What's your favourite flanking shock-unit?

[KRALLODHRIB]

I love the Roman general units for their great shock action when attacking an engaged unit from the rear-seems that Alexander of Macedon's simple perfection in his use of heavy cavarlry will remain timelessly effective. This seems to be devastating even on hard settings.

Still, I find any light cavalry can do the trick if used wisely-that means making sure that they are used conservatively-keep em' on the move . Personally, I like to extract my flanking rear-action units from battle and then having them charge different steady infantry from the rear, sometimes even beofre the currently charged unit routs. Yes, some will be lost during the extraction but most will come out of it ok. I am still amazed at how responsive general units are when commanded to break off battle. Well. . .maybe it's my frantic clicking?

I love heavy infantry of all types in this role as well but usually they are constrained by their limited speed and mobility.

[Conqueror]

Elephants

Best used to manouvre them to either the left or the right flank of the enemy line, then directing them to run through the line to the other end. They'll flatten and scatter all the units on their way. If that isn't enough to make the whole army rout, follow up with a charge of your heaviest cavalry (cataphracts ideally).

[Dutch_guy]

I tend to send my berserkers to flank, doesn;t seem right - as you'd normally send them head on at the enemy battle line.

But it almost instant routs the unit it flanks.

[Taurus]

Yes definatly Elephants for me too. They are brilliant at totally breaking up a units formation and making them flee.

[Darius]

In Vanilla RTW, when in prolonged campaigns, I'd use Illyrian Mercanaries like they were going out of style. I mean they're fast, have a decent defense, and an impressive attack value, PLUS they throw javelins. Add to that the fact that they have a more compact formation than most skirmishers make them the IDEAL light infantry in my book. Once they're out of ammo, just have them run around the flanks and whack at the enemy from the sides. Heck if you've been takin a beating and are running low on forces they can even stand on the main battle line and still give an impressive show of it more often than not. So while individually they may not be the best shock units for flanking, they're availability and cost makes them incredibly useful in that regard.

In RTW BI, my current favorite is the clibarnii (sp?), they may not be very quick, but with all the armor they have and their Armor Piercing attack attribute means they not only will not stop for anything as they gallop through the lines but that even against heavily armored foes they'll provide quite a punch.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Any cavalry works for me really...

[Trithemius]

Good horse archers with no arrows left.

You have to watch them though, I mostly use them for breaking units and then riding them down while heavier troops re-target healthier enemy units.

[HarunTaiwan]

Illyrian Mercs are cheap too!

Not to mention if you keep recruiting them, they don't pop into rebel armies.

[The Stranger]

Clibirani IMMORTALS>>>>YIHAAAAA the best shock unit in BI and in RTW ARMOURED ELES ARE THE BOMB but for more precise shocking use cataphracts

[DensterNY]

Well I use pretty much any cavalry available but I'd like to answer this question from the other end of the stick. The best shock force that I encountered were with Scythian Chariots I faced in RTW commanded by the Egyptians. My first battle against them I marched forward with my solid line formation and the chariots ran over my infantry like an old Chevy Buick and routed my veterans within a minute.

I had to seriously change my tactics against the chariot heavy Egyptian armies and ended up with a extremely wide semi-circle and everyone on loose formation. Everyone fired at will until the chariots ran and then I had to quickly run everyone back into a semblance of a line to face off regular infantry and cavalry troops.

[pezhetairoi]

...That can't be right? All I had to do was command my infantry to hold, and then sword-attack the chariots, and they just crashed and burned, one on one. Strange. You must have given the chariots too much space to run around. Restrict their turning ability, and they can't bring to bear their armour-piercing scythe wheels.

[Saracen_Warrior]

He may have been fighting the egyptians early in the game. WIth higher end infantry you dont have to do much to take a one one charge with chariots. But in beggining say as seleucids with militia hoplites, chariots will shred them. But later in the game when you have to use chariots to flank because head on no longer works I found them to cumbersome to use. So basically all I'm saying is scythian chariots are great early but become less and less usefull except maybe as screeners. Theyr're an easy way to take out cavalry. As seleucids when i invaded rome, i used chariots to protect against cavalry trying to flank me.

[Lord Winter]

Best flanking calvery is probly scythian nobles.
Fast and great charge and moral
Best shock calveray probly catrachtacts
can ride over any weak formation

[Viking]

Armoured eles. They are my favourite-everything.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

For BI, I would say Graal Knights. Though few in number they cause great destruction. Vanilla I'd have to think about...

[HarunTaiwan]

With Pontus, I ended up using Hillmen - very fast and they somehow survive well in battle (after full upgrades.)