A missile cavalry thread, plus melee cav

[Gregoshi]

I should really consider using the light cav to scout ahead. I've yet to be ambushed, but why wait? I just started getting ninjas so they are a rare commodity at the moment.

[Kagemusha]

I should really consider using the light cav to scout ahead. I've yet to be ambushed, but why wait? I just started getting ninjas so they are a rare commodity at the moment.

I usually always have a monk or Metsuke moving before my main army, doing their nasty stuff also to the enemies encountered.

[Doug-Thompson]

Finally played a missile cavalry battle that gave me some satisfaction. Getting there required as much effort on thinking up a strategy that uses these units as tactics.

Tactically, the fight was against a well-balanced, veteran army that was larger than mine but I had a stack of reinforcements coming. mainly infantry. The reinforcements were purposefully left out of the combat until the missile cavalry was done. Difficulty was only normal, I'm embarrassed to admit. Haven't had as much playtime with Missile Cav as I'd like. (I'll refer to Missile cavalry as HA -- horse archers.)

Melee and Missile cavalry required MUCH closer coordination than in M2TW, for instance. I'd put HA in a line in front of the melee cav in M2. It took some hard knocks in prior battles trying the same style. Now I divide HA into two groups and put the melee cav in the middle.

I've settled on Yari cavalry as my melee cavalry of choice because they are faster. Better to have counterattacking cavalry arrive in time to save the HA than have them massacre the enemy cavalry after your HA are dead.

So far, the tactic that seems to work is "grinding," wrapping around one end of the enemy line and chewing it up. C---.

The AI is MUCH better with coping with this kind of thing than it ever was in M2. The enemy army went to a hill covered in woods, which notably reduced the effectiveness of my attacks. Unfortunately for the opposition, the foot archers were similarly affected.

It used to be an easy thing in M2 to lure units out of formation and overwhelm them with melee cav. It's not so easy now, and this is on normal difficulty. Foot archers are much more effective too. The improvement is significant.

I took losses, but none so serious that a turn in friendly territory after the battle didn't heal them right up.

The jury's still out on "swooping crane," the Shogun equivalent to "Cantabrian circle." You can't keep the HA in loose formation and put them in a circle.

The enemy suffered much more losses, but I couldn't drive what was left from the field. I don't play with a time limit, but if the infantry reinforcements weren't available it would have counted as a defeat.

Strategically, the use for the all-cav army is to rush to and reinforce whichever infantry army is facing the biggest enemy stack. For instance, in this battle my infantry was besieged. The cavalry rushed in on the campaign map and tore the besiegers apart. Then the infantry reinforcements arrived as the missle cavalry used up all its arrows and withdrew. Then the infantry army, with its own melee cavalry component, was greatly reinforced by the melee cavalry of the all-cav army. The infantry then crushed what was left of the enemy with few losses and the massive melee cav component pursued without mercy. Only two weakened enemy units survived, both cavalry. My cavalry army then pursued those on the campaign map and wiped those out.

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When foot archers light fire arrows, run away. Then return. You can do real damage before they can light fire arrows again.

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