When do you like to dismount knights?

[Tozama]

I find I seldom ever do this but last night I was in an odd position.
Its early in the campaign and I was attacked by 3 factions in the first 3 years so there's no huge stacks anywhere yet as I am sending men to whereever the fights are. I get caught in one of those transition troop relocation years where I have a border province I am busy trying to send whatever it may be lacking so that I do not have a province with 6 archers and one peasant next to a province with 4 spearmen with no archers or 3 cav. but no spears and so on. You know, make each border army end up with a good troop mix so it can handle anything that comes at it.
But like I said, its early in the game and I haven't had the leisure time to focus on this too much yet as I am puting out fires everywhere instead.

So the Italians take Provence from the HRE (they were swapping this back and forth right off the bat) and I take a peek at their stack since its right next door although we are neutral. I always like to know what my neighbor might hit me with if he becomes unfriendly. Well true to form he attacks my mediocre army in Toulouse. I am busy beefing up my Aragon forces since the Spanish have some big stacks ajacent so most anything of value passed right through Toulouse as I was counting on a few more years of peace with Italy while I got my borders built up.

I noted he has 7 knights (some Royal, some Chiv.) and good infantry and also he outnumbers me almost 2:1
My force is unfortunately a hodgepodge and I notice I am lacking foot troops to make a solid line. I have only 1 vanilla spear, 3 peasants, 2 archers and 1 UM (just wasn't watching the makeup in Toulouse well enough I guess). But I do have two Feudal Knights and one mounted sergeant.
So I am placing my defense units on the map and I instantly see my wall will crumble rather easily when he hits it. My one unit of spear isn't going to be able to be everywhere at once so his cav. alone will probably ride through me, much less his better infantry.

My 3 cav units will be crushed being out manned vs. his cav. and then all those spears he has.
I decide in this case I need good quality foot troops to make my line more than cavalry so for the first time in ages I dismount my 2 units of Feudal knights.


Turned out to be a great decision. Those 2 units held the line very well and I squeeked out a victory, albeit at high losses. I seriously doubt in this scenario that using them as Cav. for flanking would have proved a better choice.

Do many of you dismount to get footknights?

[Corax]

i usually dismount 1 or 2x 40 high knights (default size) to have a killer unit for hth fighting, i pair them up with 1 halberdier unit and 1 cmaa...
i do it more often if i have to duke it out in woodlands heavy areas. they kill incredible numbers of enemy troops and fight to the last man if well lead (and necessary...)

[Tricky Lady]

I try to remember to dismount mercenary Druzhina cavalry into foot knights when I get them, but I often forget to.

[massamuusi]

If enemy has spearmen mostly then there's no point trying with cavalry...
It's the same as for using peasants in battle- you can but it's not smart.
Too bad you can't dismount anyone. When facing spears you get unnecessary casualties when you can't dismount all.

[caravel]

When defending against alot of heavy cavarly , i.e. royal/chivalric knights. I tend to dismount my royal and chivalric knights into chivalric foot knights. Used in conjunction with Chivalric Sergeants. Chivalric Sergeants need to hold formation to take the charge or you can charge them at the approaching cavarly if you have the height advantage. Once the cavarly stick I tend to send the Chivalric foot knights through their ranks. They do some pretty horrendous damage and take few losses. You can back them up with the illustrious billmen or halberdiers. Should always be used in conjunction with some kind of spear formation though. Does anyone else use this approach?

-Beorhtwulf

[massamuusi]

It's always advisable to use some sort of shock troops (even small unit, no matter) with spearmen, like you said, so that they go through the spearmen ranks. The spearmen hold enemy at bay, and the shocktroops (swords or something nice) waste the enemy spears and other.
Very nice.-

[Makuri_Dog]

As a rule i don't do this very often as is good to have flanking or chasing down troops. Buuuut if pressed on defensive battle with little spears or Hal will do it toget solid line to protect my archers from those nasty fast cavalry.Haven't really tried it on attack could be worth a go though.

[KyodaiSteeleye]

yes - probably chivalric knights dismounted are the most useful - although i'll admit that i generally use them far more in MP - best polearms in the the business.

[clovenhoof]

I build a ton of knight units to use almost exclusively as (dismounted) shock troops. I match them up with whatever offensive infantry I have, usualy CMAA's. Putting them a few strides in front of these troops so the knights hit first and hard and then the wave of CMAA's almost immediately afterwards. I do use normal mounted knights to, but nothing beats dismounted knights for small elite initial shock squads.

[desdichado]

yeah I love dismounted chiv knights - they can tear a hole in most anything - even with only 40 men in the unit.

Tozama, I'm curious how you dismounted fuedal knights - I thought you could only do that in sieges or have you modded this?

[caravel]

As a mainly defensive player I tend to favour the defensive type units. So if I'm playing as catholic I do dismount my chivalric knights often. Basically you can look at it quite simply: If your enemy is attacking you with chivalric knights, dismount yours, you'll win every time... well thats what happens for me anyway...

I find that in a defensive situation dismountable heavy cavalry are best dismounted. I've even dismounted my 20 man royal bodyguards the same and watched them see off everything on a horse that attacked them. Works wonders in woods or with a height advantage. The woods in Flanders are perfect though.

[Assassins_Shadow]

Yea, dismounting can be fun, and quite handy. Just wondering though, can you dismount Lancers? That would be kinda funny, that huge glob of elite units tearing holes in the enemy line, albiet it would'nt be very cost affective.

[MadKow]

I normally dismount Druzina Cav for feudal foot knights. Thats why i buy them in the first place.
As for Knights, i dismount them if my crusade (or post-crusade army) has to defend in the desert. Besides that i always seem to forget...

[Infamous Al Capone]

I am the most seasoned of medieval fighters and I was unaware you could do this. I seldom see anyone do so to my knoledge. Therefore I appreciate you telling me so. I suppose it is like everything however, good sometimes but if used for the sake of it, often not ideal. I have a bit of a thing for cavalry and I often use far more than I should, not to say that it doesn't work now and again (ex. against the swiss).

[Furunculus]

no. :)