Golden Horde!

[Vantek]

This thing is getting very confusing so I'll try to make a summary of what is going on. I have been asking what I assumed to be very sharp questions, but instead they have only misled people to write long explanations... Sorry :P

I think it all started when I suggested that Halberdiers are pretty much the perfect backbone unit against (Golden Horde) cavalry-heavy armies and make spearmen redundant. This incited the following responses.

A) Halberdiers have moral issues. I then proceeded to inquiry as to which unit people have in mind that doesn't. What I meant here is simply that the *only* other *standard* option would be Chivalric Sergeants/Saracen Infantry/Armoured Spearmen, who have the exact same morale. Suggesting CFK, JHI, the Swiss or other of this kind wouldn't make sense as they are infinitely harder to build and cannot typically be massed for a backbone. Nevertheless, in the end some truth was revealed in that Halberdiers get exhausted more quickly and have fewer numbers than Chivalric Sergeants (or equivalents). This is a valid point. I have personally never had moral issues with Halberdiers, but if you say there are situations where Chivalric Sergeants are superior because they do not get exhausted as quickly, and have higher numbers, I have no problem accepting that.

B) Spearmen have better staying power to hold the line. My response was, why waste time on holding the line when you can just crush the enemy directly, suffering more losses but also causing more casualties. In the end you need to kill the enemy and holding the line alone does not achieve that. The only thing that I could imagine that would fit the need for staying power was Arbalesters. This led to another good point being made - playstyle. I will admit I am not very experienced with Arbalesters, and in that case it might be best to rely on crushing the cavalry directly with Halberdiers, whereas someone more proficient with missiles might have better success holding the line with longer-lasting Chivalric Sergeants and doing the killing with Arbalesters instead. However, I remain sceptic as to wether holding the line could here be very synergistic with a flanking maneuver. After all a flanking maneuver ends up being still essentially a melee battle. Halberdiers have surely enough staying power to wait for the maneuver, and the purpose of the maneuver is to kill enemy in melee anyway, so why not start with the killing earlier by using Halberdiers in the first place.

C) There have been a lot of suggestions to use very complicated or specific tactics, for which Halberdiers are not suitable. I would like everyone to understand that this was never what I wanted to talk about. What I had in mind was the very crude basic effective tactics that could always be resorted to in most situations and serve as a foundation to any advanced tactics. Using a 8 Halberdiers/CS 8 Arbalesters hexagon is a crude tactic which I had in mind. Hiding someone in the woods, flanking with a faction-specific monster unit, massing CFK, these are not the crude basic idea that I had in mind.

I'm not sure what you mean by "staying power".

There are two measures to a unit's performance. One - how fast it kills. Two - how long it lasts. At least against cavalry, Halberdiers emphasise one at the cost of two. Chivalric Sergeants, on the other hand, emphasise two at the cost of one. The discussion was about when to prefer killing power and when to prefer staying power. I say holding the line is only useful if there is something behind the line that cannot come in contact with enemy soldiers and needs to stay that way for a long time, namely Arbalesters. I say if you are not heavy on Arbalesters, then holding the line becomes meaningless, as you ultimately need to kill the enemy in melee, so better start with it sooner rather than later.

Well... Once again, which unit do you have in mind that doesn't?

Any unit that has a decent morale and balanced stats. A unit that doesn't tire or die too easily.

My point here was that only comparable alternative to Halberdiers is Chivalric Sergeants/Saracen Infantry/Armoured Spearmen. So instead of saying "Halberdiers have flaw x", people should be saying "Chivalric Sergeants/Saracen Infantry/Armoured Spearmen are better because y".

So to quickly summarise what has been going on in the past few pages in this thread:
1) I claimed that when facing a cavalry-heavy army, Halberdiers are the way to go and Chivalric Sergeants/Saracen Infantry/Armoured Spearmen are redundant compared to Halberdiers
2) I was proven wrong as CS/SI/AS were shown to have more staying power vs cavalry, due to slower exhaustion, better defense vs. cavalry, and higher numbers
3) I still insist that this staying power can only be used meaningfully to protect Arbalesters, and if you are not heavy on Arbalesters, then Halberdiers are better.