battle between horses and shocktroops

[Peasant Phill]

In my current HRE early campaign I have to reïreinforce Friesland fast. So I'm forced to take on Denmark as I can then move most of my units in Saxony, Norway and Sweden (bribed Rebels in both Scandinavian countries). As I wasn't prepared for such an action I don't have the appropriate units to face the Danish king and his family.

The danes have 321 men. 101 royal knights (5 units king included), 100 spearmen, 60 vikings and 60 landsmen.
My force is more than 4 times as big, above 1300 troops. A walk in the park wasn't it for the fact that they are mostly shock troops and that I want to end up with a still seizable force. I have 100 spearmen, 40 mounted crossbows, 20 royal knights (general), 60 archers, 60 slav javelin men and then a mass of vikings, landsmen and slav warriors.

I will win no doubt about it but as I said my force has to be battle ready the moment they slayed the Danes.

I was thinking about letting my archers and mounted Xbows concentrate on the king. He doesn't have heirs yet so the Danes will turn rebel and I don't have to worry about the siege so much, besides this will mean that the rest will rout faster and more of my men will be spared.
To face their army I'll divide the rest of my force in 5 groups (=> 5 knight units). I need to split the Danes in order to benefit as much as possible from my my superior numbers and if they don't split up I can at least swarm them from all sides. The groups will use the 'hammer and anvil' tactic with a landsmen in three or four ranks ( one group will have spearmen) and two other units that will do the flanking. The javelin unit will also hit the pinned knights and my general will help where needed or charge in the back so the men will rout quicker.
I didn't forget about the Danish lands- and spearmen but the group that will be attacked by it will hold long enough for help to arrive.

Are there any better suggestions as I'm well aware the plan is far from perfect.

[Kommodus]

Try to catch the enemy knights in the forest, where your axemen will fare reasonably well against them. Since you have a few bowmen and the enemy has none, try to use this to your advantage by forcing them to come to you and fight on your terms. You don't have enough bowmen to truly damage them much, but it's worth a try.

Your plan to swamp the enemy knights with large numbers of infantry on all sides is sound enough, as long as you time things well and don't let the unit leading the assault be broken before the support arrives. The divide-and-conquer tactic should work too - as before, use your bowmen to lure one unit at a time out of the enemy line.

Of course it's always advisable to focus as much firepower as possible on the enemy general/king. His death can cause a chain rout, and the fewer enemy RKs you have to fight, the better. Expect them to inflict quite a few casualties on your army no matter what; however, if you achieve parity in the kills/losses ratio, you'll be doing well since you outnumber them so much. This is an achievable goal.

[Peasant Phill]

Well I considered the deployment in the woods but unfortunatly I don't a large enough forrest in the snapshot to hide my entire army in. Maybe I can use it for an ambush.

[macsen rufus]

The one thing I learnt in my HRE early was how to use mounted Xbows, they can do a lot of damage to the RKs, but they require micromanagement, and can be a bit fragile on the morale side. They also can whittle down the Danish Landsmenn quite nicely.

I'd go with the "prick and run" tactics, and try to pull individual units out and swamp them with your own shock troops if they stray far enough. A few rounds of this and the Danes will start getting tired, whilst hopefully your infantry will be just watching your artful missile troops do their goading dance. If you want to keep your army pretty intact you're really aiming for a rout rather than a slugging match, so evey morale trick you know will be needed. Maneouvre, terrain, surprise, and even a mounted xbow behind the enemy lines can be useful....

[Vladimir]

I almost wet my pants! You're taking on the faction leader and he doesn't have any missile troops?

Take your army and fortify on a good defensive position. Then take your mounted X-bows and pin-cushion the faction leader. If possible try to goad his knights into your kill zone and use your archers on those horsies! If you do this right (and take your time) you should suffer ~5% of the total casualties and make them go rebel.

I love archers!!!

[Alexios]

I would also advise a divide-and-conquer method, if you want to win this one without losing too many men. Your biggest obstacle, obviously, is going to be those nasty RKs. Unfortunately, you don't have very many missile units or spearmen to use on them. But RKs are well known for taking the bait on hit and run tactics, so I would use your mounted crossbows to lure them out one at a time - lead them away from their main army toward your vikings and warriors positioned in the small forest, then hit their flank.

Obviously, you should keep trying to lure the King's unit out first, because the faster you kill him off, the sooner you can rout his army, thus avoiding the bloodshed and achieving your objective. In fact, I would suspect that in order for this strategy to work, you're gonna have to kill him off fairly early, because MX-bows are usually of low morale and probably won't stay on the field long (and there's only 1 of him vs. 5 RKs!)

I think it's worth a try, though. And if it doesn't work, then you can still use the method you're speaking of, which would probably result in more casualities.

Whatever you decide, mate, good luck! And let us know how it turns out.