Whats your best tactic for horse archers?

[Naagi]

Well i searched around some but didnt see anything on this. I've seen the use swords/axes to take out spear, spear to take out cav, cav to take out archers, and archers to take out the field your fighting in since they cant hit the broad side of a barn at ten paces. Anyway I had a couple fights in Khazar, first with all foot units, man this was a bad fight. They ran in circles around me and ate me alive. The others have just been my regular mixes of units. I use the units a lot as well but besides the AI just catching them between a couple units i dont see them really taking them out very often except with Ghulam bodyguards. Was just curious so when the Golden Horde does appear, I'll have the right units to spank them.

Naagi

[LadyAnn]

Never play against the Golden Horde yet, but I don't think current patch has anything that can catch up with horse archers. The horse archers has the same stat as your fastest horse, so they are hard to catch up with.

But horse archer has a big weakness: they are lightly armoured and being a big target, 40 horses will do down fast if they are facing archers.

Chase them a bit with your cav so they son't get too close to your infantry units, but dont try to chase them too far to get your cav out of position and caught by their spears. Get the horse archers into a missile duel with your archers/arbalesters/crossbows and you will find they won't have much to fight with after a short moment.

Annie

[Mithrandir]

My advice:
Just ignore them, they might kill 10 to 20 men in all before the battle is over, it's not worth to waste 60 or 100 men to chase them. If the enemy has several units of them (as the mongols) just be prepared, I had a few massive battles vs mongols today. Prepared as the smart Elf I am ,I had maxed out on Feudal Seargants to counter the MHC and Hobilars to take out their Horse Archers. If you'd like I can upload one or 2 replays of battles I had vs Mongols...
You have 4 logical choices :

1-if there are just 2 HA units, ignore them if the enemy otherwise outnumbers you and chase them down at the end of the battle.
2-Send a fast cavelry after them, they'll rout in no-time because of the morale penalty they get from constantly retreating, if they DO engange, they'll be cut up by almost any other cavelry.Again, do not do this unles you can spare the cavelry unit&they are truly a threat.
3- Send a normal foot unit after them, even though they'll take some losses and won't be much use for the rest of the battle (plus it's harder to get them to safety if they are ambushed) but there's again a good chance of them routing the HA's due to the morale penalty.
4-Create an archer duel, most archers will win in a duel, be sure that the enemy doesn't send the HA's into a melee towards your archers,though the AI will almost NEVER do this...

hope this helped

-Mithrandir-

[rasoforos]

i had a lot of problems with horse archers as well. what i do is to root everything else in the map and then form really long formations and form traps by using 3 of those to attack the archers at the same time. eventually they trap em.

[desdichado]

If most of your troops are armoured (and upgraded) then you can effectively ignore them as the casualties they cause won't cause you too much trouble.

I really only start shooting at them after enemy has closed hth. I don't like wasting arrows on other archers as prefer to weaken main battle line.

If you leave them to last theyll eventually run out of arrows and run away

[Naagi]

Cool ideas, bout what i was doing now but couple I havent tried. Though LadyAnn the archer duel has one catch ive been able to get around. If its my HA i can put them in a loose formation and as we know archers cant shoot to well so the HA tend to win these. Dont think i mentioned i havent patched yet, damned determined to win one pre-patch before i really have to learn to fight cav charges.

[Postino]

play chicken with them.

take an A.I. jintette, he will close till you get a unit moving toward him. then he will fall back , turn your unit around and he will follow. with 2 cav units, you can lead them into a trap, but it takes a lot of paitence.

[MonkeyMan]

My best advice if you don't have fast cav to deal with them or your guys are tired. Is to ignore them while a greater threat exists. If you have only them to face, put each unit into the widest line you can of 1 man deep. Then put them in loose formation to increase their width by 2. If you send two reasonably full strength units after them they will eventually be cornered and ripped to pieces. When dealing with a lot of them, i follow the first step with my whole army in one huge line (if you can assemble them in a forest to protect from fire) then order your units to form the same line but behind the enemy (don't target the units themselves with an attck, because the ai will know what you are doing even if a humen is controlling them on skirmish). Right click and order a run, and hopefully your line will catch a few. If some at any point get three units surrounding them, order them to charge and you should get them (I love to watch them squirm when they get surrounded ).

And now like me you too can pick all feudal knight armies

[Doug-Thompson]

Here's one of those cases when history and this game agree: Foot archers, especially crossbowmen/arbalests, are the solution to cavalry archers.

I love cavalry archers, yet even I admit that they are close to useless against infantry adequately coordinated with foot archers. The reasons are simple: A foot archer is much cheaper and a smaller target than a cavalry archer.

In history, the Crusaders quickly found out that the best solution to lightly-armored Muslim horse archers was a volley of heavy crossbow bolts. The game reflects that.

[Louis de la Ferte Ste Colombe]

Quote[/b] (Mithrandir @ Nov. 25 2002,14:29)]My advice:
Just ignore them, they might kill 10 to 20 men in all before the battle is over

Time for you to buy VI.

HA can do better now, their projectile are somehow stronger. And there are many more medium cav / Horse Archer.

If you happen to have troops with armor less than 5, you are likely to have more than 10/20 loss...

But sure, just normal foot missile shall be enough to take care of HA...

Louis the Simurgh,

[Oaty]

Another good startegy I use is if they have the HA on a flank is I'll chase them with 1 unit for a short bit, then when I have there horse archers a good distance from my main force is to park that unit in some trees if there are some by put them in loose formation and almost always take less than 10 percent casualties even on poor armored units. With your main force usually out in the open battlefield you just got rid of a minor threat. Attack there main line and once thats over then take care of there horse archers. Occasionally if my forcers are in exhaustion after the main batlle, I'll just let them finish off there arrows sit there for a few mins then go after them. The one downfall to this wich only happens on occasion is after I go to park that unit in the woods is thats right where the A.I's ambush is (uuuuuhhhh ooops&#33 but I usually get out of half the time, as for the other half of the time good job comp.( I threaten to format the comps c drive after something like that but for some reason the comp just does not take my threat seriously lol)

[econ21]

On a related subject, anyone got a fondness for mounted crossbowmen? On early, they are the only way to get crossbows and they also have mail armour. As Poland I found it tricky to fight some rebel mounted crossbowmen - I am not sure vanilla foot archers can outshoot them (IIRC, the mounted crossbow is the same as a foot crossbow). I found it very hard to trap them in a corner of the map with just infantry. I read something once saying mounted crossbowmen were historically a very prized type of troop towards the end of the early period and this is born out by the game. They can pursue routers almost as well as mounted sergeants, are easier to get and are very useful against armoured targets (esp. those factions with boatloads of princes and royal knights).

[Mechstra]

Ah, I love mounted crossbowmen when I'm playing as a faction that makes use of them. Much better than the standard horse archers, in my opinion, even if their reload time is a bit long.

[Odinn]

Quote[/b] ]Just ignore them, they might kill 10 to 20 men in all before the battle is over, it's not worth to waste 60 or 100 men to chase them.

I actually killed a quarter of the enemy army with 5 groups of mercenary horse archers (2 group regular, 1 group turkoman and 2 group mameluk).
Their army was at around 800 men and i killed roughly a quarter by doing hit and runs before the battle started. When it started, I had destroyed most of their protection against cavalry and just charged in with the heavy cavalry along with the melee infantry...

[The_Emperor]

My advice (if your archers are already out of ammo) is to outflank them with light cav while the target unit baits them... and have the other units to move in from diagonal positions.

The enemy will skirmish away run into one unit and then try and skirmish away from that one and hit the other and then at that moment the guys essentially say ahhh, to hell with this and Rout.

Still they are a real pain to deal with.

[insolent1]

Best counter for Horse archers are arbalesters or crossbows. Preferably arbalests due to their range. If your arb's are high valour they need only waste 3 or 4 rounds per full HA unit. I have fought the mongols a lot & arb's are the best counter for all those Mongol horse archers. I've fought the horde in Georgia it was as teh byzantines it was something like 12000 v my 2000+. the vast majority of my reinforcements where arbalesters I got 7000ish kills from that battle. Btw beware sending light cav to engage Mongol Horse archers(they are the best fast horse archer) as they are very capable in a fight & there will normally be 2 or 3 of them for every unit of your light cav.

[Erik Blackbeard]

i usually have couple units of fast and light cavalry, like Alan's or Steppe cavalry... those can keep HA's from shooting important units...

[Hakonarson]

The counter for horse archers is some form of spear-armed infantry with big shields, and missile fire of your own.

Anything will do - but you'll probably need a lot of it. Archers are fine - but they do run out of ammo fast so you need plenty in reserve. Arbalests are excellent - but agaisnt a full GH attack I like to keep them in reserve for the heavy cavalry sicne archers are much less useful against them.

I like to find a nice uphill position with secured flanks, sit in 2 lines with my spearmen in front, and just enter the shooting duel

To the guy who says that HA's should be ignored - have you played against the Golden Horde yet?? they may attack you with 3 or 4 STACKS of horse archers - they come on, loss off all their arrows, leave and get replaced. A LOT

10-20 casualties from a couple of units?? see what happens when you have faced 50-60 units

[Brutal DLX]

It depends. If you have missile troops yourself, then you know what to do. If you have HA of your own, use them to attack, drive them back a little from your main force and do a shootout then.
The best way to get rid of them is luring them to the flank, leading them on to the back of your army, then seal off the flank (with spears, preferrably) while you run in a good cav unit in spread out formation behind your lines. They'll have nowhere to go and get nailed quickly. You may need another cav unit in case you're not close to the map edge.

[Crash]

Good horse archers can cause a lot more than a few casualties, if you let them. This is my strategy for fighting any Mongol or Mongol-like army, also Ottomans, Byzantines and Egyptians who sometimes have a lot of horse archers.

First try to use infantry and spearmen with armor and/or large shields or in your main line, they can withstand archer attacks well. Large shields alone can be good protection.

If you have them, use Pavise crossbowmen or Pavise arbalester, their shields and armor will protect them against arrorws. If you don't have either unit, crossbowmen with armor will do, and even archers with armor can usually outduel the horse archers. I once wiped out hundreds of Mongol horse archers and infantry with Pavise arbalesters and ordinary crossbowmen firing from a defensive position on a hilltop, protected by Italian infantry.

Use light or medium calvary to harass the horse archers so that they can't shoot at your main line units. Don't chase the horse archers with your heavy calvary, it's not a good use of their energy and they'll never catch them by themselves.

As others have said already, don't let just one or two horse archers distract you too much, just keep them occupied with a light calvary or a fast infantry unit or archers, and you can completely ignore them if all of your units have good armor and large shields and high morale.

If all you have to do is rout some horse archers off the battle field, the dragnet technique will work - just spread your army across the whole map and sweep across the battlefiled.

Have fun

[o_loompah_the_delayer]

Quote[/b] (Crash @ June 23 2003,10:54)]If all you have to do is rout some horse archers off the battle field, the dragnet technique will work - just spread your army across the whole map and sweep across the battlefiled.

Have fun

Dont try the dragnet with tired troops - in one battle the mongol HA charged and routed my exhausted spearmen, they then poured through and hit everything from the back/ sides etc - terrible rout and massacre

[Crash]

Mongol horse archers are the best, wish I could recruit for my faction. But you can't train them, I've never seen them as mercenaries, and they are too expensive to bribe. Oh well...

[DDogwood]

Heavy steppe Cavalry are almost as good as Mongol Horse Archers, and with VI you can train them in loads of steppe provinces. In fact, I think they might even be better than Boyars...