Adequate challange

[Ulair]

If you're not too big you could try allying with the GH instead of fighting them straight off.

If you have Georgia, empty it of troops in 1230 - all troops, including garrisons. You'll see zillions of Mongols appear in Khazar but (should) see none appear in Georgia - I heard this trick here and it worked for me. Move back into Georgia and send your emissaries to the Khan. You might be rebuffed but at least you're neutral with them - gives you more time to prepare.

I weathered the GH recently as the Turks, but starting from Early so I had plenty time to prepare. Destroyed them in two huge battles in Georgia (they invaded after 10 years or so of neutrality) and Khazar (my counterstrike). Saracens, lots of bows and gold-armoured JHI from Constantinople. How much it's feasible to build up from a High start I don't know though...

Ah! gold armoured JHI with "battle tested" stamped on their foreheads...

Good luck!
Ulair

[CherryDanish]

It all depends on where they pop up. On large scale emergances you are likely toast with the available troopsets and you'll have to do your best to surrender land to contain them. Here's a variant of my favourite horde killer army recipe.
1 high command general, preferably a camel unit.
3 units of spear (sacaren inf)
4 units of turkoman foot (or treb if you can't get TF, built with the valour bonus)
1 units of heavy cav (khwazawhatchamacallit prefered, then AHC, then ghulam BGs, then ghulam cav)
2 units of ghazi inf, or in a pinch Muwahid foot soldiers. MFS are better in open maps, but ghazi rule in wooded maps.
5 units of catapault.

Loads of archers and cav in reserve.

You won't get a hill, but if you can get georgia and the GH comes from khazaar you might get a bridge, in which case catapaults are very nice.

Anyway, here's the trick for me. In a normal map, open areas but with some small stretches of woods, step one, secure your flanks and keep a ready supply line. Park your SI to block a portion of woods to a map wall using angles so that your missle troops have the most to fire at without getting too bunched up.

Step two, when the horde general starts moving to the front, snipe him with the catapaults and every man with a bow. The GH general/king always opens himself to risk, and I'm always willing to send him to hell. Between the use of siege weaponry and the dead/fleeing (preferably dead, keeping one unit of cav helps in your starting line up.) general, the GH troops will take an insane moral hit. You'll need this.

Step three, hold em off, demoralise them. Pretty soon, the catapaults and archers will run low on ammo. Try to stagger ammo use between units so that some units watch grass grow for 10 minutes or so while other units are firing heavily. Withdraw and swap out of ammo units one or two at a time. Your SI will take the brunt of the mostly missle fire. MHC will try to flank you. If you have an open flank this will be tough. If you have woods on a flank it's as easy as finding a good insult for Richard Simons. In the woods your ghazi charging the MHC will rip them a new one faster than you can say "spit". Watch the ghazi closely, if they get into open field they will be slaughtered fast and the hunter will become the prey. If you chose Muwahid foot soldiers then send them in a flanking manouver keeping your cav in the woods. When the MHC comes for the treeline, charge meeting them well outside the woods in a broad thin line and run the Muwahid foot soldiers to flank and charge from the rear. It isn't as pretty as ghazi in the woods, but it works. The whole goal here is to bring in the archers as smoothly as possible while killing time.

Step four, run up the kill count. By now you have at least 6, hopefully 8 units of fresh, fully ammoed, high valoured missle troops. Time to really kill some horde. Let the arrows do some talking, stop firing on retreating units, use the ammo sparingly and rotate out units as required. Only fire when all your archers can fire en masse and concentrate fire. The sudden shock of casualties will often cause mongol units to route. When you are running low on replacement units, do not withdraw your archers, but put them with whatever troops you have securing the tree line. In the woods they will make effective infantry.

Step five, trap and cut. At some point during step 4 you'll be ready to send a spare ghazi unit or a couple units of AHC or Turkoman Horse and send them beyond the safety of your spear wall. For ghazi, put them in a wooded area somewhere along the enemies line of retreat/resupply and sparingly intercept single/isolated units. For AHC or TH, put them far away from the fight with open area where they can run. In the case of cav, they have a different role than ghazi, they are to kill Mongol infantry and try and trap stuborn units of mongol light cav into your spear wall. Deploy them in thick ranks when chasing infantry, thin wide ranks for traping cav. The objective for this step is simply run up the kill count and add additional morale hits for flanking and charging.

You've likely guessed, but the whole point of this plan is to demoralise your opponent. When the horde runs they are easy to beat, just tedious. If you don't demoralise them, units will fight to the last man and you'll lose any battle of attrition. If you demoralise them, they will try to run at as early as 50% losses. With these tactics I can usually muster anywhere from a 5 or even 10 to 1 kill ratio. These tactics assume huge troop formations and assume you are defending, which may not be true in your campaign. Adjust your recipe accordingly, but diversity is your ally. Many times the GH pack artillery which they will deploy to their rear, ignore them and stay out of their range. This limits the number of horde mobile units they can deploy which benefits you.

[bretwalda]

That was a very good guide CherryDanish! Thank you!

Recently I havent had enough time to give it another go, but I checked and I have a 1230 save so I will try again to fight the Georgia battle. I managed to get on a hill, however I also made some mistakes as I was thinking back a few day later and I hope I can do better with another go. (e.g. I charged downhill on the retreating foot archers with my out-of-ammo archers and they routed instead of killing the enemy...)