Faction eliminated!

[mfberg]

With Picts use your mounted crossbows to tire the huscarles out and then use mounted crossbows and crossbows to hurt the huscarles as they walk towards you, and when they are almost up to the crossbows rush them with your celtic warriors. Hit from behind with your mounted crossbows, and from the flanks with berserkers. Its a lot of units for just 120 huscarles, but it should get you out of the situation without many deaths.

mfberg

[caravel]

With Picts use your mounted crossbows to tire the huscarles out and then use mounted crossbows and crossbows to hurt the huscarles as they walk towards you, and when they are almost up to the crossbows rush them with your celtic warriors. Hit from behind with your mounted crossbows, and from the flanks with berserkers. Its a lot of units for just 120 huscarles, but it should get you out of the situation without many deaths.

mfberg

That's sort of what I did, minus the mounted crossbows, as I was still in the process of teching up to them, and still lost horribly. Losing domon in the first place severely dented my economy, though I did retake it in the end after another failed invasion and by inciting a rebellion then invading and defeating the rebels. I'll have another go later. Should I rush the Scots next time? I don't favour rush tactics, I see them as a bit of a cheat, but in some cases they're necessary to get your faction of the ground.

[Vladimir]

When playing the Picts, nothing is a cheat. You really need to use everything to your advantage to get them to make money and field a decent army.

[caravel]

Thanks for the tips people. I'll give it another go.

[p_nutter]

Rush early, rush often. Especially in the Viking campaign, where the best opening move is sell all your abbeys, build inns, and buy a ton of mercenaries.

As for dealing with Huscarles, umm.. yeah, they are tough. I've had some success with Pictish cavalry. Walk one unit of cavalry up to the huscarles unit, then walk away when they start moving. Ideally, try to keep the huscarles in the "Attacking" state without actually making contact. That means they are charging, which should tire them out quickly. Once you've made them charge to the edge of the map and back again, hit them in the back with a second cavalry unit. As soon as they turn round and start shredding your horses, turn the first cavalry unit around and hit them in the back with that as well - it's mostly been walking so it shouldn't be too tired. Mob them with Celtic warriors and berserkers - anything with a good attack. This works reasonably well but Jedi princes can still ruin your day.

[Ludens]

You might want to watch out for the Benny Hill-code when trying that trick. If you move your unit away from the enemy too often it will automatically go into a non-recoverable rout. I am not sure what reset the counter, but fighting (or at least a charge) should do the trick.

[caravel]

Well I've had considerably more success over the weekend. I began by ousting the Scots and concentrating on building ships. This effectively prevented any landings by the Vikings. Next I began teching up, improving farmland, and training mounted crossbows, pictish cavalry, celtic warriors, bersekers and armoured spearmen. And took Dere from the Northumbrians and conquered (the inherently rebellious) Reget. After this I was producing more Royal Bodyguards to field against the Huscarles of the Saxons who were by this time controlling most of England and Wales.

I had sent bishops to convert the vikings and had planted spies in their lands which succeeded in causing a revolt and wiping them out. I managed to bribe Hordaland but couldn't get to Jutland in time before the Vikings reappeared.

Later, having extended my fleets to total coverage, I moved against the Saxons in the south and took most of the south and plunged them into civil war, causing the Mercians to reappear...

After a time the constant fighting against Huscarles (100 men should not cause this much bother to a larger well balanced force) became tiresome (the pictish mounted crossbows overusing the reverse gear!) so when the "you have conquered 2/3 of Britain" came along, I called it a day.