Battle accounts and discussion

[Innocentius]

I just thought this seemed like a good idea...

There are guides for almost everything related to MTW by now, and there's already the Pics & history of your empire thread, so the point of this thread is to put more emphasis on what is after all the most entertaining part of the TW games: battles.

The intention of this thread is to serve as some form of FAQ and guide regarding battles, so that we won't need a new thread for every battle-related question in MTW. Retell your more memorable battles, discuss battles and tactics and ask whatever battle-related questions you might have. This would also be good place to have a collection of useful links. I'll start with the perhaps most important one, frogbeastegg's The Complete Total War Unit Guide.

Feel free to post away.

PS. I recall this very detailed guide on the combination of Halberdiers and Arbalesters posted about a year ago, unfortunatel I can't recall who wrote it and where it was posted. Does anyone else also remember this?

[ArtistofWarfare]

I just thought this seemed like a good idea...

There are guides for almost everything related to MTW by now, and there's already the Pics & history of your empire thread, so the point of this thread is to put more emphasis on what is after all the most entertaining part of the TW games: battles.

The intention of this thread is to serve as some form of FAQ and guide regarding battles, so that we won't need a new thread for every battle-related question in MTW. Retell your more memorable battles, discuss battles and tactics and ask whatever battle-related questions you might have. This would also be good place to have a collection of useful links. I'll start with the perhaps most important one, frogbeastegg's The Complete Total War Unit Guide.

Feel free to post away.

PS. I recall this very detailed guide on the combination of Halberdiers and Arbalesters posted about a year ago, unfortunatel I can't recall who wrote it and where it was posted. Does anyone else also remember this?

First off, great thread...I'll be reading it quite a bit and contributing soon enough .

As for the Halberdiers and Arbalesters- I don't recall the thread you're referring to but I mentioned using spearman/pikeman/halberdiers as a "fence" in front of several units of Arbalesters. It can be an absolutely devastating defensive strategy...

[Innocentius]

More useful links:

Banquo's Ghost's Cuman campaign contains quite a few interesting battle lineups for the steppe factions.

And the one I was asking about earlier, MeglaGnome's guide on Halberdiers and Arbalesters Part 1, and Part 2.

I'm planning on writing some kind of essay on the same combo of troops, since my opinon differs slightly from the approach presented in MeglaGnome's guide.

[bamff]

I just thought this seemed like a good idea...

I think it's a very good idea!

PS. I recall this very detailed guide on the combination of Halberdiers and Arbalesters posted about a year ago, unfortunatel I can't recall who wrote it and where it was posted. Does anyone else also remember this?

I recall this as well....but sadly I do not recall the author either....from memory there was a small series of articles covering terrain issues, use of screening troops, etc, etc....

[Aldgilles]

Thanks Innocentius, that's a great link for some extra information! And thanks to MeglaGnome, of course) I myself have had some great results with a lineup of alerbasters with chivalric sergeants against the Horde, but normally I prefer feudal sergeants for their higher morale and slightly better attack. But in a purely defensive battle the chivalric sergeants are clearly better.

[bamff]

I recall this as well....but sadly I do not recall the author either....from memory there was a small series of articles covering terrain issues, use of screening troops, etc, etc....

That will teach me to prevaricate with my posts!

Of course, it was MeglaGnome.....maybe I should demote myself once more to "Village Idiot"!

[Innocentius]

Alright, I have a question: How the heck do I use my horse archers properly?

In an ongoing Byzantine campaign of mine, it has become embarrasingly obvious how horrible I am at dealing with horse archers, whether they are mine or the enemy's. I don't use vanilla Horse Archers myself, but the Seljuk's did so to a large extent (basically all they can recruit right from start are HA's, Spearmen and Turcoman Horse). In my first large battle against the Seljuk's I was besieging Rum and the Sultan sallied out with reinforcements from Armenia and Edessa. I had my army lined up in a very traditional manner with Treb. Archers behind a wall of vanilla Spearmen (my Armoured Spearmen were on their way to the front) and with my Kataphraktoi (including the Emperor) on one flank and the Varangian Guard on the other.

The Seljuk's began by charging two units of Armenian Heavy Cavalry right into my line. Needless to say, they were routed. But then the Sultan sat back and let his HA's do his dirty work. Lacking light cavalry as I did, I could to little to drive them off, and it ended with a long firefight between my archers and the HA's. Normally, this wouldn't have been too much of a problem, but unfortunately I had no great height advantage and the map wasn't really ideal for defending. On my left flank, where my Varangians were, the enemy even controlled a slight hill (or knoll, rather) giving them the advantage in height. Also, it seems as if HA's have more ammo than Treb. Archers, or they just fire slower, 'cause they continued to pepper my men long after I had run out of arrows. This of course caused my rather heavy casualties, and when the Seljuk's finally took their infantry and remaining heavy cavalry to attack me head-on, I regarded it as a relief. My enemies were easily beaten and I managed to capture the Sultan.

However, although I sustained hardly any casualties in the melee, I realised that I needed a better way to deal with enemy horse archers. My Varangian Guard, which was at full strength at the onset of battle, was down to 43 men after it, most of if not all of them were killed by enemy HA's. My Spearmen also took heavy casualties since they lacked any real armour. Later on in the campaign, I tried Byz. Lancers as HA-chasers, with mixed results. I managed to drive them off, but never caught them and eventually only exhausted my own men. This bought my own archers time, but I still couldn't kill of those pesky Turcomans. With traditional Catholic armies, I rarely have this problem, at least not in High and Late, since Arbalesters can rout enemy missile cavalry before they can do any real harm, but how do you deal with this in Early? Ideas/suggestions?

And then, on to the second problem of mine: How do I use my own missile cavalry?

Once I got Byzantine Cavalry, I tried to keep two units of them in each army of mine - both for offence and defence. To put it simply, I usually deploy my army like this:


Black being my general's BG (the position of which varies according to the situation).
Green being my spearmen.
Blue being my archers (I sometimes put the archers up front in offensive battles).
Red being some form of flanking units (usually Byz. Infantry or Kataphraktoi).
And Yellow being my missile cavalry (Byz. Cavalry)

This setup varies of course, and I usually bring a lot more cavalry to battles than the picture suggests. Anyway, my BC's usually manage to inflict some casualties and will, if they are extremely lucky, lure one or two units of infantry away from the main army. Mostly though, they are attacked by enemy cavalry and retreat until they reach the edge of the map where they are engaged and killed/routed, nullifying whatever casualties they've previously inflicted. Even if they are chased by infantry, the same scenario occurs. By the time they are cornered, I have enough to do watching over the main battle and whenever I have actually diverted time to try and save the BC's by running them back to the middle of the map, they fail miserably in their maneuvering and get caught by the enemy anyway. This means I sometimes have battles where 90% or more of my casualties consists of my HA's. To put it simple: They kill 30 enemies and then loose 30 men themselves, after which they rout.

The only instance when I found them useful was in Naples when the Pope invaded with an army of Spearmen and UM only. Since their stats are good enough to take on UM's head on, they proved quite useful, but as soon as an enemy of mine fields cavalry of their own, they're useless. How are you supposed to use these guys? I have ceased recruiting new BC's now, and the ones I have left I keep behind my spearwall until the enemy routs and they can serve as chasers (which Byz. Lancers do better anyway).

[BAD]

This setup varies of course, and I usually bring a lot more cavalry to battles than the picture suggests. Anyway, my BC's usually manage to inflict some casualties and will, if they are extremely lucky, lure one or two units of infantry away from the main army. Mostly though, they are attacked by enemy cavalry and retreat until they reach the edge of the map where they are engaged and killed/routed, nullifying whatever casualties they've previously inflicted. Even if they are chased by infantry, the same scenario occurs. By the time they are cornered, I have enough to do watching over the main battle and whenever I have actually diverted time to try and save the BC's by running them back to the middle of the map, they fail miserably in their maneuvering and get caught by the enemy anyway. This means I sometimes have battles where 90% or more of my casualties consists of my HA's. To put it simple: They kill 30 enemies and then loose 30 men themselves, after which they rout.

The only instance when I found them useful was in Naples when the Pope invaded with an army of Spearmen and UM only. Since their stats are good enough to take on UM's head on, they proved quite useful, but as soon as an enemy of mine fields cavalry of their own, they're useless. How are you supposed to use these guys? I have ceased recruiting new BC's now, and the ones I have left I keep behind my spearwall until the enemy routs and they can serve as chasers (which Byz. Lancers do better anyway).

I normally only use horse archers ALOT at the beggining of a battle to take some casualties on targets who are going to be a meal in H2H. As soon as the approaching army gets to close I retreat them (running) to maximum firing distance and repeat. I keep doing this until they are back at my lines of defence. Then I'll use them at the flanks to either get a nice flank charge (rear if I am lucky) or just continue peppering approaching troops with arrows over the conflict in the centre. I use them for chasing down routers too they normally have a good recovery rate due to low armour and are fast too. When they run out of ammo I'll normally retreat them and bring on re-inforcements.

They effectively combine archers, flankers and router chasers into one troop type. Meaning I can have more of the speicalised guys. If I have two Horse archer units and use them like above it means I have no need for light cavalry, they can replace an archer unit, good enough horse archers can even replace heavy cavalry (Boyars, Byzantine Cavalry, Faris).

I just like their diversity. They fill hole's in an army till I can train some more specialised troops.

Specifically don't Byzantine cavalry units come with command stars a lot of the time too? I know it's not really a problem for the Byzantine's with their Jedi prince's but it's still a nice gain. Think I noticed the same for Faris too.

[Peasant Phill]

A few ways to get rid of ennemy HA's:

- Arrow barrage: HA's will normally lose a missile duel. Just make sure you have enough archer units in your army when facing an ennemy that uses HA's and concentrate your fire to make a HA unit rout/retreat faster

- Chasing them off: You can catch up to HA's with light to medium cavalry. It's not that hard to ambush a HA unit with 2 cav units oo your own. If you're Byzantium, you should have access to steppe cavalry, these are ideal to take down or at least chase of HA units. They'll probably be tired afterwards but they don't need much fighting power in there role as light cavalry.

- The SHC-tric: I discovered this tactic during a Volga-Bulgarian campaign. I was relying heavily on steppe heavy cavalry and came in contact with both western as eastern armies. I've noticed that most units of HA going up against SHC will lose one way or the other. SHC are armoured and will outlast all most other HA units in a pure missile duel and if they do catch up the ennemies HA are really done for. I don't think this is the case in vanilla MTW (VI) but in the XL-mod they even have AP missiles making them a sure win even when facing more armoured HA's. Just let them duel with another HA unit and wait for the chance to charge and decimate anything they're facing.

[macsen rufus]

When I'm using HAs (of whatever flavour) in defence I usually do pretty much as BAD described, what I call a "retreating forward defence". Also, as the attacker tends to home in on the main part of your army, it's quite easy to get your HAs to the flanks when they have no cavalry to chase you down, so you get enfillade benefits. I also like to get at least one HA unit behind the enemy, which has two general outcomes - either you get to shoot the enemy general in the back a few times, or his entire army's advance becomes disorganised as he tries to deal with you. Either is a gain

Offensively, I often use a HA screen, 4-6 HA units spread across the field, well in advance of the main body. Use these to disrupt enemy formations, weaken any particularly troublesome melee units (eg Varangians ), and pull any impetuous types out into exposed locations, at which point you can do the HA sandwich.

Basically, HAs aren't battle winners, but they do shorten the odds. And once they're out of arrows they make good, fast router-chasers, or should be retired in larger battles in favour of something tougher. I think Turcoman Horse are about my favourites, as they have a bit of punch to them in melee (though benefit from some buffing and a province valour bonus), but are faster than SHCs, very good all-rounders IMHO. For the HRE in early the mounted crossbows are invaluable.

[Belisario]

I think Turcoman Horse are about my favourites, as they have a bit of punch to them in melee (though benefit from some buffing and a province valour bonus), but are faster than SHCs, very good all-rounders IMHO. For the HRE in early the mounted crossbows are invaluable.

Turcoman Horse are also among my favourite units. They obtain a +2 valour bonus when are trained in Tripoli with a Master Horse Breeder, and have an incredible stamina if you don't give them armour upgrades. When I play with a faction that can train HA I usually deploy a large line of them (six or five units with three ranks deep) in the front of my army both in attack and defense. In defense, especially in a hill, they can rout unarmoured units before these reach my files. If the enemy approach make the HA's position vulnerable I move them fast to the rear of my infantry line. Then they can shoot from a safe position or flank the enemy. In attack I use HA in a similar manner, but against an army with a lot of crossbowmen or arbalesters this can be risky. Only if the enemy don't protect their crossbows/arbalest I usually try to catch them with my own HA. In a Byzantine campaign I used armies which consisted of 6 ByzCav, 5 ArmSp, 4 TrebArch, 1 Kata(BG) with good results (and good fun!).

I have a question about deep ranks, do you use frogbeastegg's advices in this matter (Sp in 4, Sw 2, Arch 2 ...)?

[Martok]

I have a question about deep ranks, do you use frogbeastegg's advices in this matter (Sp in 4, Sw 2, Arch 2 ...)?

With spearmen and pikemen, I do usually place them in 4-5 ranks, yes.

As for sword/polearm infantry, it largely depends on the situation. I tend to place them more in 3 ranks more often than not, but it still varies.

I usually station archers/crossbow units in 3 ranks. FBE is right in that 2 ranks is ideal, but I often find I lack the room, particularly if I have a large number of missile units.

[Innocentius]

Ok, I've just fought my two first battles against the Horde in the same campaign. Luckily, they only appeared in Khazar, so I fought them in Georgia where the terrain was to my advantage.

The first time they invaded with some 5,000 men against my 3,500 (for some reason they didn't attack me until 1233, so I had a few years to send troops from all of my empire).

It might be a good idea to just point out that I've modded the Byz unit roster to their advantage (I prefer seeing a powerful Byzantine Empire than a powerful Fatamid Caliphate). The Byzantines can now recruit Order Foot, which have the same stats and building requirements as Italian Infantry (I originally intended to make a whole new unit like in the Pocket Mod, but found it too complicated and looked up a unit that wasn't already used by some faction), since it would be realistic for them to have superior spearmen to European factions. I've also turned the Latin Auxillaries into good polearm units - like Halberdiers but with somewhat better stats and less armour, still only recruitable in 4 provinces and cost more than Halberdiers though. This usually means the Byzantines fare a lot better when the AI plays them, and makes my own Byz campaigns a walk in the park (I hardly ever play the Byz and only keep them as a worthy opponent though).

Anyway, my Jedi Emperor was on a hill with the traditional "Arbalesters behind spearwall" tactic and with Latin Auxillaries on the flanks. The battle was looong (and rather dull) and ended with 1300 dead Mongols and 500 dead Byzantines. I also managed to pick off their general, a 4-star one which, dissapointingly enough, was the best general the Mongols had. The next year they returned with 6,500 men under a 2-star general. This time I had an amazing terrain advantage in that I, err... it's a lot easier (and funnier) to just draw it up:

The brown is height curves, I guess you can tell where the impassable cliff upon which my army stood was. Green is Arbalesters, Blue is "OrderFoot" (let's call them Hoplitai, like in MedMod, they have the same stats as them) and LA's, Black is the initial position of my cavalry, Red is the later position of my cavalry as more arrived with the reinforcements.
For this battle, I had way too few Arbs, so I ended up with three Katatanks on my right flank, and 4-5 (depending on when) Pronoiai to my left. It was horrible. Initially I had great success in mowing down the general, several units of MHC and MW's, but then reinforcements with endless amounts of MHA's arrived. I used my cavalry to slay the odd MHC and MW that still showed up, but mostly it was sitting there, waiting for time to pass. When I finally got some BC's from my reinforcements, I first used up their arrows and then tried to chase the MHA's off with little success.

In the end the Mongols lost 3,100 men (I killed all the prisoners) and I lost 600. A pretty good casualty rate one would think, if one didn't consider what a huge advantage I had in terrain. 95% of my casualties in both battles were my Hoplitai who could only stand there while being peppered, and I doubt I would have done better if I had had Halberdiers. I recall my Polish campaign in the Pics & History-thread, where I experienced similar situations. They just keep calling in wave after wave of untouchable units. I think there were 10 units in each wave, and I couldn't even count the waves. Next time I'm bringing at least 4x8 units of Arbalesters, to counter the 16x10 enemy MHA's.

[Aldgilles]

You've beaten an army of 6500 mongols with only minor losses, I think that is pretty damn good! Considering the Mongols don't easily panic and are not much influenced by routing troops it's almost as good as you could expect, if you're not in a bridge battle. More missile-types would be helpful, though

[Jxrc]

The thread is a splendid idea.

My only reservation is that, if it stays in its current format, it will become quite difficult to find the information that you are looking for due to lack of coherence cause everyone will submit its own idea on every topic which will lead to duplicata and perhaps errors.

What I find really great with frogbeastegg's guides is that they are an excellent synthese of his original views and the feeback he got from other players (a bit like a wikepedia entry). It was apparently modified from time to time but never lost its coherence and that's really what makes those guides stand out (compared to the factions guides and the subterfuge guide).

My point is thus that perhaps we would be better off if someone could volunteer to some kind of synthesis bout each points discussed. The reward for the person willing to carry out that time consuming task would be, in addition to the gratitude of everyone, the privilege to decide what new comment "deserve" to lead to a modication of his chapter-synthesis.

In practice it could work a bit like the PBM worked with a "Synthesis thread" to whom only a few would have access and a second thread where each and everyone could suggest to the author any modification/update/precision he thinks necessary ...

Just my two cents...

And yes I realise that there is no guarantee that anyone will be able to spare the time required but what the heck it was worth a try ...

[seireikhaan]

Well, I just got my arse handed to me by the Byzantines while playing the Armenians in XL 3.0.

Basically, I set myself up relatively close to a corner, and mostly on a hilltop to try and gain any advantage possible, as the Byzzies had me outgunned by Kats and some valored up Byz infantry, some Dejma, and a varangian guard, while my army consisted mostly of Armenian infantry, catapults, two mounted x-bows, and two Naxarars, my King and one of the princes.



Basically, the Byz took the vanguard of their army, which consisted of several Byz infantry, two units of Kats, and a unit of armored spears, and hauled them ALL the way around my formation, and attempted to take my army from the rear, while a horde of Dejma and the varangian guard continued marching on me from the front.

My catapults(the X's) bombarded the vanguard constantly, but it just wasn't enough to deter them. My two mounted X-bows also let off some bolts on the vanguard before switching fire to the rear guard and tearing up the Varangians. However, I was so surprised that the A.I. would actually attempt to haul all the way around the rear of my army that I didn't ultimately act on it until it was too late. The hill turned out to be my downfall, as my units parked on it couldn't get back in time until my king and prince had been routed by Kats and byz infantry, whereupon the Byz now had the hill advantage, crushed my catapults, and soon, the rest of my army.

[Innocentius]

Jxrc: A good idea as well, although like you said it might be a bit hard to go through with. We already have a few very good guides to units and I am, like I said, planning on writing somewhat of a complementary essay/a second opinion to what MeglaGnome has already provided us with. If someone who is an expert at dealing with and using horse archers and feel like writing a page or two about it, please step forward!

kamikhaan: Ouch. Ouch, particularly considering how important every single battle is to the Armenians, at least early on. I don't think I've ever seen such a complete outflanking and by so many units before, you are playing on Expert I guess? And how did they manage to get behind you if you were in a corner?

Personally I don't like using siege equipment in battles unless it's a bridge battle. The morale penalty for the enemy is lessened by the fact that you bring fewer troops to the field, which means that you risk a morale penalty on your own men if you bring too many siege engines and the crews get routed really easily, possibly creating mass routs as the AI counts routing units, not routing men. On top of that, I find them to be really useless at killing enemies. Even in bridge battles I've never seen a Culverin Crew kill more than 70-80 men, and that was a one-time occasion, whereas your average unit of Arbalesters will kill somewhere around 100 men in a standard bridge battle.

[BAD]

Personally I don't like using siege equipment in battles unless it's a bridge battle. The morale penalty for the enemy is lessened by the fact that you bring fewer troops to the field, which means that you risk a morale penalty on your own men if you bring too many siege engines and the crews get routed really easily, possibly creating mass routs as the AI counts routing units, not routing men. On top of that, I find them to be really useless at killing enemies. Even in bridge battles I've never seen a Culverin Crew kill more than 70-80 men, and that was a one-time occasion, whereas your average unit of Arbalesters will kill somewhere around 100 men in a standard bridge battle.

I just had a Demi-Culverin kill the Turkish Sultan, at extreme long range and I was attacking. Well worth it. It's valour went up too. I think Serpentines are the best at killing guys though at long range. not sure though. I know organ guns rip it up on defending bridge battles and defending castles.

[Taedius]

A link to Ludens' horse archer-thread might be in order:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=33313

[Martok]

Good thinking, Taedius!

Can anyone else think of useful threads that should be linked?

[seireikhaan]

kamikhaan: Ouch. Ouch, particularly considering how important every single battle is to the Armenians, at least early on. I don't think I've ever seen such a complete outflanking and by so many units before, you are playing on Expert I guess? And how did they manage to get behind you if you were in a corner?

Personally I don't like using siege equipment in battles unless it's a bridge battle. The morale penalty for the enemy is lessened by the fact that you bring fewer troops to the field, which means that you risk a morale penalty on your own men if you bring too many siege engines and the crews get routed really easily, possibly creating mass routs as the AI counts routing units, not routing men. On top of that, I find them to be really useless at killing enemies. Even in bridge battles I've never seen a Culverin Crew kill more than 70-80 men, and that was a one-time occasion, whereas your average unit of Arbalesters will kill somewhere around 100 men in a standard bridge battle.

Well, I was sorta in a corner. I was very, very close, but there was a gap of about what would translate to in real life of about 50 yards or so that the AI basically wedged it Katsa against my troops from that 50 yards or so, and then the whole thing went kablooy on me. As for the catapults, I was kinda investigating as to the effectiveness of using them in defensive field battles, to see what kind of damage massed catapult shots would do. As you can see, it didn't quite work as I had hoped. The real problem became that a bunch of my troops, infantry, were in the front or sides, on hillside, which ironically prevented me from recovering enough to turn my army to face them before they steamrolled my somewhat meager rearguard and collapsed the whole thing.

Rather unfortunately, that pretty severely crippled my campaign, as my king got trapped in the fort, and his perverted, moron brother took the throne, and my whole situation just disheartened my to the point of stopping the campaign.

[Innocentius]

In the same Byz. campaign as mentioned above, I've just had a series of great battles against the Portugese in Egypt. A little background: The Portugese beat me to Egypt already in the first half of the 12th century, so Sinai was my SW-border for some time until they luckily decided to sink one of my fleets. A long naval war began where I eventually stood victorious since I could just out-produce them, snatching Egypt from them in the process.

It is now 1270, and I've been at war with them since they again attacked me in the 1220-ies. The naval war is more or less a stalemate. I can't entirely drive them out of the Med, but at least I'm in control. I've taken most of Iberia from them and they are now reduced to some lands in northern France and Northern Africa (their king is in France). Neither them nor I had updated our forces in Africa sine the mid 12th century, so these battles were essentially Early battles. While they were still an empire, they had massed up some 10,000 men in Cyrenaica, then I isolated them there by sinking some navies. Their general (their king) died and his heir spawned in Ile-de-France. For decades they sat at my border and didn't attack, even though I had 3,000 against their 10,000. Then, by 1250-something, they finally attacked.

The first two battles were pretty tough due to their numbers and my own stupidity (way too many silver armoured Hoplitai and Pronoiai). In all they lost about 3,000 men and I 1,000. I then reorganized my forces, sent away heavily armoured troops and recruited new ones with less armour. I also recruited about a dozend units of Byz Lancers.

In the third battle, I killed off their general pretty much immediately and won killing only 400 Portugese to my ~50 dead. But in the fourth battle, they attacked me with a force of around 6,000 (some were reinforcements from Tunisia). Most were Spearmen or UM's, and they were nice enough to bring six siege engines to the battle:

Black = General (Hoplitai)
Blue = Hoplitai
Green = Trebizond Archers
Yellow = Byzantine Infantry
Red = Byzantine Lances
Orange dots = Position of enemy siege engines
Coloured arrows = Coloured arrows... (rather self-explanatory, enemy approach etc.)

What is illustrated above happened over and over again: A few enemy units attacked, I flanked with my Byz Infantry, brought one group of Byz Lancers into their back and chased down routers with the other group. All the while I had to replace my archers who ran out of arrows. After a few equally pathetic attempts to break my position, the enemy retreated, giving me a nice chance to slaughter the retreating units with my cavalry. In the end, ~3,000 Portugese were killed or taken captive (I killed all the prisoners and earned the nice Butcher vice) to my 250.

In all, it was essentially the perfect Early battle (although fought in the late 1260-ies) with every unit fullfilling its task and a light version of the double envelopment tactic in practice. In the following years I drove them out of Cyrenaica, Tunisia and Algeria, and I'm now planning a final strike against the 2,000 men trapped in Morocco.

[Heidrek]

Re: Horse Archers - I find them to be a very important aspect of my army. Missile Cavalry that can fight too (SHC, Faris, Jinettes, Boyars, Szekley etc.) are even better as they remain useful as strike cavalry after they run out of arrows. In essence here is how I use HA's:

In general:
1. To counter enemy heavy cavalry. Horse Archers are fatser and lighter than heavy cavalry so they can happily play hit and run against knights etc. The knights have to either stand there and take the arrows, losing numbers without gaining any kills in return, or try to engage the HA's. Simply run your HA's back to your anti cavalry troops and have them engage the chasing knights. If you want to be really nasty, lead the knights on a long chase first so they are exhausted by the time your Halb's engage them.

2. To weaken strong melee units. CMAA's, Footknights and other strong infantry units have no answer to HA's. Mounted Crossbows work better against high armour units of course, but even taking out 1/4 of a unit of Chiv. Footknights for free is worth it. 2 Units of HA's or MC's working together against one unit of strong infantry will render the unit more or less irrelevant to the battle. while getting shot up and dying, they are also fruitlessly chasing your HA's and not supporting their other troops.

3. Killing siege engines. Run the HA's around behing the enemy and take out the siege engines that are giving you trouble.

On attack: I usually range them out in front of my main force and keep them out of the way unless the enemy is very low on missiles or only has javelin units. Once the battle is joined I'll use them as rear archers or put them into Wedge formation and charge an engaged infantry unit. You may lose some of your HA's but they will probably break the enemy unit after 1 or 2 such charges. If you can isolate a part of the enemy force that has no missile units, send your HA's there and have them fire away, inflicting one sided casualties and morale penalties without any return losses.

On Defense: HA's are great here as they can effectively lead the enemy to your army, and force them to approach the way you want rather than taking an approcach that can negate of reduce the effectiveness of your terrain advantage. This is a HUGE advantage.

Once they have lead the enemy to the killing grounds and snipered a few kills themselves, park them behind your infantry and use them like regular archers until the enemy breaks, then use the to chase down routers and spread the fear.

In essence, HA's are archers that can never be caught by infantry and are very tough to catch with Cavalry if used right. In large numbers they can also outgun Arbalesters. 3 units of HA's volleying againsta unit of Arb's will take some loses, but will fire at a rate of around 6 arrows to each bolt the Arbs can shoot, the constant volleys will quickly thin the Arb's out and then it's Wedge charge time with the most damaged unit. Not advisable against the Pavise variety though.

One final but very important thing about the Combo Cavalry like Faris that can fight effectively as well as shoot: They effectively allow you to field more units than your opponent. If your 16 unit army includes 4 Faris, you effectively have 40 units on the field as they can be used as either archers or strike cavalry as the situation requires. The advantage of this can't be overstated. You can even do without dedicated heavy cavalry if your HA's can also fight reasonably well.


EDIT:::

Almost forgot the real reason for my post!!

My Scottis High age campaign has reached cruch point. The French have been crushed into relative obscurity in a small corner of Eurpoe and are not threat in of themselves. They could cause some truoble if they teamed up with the on;y other main power, but even then would only really be an annoyance. All other porties have been reduced to minor after toughts and exiles except for myself and my advesary - the Crusader States.

The Crusaders and I have been standing off at the Lithuanian border. For years troops have continued to build up in an uneasy peace on both sides, until the Crusaders were excommunicated for fighting the Danes. In theory I have the biggest army, income and technology lead, but my forces are widely spread, while the Crudarers have concenterated their forces on the Lithuanian border. I attacked with one force in some of their southern holdings, and they dropped a massive foce of 19,000 troops into Lithuania. I had gathered a garrison of 9,000 troops in response to their build up.

In terms of troops, the Crusaders have basically every advantage. Better Spears (Order Footsoldiers), Better general infantry (CMAA's, Footknights, Halbardiers), though I have access to plenty of Gallowglasses, and they or course have better Cavlary (CK's, Hosp, Teutonic and Templar Knights, Mounted Sergeants etc.). I have no access to Horse Archers other than a couple of mercenary units as the Scots don't get ANY mounted archers at all. Regaular archers are even, though I have access to Welsh Longbows, and I do have a few units of Swiss Halb's in the force. So, boiled down they outnumber me 2:1 and have better quality troops. My general is 7 command to their 4.

This will be the defining battle of the whole campaign. If I win it I will break the spine of the Crusader States army, and possibly plunge them into Civil war on the back of their recent excommunication. If I lose, the flower of my army will be destroyed and my foothold in their eastern border dislodged. I might recover, but it'll be a long and punishing process and time will probably run out before I can secure the 60% threshold.

Battle took place on flat terrain as there were no hills to defend at all. I set up shop in open ground, with Forests on either side. Their inital deployment had about 6 siege engines, a few Order Footsoldiers, Some Slav Javelinmen and a Teutonic Knights I think. My responding deployment was as follows:

2 Catapults
2 Naptha Catapults
2 Organ Guns
1 Demi Culverin
1 Royal Knights (general)
1 Scottish Lancers
1 Swiss Armoured Pikemen
2 Scottish Spearmen
2 Scottish Warriors
2 Welsh Longbows

I like Siege weapons as you can see!

Anyway, I won't go into detail, as this is a massive, massive battle, that has taken about 3-4 hours so far of real time. So far I have crushed them beneath my boot. The kill ratio is about 4.5 - 5:1 I'd say, and I have over 2000 prisoners at present. I'd estimate that I've killed at least 2-3 times that number as well, which would put their total losses at around 7000 men so far.

I've discovered the joys of Spearmen finally, and have managed to sucessfully create "Kill Squads" hich effectively assasinate enemy units. Typical example is a units of Order Footsoldiers or Heavy cavalry. As they approach, I send out a unit of Scottish Spears to engage it, with another melee unit sent off to each side and past the target. then enemy turn to have the attaching spears and charges them. The spears engage and hold the target in place. By this time the other two units (typically Gallowglasses and/ or FMAA's or Scottish Warriors/Clansmen) have drawn even or passed the engaged unit. They then turn and smash it from both flanks or flank + rear. The result is an almost instant break most of the time and complete slaughter of the target unit. Your flankers can even be half strength or less units and the result is the same, even better if they go in at wedge formation.

Using this technique, I have swiftly rounted a 100 man Order FootSoldier unit, using a 60 man Scottish Spears, a 24 man Scottish Warriors and a 26 man Gallowglass unit.

I can wait to see the final tally, though the game will almost certainly crash after the battle.

[Ironsword]

^^ Sounds interesing, but dont lose all hope against those crusaders as...

...Not two days past I had a massive Polish faction reappaearing in my territory with a whopping 5,098 troops to my 856. I moved an eight star general to the territory, but could only spare another 80 Arbalestors to join him, so this brought my total to 938 (300 Halbs, 196 Arbs, 95 LongB's, Mangonel, Culverin, 143 Feudal sergeants and rest were Hobilars (Including 8* general).
They attacked with Pikes, PavC's, RK's, Halb's. Their general was 4* too. Although, here's the trick, their general charged straight into my line and was cut down early on. Leaving their army demoralised and up against an 8*. Never before in my campaigns have the humble Hobilars done so much damage!! They took over 1500 prisoners and chased the Pikes off the field.

And, for the first time in my battles it was snowing...! Ah.

[Ironsword]

^^ Apologies for appalling spelling; I was typing quickly and can't yet edit posts...!

[ArtistofWarfare]

The thread is a splendid idea.

My only reservation is that, if it stays in its current format, it will become quite difficult to find the information that you are looking for due to lack of coherence cause everyone will submit its own idea on every topic which will lead to duplicata and perhaps errors.

What I find really great with frogbeastegg's guides is that they are an excellent synthese of his original views and the feeback he got from other players (a bit like a wikepedia entry). It was apparently modified from time to time but never lost its coherence and that's really what makes those guides stand out (compared to the factions guides and the subterfuge guide).

My point is thus that perhaps we would be better off if someone could volunteer to some kind of synthesis bout each points discussed. The reward for the person willing to carry out that time consuming task would be, in addition to the gratitude of everyone, the privilege to decide what new comment "deserve" to lead to a modication of his chapter-synthesis.

In practice it could work a bit like the PBM worked with a "Synthesis thread" to whom only a few would have access and a second thread where each and everyone could suggest to the author any modification/update/precision he thinks necessary ...

Just my two cents...

And yes I realise that there is no guarantee that anyone will be able to spare the time required but what the heck it was worth a try ...

I'd have to slam my vote down on just reviving a new sub-forum under this MTW forum's directory.

In it, we could break all strategic discussion down by topic and keep things nice and organized.

My only difference is that I'd be voting for open access...at least viewable. Beyond that point, the more contributions...I'd say the better.

[Heidrek]

The battle against the Crusader States grinds on......I currently hold over 4000 prisoners, as the Crusaders continue to feed more and more troops into my meat grinder "Kill Squads". I'd estimate thier total losses at over 12,000 in total by now.

One interesting development though, and one that could change the course of the battle:

Recently, after yet another harrowing defeat the latest batch of Crusader reinforcements formed up out of range, towards their end of the map. This consisted of 1 x Halb, 1 x Hobilar, 1 x Royal Knights, 1 x Order Footsoldeirs, 1 x Pavise Xbows, 1 x Arqubusiers and 1 x Arbalesters. Possibly some handgunners and Javelin men too. All in all, about 400-500 men. They all bunched in together on top of each other like a compact little ball.

I figured they were just waiting for the rest of their reinforcements to join them, but no more arrived. I waited, and waited and waited patiently for them to attack but nothing happened. A few new units showed up in the distance, but immediately withdrew again. Finally no new units arrived and they just sat there......

Could they have come to the end of their troops I thought? why else wouldn't they bring up more? This could be my chance to finish the battle for good! Slowly I moved my full force towards their knot of troops. Formed up my archery troops, 1 x Welsh longbows and 1 x Arbalsters and started pelting them with missiles. Still no response, not even returned fire. After unloading all of my missiles into them, I sent in my infantry to finish them off. A sickening slaughter ensued as I surrounded and butchered them.

As soon as they broke though, a whole string of new reinforcements appeared and marched towards my diorganised army. I quickly reformed my forces and met them just inside the map border. However, unable to manouver properly I could not execute my tactics well, and was also faced with reinrocements constantly appearing on the horizon while my beleagured troops endeavoured to drive their remaining troops into retreat. Losses slowly became about 1:1, and some of my units broke, triggering a mass rout.

I'm now retreating towards my original position, having lost more troops than in the previous 5-6 exchanges but having learned a valuable lesson. Don't try and hold the map border. I should have killed the knot of troops then withdrawn back to tackle reinforcements on home turf. The lure of sealing the victory there and then simply proved too strong. Even after this bad engagements the kill ratio is still roughly 5:1, but now I have to get basicallya whole new army of reinforcements, hopefully there will a good assortment of units in the reinforcements, otherwise I could have a problem!

[Jxrc]

Don't try and hold the map border.

Wise advice that I sometimes forget when attacking and too impatient to finish the battle ... Even if the enemy general has been killed, troops chasing routers will get disorganised and tired and will have a hard time coping with fresh reinforcements (esp fresh cavalry) ... Not too bad if you just loose a few isolated cavalry units sacrified to chase routers, more of a problem if your whole army is closely following.

Happened to me a few times but the worst instance was a x-hours battle with the GH in Khazar. Managed to kill the Khan and eveything was going nicely. Thought that they had run out of fresh troops, got daring and chased what I thought would be their last units from the map ... Got to the edge and 12 new unites appeared (mostly MHC, MHA) and routed my exhausted halbs and that was it ... Had to withdraw ... Lost Khazar to the rebels (about 6 ou 8 thousand remaing troops that had fled) ... Few turns later there was a Russian loyalist revolt in another prov and the rest of the GH became light blue. In such cases, I tend to utter a word that starts with an "f" ....

[Heidrek]

Ok, so I managed to retreat to my starting position and withdrew my battered army and bring on a fresh set of troops. ended up with a pretty good line up actually and was all set to continue slaughtering the Crusaders.

Once again they grouped almost all their troops into the "knot formation" and just stood there. A few scattered units (one damaged Mitia sergeants, an almost whole Arbalesters unit, a unit of Halbardiers and a mauled 25 man unit of Order Footsoldiers sat scattered in different parts of the map behind the knot.

I waited patiently, determined not to get greedy again. Waited some more. Put the time slider up to 100% and waited a while more. Still nothing. Do I just run out the clock? I could, but thats not how I want to win this fight.

Instead I decided to test a theory. I had 2 units of light cavalry, a Hobilars and a Steppe Cavalry. I took these two and moved them over to where the damaged Militia Sergeants units was standing around. Put both Cavalry units into Wedge formation and charged the MS from 2 sides. They routed almost immediately. I lost 1 hobilar and 2 SC and killed/captured all 40 MS.

Still no reaction from the Knot. A unit of Feudal Sergeants appeared on the horizon and moved to join his knot buddies. It's like they are paralysed or something - didn't even try to come to the aid of their slaughtered friends.

I waited some more and then got tired of waiting..... I brought up a couple of half strength spear units, some melee troops, the two cavalry units and my two archery units, an Arbalesters and Welsh Longbows. I left the general and a bunch of other troops back at home base in case of disaster.

formed up the assault squad and set my archers on the Knot. They tried to shoot back, but only managed to kill 3 of my guys due to their cramped position. They've brought in 2 more units and added them to the knot but haven't withdrawn and troops despite the constant missile storm. Soon I'll from up my melee troops and crush the knot. then withdraw them and see what happens.

Has anyone else experienced the "Knot Formation" before? Seems like a good way to throw away troops to me.....

If that's all he's going to do now, I'm thinking I can wrap this battle up pretty quickly from here on in.

[ArtistofWarfare]

Wise advice that I sometimes forget when attacking and too impatient to finish the battle ... Even if the enemy general has been killed, troops chasing routers will get disorganised and tired and will have a hard time coping with fresh reinforcements (esp fresh cavalry) ... Not too bad if you just loose a few isolated cavalry units sacrified to chase routers, more of a problem if your whole army is closely following.

Happened to me a few times but the worst instance was a x-hours battle with the GH in Khazar. Managed to kill the Khan and eveything was going nicely. Thought that they had run out of fresh troops, got daring and chased what I thought would be their last units from the map ... Got to the edge and 12 new unites appeared (mostly MHC, MHA) and routed my exhausted halbs and that was it ... Had to withdraw ... Lost Khazar to the rebels (about 6 ou 8 thousand remaing troops that had fled) ... Few turns later there was a Russian loyalist revolt in another prov and the rest of the GH became light blue. In such cases, I tend to utter a word that starts with an "f" ....

Well, in basically all warfare pre-dating WW2 (but still in WW2 at times...the huge surge in mobilization and mechanized infantry changed things a bit though, to say the least) victory in a battle regularly came down to that decisive moment where the commander of the side with the advantage at the time had to "flip the switch" so to speak and put the nail in the coffin. One would think this is the time where the winning side is at it's most advantageous, but in reality...this is often the time where they're most vulnerable. All offensive attacks involve high risk...all of them. Defense is almost always the preferable position...and this doesn't go out the window just because you have some routing units on the field of battle.

Now, Medieval Warfare was extremely tactical and highly complex (and why so many of us are interested in it) due to changes in cavalry usage and also...armor. Heavily armored units obviously move slower and tire more easily. These units, although extremely effective, can be extremely vulnerable when in pursuit. Now, in this case we're talking about Golden Horde and we already know that against almost every faction in the game, they have a cavalry and mobility advantage. Chasing these units to the edge of the map is always going to be extremely risky because you're extending yourself with units that can't move back to their original position realistically at all without turning their backs and being vulnerable during a rally.

I like to incorporate a strategy that leads me to fielding an army (often) that very much resembles the concepts and ideas of the Roman Empire's infantry. Moving wall "legions" that are going to push forward, paced, and gradually control more and more of the map. Gradually moving these units in a way that "boxes in" or "pins down" the enemy is the idea here...never over committing or spreading your vanguard too far apart. The entire strength of these units lies in their cohesiveness and discipline. Let the enemy rally and counter attack your infantry- If it was too much for them to handle in the first place, their secondary attacks will probably be too much too.

Now if it's simply reinforcements we're dealing with here- You're still going to be ok against them. Again- By appropriately moving your units and boxing the enemy in, your going to be giving reinforcements little option but to just charge head first into your moving wall infantry. Further, the more you advance, the less room they will have to charge or form formations before attacking your positions.

As far as my cavalry goes: The majority of my time, I like to separate my Cavalry in the following way: 1) The spearhead. The majority of my shock cavalry all grouped together. Hundreds, if not thousands of heavy horses in one giant clump. 2) The General and his bodyguard obviously, grouped with another royal knights unit or with just an auxilliary cavalry unit to protect his flank. 3) The lightest of the Cavalry will be grouped together will the sole purpose of being my screening unit. These will be the horsemen who chase routers.

Without going too in depth here- You can get an idea of what this would look like. Huge infantry vanguard. Major right or left hook of heavy cavalry off and to the flank. Screening unit placed wherever it would make most sense. General and his bodyguards in the rear behind the infantry, most protected.

The idea is to force the enemy to wind up in an early, heavy slugfest with your infantry vanguard and to get things positioned nicely so that you always have the opportunity to flank the enemy with your heavy cavalry. Think along the lines of two kids chasing eachother around the kitchen table. Your infantry is the table. Just keep the infantry advancing and holding it's lines.

Whenever units start to route, chase them with your smaller screening force of Cavalry. Whenever you encounter a pocket of enemy resistance that is breaking your lines or causing too much trouble, hit them with that large right or left hook using your heavy cavalry cluster. The idea is to round them, get the flank secured, and then charge crashing directly through their lines...from the side right through the center (or rear). While this is going on, your infantry is still in place...holding it's center and moving forward. Again...when units start to route, do NOT chase them with your heavy cavalry, or begin running with your infantry to close the gap and chase them down. Use your screening force...this is what it's for.

No matter how many enemy rally's or groups of reinforcements come into play, you continue to just address them with this same process. Engage with Infantry while keeping your heavy cavalry in a large group, constantly playing a game of angles, keeping a flanking opportunity open. Whenever you need to chase units or close the gap on the battlefield, you're going to be doing so with the screening units, and therefore never separating your main army.

Considering that rallying/reinforcement units come back toward you in piecemeal, you're putting these small groups of units in a position where they constantly have to just forward charge your main vanguard infantry, and risk being flanked by hundreds of heavy cavalry. There's no rush or reason to break your formation to chase the routers or get to reinforcements who have arrived on the field. You'll be winning, the enemy will not and you'll continue to have a large, cohesive, organized army moving toward it's objectives.

Lastly- The other major advantage this gives you is that it basically forces the enemy to have a superior infantry AND cavalry than you do. If either one is not up to par with your forces, they're going to have a very difficult time beating you. If they have an inferior infantry, and choose to instead engage your infantry with their heavy cavalry initially, they've just opened their supposedly superior units (their cavalry) to a flank by your own heavy cav. If their Cavalry is inferior, they're going to rely on their infantry...again, it's going to be open to that cavalry flank.

In order to really stand toe to toe with you, they would need an infantry and cavalry that can, separately, outmatch your infantry/cavalry. You're forcing this upon them by keeping your two types of units (infantry/cav) separate and en' mass. What are they going to do- Split their entire army on the field of battle? Exactly

Remember...there is no rush. They could have 30 units of reinforcements coming...just continue to stick to the plan and address things as they unfold. Any giant counter attack they perform will still have to deal with a massive infantry cluster, and also watch both flanks for a massive cavalry charge. No matter what your enemy does, it still will have the same problem to deal with.