All hounds (of culann) celt armies

**Dorkus** · 10-14-2005, 21:00

Highly encourage people to try this, if only for kicks. As long as you have a couple bodyguard units to draw arrow fire, and keep the hounds tightly clustered (set them on top of each other), it's incredibly powerful.

Of course, there's not a lot of micro involved, since the hounds go berserk immediately. But it's a helluva lot of fun to watch. You've got this massive ball of raging giants bouncing from one unit to the next (instantly cause a rout in most cases)

And given that it takes a mere 1 round temple to build hounds, you can build them up quickly (and retrain them at the warfront very easily).

**antisocialmunky** · 10-15-2005, 03:16

Another crazy insane and predictable spam army:-p.

**Kekvit Irae** · 10-15-2005, 05:46

The main problem is that they will take heavy casualties when assaulting castles due to their lack of armor. Artillery fire from a castle tower chews them up and spits them out.

**Seasoned Alcoholic** · 10-15-2005, 14:08

Best thing I like about beserkers is when they cut through multiple enemies with their 'special moves'. Discovered this in a siege, the enemy were either wavering or had broken whilst defending their walls. My lombards simply jumped in and hacked them to death - this resulted in many of the enemy being thrown over both sides of the walls

Was a good laugh, but I've never seen this happen on the battlefield, suppose they ain't got the room to manouver and showboat

Got a couple of screenshots of what happened here

**Dorkus** · 10-15-2005, 16:20

Yes, one guy can literally kill 10-15 men with one of those spinning attacks. They are literally more powerful than elephants or chariots in launching power and kill rate (unlike with elephants and chariots, EVERY UNIT launched into the air dies!!!)

The special moves seem to occur most often (or at least more effectivelY) right before, or immediately after a unit has broken. This could be because broken units suffer severe defense penalities, but I don't think so -- I tried pitting upgraded hounds against low defense units (such as peasants) and did not see significantly more or more effective special moves (until the units were about to rout)

The special move also seems to occur more often when hounds are bunched in one huge glob. This may have to do with morale effects -- perhaps the "frighten infantry" effect stacks? -- or it may have to do with the fact that they will not launch special moves when being engaged (or engaged on a flank).

Two other benefits of mass bunching:

1. THe hounds stick together if you start them in a huge bunch; they jump from one non-routing unit to the next. This is beneficial because it allows your cav to more effectively support them (and your general to grant bonuses to all of them, rather than the handful that are berserking nearby)

2. It prevents single units from running off and getting themselves killed. In particular, the berserk state (despite the in-game message about being "oblivious to the world") seems linked to morale. You cannot continue to berserk, and often will not initially berserk, if morale penalties (from superior enemy #, exposed flanks, unit loss, general far away, etc) are too steep.

**Dorkus** · 10-15-2005, 16:23

Originally Posted by kekvitirae

The main problem is that they will take heavy casualties when assaulting castles due to their lack of armor. Artillery fire from a castle tower chews them up and spits them out.

Wellall you need to do is grab control of one gatehouse, preferably one close to the path that leads to the city square.

Then just send the hounds through and walk them toward the city square. The pathing AI still has serious problems in the city square (why hasn't this been fixed!!!), which is especially problematic since you have no control over berserking hounds. But once the hounds get in one big mass in the square, they destroy everything.

**Kekvit Irae** · 10-15-2005, 22:18

Originally Posted by Dorkus

Wellall you need to do is grab control of one gatehouse, preferably one close to the path that leads to the city square.

Then just send the hounds through and walk them toward the city square. The pathing AI still has serious problems in the city square (why hasn't this been fixed!!!), which is especially problematic since you have no control over berserking hounds. But once the hounds get in one big mass in the square, they destroy everything.

You contridicted yourself. Bodyguards (cavalry) cannot capture towers, and neither can Hounds in berserk mode (and they will go berserk when they near the towers). Having anything else would not be an all-Hounds army