17 inchs of hard steel

[Asymmetric]

The Spirit of the Bayonet

This is a thread dedicated to gratious amounts of bayonet charging (some would even say unnecessary) in battles. Skirmishers, line fire exchanges and artillery barrages take backstage in these clashes which are instead settled up close and personel. Feel free to post thoughts, replays or ranting on the most manliest of all battlefield tactics.

Why would anyone in there right mind want to play like this?

- It's immensly badass.
- In a day and age where every man and his mother are taking skirmisher walls and a brace of howisters madly charging across the battlefield isn't the worst plan possible.
- I myself am terrible at skirmish exchanges and artillery duels and playing as such armies. Too much playing as the Marathas, Natives or massed bulkeleys French units in Empire have left me ill equip for the skills required for it.
- I actually am a Scottish Highlander. So the chance to play Britain and packing half the army with northern kilt wearing psychopaths makes me feel weak with patriotic gusto

Rather than bother writing about it, heres 5 replays of recent games that have been won or lost by banking everything on a bayonet to the enemy's guts. All these games are played as a very Scottish Britain or Russia.

[Ahiga]

The topic title sounded really dirty.

But I can support this ethos, although right now the melee stats seem a bit wacky (I think British Line infantry have the best melee defense, possibly the best melee)..

[Asymmetric]

The topic title sounded really dirty.

But I can support this ethos, although right now the melee stats seem a bit wacky (I think British Line infantry have the best melee defense, possibly the best melee)..

The actual charging impact on line units is a bit more viable these days (watch the replays and see). Remember British line in Empire total war had a massive 15 melee defence. Now all the lines in single digits outside of crack elite guard units.

[dmcheatw]

sorry i thought this thread was about the famous and award winning adult actor lexington steele, but then i remebered he is only 11 inches of "hard steel."

[♔ brucedickenson♔]

Cold Steal by Bruce

It's ace
the see the fear, and grace
in an enemies's face

we live and die by the sword
but the bayonette is deplored
easy to afford

To be at one with the steel
is to get the feel
of the enemy so unreal

So take your bayonette sir
it holds the answer
to your hopes and dreams that occur

[daniu]

The topic title sounded really dirty.

Honi soit qui mal y pense...

[Achilleslastand]

sorry i thought this thread was about the famous and award winning adult actor lexington steele, but then i remebered he is only 11 inches of "hard steel."

Sometimes i wonder about you Dmcheatw...............

[RPK]

To be the first one besides OP on topic: Big thanks for the replays. I shall study your tactics, test it myself, and get back here later. Alternative tactics have always interested me, Natives were my favorites to play MP with in Empire.

[Asymmetric]

To be the first one besides OP on topic: Big thanks for the replays. I shall study your tactics, test it myself, and get back here later. Alternative tactics have always interested me, Natives were my favorites to play MP with in Empire.

I've had a little time to reflect on some of these stategies and armys.

• As you can tell from the replays, I'm still experimenting with different armys. Some of them have been utter flops. Expect to go through a similar painful process until you find an army build that suits you.

• You cannot advance in a packed formation against an enemy with several prepared howister barterys and foot artillery. However if you spread everything out in single file to advance and then condense the line before melee this can massively reduce casaulties.

• If you going to take a miltia meatshield instead of a skirmisher screen you need a lot more than just 1 unit these days. Combining a miltia meatshield and a 2-3 unit skirmisher screen can work.

• Despite there high cost and relatively little damage grenades currently do, Grenadiers can be worth it in certain builds. Grenadiers are really only useful for two things, 1) throwing grenades into an ongoing melee fight to break the enemy quickly and 2) Charging!. There shooting stats are relatively poor for there cost compared to simple line units. Thus Russia is the best choice for using grenadiers since the fact their shooting stats are even worst isn't an issue and their charge and melee is boosted.

• There is no such thing as a clean victory with a shock trooper focused army. You will need your inspiring units more than anyone due to the inevitable casaulties racking up.

• Charging in compact formations can allow you to punch clean through an enemys ranks. it also reduces the enemys firepower frontage going in. The less spread out your charge is the less guns they can bring to you. It also has the advantage of allowing most of your units to be range of your generals rally cry, making your charging ranks and meatshield take appauling loses before breaking.

• Squares normally disintergrate in prolonged infantry melee. This leaves infantry very vulnulerable to combined infantry and cavalry charges.

• Scottish heavy Britain armys do have several advantages over Russia, while they do lack grenadiers or charge focused mitlia. Highlander foot are even more dangerous in charge/melee than most of Russia's troops but unlike Russia Highlander foot are no slouches in the shooting department either and are quiet capable of laying a withering hail of supporting fire when they need to. Likewise, British light foot are one of the best skirmisher screens possible and with melee/morale defence 7 and resistant to morale shock are quite capable of holding a light charge until help arrives. For these reasons I would recommend a Scottish British force over Russia for players who prefer a more balanced aggressive approach than my first replay Russia army with zero skirmishers and zero artillery and all out attack.

• Watch you mens stamina closely. If your running across the sand dunes in the pyramids map you'll be tired very quickly. Either stop or walk it, even if this means taking extra shots from artillery sometimes.

• The Ottoman's are the third and last viable army that you can make high melee focused. I have not had time to mess around with them much however.

• Don't hesitate. Some maps are harder than others. It seems obvious and it can be depressing to find out you have to advance across an open field while being pounded by artillery, then march up a hill, get shot in the face by a large skirmish volley only to arrive at the enemy lines to lines battered tired and find a wall of old guard standing proudly in front of you blazing away on full auto. When in doubt - charge.

[Remise]

Why should I fix my bayonet? It isn't broken!

[hannibalic]

Yeah it seems melee is way more effective in NTW. Under the right circumstances you can rout units faster with a charge than with superior fire I think.

[aletoledo]

I've only had time to watch your first replay so far, but I don't think there was an overall tactic here. You relied heavily on light dragoon against your direct opponent, though you did charge his second portion of men. My impression was more of a melee spam from ETW than anything else. You did keep your men very nicely lined up in formation. I'm hoping to incorporate these charges somehow into my gameplay, so I will definitely be watching your other replays.

However I think I do see your point of having a militia in the front as a meatshield. I question whether skirmishers are a good "screen", since they have fewer men.

• Scottish heavy Britain armys do have several advantages over Russia, while they do lack grenadiers or charge focused mitlia. Highlander foot are even more dangerous in charge/melee than most of Russia's troops but unlike Russia Highlander foot are no slouches in the shooting department either and are quiet capable of laying a withering hail of supporting fire when they need to. Likewise, British light foot are one of the best skirmisher screens possible and with melee/morale defence 7 and resistant to morale shock are quite capable of holding a light charge until help arrives. For these reasons I would recommend a Scottish British force over Russia for players who prefer a more balanced aggressive approach than my first replay Russia army with zero skirmishers and zero artillery and all out attack.

I think this is an excellent summation for overall strategy, but it still seems to fall short (sorry to be critical, I just want this to work) on a tactical level. Russian artillery is so good that it seems a shame to recommend a zero artillery strategy for russians.

A couple things I can add to this discussion:

• Using the generals inspire ability before going in for the charge boosts the melee attack, which seems like it could really help.I haven't tested this out much though.
• If two units are fighting against one, then the unit not being fired at can move in for the charge. Perhaps we can stagger the line to encourage the enemy to fire at one unit while leaving room for a highlander to charge from slight back. I used this in ETW for grenadiers and it work quite well.

The thing I can't figure out is when to stop shooting and to begin a charge. I see your tactic here is to never fire, but in some case you might have the enemy outgunned.

[{GODS}Scipio_Africanus]

What about Ottomans? I believe they have some melee troops although I haven't tried them yet.

[Chevalier IX]

interesting.being an advocate of the idea that there are few better ways to dislodge a stubborn enemy than a spirited charge,I will be watching this thread for interesting ideas as to how the bayonet might be more efficiently used ingame

[Asymmetric]

I've only had time to watch your first replay so far, but I don't think there was an overall tactic here. You relied heavily on light dragoon against your direct opponent, though you did charge his second portion of men. My impression was more of a melee spam from ETW than anything else. You did keep your men very nicely lined up in formation. I'm hoping to incorporate these charges somehow into my gameplay, so I will definitely be watching your other replays.

Cavalry is always what wins the game in melee centric builds. They are what players will spend there time focusing most of there attention on. Including my general I'm using 9 units of cavalry, hardly a small amount.

However I think I do see your point of having a militia in the front as a meatshield. I question whether skirmishers are a good "screen", since they have fewer men.

Russian skirmishers actually perform the screening role better than miltia in many ways. The loose formation ability allows them to take very few casaulties from the enemys own first volleys combined with there high morale they are exceedingly effective. Their pretty cheap as well considering

I think this is an excellent summation for overall strategy, but it still seems to fall short (sorry to be critical, I just want this to work) on a tactical level. Russian artillery is so good that it seems a shame to recommend a zero artillery strategy for russians.

Russian artillery is indeed exceptionally strong and people are free to take it if they wish to play conventionally and slower, I still don't have any desire to use it regularly. I fully expect most games to start restricting unicorn usage to be honest.

Playing with artillery massively slows down the attack. My builds are about trying to shatter then enemy in as short a period of time as possible. Let me be clear, this is not trying to be the most effective overall strategy, simply the manilest one As I have said, sometimes this approach falls completely flat on its face.

The thing I can't figure out is when to stop shooting and to begin a charge. I see your tactic here is to never fire, but in some case you might have the enemy outgunned.

I generally fire 1 volley. I do not charge everything unless the enemy has taken way to many skirmishers. I hold the grenadiers back to throw grenades into combat. The premise is all about raw speed. Double teaming units on the charge can allow you to break them exceedingly quickly even at the expense of extra casaulties.

[Lockhard]

I fully expect most games to start restricting unicorn usage to be honest.

Nice idea! They got fuked up units, so let's leave them with fuked up artillery!

[Asymmetric]

Nice idea! They got fuked up units, so let's leave them with fuked up artillery!

Pardon?

[bushranger]

I got blitzed by some one using a ottoman rush build,they used those cheap melee units first then just charged everything else in it worked very well but i dont know how effective it will be after people get use to it.

[bushranger]

And just a question have you used fire and advance with the charge at the end,if so how well do you think that works compared to just charging in.

[hannibalic]

I've tried it in practice, but not really yet in mp, but I just got into it today so....It seems like it would be perfect, because it's less micro if you want to fire a volley right before the charge.