Tiny, yet indispensable units

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I was playing my Danish campaign (about 1180 or so) and I have been doing pretty well, the Poles are subjugated, Northern Germany is mine and my war against Hungary and France is progressing nicely, however, in my most recent battle I ran into a bit of a problem. I was defending against the Hungarians and had moved my army too far up, so I could take advantage of a hill. What I forgot was the Hungarians had brought two balistas to the battle. I didn't have any small, yet effective units around, except one Arab Infantry Merc who was hired at the beginning of the game (one man, don't ask why I hadn't fired him). So I sent him charging across the field, alone, to destroy the balistas. Despite being screened by a unit of archers, a unit of horse archers and a couple of depleted units of Szelkey he made it to the first. The crew ran away in terror and my crazed Arab merc made short work of the machine. Now, despite his willingness to charge the massed Hungarian army he was getting a tad scared of all the missiles and the large infantry force that was within a few hundred feet, but he charged the remaining balista anyway. He managed to bring the balista to 90% damage before succumbing to a final hail of arrows and falling dead, despite his bravery he was credited with 0 kills. I sent forward another small unit finished off the balista and then forced the Hungarians to charge my defensive positions. They were easily slaughtered.

Never again will I scoff when a single man charges a siege weapon, thank you nameless Arab mercenary!

Anyone else have incredible tales of tiny units (1-10 on large size or so) playing important roles in battles, or at least achieving great feats of martial skill or luck?

[Del Arroyo]

I would like to make this tribute to nameless Inbred-Lazy-Hedonist-Drunkard Heir--

Oh, nameless Inbred-Lazy-Hedonist-Drunkard Heir, it was you who were to inherit the throne. Then you were sent into battle alone. Despite the overwhelming numbers of enemy inside the castle, you charged the fortified gate bravely. You never saw that hot oil coming.

Oh, nameless Inbred-Lazy-Hedonist-Drunkard Heir, may you rest in peace.

DA

[ShadowMagnet]

During my Spanish campaign I raised from a child a general who although never made it to the throne (that nephew bastard got in the way), found his home and princedom on the battlefield. Never bothered topping up his unit so after five decades of campaigning against the Almos (and gaining cool three stars in the process alongside "impressive scars", "expert attacker" and "skillful risky attack" traits) his unit was down to one man. V11, mind. During the battle you could almost hear him click when locking on a target. Few minutes later he would drown in a sea of dead. Seriously cool fella, him.
I only regenerated his unit after High rolled in so that he could get all the upgrades. If I had a choice I would still have preferred him to have stayed as a single knight tho. He was that good.
If I dig up that savegame somewhere I might take some pics of him cutting through units of FMAA and FS like there was no tomorrow.
If you tell me how I will also try and get to the unit log so as to see how many kills he actually had to his name (recently changed to Lord Rodriguez).
Share the tales of bravery fellow generals!

[NodachiSam]

I also had a blood thirsty prince who found himself with only a few bodyguards by the end of his career. He had impressive scars and had 11 valour, not much else to say

[Ludens]

I would like to make this tribute to nameless Inbred-Lazy-Hedonist-Drunkard Heir--

Oh, nameless Inbred-Lazy-Hedonist-Drunkard Heir, it was you who were to inherit the throne. Then you were sent into battle alone. Despite the overwhelming numbers of enemy inside the castle, you charged the fortified gate bravely. You never saw that hot oil coming.

Oh, nameless Inbred-Lazy-Hedonist-Drunkard Heir, may you rest in peace.

Amen!

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I would like to make a tribute to ten Saxon Husscarles, who led the desperate charge of a ragged army against the Polish and won through to save many English women and children.

May you rest in peace my friends.

[antisocialmunky]

The starting unit of Naptha you get in Naples as the Byzantine once killed about 200 rebels over the period of 2 rebellions and 3 religious uprisings. They eventually got shot to death by Pope funded archers, but it did allow my 6 star general to start whipping the Huns since my ships were hugging the African Coast at the time.

[Bregil the Bowman]

The best small units I ever fought were controlled by the AI. It was my second campaign game, I was England and well into the invasion of Spain. The Spanish king had two stacks in Aragon and one in Valencia which held only two men. So I pitched the best of my army into Aragon and left a stack of "odds and sods" in Valencia to cut off the Spanish retreat. I auto-resolved the Valencia battle.

The two Spanish soldiers (Royal Knights, ex-princes) killed 155 men and routed the rest.

I was so shocked I replayed the battle properly, to see what these War Gods could do. Version two went a little differently. I sent in two units of (turncoat) jinettes, on set on engage and one on hold formation, and both knights went down in a shower of javelins. One of the pinning jinettes died, possibly hit in the back by his own side.

Anyone else seen such variance beteen the auto-resolve and a proper battle?

[EatYerGreens]

thank you nameless Arab mercenary!

May he be nameless no more!

Assuming you have battle logfiles set to active, simply refer back to the logfile for that battle. Being a single-man unit, he is unit leader and his name will be given there. Being large files, just load into notepad, Ctrl-F for 'Find' and search for 'Arab'.

I frequently take an F2 screenshot of the end of battle kills/losses summary and that's another place you might find it.

[Graphic]

I miss Kensai's

[Uesugi Kenshin]

How do you activate them? (logfiles) Appears there will be a tomb to the unknown Arab soldier in Denmark of all places...

He was recruited there so it seems appropriate.

I just retrained my valor 8 7 star general because of high period, hopefully I'll get him up to 11 before Late sets in..

[Roark]

My favourite one-man unit is Harry the Hashishin assassin. Valour 12 harbinger of chaos.

I've used him to kill generals 3 or 4 times, by leaving him hidden on the battlefield for ambushing Generals within depleted units (as suggested in Frogbeastegg's guide). It's basically a lottery as to whether I correctly guess the opposing army's path of approach in defensive battles.

He has shot a 6-star Byzantine king in the head, and defeated a 4 star CMAA unit of 20 men singlehandedly. Needless to say, both armies did a very good impression of a snowflake in a microwave. He has accomplished many other mindbuggering feats of bravery.

Harry lives in Constantinople, enjoys long walks on the beach, killing cavalry in the forest, and getting stoned off his nut.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Hmm mabye my Arab was a relative of Harry, he certainly was as brave and maybe Harry taught him the whole arrow dodging routine?

[EatYerGreens]

@ Roark,

I'm still chuckling over some choice phrases there. I'm just trying to picture what an MBFoB medal would look like.


Kenshin-san,

there's a tickbox for activating battle logfiles, somewhere in the game menus. I forget exactly which one but suggest trying 'Game' sub-menu first.

Failing that, ISTR it being on the same page as realism stuff, ammo, morale, fatigue etc. ?

I've just leafed through both manuals and can't find any reference to it at all! I think it does get a mention in the VI readme file though.

I may come back and edit this post after my next game session, when I'll double check which menu it's in.