This formation works best with European nations againsts which doesn't have a lot of horse archers. Anyway, a strong army with horse archers with just tear apart any formations, except another with even stronger horse archer. I built this type of formation from the time of Rome as the Romans, and now as the English. Others factions are more or less the same with minor modifications.
I build my forces around a concept I call "Brigades". There are 3 types of brigades I use; I will cover their roles in battles later.
- Center, static brigade:
+ 5 units of heavy infantry
+ 1 unit of ranged infantry.
- Flank, maneuver brigade:
+ 2 units of spearmen or heavy infantry.
+ 1 unit of ranged infantry.
+ 2 units of cavalry.
- Artillery brigade:
+ 4 units of artillery. This depends on the type of battle. In open field, use some anti-personnel ones like serpentine. In siege, use basilisk or culverin.
Each army (if I call these brigades, then my "army" will be effectively a division-size unit, in modern terms
), on open field battles will consist of 1 center brigade, and 2 flanks brigade. That would make up a 9 inf, 3 range, 4 cav, and 4 arty. I would usually mobilize the entire brigade as a whole, and they can move fairly independent of each other.
A= archers/range infantry
H= heavy infanty/spear
C= cavalry/general
----[AAA]-----------------------[AAA]------------------------[AAA]
[HHH] [HHH]--------[HHH] [HHH] [HHH] [HHH] [HHH]--------[HHH] [HHH]
-[CC] [CC] ------------------------------------------------- [CC] [CC]
LEFT BRIGD---------------------CENTER BRIGD---------------RIGHT BRIGD
Artillery will be situated in the gaps between the brigades.
Attacking is fairly typical: my archers on the flanks will try to soften up/provoke the cavalry into charging them. Then my archers will quick retreat behind the spear/infantry, any my cav. charge up, attempting to destroy enemy cav. the heavy infantry will provide support for the cav while the cav retreat for a follow up charge. Meanwhile, the center archer will try to soften up enemy center with fire arrows.
If all goes well, then enemy cav should be destroyed and leave the center infantry unsupported. The center brigades will advance, charge and pin down enemy center while the infantries on the flanks will either help pinning them or move around the flanks in attempts to engage enemy reserves. The cav will of course hit the enemy back.
Routing would start very soon.
If the enemy is any of the Italians (xbows
). My archers will be the bait while the rest charge up. Their xbows will fall behind their infantry lines. My inf will engage their while my cav start of charge into their xbows which are now without supports.
One of my favourite battle using this type of force is durring the attck of venice. I stay on a bridge and the Venetian hit be from both sides of the bridges. I put my center brig to guard the bridge. Then I withdraw 1 unit of infantry out and put into a flank brig. The 2 flank brigades now form a line that guard me rear. The Venetians started to cross the bridge. They were drawn into a box formation by my heavy inf. while getting fire arrows from my archer. they were weaken by rotting cows from my trebuchets.
Meanwhile the other army creeps up behind me. I kind expected that se I deployed my force facing them. Since they got quite a lot of xbows so I made a forceful infanty-cav charge while they were showered by fire arrows. The infantry hold the enemy inf off while my cav repeatedly charge into the xbows. The archers hit any units that was not engaged. Soon 1 army rout and since they were so near the border, they ran for good
After finishing the army on my back. I get the flank brigades joins in the bridge battle and made a forceful charge across the bridge. The Italians were till then a cycle of charge, rout, regroup, charge, and rout again. This time, they rout for good. My cav then start to run down any fleeing troops.
HEROIC VICTORY
While assaulting settlements, 2 cav units will be replaced with heavy infantry.
Accompanying each as above army (division, I would like to call), will a support army. This will usually consist of a flank brigade and a center brigade. Making them having 7 infantry, 2 cav, 2 range. The main purpose for this support unit is to replenish heavily depleted units (usually any units that lost more than 1/3 of its men) with fresh ones. Or they can act as baits to lure out enemy into terrains that favor my army (brigdes, mountain pass....) . This is usually needed when 2 fullstacks of enemy is guarding a city/castle. If no favorable presents, I would try to fight the best I can and kill as many as possible.
Garrisoning important settlements will be 1 center brig, 1 flank brig. with 2-3 additional archer/ranged infantry; that'll make a 7 inf, 4-5 range, 2 cav. I adopt an in depth, flexible defense with available counter-attack forces nearby so I usually don't garrison a city/castle in full.
I usually have some mobile forces to do police actions (rebels
) or quickly reinforce certain regions. They usually consist of a single flank brigade with 1-2 additional heavy infantry. That'll make 3 inf. 1 range, 2 cav.
I'm still experimenting my force with horse archers. I think I would replace 2 infantry, 2 cav of the center brigade by 4 horse archers.