Dealing with Horse Archers

**Alavaria** · October 06, 2014, 01:24 AM

Mounted archers are probably some of the most deadly units around, perhaps cataphacts are worse, but then there are mounted cataphract archers....

So I recently had the pleasure of dealing with a massive stack of horse archers. On Very Hard battles. Forget Rome that died long ago, the Sarmatians are the real final boss of this campaign.

After this painful and grueling battle... tens of thousands of sharp arrows later, I wondered how most people would deal with something like this. Indeed the descriptions of some of these units are quite frightening.

Do you use a lot of archers? (How well do they deal with the heavily armored ones?) Perhaps some people rely on masses of the same, but with everyone armored (wouldn't work on Very Hard though)

Spoiler for Final Result:

**Love Mountain** · October 06, 2014, 02:06 AM

I use disposable but well armored troops as fodder. Like levy phalangites or something.

**tungri_centurio** · October 06, 2014, 12:29 PM

i use lot of archers,some infantry to protect the archers an alot of cav to try and flank the horsearchers that are shooting at my main line.
but it's not a good tactic since most times i have heavy losses.and hide in my walled city's

but that was with 2.5

with 2.6 i have boii as buffer with them since i suck against horsearcher nations

**neep** · October 06, 2014, 07:01 PM

Whoah, that's scary.
I was actually surprised at your Casualties Sustained stats - I expected to see a lot more casualties inflicted on you.

+1 for a Ballista to get some long range damage inflicted, but with sallying out from a city that may not help since the ballista stays within the city walls

My (Rome) default is approx. 50/50 heavy infantry and archers so I'd likely let my infantry hunker down and throw pila if they get close enough.
Then use the archers to try and pin them down.

If I had the chance to prepare I'd select maybe 4 (or more) heavy cavalry units to work with archers to try and corner them into a fight. Let the heavy cavalry do their worst and then the archers can pick them off as they flee (?)
But...I've never actually faced this so I'd probably get slaughtered from a distance and never actually get close enough to do damage.

Would be very interested to hear the collective wisdom on this one.

**Alavaria** · October 06, 2014, 08:51 PM

Heavy pikemen seem to be ideal for this, they can take the arrows without any major pain (even on Very Hard losses tend to be rather low from the arrows) and as a bonus they will murder any horse dumb enough to just charge in.

Certainly, no Roman defeats to Parthians if they have access to good pikes...

**Iskandar** · October 07, 2014, 06:05 AM

Yeah, pikes are stupidly powerful against arrows and charges. I wonder if the Thorakitai get a spear bonus against cavalry and if it's better than the advantage of phalanx formation.

I find that I need at least 4 heavy horse and 2 light, plus 4 archer units to be effective. I'm also considering adding artillery for the armies blocking off strategic choke points.

BTW, Alavaria, were you offensive with your pikes, or did you just use them to shield your range units? So far I'm trading arrows (I tend to have 4 archers and 2 HAs/Aspidophoroi in an eastern front army) and only after theirs are spent do I approach the cataphracts. I'll be trying something more offensive soon, though.

**Alavaria** · October 07, 2014, 09:04 AM

Originally Posted by Iskandar

Yeah, pikes are stupidly powerful against arrows and charges. I wonder if the Thorakitai get a spear bonus against cavalry and if it's better than the advantage of phalanx formation.

Yeah they get some bonus, but not as good as hoplites. They are not as good as phalanx. I think both units have 16 armor (upgraded) and 10 shield. However, it seems the phalanx formation is equivalent to (between 6 to 8) extra shield.

My pikemen can stand in a storm of arrows and take very few losses. Anyone else (except maybe Testudo) will get shredded.

Originally Posted by Iskandar

BTW, Alavaria, were you offensive with your pikes, or did you just use them to shield your range units? So far I'm trading arrows (I tend to have 4 archers and 2 HAs/Aspidophoroi in an eastern front army) and only after theirs are spent do I approach the cataphracts. I'll be trying something more offensive soon, though.

Depends what you mean by shield. They stood there until the enemy had used up their arrows. This was by no means all the horse archers (the AI retreated) but most of the losses were due to the enemy attacking in melee, not to their arrows.

Amusingly the AI does not quite "know" if its horse archers are out of arrows, so when it tries to flank with them, you are able to safely slinger some to death. However, it may still charge, which can be rather devastating. While the light horse archers can be killed by archers, the heavy ones can take it pretty well. And it's the heavy ones who are the trouble, hoplites can't do much against them... so I empty them arrows and slinger them.

Let me pull up another fight... obviously you can do much better when the enemy is trapped in a fort or settlement, as they can't run off and you can be sure you've killed them.

Sadly, the AI must've had issues getting all its troops into the settlement...

Spoiler for Details:

Again, more losses in melee rather than from arrows. I imagine on just Medium or Hard battles heavy pikemen will be nearly invulnerable to arrows.

Foot archers will not shoot at the heavy pikemen (along with javelin troops which are not the pre-charge type), thus I have a unit of Greek Levy Pikemen (I changed it so they look different, they have the lambdas on the shield); the foot archers will shoot at these. Slingers will shoot heavy pikes.

**tungri_centurio** · October 07, 2014, 03:37 PM

Originally Posted by Alavaria

. While the light horse archers can be killed by archers, the heavy ones can take it pretty well. And it's the heavy ones who are the trouble, hoplites can't do much against them... so I empty them arrows and slinger them.

the heavy ones can be killed by archers but you have to use them in pairs,2units can kill half or more off 1 heavy cav unit(on hard)

**LuciferM** · October 07, 2014, 07:19 PM

Might not help as Sparta, but back in my Bosporos playthrough the best way I figured out how to defeat Scythian/Sarmatian horse archers was with better horse archers...

Of course when they're not available, a pair of good missile soaking infantry with foot archers can usually do some heavy damage against HA.

**High Fist** · October 08, 2014, 07:33 AM

Yeah same as everyone else said really. Use archers instead of slingers for the better range, use pikes to shield them, and then my favourite is to trap them between two units of cavalry.

If you grab two units of light cav to work in tandem with your heavy, you'll be able to catch them and then sweep them away. Granted, against such hordes of HA you could take fairly hefty losses...

Divide and conquer. Try and seperate one or two units of HA from the main body and

them in the ass.

And, ofc, you could wait and waste their arrows on your shields, if you're bothered. Might be less inclined to run away then.

**Ownager** · October 08, 2014, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by Alavaria

Mounted archers are probably some of the most deadly units around, perhaps cataphacts are worse, but then there are mounted cataphract archers....

So I recently had the pleasure of dealing with a massive stack of horse archers. On Very Hard battles. Forget Rome that died long ago, the Sarmatians are the real final boss of this campaign.

After this painful and grueling battle... tens of thousands of sharp arrows later, I wondered how most people would deal with something like this. Indeed the descriptions of some of these units are quite frightening.

Do you use a lot of archers? (How well do they deal with the heavily armored ones?) Perhaps some people rely on masses of the same, but with everyone armored (wouldn't work on Very Hard though)

Spoiler for Final Result:

Kind of makes you wish you had some sturdy testudos eh?
À mon Avis, heavy cavalry is the best counter, along with pikemen. During my Seleucid campaign, I used levy pikemen, Saka heavy cavalry and a unit of elephants to flatten army after army of Parthians. First, I let the enemy shoot up my pikemen. At the same time, I always maneuver to kill the enemy general. THE enemy general will not retreat, so you cantakehim out easy. Then, I got behind the enemy horse archers, and charged. The point here is basically to scatter them while they are low on ammo. Even half strength units of heavy cavalry can shred horse archers. Oh, and most importantly, a large complement of archers, especially foot archers. By large it canbe as much as 4 to 0, since I usually manage to win with less losses, but lose a lot of my missiles.

**Alavaria** · October 08, 2014, 01:14 PM

Originally Posted by Ownager

Kind of makes you wish you had some sturdy testudos eh?

No, because the AI will charge it and then you know what happens in melee.

All my guys die to the overpowered heavy cavalry. Also tesudo units don't get the rather large bonuses spear units have against horse because they aren't spearmen.

Originally Posted by High Fist

If you grab two units of light cav to work in tandem with your heavy, you'll be able to catch them and then sweep them away. Granted, against such hordes of HA you could take fairly hefty losses...

They will shred them. The AI essentially has a massive blob of mounted archers and enough arrows to kill everyone in the army if it wasn't for the fact they are dumb on the defensive and will waste the ammo shooting pikemen in the front. This is because horse archers can fire no matter what, and the AI doesn't know how to stop them. In fact, I have seen AI horse archers being Hidden in a forest and still shooting arrows.

Because of the effect of generals' stars on autoresolve, a high command general can also just autoresolve with massive stack of infantry and beat the archers handily, due to better stats, more soldiers, and command. Best to do this when they are in a settlement and fort; that way any survivors will just disappear.

It appears the game has a preference for assigning casualties to units at the top of your list, so ideally put some cheap stuff first and then all your elites later on.

**Ownager** · October 12, 2014, 08:14 AM

Originally Posted by Alavaria

No, because the AI will charge it and then you know what happens in melee.

That is what heavy cavalry is for.

All my guys die to the overpowered heavy cavalry. Also tesudo units don't get the rather large bonuses spear units have against horse because they aren't spearmen.

Atleast they will have the numbers to take out the cavalry after the arrow rain.

**Alavaria** · October 12, 2014, 09:59 AM

Originally Posted by Ownager

That is what heavy cavalry is for.

Atleast they will have the numbers to take out the cavalry after the arrow rain.

Yeah I guess it works on Medium. Maybe hard, though I don't think sword infantry would beat horse on Hard.

**Ownager** · October 12, 2014, 11:17 AM

It definitely does work against an enemy player with equal skill and no buffed up stats.

**Alavaria** · October 12, 2014, 03:37 PM

Yeah, I was looking for a less tedious way to deal with the buffed-up AI deathstacks of horse archers. But it's all fine now, all the enemies have been dealt with.

I did note that my most well-protected hoplites (16+2 armor, 10 shield) were able to take a few arrows pretty well. Before, I had only used (14+2 armor, 8 shield) hoplites and they really suffer.

**Searry** · October 18, 2014, 09:04 AM

I lock the enemy with light cavalry, charge with heavy cavalry and finish off with high armor infantry. Missiles, other than javelins, are not powerful enough against cavalry like this according to my experiences.