The Swarm

[lopir]

Normally I become bored with strategy games, and on first playing I judged MTW to be just as boring-- i.e. setting expert, playing turkish faction; take out tripoli first turn, antioch and the egyption sultun turn two, all of egypt in 4 four or five years ... well you get the picture. All of the factions had some similiar trick which made playing easy no matter what the difficulty setting.
Then I saw the Hungarians and their unique unit the Szekely. BIG CHANGE, because they are light calvary archers and still pack a punch (Turcomen on the other hand, while just as quick, have no punch and are nearly useless after their quivers are empty.) a truly swarming army can be assembled -though they still cant ride and shoot :(.
Gameplay has completely changed, no more lines and static defences. Lures, feints, cut-off and destroy, quick and fast are now the rule. Is it just as effective? Probably depends on the person, but even on expert kill ratios of 10:1 are not out of the question.
Basically my swarming army is made up of a 3:1-4:1 ratio of szekely to steppe calvary (any light calvary will do). Throw in a couple of steppe heavy calvary if you think you need it.
A couple of good articles
Article1 and Article2 if anyone is interested.
Is this a common setup, has anyone else played it?

BTW-Best game I ever played :)

-J

[BalkanTourist]

Love the articles Thanks a bunch

[ichi]

Szeks are a lot of fun - they are the second best cav archer (behind Boyars). At V2 (=morale 8) they are competent fighters, capable of going toe to toe with vanilla Chivs.

I see a lot of guys playing Hungary online. Unlike the Russians and their Boyars, the Hungarios get the good standard Catholic infantry. As you said, you can get Steppe Heavies when you move out into the Steppes, but Hungary also gets plain Horse Archers, a great unit to harass the enemy with.

Forget the Steppe Cavalry tho. Just upgrade a province and get some Feudal Knightss to go with your Szeks and HAs.

ichi

[mbrasher1]

I agree. The szekes are, in my book, the finest HA around.

There is no unit faster. This speed is crucial in their application.

They are available faster. Boyars build requirements take awhile to get to their great armor and defense values. And anyways, if you are playing the hungarians correctly, szekes will double team isolated units. Their lower armor should not come into play.

Also, as ichi point out, you do not need to rely on szekes as your standard melee troops (like the Russians must with boyars), as they have other good units.

Szekes make me happy by their very existence.