MTW Trouble against shock troops

[fredrick]

I allowed my feudal sergeants to take a viking charge. Before I could get to their flank with my urban militia my sergeants formation was compeletly broken. Whats a good unit to tie up shock troops and whats good for killing them?

Fredrick

[Duke Eugen]

Try keeping feudal men at arms behind your sergeants and counterattack thourgh the "shieldwall". target the men at arms on the enemys best units.
Use cavalry (if possible) to flank 20 royal Knights coming in from behind
is devastating.

Feudal sergeants are not "armoured" but the men at arms are. big difference!
To check unit stats pause the battle "P" then F1 it gives you armour and morale stats.

I don't have much use for feudal sergeants myself just to light for nasty melees.


good luck!!!

[Martok]

Feudal Seargents are more of an anti-cavalry unit; they're essentially medium spearmen, and as such aren't that great against shock infantry like Vikings. Duke Eugen has got the right idea: To take out Vikings and other units that have a high attack/defense ratio (Gallowglasses, Highland Clansmen, Gazi Infantry, etc.), use medium/heavy infantry such as FMAA/CMAA; and/or use medium-heavy cavalry and just mow them down. It's admittedly not a terribly elegant solution, but it is effective.

[Vladimir]

Try keeping feudal men at arms behind your sergeants and counterattack thourgh the "shieldwall".

That sounds like a bad idea and it might give you the squeeze penalty. Your best bet is to try to have the spears set to hold/hold and put them on a hill before using cav to hit them in the rear. If you're attacking try to goad them out with your missile units.

[Stormcrow]

Heh, cav works, but it's an expensive solution to a problem which can be solved much cheaper :).

Most shock troops have bad armour, meaning that they fall easily to ranged units. Just unleash a few units of archers upon the viking horde and they'll fall like mosquitos to bugspray :).

*Stormcrow*

[The Stranger]

with archers or just pin them with halbediers and after that hit them with cav or heavy infantry from behind. from that point you can just roll up the entire army

[Alexios]

Most shock troops have bad armour, meaning that they fall easily to ranged units. Just unleash a few units of archers upon the viking horde and they'll fall like mosquitos to bugspray :). Stormcrow*

Absolutely, and try using mounted units as well. With the mounted units you can easily get those poor, overzealous Vikings to give chase, thereby allowing you to mow them down from the rear or flanks with another cavalry unit.

Once while playing the English, I used an all-mercenary army consisting of 3 mounted archers, 2 Faris, 2 Bulgarian Brigands, 1 Katank (with only 6 men left), and 1 RK (the general's) to attack a rebel force of Vikings in Norway, which consisted of about 7 units in total. I would have to say this was the most fun I have ever had in an MTW battle of recent memory. I was able to get the Vikings running all over the field in just about every direction. At one point I was able to lure a unit into a valley using one of my MAs, while the rest of my missile units were perched up on the surrounding hill. There were arrows flying everywhere! That had to be the fastest I’ve ever seen a unit get vaporized (when it comes to my enemy's, anyway).

[Mooks]

I asked this exact same question 3 years ago to myself. And well...do what the muslems did with the crusaders. Wear them down and shoot them with arrows, most elite troops are overzealous fools.

[kaloioannis]

through the varangian guard or jannisary heavy infantry against shock troops they have no trouble dealing with them at all.

[Mithrandir]

through the varangian guard or jannisary heavy infantry against shock troops they have no trouble dealing with them at all.

Actually...rather dont do that...

though they will win most of the time, it will only be because of their better stats.Stats for which you have to pay a lot of money.Most shock troops have the armour piercing bonus, VG's and JHI's have high armour. So though they will do good (they'll do good vs almost anyone), its not because they're the best man for the job.

The casualties they'll take are much more expensive than when you'd attack the shock troops with archers, or even light cav. Besides the financial factor you've also got the availability to take into account, archers can be recruited from the near start and are always available, others aren't.

Welcome to The Org btw :).

[Mooks]

Actually...rather dont do that...

though they will win most of the time, it will only be because of their better stats.Stats for which you have to pay a lot of money.Most shock troops have the armour piercing bonus, VG's and JHI's have high armour. So though they will do good (they'll do good vs almost anyone), its not because they're the best man for the job.

The casualties they'll take are much more expensive than when you'd attack the shock troops with archers, or even light cav. Besides the financial factor you've also got the availability to take into account, archers can be recruited from the near start and are always available, others aren't.

Welcome to The Org btw :).

How can I get 4000 posts?

[Mithrandir]

How can I get 4000 posts?

By not making off-topic spamlike posts because they'll be deleted.

[Mithrandir]

Please refrain from messing up serious topics. Go to the front room, plenty of oppurtunity to increase your postcount there.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

I'm telling both of you that.

Stop it, or I get down with my bad self and start handing out warnings.

[milhistbuff1]

I agree with Mithrandir on this, let the archers/ units hammer the attacking shock troops for as long as possible but have them supported by a living shield wall but have it spaced far enough apart so that when the attacking unit crashes into part of the wall, your whole force doesnt get drawn into a forward defense. Once the enemy shock troops are ensnared in part of your living shield, use the other part to launch a flank attack. Simultaneously, have cavalry, preferably light, making their way on the far flank in order to box the attacking force in from the rear or catch routers that do escape. I find this works excellent with armoured swiss pikemen. Here is my typical configuration for the battle with movements included.


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It would finally look something like this.



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Hope this helps,
Mil

[caravel]

There is no good way to 'hold' infantry units like Vikings especially considering the vikings' AP attack and good morale. Trying to hold them with spears will almost always be disastrous, because those are exactly the type of units that they are designed to beat. I prefer to concentrate my missile fire on such units.

[The Stranger]

yeah that will help against the early unarmoured units but it has no use to fire at varangians unless you have crossbows or arbalasters...CATAPULTS will do a good job though

[Major Robert Dump]

When the width of the spear unit exceeds the width of the attacking unit by several columns or more, I take my unit off of hold formation and put them on engage at will so they close in around the attacking unit. Otherwise, you have a viking wedge that is fighting 1/4 of your army in the front middle while the other 3/4 stand around and wait their turn. Make them work, hit them back. You will take higher casulaties in most cases, but you will collect more heads as well.

[Mithrandir]

yeah that will help against the early unarmoured units but it has no use to fire at varangians unless you have crossbows or arbalasters...CATAPULTS will do a good job though

Varangian guards aren't shock troops, so they don't belong in this topic.
In my multiplayer games I always let loose my v3 or v4 militia sergs upon them. The armour piercing ability does the trick.