Ouch! Help with huscarles

[Tony Furze]

Im playing as the Irish in a vanilla VI campaign on Hard-I ve come up against the Saxon Huscarles and,while I have the armour piercing units, they get scared just looking at those guys. (I do,too). So they don t even get a chance to throw their javelins.

Some bonnachts did a good allout all-or-nothing stand 1 on 1 on a hill as a side show but I lost the battle overall.

Any advice at how to shake these guys (the huscarles) in their armour?

[r johnson]

Cavelry, once an enemy cavelry charge against my huscarles wiped out nearly all the troops with only around 5-8 troops still alive running for there live (quite rightly). Some reason huscarles are useless against cavalry, must be the huge axes.

[Tony Furze]

Thanks, r johnson.

What sort of cav were they? The Irish are a bit poor on Cav as it is having only Royals (small unit) and horsemen (not the best cav) but I think I can muster up some mercs-Viking Raiders and my favourite, the Mtd Sgts.

[Geezer57]

Your best infantry matchup as Irish against Huscarles are your Gallowglasses, preferably led by a high-command General and supported by javelin-tossing troops (Kerns or Bonnachts). You'll want to take advantage of every tactical plus you can find: terrain (be higher than the Huscarles), outnumbering, flanking/rear attacks, constant missle fire, etc.

Gallowglasses are armor-piercing and have higher charge and attack values than Huscarles, although their defense, armor, and morale are lower. As long as they stay fighting, they'll damage the enemy. So upgrade them as much as possible, especially for morale, as otherwise they'll run before finishing the job!

Try to fight all your battles against Huscarles defensively - let them come to your battle line, wearing them down with skirmishing tactics (Kerns & Dartmen). If a Huscarle unit veers off course from your main line and starts chasing a skirmisher, so much the better. That takes him away from the focus of the fight and just tires him out - when he does finally arrive at the battle, you'll hopefully have defeated the rest of his friends and will outnumber him significantly.

Also remember that your troops cost much less to build and maintain than Huscarles. You can build two Gallowglass units for every Huscarle, and their combined support every year is lower than theirs. You may not win every battle, but as long as you damage them sufficiently, you'll win the war in the long run.

[caravel]

Some sound advice from Geezer there. I agree entirely, with that strategy. You should try to improve the Gallowglasses morale as much as possible and try to use them as flankers. The best cav to use against Gallowglasses are the Royal Bodyguards or the Mounted Nobles. You can position defensively forceing the Huscarles to come to your Bonnachts, inflict as much damage with those, then charge them head on and in the flanks with your cavalry and bring the gallowglasses into the rear. They shouldn't last long. Unfortunately these sort of extreme measures are needed to deal with Huscarles as they're an insanely overpowered unit that can wipe the floor with anything else in that the opposition can throw at them. If you fight them one on one with any other unit you'll lose every time. A single Huscarle unit has the capacity to chew through about 4000 peasants, 3 units of Royal Bodyguard or about 5 units of Celtic warriors before breaking into a sweat.

[Derfasciti]

I am not very experienced with this but i've heard that Irish dartmen, or any missile units, are very good against them. Hope that little tidbit helps.

[bamff]

Derfasciti is right - dartmen can do the job (as I discovered to my cost) - but Geezer57 is also right - the key is numbers!

You need to be able to engineer a situation where you have a few expendable units to pin the huskies down so that your little armour piercing dudes can do their deadly work. Yes, you are going to suffer casualties - but you have to break a few eggs if you want to make a cake, right? Ideally these "pinners" need to have sufficiently high morale to cop the beating that they will have to wear...otherwise you are just courting disaster. So hold them still, then get your dartmen and bonnachts into position to rain death on the saxons.

Another issue worth noting - Huscarles, with all of their heavy armour will tire a lot quicker than your speedy Irishmen. Run 'em around for a bit to wear them out.

[Martok]

I am not very experienced with this but i've heard that Irish dartmen, or any missile units, are very good against them. Hope that little tidbit helps.

GAH! Nasty Irish Kerns bring death to my beloved Huscarles. (I can't kill what I can't catch.) GAH!

[caravel]

I am not very experienced with this but i've heard that Irish dartmen, or any missile units, are very good against them. Hope that little tidbit helps.

Dartmen throw darts, not javelins, so Bonnachts or Kerns would be better. The Bonnachts, being a full size unit, can hurl a full volley so they deal more potential damage. Also the javelins are armour piercing as opposed to darts which are not, IIRC.

[naut]

Also remember that your troops cost much less to build and maintain than Huscarles. You can build two Gallowglass units for every Huscarle, and their combined support every year is lower than theirs. You may not win every battle, but as long as you damage them sufficiently, you'll win the war in the long run.

Sounds like a war of attrition.

[Geezer57]

An exercise recommended for players new to skirmishing: set up a custom battle, for the AI take a single Joms Viking (an uber Huscarle) at 725 florins, for yourself take a pair of Irish Kerns at 250 florins. Set your Kerns far enough apart that the Joms can't attack them both simultaneously, but close enough that they can both reach the enemy with javelins.

Learn to recognize when the enemy unit has picked one of yours as a target, then take the other Kern off skirmish and target the Joms for missle attack - let the other Kern stay in skirmish mode and run. Keep this up as long as possible, only taking manual control of your target unit if it gets close to a map edge or corner - you don't want to let it get trapped, as it will be chewed up beyond salvage if it gets stuck in melee. If one unit runs out of ammo, try to get the enemy to switch targets, so the one with javelins can chase/fire instead. Never engage in melee until both Kerns are out of ammo, and the Joms Viking is totally exhausted, then (and only then) attack simultaneously from flank/rear. Done right (it requires lots of micromanagement), your cheap skirmishing force will defeat an elite force costing almost three times its own.

It's much easier using faster mounted units like Pictish Mounted Crossbows, but can be done (with practice) by most foot skirmishers. Once you've won with foot skirmishers, you'll learn to love almost any fleet armor-piercing missile troop against slow heavily-armored foot elites. It's almost like the "dance with Death" in bullfighting, where the two opponents are physically completely mismatched, but the outcome can determined by skill and cunning.

One side note: javelin troops find it much easier to target the enemy if they are stationary (and preferably at an elevation to the target). This often requires some sort of "pinning" unit, to fix the enemy in place. The preferred type for this duty is a strong spear unit, but unfortunately Viking Invasion is short on selection for this type. There are Fyrdmen (available to Mercians, Northumbrians, and Saxons), Viking Thralls (Viking faction only), Dismounted Nobles (only 40 men - all factions except Welsh & Viking) - but none of these are widely available nor particularly strong. In a pinch you might substitute sword/polearm infantry (Celtic Warriors, Militia Sergeants, Urban Militia, Woodsmen), but don't expect them to last long. As Irish (where this discussion first started), I really think your best pinning unit are the Gallowglasses, although they're better suited (as mentioned) for flanking, and need to be given every morale/defense boost you can find. Other than a few royal elites, there really isn't much to choose from in VI for holding troops. In the late stages of the game, sometimes maximum upgrades to Celtic Warriors or Fyrdmen will seem to make do, but that isn't an available option at the start. Which is why I stress learning to skirmish, to harass and harry your enemy before he gets to your main line. Every dead Huscarle who never reaches your position for melee attack is one less to worry about. And the more tired they are, the better for your rested troops.

EDIT: going from memory and depending on the Yaz Units Master Tool has its disadvantages - I completely overlooked Spearmen/Armored Spearmen for the Irish (they're not listed in Yaz for the Viking period, at least in the version I downloaded). Thanks to Kralizec for pointing out the omission - obviously, Armored Spearmen would be a better choice for holding against Huscarles.

[mfberg]

Since they are the Saxon Huscarles, and not the Viking Huscarles your enemies have to pay good money to get them. If you have a good base of operations you can get a decent mercenary army to take through your enemies' lands as economic warfare. Being on the attack against half a stack of Huscarles is easier than being on the defense.
If you see mercenary archers or crossbows buy them and keep them for use as the firing units and retreat them off the field when they are out of ammo. Other mercenaries are meat shields, a good way to cut costs, and if they all die, too bad.

mfberg