Cavalry Trick

**pike master** · 03-26-2007, 05:37

at one time or the other in the battle the enemy cav have to turn to face one of the attacking units which would by default become the anvil. then the force that the single cav unit has to turn its back to is the hammer.

pincer move is to fix an enemy at his front and smash him from both flanks.

cant have a pincer without something to occupy his front.

two units attacking from opposite directions against a single unit is hammer and anvil.

**holycow** · 03-26-2007, 06:20

any unit if surrounded will route easier and/or get demolished, so even 2 town militias can take down knights if they can successfully get behind cav not flank. so you don't even need 2 cav to deal w/ heavy cav unit.

**_Tristan_** · 03-26-2007, 08:27

you can also achieve it with two Xbowmen units on (manual) skirmish against a heavy cav (works best the heavier it is...)

But you'll have to micromanage those units...

First, try to determine which unit of Xbow the cav will charge then skirmish that unit away manually...

Try to remain at all times in the max range of your Xbow as it is longer than the charge distance of most heavy cav...

If they continue to advance on that unit, they will soon show their unprotected back to the second unit of Xbow...

Should they change and try to engage the second unit they will then turn their back on the first unit and bolts will rain down their back...

Repeat as much as necessary... and before long the cav (with quite a few casualties) will run away to get another target (if not rout...)

You might call this one a crossfire...

**FactionHeir** · 03-26-2007, 11:46

I tried that before and it did not work well, but then that was a bodyguard I tried it on ;)

Anyway, you can kill most cavalry with 1 charge from the front too if you align them properly:

Your cavalry needs to charge through the tiny gaps between enemy cavalrists.
If that happens, they will basically mow them down. Works best if the enemy cav is moving towards or away from you. Once charged into such a cav unit the above way and out of 32 men, they had 2 left.
If your cav hit the enemy head on, ie. facing straight, regardless front or back, you will hardly do any damage and those of your cavs which end up walking along the sides of the enemy cav will be killed.

**sapi** · 03-26-2007, 11:49

The trick described with the crossbows works much better with professional horse archers like vards.

Get the cavalry to commit to one unit, lead them away, then shoot them to pieces/charge and destroy

**_Tristan_** · 03-26-2007, 17:26

Originally Posted by sapi

The trick described with the crossbows works much better with professional horse archers like vards.

Get the cavalry to commit to one unit, lead them away, then shoot them to pieces/charge and destroy

Playing the French faction, Horse archers are quaite rare and thus I have to make do with Xbow infantry....

But it surely can be very effective with HA thx to their speed...

**llewellyn** · 03-27-2007, 07:26

a trick i like to use is to make my centre and right weaker then my left, all my heavy cav is there, when the main battle starts rout the centre units and have the enemy pour through to try to kill my gen. have my light cav aid my general with a series of charge and recharge, then as this is happening wheel my heavy cav to back and charge. basicaly you annhilate the opposing army and take only a few losses unless you time it wrong, timing is everything