English with Longbowmen formation

[hotingzilla]

I have been experimenting different formations using the English. Pikemen in front, longbowmen behind and cavalry flank is good in most situations. Sometimes I add in serpentines (serpentine, I believe is an advanced version of the lbow tactic).

For a few days, I have been thinkign about wedge formations. If I position my longbowmen (like the preset English army formation in deployment stage) in a acute angle zigzag, would the concentration of arrows be greater?
Like this:
/\/\/\
but wider

[Lonewarrior]

Go ahead and try it, and tell us what happened. Then I'll tell you my answer to your question.

[hotingzilla]

Well, please tell me what you think. I have tried it once and am not able to tell its advantages and disadvantages.

[hotingzilla]

[KyodaiSteeleye]

are the longbows in wedge formation, or in line formation on an angle?

Wedge formation can be useful if you haven't got much room - plus gives you lots of missile power in a concentrated space - draws back are lack of accuracy (+maybe some of the rear troops don't fire) + deep formation means that unless you are defending, you have to get the units much nearer the enemy if all of them are going to be within range to fire.

[Kagetora]

I think that the English did do the exct thing your talking about Hotingzilla at agincourt.

[hotingzilla]

[Kagetora]

Hey, GREAT STUFF hoingzilla, but what will you do when the enemy launch a combined Cav and Heavy Infantry attack?

[Lonewarrior]

Yes you do get a higher concentration of arrows, but like was said before, what will you do against cav?

[katank]

billmen chews the cav like nothing.

if necessary, the longbows can flank and help.

the heavy inf will be mauled beyond recognition by the longbows and thus can't do much to the bills.

billmen and longbows are one of the best combos

[Daveybaby]

Never mind heavy cav, fast light cav would make mincemeat out of that lot.

[katank]

bills can chew up the cav but I must say that this is a terrible formation.

the bills are in too deep of a formation and too far off for support.

use either lines or real wedges for the longbows and have them just in front of the bills or behind them.

use half hexagon or half octagon shield wall of bills.

[TonkaToys]

Well, please tell me what you think. I have tried it once and am not able to tell its advantages and disadvantages.

Have you tried again and found any advantages to this formation? It does look like the classic Agincourt layout, except of course without the stakes to protect the archers.

In theory anyone entering the area between two diagonal lines of archers (ie: inside the V) should suffer twice as much arrow fire. So it should be a devastating kill zone. Of course you could just skirt the formation.

Katank mentions using real wedges... are there any advantages to doing this? Surely it just ties up the bowmen in the middle? Whilst very unwieldy at least this W shaped line of bowmen utilises the maximum bow frontage.

Let us know how your experiments go.

[hotingzilla]

Not the best result. The way I used to play Longbowmen in MTW before, is to position them behind pikes/billmen. Guarded also by pike/bills on the flank.
_ _
/ L L \
| L L |

The lines represent pikes. L is longbowmen.

This wedge formation does give an edge on concentrated arrow fire whilst covering wide ground. However, the weakness of the formation is at the tip of the W. So I place billmen there, hopefully be able to move forward when the melee comes. I played against an AI difficulty expert controlled Holy Roman Empire. The AI selected Order Foot Soldiers, Chivalric Knights and Gothic Foot Knights. Thats how I remembered it.

Comparing with the half square, hexagon formation (shown above), the Longbowmen entered into a lot of melee combat since neither billmen nor pikemen were predeployed in front of the archers. However, the archers did finely against the armored targets. I used my General unit, Chivalric Knights, to come forward and pivot to attack from the rear of the enemy. Combined with gunpowder and heavy tampering of missile fire, the enemy soon routed. They rallied again, but failed.

Still, I am not ready to make any conclusion.