Vandals (BI faction)

[frogbeastegg]

Guide.

[RabidGibbon]

Started a VH/M Campaign today.

The first thing I did was race directly west as fast as I could, eager to avoid a confrontation with the Huns. Once I felt I'd pust some distance between us, I started rearranging my Stacks. I put all the horde peasents and "Regular" army units together in a few stacks that I always kept near the centre of my Horde. The thinking here being that when I settled down the peasents would be more useful providing numbers than anything they could do in comabat, and the regular army units would be needed to garrison the cities I chose to settle down in.

I moved peacefully through some rebel lands and Lombardi before taking a left turn and crossing the alps into the western roman empire. I then attacked Meidolanieum (sp) Ravenna and Rome, timing the sieges to end similtaneously. The plan worked, although the Romans made a strong effort to relieve Ravenna.

Although Meidolanieum revolted a few turns later I've been able to take the cut off city of Tarentum, and eventually retake Meidolanieum, which essentially gives me all of Italy as a spring board to take Iberia and North Africa.

[Laman]

Only just started a game with the Vandals, the first thing i did was goin west. I'm just outside the WRE's border at the Danube. Since the amount of non-horde units is relatively small I've planned to cross northern Italy and southern Gaul, and possibly sack one or more cities on the way, but avoiding battles that I don't have to fight, and then settle in Iberia, which should hopefully be more quiet and defendable than Italy. After making sure I can defend myself there, I will first invade Africa, and take Italy last. I'll let you know wether it works.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Welcome Lofman!

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Welcome to the forums Lofman!

[Laman]

My plan worked. I sacked Mediolanum and that town in Narbonensis on the way, and once in Iberia I managed with almost no trouble at all conquer all four cities. With an acceptable economy and a strong army, my invasion of Africa was unfortunately delayed due to an alliance I had with the ERE. When going the war against the Berbers, they and ERE signed an alliance before i could assault Tingi, forcing a peace, and I didn't feel like declaring war on them again so soon. Of the hordes the Sarmatians did come, but at that time all they had left was one almost full stack, and one very small stack, so they where promptly defeated. Currently fighting the WRE in southern Gaul, but I'm training an army that I will send directly to Carthage.

[Laman]

Thanks for the welcome. Odd thing, your posts wasn't there yesterday.

[Craterus]

Started a Vandal campaign round littlegannon's house yesterday and continued it today. We will be playing it whenever I go round there.

Anyway, we went for a slightly different route. Allied with the Huns, and sacked the Roxolani. Roxolani horde attacked some of our hordes as we left the town. Those two hordes were killed against the 4 Roxolani.

We continued south into the Sassanid territory, sacking as we went along. By Hatra, we decided to cut in and take Antioch. Very poorly fought siege here and lost an entire stack of men. Decided that settling sooner than later would be a good idea. Sieged Alexandria and settled. We then marched the faction leader across to take Cyrene and exterminated the population. Then sent armies across to Crete and Athens. Couldn't make it to Athens cos of pirates and had to turn back. When we eventually got there, we sieged and massacred.

Alexandria rebelled back to the ERE (tried to enforce Paganism ). In Athens, we built an army and sailed it over to take Ephesus. Began to fight the battle, but then I had to go, I only hope that we won. By taking Ephesus, we have a nice little trading square.

By wreaking havoc in ERE, the ERE rebels have appeared and taken almost half of their settlements, and we have caused them amjor problems.

Roxolani horde finally settled in the middle of modern day France and the Huns settled in south France. Goths went for Rome but were beaten and are now standing around with barely enough men (including horde units) to make a stack. The Allemanni and Saxons were wiped out. And the Celts are taking over Britain. More to come...

EDIT: Forgot to say, ERE have been entirely kicked off of Greece, apart from Salona which is looking very lonely over there...

Constantinople is being heavily guarded by a "Thracian Rebel" stack.

Sassanids have more territory than ERE now. Pretty cool.

[McDoogle]

there is on one of those split screen things while loading etc, a group of men in HORNED HELMETS with axes and shields destroying a villiage.

I have search through the custom battle thing and havnt been able to find these units. Does anyone have any ideas as to who they are and who they belong to?

[Dagobert II]

Hey All;

Another Note: I do find that compared to other factions, the Vandals could be considered a good introduction to the BI concept. The manual is (after all) brief, and it does outline Hordes. The Vandals do not have a
lofty territory goal, yet challenging because of the need to build a navy,
(which is their historical pretext) and their numerous enemies.

[Australianus]

Hello,
I am new to BI and have misplayed the HUNS twice. I have conquered relatively worthless settlements and made the mistake of settling. The horde disappeared. I have seen some threads talking about using spearmen to settle to avoid losing cavalry units but what if they are not strong enough to conquer a place?
What is the best way to conquer a place and yet choose who settles in it?

[Rilder]

the vandals were my first "start as Horde" faction to start as mostly cause they had actuall infantry, to many calvary but not as many as those damn huns which have all calvary.... i hate calvary :P and the vandles were pretty fun, i sacked all the way to the Iberian Peninsula with minimul losses and absolutly no use of those damn horse archers that come with them

[GrandInquisitor]

i think i was lucky. playing as the vandals, who remain my favorite for some reason, i also went to iberia. i conquered corduba and the city north of it. really, because i felt the need for a challenge, i actually just moved there. i sacked nothing until reaching corduba. after taking carthago nova and tingi, i started consolidating, thinking that there would be some mass invasion. as the alemanni, i had dealt with huge roman, saxon, frankish, and finally hunnic incursions before feeling safe. this time, i built some armies and marched straight across the rest of north africa, iberia, and france meeting no resistance. i later found that all the horde civilizations had been crushed, and the only power left was the ERE -- which fell into civil war and shambles thereafter. i never had one major battle. looking back, i suppose i left several people too strong, and it turned into a mutual extermination for my enemies

[teja]

Hello,
I am new to BI and have misplayed the HUNS twice. I have conquered relatively worthless settlements and made the mistake of settling. The horde disappeared. I have seen some threads talking about using spearmen to settle to avoid losing cavalry units but what if they are not strong enough to conquer a place?
What is the best way to conquer a place and yet choose who settles in it?

As explained somewhere: Do use the Horde strategy! Here are a few points:

1st Conquer and loot any reasonable city on the march and elswhere.
2nd Move into the rich Roman territories, conquer and destroy there too!
3rd Establish a path of Rebel cities this way deep into the locations you want to settle in later. These guys will not follow you and never attack your new homes. They will be poor victims for you later and a good buffer for any following Horde
4th Choose a territory to settle in away from other fractions but Romans. Good places are any peninsuars like Italy or Spain.
5th Lay siege at the same time on all 3 cities you want to become your new home. Taking those cities means you will loose all Horde units at once. Time your sieges that you will get any of those cities at the same time, so you will not miss forces when you need them!
6th You are now rich because of all the lootings and have choosen, almost well upgraded Roman cities as your home. Reestablish order and make a regular army that strikes fear in any opponets heart.

[Australianus]

Teja,
Thanks for the advice.