Mongol Light Cav

[edRonin]

Finally a Mongol Cav unit. And this one looks like it will be cool. Here is the text from the Community site:

Mongol Light Cav.
The Mongol Light Cavalryman is the mainstay of Mongol armies from Peking to Poland. They are very fast, equipped with axes and powerful bows, and are dangerous opponents both at a distance and in hand to hand combat. Their ferocity and determination are legendary.

Sounds like they might be faster than YC. I assume since the have "powerful bows" they will be more effective than CA. Might have more range or more killing power. Plus they sound like they will be able to hold their own in a melee. They will probably have high HtH attack and moral since they are ferocious and determined.

This sounds like it will be a very effective unit. The question is how to counter it. If as I speculate they are faster than YA they can run around the battlefield outmanuevering any other unit.

[Tenchimuyo]

I guess the only unit can beat it is the HC.

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A great warrior never reveal his true skills....

[lanza27]

Like i said on my forum, the description of this unit as the "mainstay" of the mongol army has a big impact on my thoughts of its roll. The YS is described the same way for the Japanese army if you remember.

I think the MLC will be slower than YC but will be able to obliterate them in hand to hand. This way you can catch them but you must flank them with YC to kill them.

I think the MLC will be good at everything. There will be a faster unit, there will be a stronger unit, there will be a more defensive unit. However, like the YS, the MLC will be good at all of these things but master of none.

Just my opinion

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Lanza
Shogun Totalwar Hints and Strategies
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[Vanya]

Not only that... when they have spent all their arrows, they can release one end of their bow string and use it to flail their opponents!

Now you know why they are so deadly: an axe in one hand and a whip in the other! Their weakness is poor balance, so the birds (if fauna is turned on) can drop their bomas on them and knock them off their high horse!

[edRonin]

Hey Lanza.

I would suspect that Mongol Cav would still be vulnerable to Yari of any sort. So I would think that YC should beat MLC in a HtH fight. MLC might be effective in hunting CA. I assume they will be faster than CA and will be much better HtH. If the Mongol side does not have YC you will use MLC in that role.

What the Mongol side really needs is a shock troop. So hopefully MLC will fulfill that role.

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All your base are belong to us

[Geisha]

Does this make 9 units... I thought there were only going to be 6 new units... Oh well, who's counting?

[Hirosito]

i think they said 6 types or they are just being nice

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Hirosito Mori

A warrior's wisdom is shown in the treating of his defeated opponent

[Hoichi]

Keep in mind, for the campaign at least -- and if it is historical, there won't be any YC or HC, just CA...if it is historical.

Yoritomo

[Magyar Khan]

mongols have at least 3 different types of cav

light cav
heavy cav
elites (heavy)

[Dark Phoenix]

I think that these could be a good counter for the monks. They would not make anymore units that dont have a straight counter like monks would they?

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DoragonPhoenix of the Clan Doragon

[Satake]

Great so now we'll get to see the mongol light cav rushers.. pff... íf they are so super why are they called LIGHT?

[edRonin]

The more I think about this unit the more I think they will be slightly better than CA. The big factor will be the moral boost so they can operate away from the main force and not rout so easily. I am speculating that they will have better kill power while skirmishing or HtH than CA. They will also need to make it slower than YC, so that there is a counter to it. If they make the unit any more powerful than what I speculate above it will be too powerful. It would still be vulnerable to Yari though.

I certainly hope they come out with a Mongolian Heavy Cav.

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All your base are belong to us

[Ii Naomasa]

Well, if you want to get technical, especially if you're going by European standards, cavalry that have bows and small melee weapons as support ARE light cavalry. The real question would be how heavy cavalry ever got into Shogun. I'm not criticizing Shogun, but HC are more along the lines of the heavy lance horse units that were in the Braveheart movie - large, thunderous horses with usually heavily armored men with thick lances for smashing through ranks. Between the lighter armor, lack of heavy lances, and rather small horses, the Japanese would've had very few units of heavy cavalry in the tradtional sense.

I don't see too much problem with light cavalry being effective for the 13th century. The problem that may arise is one some of us feared from the beginning: the difference in warfare between 13th and 16th centuries causing imbalances in unit statistics. One has to remember that cohesive units of spearmen didn't really exist in large numbers at the time(in fact, the general tactic of walls of spearmen to offset horsemen was still a novel, if not unheard of, idea in most of the world). But when it comes to multiplayer (and single player, if they don't want to replace the spear units with nagamaki or other similar group), you need to make the Mongolian cavalry worth the effort, even against troops outside of its designed time frame. Therefore, they may give the cavalry and other 13th century units better stats than it normally would get to compete with 15th century troops. Hopefully CA/DT doesn't go overboard with this. After all, if you want to get too serious about it all, cavalry archers would also be much more effective, as they were the elite Japanese units of the time (then again, they rarely fought as units in the 13th century).

[Tachikaze]

Just to elaborate on the universal definition of heavy cavalry, the phrase has had different meanings.

1) heavily armored men on horseback

2) cavalry with armored horses (like cataphracti)

3) cavalry with shock weapons, as opposed to missile weapons

Shogun's HCs fullfil at least one of these categories. But they definitely don't fullfil #2, because the Japanese weren't into armoring horses.

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Weapons are not auspicious.
He who beautifies them,
Enjoys killing others.