Battle tactics

[Bardo]

There are some units that I found underpowered in campaign, until some players taught me online other ways to use them, and I'd like to list some of them so they are taken into account by players who did not play online.

Chariots
The AI do not know how to use them, and I admit they look useless in campaign, but they are one of the units with more chances to be overpowered in multiplayer.
One chariot alone has not much power, but several chariots together (4 or 5 units) can destroy any kind of cavalry, and can be used to slaughter infantry units that are already engaged in combat. If you place your chariots in the back of the enemy line and you move them close to the back of the soldiers, the razors of the chariots will kill many soldiers and will cause panic to the others. So, instead of attacking the infantry, keep your chariots moving close to their backs and they willl be much more effective.

Anyway, the suggestion to increase their mass from 7 to 9 could be a good way to make them a bit better in hands of the AI.

Elite Cavalry (with 2 or 3 hps)
These units are almost immortal if you use them to charge and immediately you retreat them from combat so they never stay engaged in battle. If you keep them moving and charging, there is no infantry unit in this mod that can kill them.
At some point you end killing them because every time they charge there is a gap of time that they are engaged and vulnerable to attacks, but they can perform many charges before they start to die, if properly used.
The units with many soldiers can stop the charges and are not very affected, but these elite cavalry can be very dangerous at the end of the battle when all the remaining units have few soldiers. The narrow formation of the elite spear units was my attempt to allow them to stop this kind of cavalry charges. An alternative is to place several units overlaping in the same space so the clustered soldiers can stop the charges this way.

Armored archers
It looks like they are not worth the money compared to archers with similar missile attack and range, even if they have less armour. But there is a common tactic online to use your archers to kill the enemy archers first, and then to move your archers behind the enemy line and cause important casualties by shooting from the back.
When used this way, the armor is very important to win these archers vs archers battles, and the best players that I have faced online use to choose the archer units with better armour. They are also useful to fight in melee when they run out of ammo, of course.

The AI never uses the archers this way, so I guess armored archers are not so important in campaign.

[Bardo]

High mass units
For example uruks, greater orcs, or dwarves, specially those with 2 handed weapons.
They can be used to run through enemy units and attack them from the back. Instead of attacking the unit, you can double click (run) behind the unit, and do it several times until they are able to reach the other side.
If your unit has the ability to cause fear, like uruks or great orcs, this tactic can cause panic in the enemy too.
If your unit has a high charge value, this value will be summed to your attack while your soldiers are running this way. Units with high charge and high mass, like the army of the dead, are better used running through the enemy than attacking. This is one of the reasons that most cavalry units have so low charge values in this mod.

Similar tactic can be used to attack lines of pikemen from the front. When your unit is engaged with the pikemen, the pikes will kill your soldiers, but few pikemen will die, protected behind those pikes. If you double click behind the pikemen (instead of over them to attack), your soldiers will move until they reach the enemy soldiers, even when some of them will die crossing the pikes. Once your soldiers are behind the pikes (close to the enemy bodies), you can click to attack the pikemen normaly, and they will be much more effective.

Mounted archers
If you enable the buttons "fire at will" and "skirmish" near an enemy unit, your mounted archers will keep firing, and running to keep the distance when necessary.
The main way to counter this attack is either use archers to shot them, or attack them with light cavalry that can run faster.
If the mounted archers have also the ability "cantabrian circle" (like dale and rhun), then they will be very resistent against projectile and it is a waste to use archers against them.

Taking these abilities into account, if your army includes berserks, trolls, or siege weapons that are vulnerable to missiles, the only way to protect them against these "cantabrian circle" units is by sending them light cavalry, or archers and medium cavalry at same time (cantabrian circle makes them slower).

When elves (with higher speed), are facing an army of dwarves or goblins (with lower speed), you can use your archers in a similar way (fire at will and skirmish), and keep shooting to the dwarves/goblins that will not be able to catch your archers. Elven archers are almost like mounted archers when fighting vs dwarves/goblins.