suicide missions and bait

[gaijinalways]

I sometimes accidentally have troops get suicided, in this case some hobilars I forgot took out a ballista and stood around too long, then were chased off the screen by the French royal calvary, the general no less. While the general was busy chasing the hobilars off screen, I got to better ground and drove off some of the other French troops, drowning them in xbows and arrows. Finally the French general comes back, and runs up hill into my troops after deiciding not to get missiled to death. He didn't die, but he did run off (after losing most of his comrade cavalry), though surprisingly, the French didn't surrender, and actually held on for quite some time with my own general nearly getting deluged by some peasants when he went archer hunting. Luckily, my archers and some xbowmen, who had long since used up their arrows on militia and spearmen, and archers, attacked as well as my tired soldiers, and they routed the remaining army with my few calvary and archers (they can be pretty fast) cutting down a lot of the fleeing troops.

But to get back to my main point, when do you intenionally suicide troops to distract of deflect a portion of the enemy's troops? I have even used foot soldiers and missile types to attract someone, not always necessarily into an ambush as sometimes that wasn't possible. But just getting some troops out of the way, in some cases cavalry, often made some other troop movement easier.

[Sensei Warrior]

But to get back to my main point, when do you intenionally suicide troops to distract of deflect a portion of the enemy's troops? I have even used foot soldiers and missile types to attract someone, not always necessarily into an ambush as sometimes that wasn't possible. But just getting some troops out of the way, in some cases cavalry, often made some other troop movement easier.

The main reason for me to suicide troops lately is to avoid, what I call a Spanish Pincer. While playing the English, I was fielding attacking armies of 4 Hobbies, 3 Archers, 3 Fyrdmen, 5 melee (mix clansmen and UM), and the General Unit. Unfortunately, the Spanish were fielding armies of mostly Jinettes, a couple of Archers and a couple of Peasants. Somewhere around 10 units of Jinettes were on the field at any one time. These units would split into 3 parts, a frontal assault and from both sides. Typically my Hobbies, which are no match for Jinettes, were sacrificed to stop the wing attacks until the archers had a chance to decimate the frontal assault. I couldn't split up the archers to stop the Jinnetes because there weren't enough archers to make a significant impact and my Spears couldn't make contact to stop them either. Could I have managed it better? Perhaps, but it worked.

Typically, when possible I will feint or try to draw with units. Usually my light cav is what takes the brunt of any such tactic, although I have used speedy infantry to the same effect (such as the Clansmen).

Another move I am not too proud to do is intentionally throw a unit out to be viced so as to get the attacking units to present me with their 6 o'clock. The unit viced tends to get hammered (high morale units work well here).

My biggest OOPS suicide is while using missile cav, generally that would be me not paying attention, only to have the unit get run over or viced.

[matteus the inbred]

Yeah, hate hate hate jinettes. Hobilars have no chance in a fight, but sometimes suicide is the only way. I think the best tactic is to distract or hold the jinettes and pound everything else. Once the Spanish have nothing but jinettes left you can swamp them with cheap archers and spears and shoot them to pieces.
Main uses for suicide troops involve sending merc units like dismounted druzhina or Arab infantry to slow down the opposition if I need to redeploy, beat them to a decent position or shoot them up a lot.
Bridge battles...pinning the enemy so I can shoot them up, or so I can sneak round and use the other bridge in 'two bridge' battlemaps.
Mercs are good for suicide (unless it's a very rare or very good merc unit), particularly Rus spears, armoured spears. The two I already mentioned do a nice job of occupying woods and dragging the opposition into a nasty protracted scrap in the trees.
Peasants have terrible morale and are no good for this sort of thing really (certain unit commander V&Vs apart) but they do make decent bait for an impetuous enemy.

[caravel]

I managed to pull off the perfect feigned attack yesterday. Fatimids (Egypt)/early/hard. I have a good long standing alliance with the Byzantine, the Turks are no more, I have Syria and Edessa and the Byzantine have Armenia and Rum, which is fine by me. I got annoyed by the Sicillians sinking the Byzantine Shipping and trying to take Naples, and decided to wipe them out. So I also control Malta and Sicily. The Almohad lands in north africa were annexed some years before. My navy is expanding and income is flooding in. Attacking Sicily did not appear to be an easy venture. The Sicillians had plenty of Royal Knights, Archers, Feudal Sergeants, etc totalling about 1500 men. I deployed only 3 Saharan Cavalry, 1 Ghulam BG, 2 units of Ghazis and 2 of Saracens, no missiles, around 800 men. Bascially after the initial manerouvering I succeeded in drawing out the enemy archers slightly in front of the spears and charged the Saharan Cavalry front on while working the Ghazis and other units up the flanks. The Saharan Cav routed about 3 units of archers then I pulled them back as the enemy cav units flooded down the hill at them... only to collide perfectly with the Saracens and get clobbered from behind by the Ghazis. Their King died in the melee. Once the rout started the SC went in again to mop up routers and the day was won.

Note: To parties interested in camels. All of my camels were tied up defending Syria, Edessa and Antioch (nothern Byzantine front) with my 6, 7 and 9 and star generals. I'm currently developing Syria for it's Nizaris and Assassins, so though the Alliance with the Byzantine is going well, I'm not about to take any risks.

[ajaxfetish]

I'll occasionally send units to their death to save others. If enemy cavalry charges my archers and for some reason I have no spears or polearms nearby I'll send swordsmen or my own cavalry through to stop them while my archers retreat to safety and I get the right kind of troops there. It all depends on what units are more important to my overall battle strategy.

Ajax

[King Kurt]

When I am attacked by large numbers, I usually fight - on auto-calc - as it usually says that if I retreat to castle etc, it will fall straight away. So I fight, loose, then retreat into the castle anyway and usually will be then designated as OK for a few years - giving me time for a rescue attack from other provinces or forcing an assault which inflicts heavy casualties on the attacker, making retaking the province easier.
I also like suicide/ fient attacks - usually light cavalry pulling off knights etc so they come back too late and usually tired.

[gaijinalways]

That's true, sometimes your units survive running away, but being scared out of their wits. Also, the tricky part is getting your sacrifise units close enough to draw a more valuable or annoying enemy unit after it. Sometimes the enenmy will just chase it away but not follow it off the battle field. I have even used peasants this way as a unit in the woods to draw off spearmen or some foot soldier that I don't want pounding my line. Of course, even better is when you can missile to death the chasing enemy unit as they chase after your peasants when they inevitably rout .

[matteus the inbred]

On that subject, I find that AI will often become 'obsessed' with chasing down an archer/cavalry unit or more usually your General, and will sidetrack multiple units after such a target, thus allowing you to flank them or concentrate your attack on the rest of their army.
Naturally, when using one's general to lure people around, caution is advised! I no longer use my King to lure archer fire in bridge battles, a common tactic with Daimyos in Shogun, but, as I have found, too dangerous in MTW (feasible because the faction leader's unit always regenerates after battles).

[Sensei Warrior]

On that subject, I find that AI will often become 'obsessed' with chasing down an archer/cavalry unit or more usually your General, and will sidetrack multiple units after such a target, thus allowing you to flank them or concentrate your attack on the rest of their army.
Naturally, when using one's general to lure people around, caution is advised! I no longer use my King to lure archer fire in bridge battles, a common tactic with Daimyos in Shogun, but, as I have found, too dangerous in MTW (feasible because the faction leader's unit always regenerates after battles).

I found that out as well. At the onset of a battle I sometimes catapult my King into something and then watch the opponents reaction to it. Often, their whole army will move to engage the King's unit and leave themselves wide open to a number of very nice counters. The King is typically sturdy enough to tolerate it, and the unit regenerates.

I also agree with ajaxfetish, that most of my suicides are at the moment. Whatever unit being the closest takes the brunt until help arrives. If I plan a suicide then I try a unit that's sturdy, with decent morale, and cheap if I can.

Be very careful with missiles and Artillery. I once lost my King from a catapult shot to the head, OUCH.

[gaijinalways]

I had an interesting battle last night. The Germans, after breaking our alliance over the flimsy excuse that the Italians were still at war with me (over 15 years, several cease fire offers refused) attacked me in Venice (where I routed them) and then in Milan.

I had my two cavalry units forward in an island of woods, with the rest of my troops comfortably perched on a small mountain with blocked access on one side. I attacked a lone royal knight with 20, and the jedi knight routed my knights ! To make matters worse, I tryed to scare some archers off with my other group of royal knights and maybe take down a few of the archers, but didn't reckon with the speed of the reteating archers and the peasants who roared forward to protect them , with the fighting, then pulling my knights out and losing almost half their numbers. The knights intially routed by the jedhi knight fled back toward my waiting troops, then flanked by another 20 enemy knights (who I saw earlier and forgot about). Finally I get 9 knights back and have my foot soldiers attack the 20 enemy knights, finally routing them and smashing them from behind with my other knights who had been routed by the peasants. The Jedhi knight fled as well (couldn't kill him ).

This same cavalry later helped kill ungodly numbers when I did a troop rush and cav rush (including my general in a third unit of 18) on the archers and their supporting troops when they attacked. For a battle I initially was going to shelf (after losing half my knights in both cav groups in the early portion of the battle to 3 enemy archers) I ended up killing close to 700 troops with losses of my own numbering some 131 ( missile fire/fighting on the slopes before the enemy broke). Not bad for a day's work, may even give those boys a day off until the next German slaughter, I mean invasion !

[macsen rufus]

Be very careful with missiles and Artillery. I once lost my King from a catapult shot to the head, OUCH.

Artillery seems to have a high chance of killing the general - if it can hit the unit at all, then it's the general that gets it. That's why I like to have a catapult when I'm on the defensive