arrows. Some of the best units for the catching bit are the archer/lancer types, but the better armed skirmisher cavalry are actually very good at this as well because their armour protects them from arrows, while they also tend to be very durable in melee. Although that is probably more a tactic to use against the Getai and Sauromatae due to the availability of suitable troops.

[fallen851]

Use Nizagan-i Eranshahr (Persian Archer-Spearmen). But really, any cheap ranged unit will do. Also for melee units, use large groups of units (240 men per unit) of spear men. These are effective because the horse archers will simply run out of arrows before they kill the unit, even if the spears can't force melee action initially.