Hippotoxotai - the dread of light infantry

**Caveira** · 12-29-2006, 20:23

As witnessed by these greeks who defied my lone general and his mercenary army:

If you haven't yet used masses of horse archers against lightly equipped foes, please do try, it's a lot of fun!

**Lucasiewicz** · 12-29-2006, 23:14

you ever thought of playing as a nomadic faction? then you get nothings else than this

**Kugutsu** · 12-30-2006, 13:50

Not just light infantry. Even against armoured infantry like kleuricon agema (or whatever the Ptolies elite phalanx is called) I can do serious damage with my HAs. The trick is to hold your fire. They walk towards you, but as they get close, and your horses back off (skirmish mode on), they try to retreat again. At this point open fire and shoot them in the back. It is quite possible to totally wipe out the unit before it gets back to its own line... If you have the chance, only shoot when the enemy's back is to you. It takes a bit of micromanagement, but the pause button is handy here, and it does maximise the effectiveness of your arrows.

One thing which did surprise me was how easily they kill elephants. Again against the Ptolies, they had some of the big elephants with men on their backs, and my HAs slaughtered 10/12 in one volley. The other 2 went awol and I think the Ptolies had to put them down to try to save their own troops...

**Lucasiewicz** · 12-30-2006, 14:29

Originally Posted by Kugutsu

One thing which did surprise me was how easily they kill elephants. Again against the Ptolies, they had some of the big elephants with men on their backs, and my HAs slaughtered 10/12 in one volley. The other 2 went awol and I think the Ptolies had to put them down to try to save their own troops...

True, but I still need to encounter my first (AI) opponent that uses elephants well in battle. It's to easy to harass them into pre-mature combat positions, unleash salvo's upon them and see them running amok in their own lines.

**Caveira** · 12-30-2006, 23:20

I'm playing as Saka Rauka right now. I always fight with a numerical inferiority of 1 to 3 of even worse. I had one fight where the enemy had 1100 troops and I defeated them with one lousy general with 100 horses. It's been insane lately. I'm fighting rebels, parthians and bactrians, all at the same time, with a microscopic army. If the Arche Sekeukeia declares war on me, I may as well quit.

**CountArach** · 12-31-2006, 00:59

Lol, one of the things I did during my mammoth Epirote game was to create the Horse Archer army (Only playing withy a 10 unit army though). So much fun. I would just rush that at my enemie's largest army, kill most of them, withdraw then finish them off with one of my normal pike armies.

**Lucasiewicz** · 12-31-2006, 09:32

Originally Posted by Caveira

I'm playing as Saka Rauka right now. I always fight with a numerical inferiority of 1 to 3 of even worse. I had one fight where the enemy had 1100 troops and I defeated them with one lousy general with 100 horses. It's been insane lately. I'm fighting rebels, parthians and bactrians, all at the same time, with a microscopic army. If the Arche Sekeukeia declares war on me, I may as well quit.

This faction is missing cheap horse archers units atm. SO feature EB versions should allow you to build a bit more cheaper horse archers, though of a less quality (but even low qualtity horse archers are a tremendous threat to any foe).

**pezhetairoi** · 01-02-2007, 13:42

I like to garrison my Balkan frontier as the Romani with a HA fullstack, having first used them against the Getai and the Greeks... Incredibly fun! Against practically anything, including their Hetairoi, if you concentrate enough fire on them. And these HA can pack a pretty nasty charge, too.

**Kugutsu** · 01-02-2007, 13:56

Sounds like my Zrahakir Netadzik (cataphract archers, I guess) army when I was playing my Hayasdan campaign. That army first took me the east, then as two half stacks took me Charax and Persepolis. They were briefly reunited on an expedition back home to Ani Kamah for RnR and retraining (though I only lost probably a total of 100 men in all their battles). They were then divided in two again for the conquest of Anatolia, before being recombined to push the Ptolomaics first out of Antioch, then along the Phoenician coast back into Egypt. In Alexandria they got some reinforcements (4 units were despatched from Ani Kamah to make up numbers) before finally conquering the last Ptolie city of Diospolis Megale, thus rather fittingly concluding my campaign and bringing me ultimate victory. By the end all of them had at least 3 silver chevrons, and were the equal of anything that could be thrown at them. They ate Kleurichon agemata and galatian agema for breakfast, and specialised in slaughtering elephants... Greek bodyguard cavalry didnt stand a chance, and even the Seleukid cataphracts were wavering before their (that is, my) charge even struck... I grew very attached to that army. Often as not it was split up to do different missions, but I always considered it as a single unit.