Battle accounts and discussion

[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.