How would you beat me

[English assassin]

Interesting battle last night. I had a loyalist revolt someplace in Russia, and the rebel army stack was a full stack of heavy infantry. Roughly 8 Chiv foot knights, and 8 feudal foot knights (I think the general might have been Chiv kights but the rest were as I said).

By pulling in units from neighbouring provs I got a rag tag army together. 2 longbows, 3 billmen, 3 CMAA 3 steppe cav, one or maybe two woodsmen. None were especially high valour, most had a reasonable armour upgrade. Not going to be an easy battle for me.

My obvious advantage was I had more men, CFK and FFK being 40 men units only. What I did was string out the billmen in a long, very very thin line, to give more or less a full frontage. Positioned the longbowmen behind to shoot into the advancing enemy while they could, and stiffen the billmen in melee after. On one wing I put the 3 CMAA, on the other all the cavalry. The plan was to engage all the inf with the long thin line, and then wrap around at each end hitting each unit in turn from behind. It all depended on the billmen holding long enough, which they did, and the result was a massacre.

What I want to know though, is if you had been given that rebel stack, how would you have run the attack? On the one hand its a powerful army, on the other hand having nothing but heavy infantry limits your options. Heavy infantry is best going toe to toe with another infantry line, but that was more or less what I was deployed to counter. Any ideas?

[HicRic]

I expect I would have charged your line with all but four units (one of the four being my general). They would have been in two ranks. Once they hit home I think they would do a good job in close combat with that many men in the melee. When you tried to attack my units in the rear my four reserve units would then charge your unit in the rear, and hopefully I'd come out on top.

So yeah, bascially, a rush and some reserves to counter flanking. Targeting your general unit if I could get to it would be another priority. I think winning would be hard, especially as the army would be slow. You could deploy the longbows far forward and have them run back every now and again, raining arrows on the slow-moving foot knights. You'd have decimated them that way, rather than waiting for them to come to you and firing on them from behind the billmen. Just my personal opinion.

[Maeda Toshiie]

Russian steppes: flat terrain (enough to land aircraft if not for the trees) and clumps of trees.

Troops are heavy infantry and slow (esp the chiv knights), vulnerable to missile fire (despite of heavy armour). Use the trees to leapfrog towards the enemy to minimise casualties.

Split army into 2. Use feudal knights for the flanking group, due to higher movement speed. Chiv foot would tire too much from the marching round and round.

March towards the enemy in loose formation, closing only when very near. Draw all units to 2 rank formation.

Pray hard that your flanking maneuver pulls off.

Hmm... this sounds like an interesting battle to test out at multiplayer mode.

*edit*
The total number of men on the field isnt as important as the number of units. The greater number of units gives greater tactical flexibility. 2 half strengthed units can beat a full strength unit by flanking.

[katank]

quality of units is also important and the foot knights are simply awesome.

[Satyr]

It's so easy to ride foot knights down with cav that it would have been my main aim to prevent that cav from flanking. And I would have stretched my lines to match yours and prevented any additional flanking you tried with the reserves like Meada suggests.

[katank]

so easy to ride them down with cav? he mentioned CFKs in there which will eat your cav like a light snack.

[Colovion]

I'd stretch just enough CFK's to match your lines. I'd hold the FFK's in the second rank, bolstering the center. After the CFK's engage I'd pound two units of FFK's into a weak spot near the center to break your lines and then have the two units sweep around to finish off your broken lines on either side or sweep up the bows, depending on which was more threatening. This is of course if your Cav were being held up well on the flanks, if not then I'd have to hope my front lines hold and deal with yoru flanking before charging the center/one flank.

[desdichado]

without seeing the reply and knowing valour (and any morale bonuses) its hard to tell but you may have been lucky. If your thin line of billmen hadn't held then you may have got swamped. But hey the gamble paid off so well done.

If I was the rebel general I probably would have switched more men to my own flanks and trusted in my knights to hold their own in a weakened centre. Even outnumbered foot knights will usually give better than they get. You won the battle on the flanks so that would be where my focus was. The cav on the flank would get eaten by the chiv knights and the cmaa would eventually lose as well (all things being equal) to even FFK.

Basically try to get you into a stand up fight which I would expect to win.

Assuming you have the money, why didn't you retreat to your castle and try to bribe the rebel stack the next turn? A full stock of foot knights would certainly come in handy

[English assassin]

I didn't bribe the rebels because I wanted the fight. I reckoned it was quite a tough challenge and I didn't know if I could win to be honest.

I should have said : generals: no stars either side (this happened in the backwoods for me,) valour, mine was nothing special (the Billmen and LBs were v1 of course) I honestly can't remember what the rebels had but it must have been v0 or at the very most a few v1 because otherwise I would have been crucified. Billmen had a weapon upgrade and level one armour too so they were not bad units all in all.

Dont forget the cavalry were only steppe cav. I could only use them for side/rear charges. If the rebs managed to get a unit or two of knights head on into them they would have died like flies.

HicRic you're probably right about the longbowmen. One thing that did worry me, which a human might well have done, was if the rebels attacked only one end of the line. (In fact they did do this, but in a half hearted way, and it was easy enough to wheel the whole formation to bring them back to the centre.) Having two units of LBs out front skirmishing back to the middle of the line would have been an extra temptation to draw them in where I wanted.

desdichado you are right I thought at the time that if I pull this off, I am going to murder the rebs, and if it doesn't work, I'm going to get slaughtered. no half measures.

Interesting that there is no consensus about punching through the centre as opposed to taking on the flanks. I thought my main danger was losing it in the centre but on reflection the flank that was mostly cavalry was a weakness. bad deployment on my part, I usually put all or nearly all my cavalry together to have a serious force to manoeuvre with but in this case I should have split CMAA and cav equally between the flanks.

[HicRic]

I think it was still a good victory, English Assassin. It was by no means a simple battle to win, those foot knights are quality. Full credit to you.

[Servius]

CFKs on the wings, FFKs in the center.

Advance in spread formation to cut down on missile casualties.

Preferably look for woods to fight in.

When in range, set the FFKs to Wedge and slam them into and through the Billmen line, breaking the center.

Use the CFKs to hold the flanks and rear, as they would make mincemeat of your cav and CMMAs that you used on the flanks.

I would probably have used the General in the center front leading the charge. The closer he is to the middle the further he is from getting outflanked or hit from the rear.

I'm amazed your Billmen held. Comp probably just used flatline formation. Billmen are cool and all, but toe-to-toe vs. equal armor upgrade and valor FKs they'd lose, especially thin-lined vs. a Wedge

[ToranagaSama]

Just Curiious,

English Assassin, what level of difficulty are you playing?

[English assassin]

Hard.

[katank]

that woudl explain it. even billmen at v1, if it was on expert, the combat bonus would tip things in the FK's favor and the morale bonus would mean that they would be fighting when your guys are packing it.

bribing is the way to go.

If I saw a stack of foot knights, I would definitely bribe even at risk of losing the province for a turn.

[Robotdog]

I would have feigned a wide charge against your Billman line, but would have wheeled all but two units (one FFK one CFK in wedge to prevent usage of your Billman) around to your cavalry side. Once your cavalry were engaged I would have sent a FFK to deal with the LB and whatever I had free to hit the Billmen from behind. Once your CMAA got to me I would have shifted a couple units to fight them from the Billmen, one to hit in front and one to rear.

Goodbye.

[Chimpyang]

I'm surprised you got a rebel stack like yours, everytime i get a rebellion (not very often) it's usually just a few cruddy units such as Saracen Inf or Woodsmen. The most powerful unit i've had in a rebellion against me was the Swiss appearance and a couple of units of SAP.

[English assassin]

Me too. It was a loyalist rebellion which I think makes a difference and I was well on my way to world domination which might have made a difference too.

[ah_dut]

lucky buggers, i've had to deal with the FFK and CFK orde before, so what do i do, retreat adnd bribr, it's usually wirth it for me, or camp and swarm.