How do you guys use the Irish in MP?

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

One time as the Irish, I was fighting someone (rebels?) who had archers and some spears (If I remember correctly). They outnumbered me and, since I lacked bonnachts and had only one unit of gallowglasses, I was outclassed, too. But I had terrain advantage in the form of a modest-sized hill. And there I saw how dartmen could beat archers. With the hill to give them range, my two dartmen units rained javelin-fortified death on the field. The enemy was butchered!

A couple rounds of javs can make it a very bad day for most units. Even though they are best vs. armored, javs are also way more powerful than archers against unarmored units. Give them some height and javs are, at least sometimes, much better than archers. They can usually fight better in hand-to-hand (but of course there are exceptions to every rule, including this one).

Just thought I could illustrate your usual tactical brilliance, katank.

[katank]

thanks for the compliment.

I think there was also a nice thread in the Guides? forum in which we were discussing a HA and jav combo.

It's nice (Huns in early against Byz for example) to do usual HA tactics and tire the enemy out and attrit them using HAs such as szeks and then draw the slow armor towards your javs hidden in the forest which can decimate the already tired and attritted enemies with volleys and the javs and HAs can combined charge in for the kill.

The kill count is far greater once you use javs as they are lethal against armor.

the trick is to not bring out the javs too early or they might get charged or otherwise massacred in melee.

[son of spam]

what if you are on attack though? You won't have the height advantage then.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

what if you are on attack though? You won't have the height advantage then.

Well, if your concern is archers, you could try to pin the enemy center with spears and gallowglasses, and try to come around the enemy's flanks with cav or some fast infantry (most of the Irish infantry is pretty nimble) and try to drive off or scatter the archers. This will also put you behind the enemy's center, which is also very good.

You could travel through woods as much as possible or wait for rain, as katank suggested (indirectly).

Or you could accept casualties from archer fire and try to crush the enemy's main line, using javs to kill armor or weaken spear units, then finish them off with gallowglasses and go after the archers last. This requires packing plenty of troops though and may not be desirous (especially with a cowardly AI that will run if fighting even slightly larger numbers).

The easiest (and probably least helpful) answer to that question, son of spam, would be to not find oneself on the offensive.

[katank]

running from tree clump to tree clump in the rain is best idea to doge fire until you get up close.

if in MP against humans, it's always iffy. you can still maneuver to reduce height disadvantage at least.

[Chimpyang]

Or you can do what i did against the pope today as the italians.

He had the advantage of a hill even thoiugh i was defending. So i took a gamble and deployed as far back as possible. He delpoyed central to me and started walking his army towards me, but with his troops steadily going towards my left flank more. So i decided to hell with it, and ran my troops to the left and then up the hill. In this move i had enough time to redeploy and have the advantage of height too!

[Simovek]

Well I often find myself on the attack with the Irish. The tactic I have tried thus far is 3 Armoured Spear in the center with at least 2 armor and 1-2 valour. I then put 3 Bonnachts behind the spear. The armoured spear with their +2 armor are used to soak up the arrows, which they do fairly well. I then put 2 Gallowglasses with valour on each flank plus Mounted nobles and horsemen on the flanks. My spearmen are used to hold the enemy Huscarles (There is ALWAYS huscarles!) while my bonnachts throw javs. Problem is, once a unit gets to close to the bonnachts, only a few of them throw and even if they do all throw they got right over the enemy heads and land behind them. So they do absolutly NO good. The only way they would be useful is if I stoppped my Spear line some feet in front of the Huscarles, so their was space between the two, then the Bonnachts could wreak havoc. But come now, who is dumb enough to just stand their with their Huscarles. They are already charging me! So my Bonnachts do no good :(
The Huscarles just cut right through the spearmen and Bonnachts. :( The gallow glasses can never get into the fray fast enough because of all the cavalry entanglements on the flanks.

This seems to be the case from what I've seen... It takes the Irish at least 2 units to match 1 unit of Huscarles. And even then both units are badly depleted once they've won. Problem is, there is only 16 unit slots for both armies. Which means the enemy always matches me in numbers, except his are huscarles :(!

[katank]

against a human, you are sunk but vs. the AI, you can use 2-3 kerns to tag team the huscarles and reduce it to ruin quickly.

use some cav to feign charges and keep several enemy units busy.