My greatest ambush

[Vault Dweller]

I was just doing a Gallic campaign, (v1.5) and I was off to a bad start. I was folding to Rome, who had pulled off a very succesful blitzkreig to Patavium and Mediolanium before I realized. Usually they give me 10 or so years. Anyway, I had a retreating army in a forest. It consisted of 4 barbarian cav, 1 barbarian mercenary, 1 general, 1 warband and 1 swordsmen unit. I click "end turn" and I get a notice saying I have ambushed the enemy. I am delighted. I mass all my cavalry either side of the general, and all my infantry just behind the enemy general. When the battle starts, I charge the gneral, killing him instantly, whil my warbands and swordsmen keep the furius roman infantry from my cav. With the general gone, my cav swing round and smash the rear of the enemy army, prducing an instant mass rout. I ran them all down, and left none alive. Result: Roman losses: 800, mine: 30. That ambush destroyed most of the Julii's field army, allowing me to take back Patavium and Mediolanium, and put the Romans on the defensive.

[fieldmarshal]

Good Job, I got ambushed by Egypt once while playing as Rome, not pretty.

[Roman Knight]

Lucky, I've never even managed to get an ambush

[Primvs Sextvs Loverlord]

Great work. It's just brilliantly awesome when an ambush like that gets pulled off perfectly. 800 losses versus 30 is perfection especially if you're a barbarian faction.

Unfortunately for me, I'm always at the wrong end of ambushes =(

[JamesG]

Unfortunately for me, I'm always at the wrong end of ambushes =(

Me too!

The ambush image scares me, then when I read that it failed, it's not so bad, still I'd prefer to ambush more often.

Anyway, Great job Vault Dweller! If only you had pics of such an awesome ambush

[Vault Dweller]

Sorry, no pics. Whenever I take screens, I can never find them in the .tgas folder. It's really annoying, as I've had some epic battles but lost the screens
Ouch, fieldmarshal, egypt are tough against rome in a field battle, let alone an ambush!

[Rasui Runihura]

In my first campaign as the Brutii, the Civil War had just begun. My main army was sieging Capua, and I had another general commanding about 8 units in ambush between Rome and Capua, knowing the Senate army would come. They approached, and I ambushed them. I won. One of my favorite battles ever.

[Prince_of_Macedon]

Ambushes work well on the Prippet Marshes map. But you have to rely on the other player coming at you to make it happen (which isn't my style).

[Vault Dweller]

Battle ambushes are decent, but don't give nearly the tactical value of campaign ambushes.

[Quintus the Great]

Playing as Julii once, I had 3 equites moving to join up with one of my generals. While the other factions were going, I had ambushed Gaul. If I remember right they had 8 warbands. So I had 1 unit charge from the front, and the other 2 charge from the side about halfway down. Almost as soon as they made contact, the entire Gallic army began to rout

[Xavier Dragnesi]

Ambushes are great fun especially when you're the one ambushing. When you're the one who gets ambushed, then I still think it's pretty cool to have to fight your way out of it.

@Vault Dweller: Download Fraps so screenshots are a lot easier to take.

[feroXXXed35]

how do u ambush?

[Selifator]

If you place a stack in a forest on the campaign map, you hear the captain or general say that the ambush is in place. They will crouch, and wait.
An ambush can only be done when your army still has movement points left.

[King_StuvartiniusIII]

I ambushed the western romans with the saxons on BI once, NOT nice, about half my dudes died (they were rubbish, cheap units) and most of the romans died before routing (they were all top quality units) bodies everywhere!

[guyyug]

I once got ambushed by another player on prippet marshes ages and ages ago, but I can remember the general jist of it. When I was playing as carthage, had to quickly redeploy and I lost a unit of peoni infantry so I could do this. Well I got the battle line set up and the other player was laughing in the chat because of what he thinks is an ambush, what he has failed to notice is that I've only got one cavalry unit with my infantry.

Matter of moments later we have 4 sacred band cavalry going at top speed towards the seleciud's flank, the ambush had made our flanks to redeploy with my right and his left faceing towards the forest on my side of the map. The only ambush I've ver truely done.

I've hidden some cavalry sometimes in the trees on the far side of the map with the roman building smack in the center of it and have wiped out many archers and onagars due to this.

[Selifator]

I almost never ambush, I don't think it's worth to wait for the enemy to come. Also there are only a couple of places were a succesfull ambush is guaranteed.

[Rule_Brittania]

I was playing as the Germans on xgm.

Was fighting a war on 2 fronts, Gauls to the east and Scythia to the west.
The romans who were my allies decide to betray me and attack. I lucky had a half decent army in my homelands to repel the attack. I then muster up a full stack and manage to battle through to northern italy. My spies see a full stack roman army nearny at the city of Patavium so decide to set up and ambush in the alps. i hit end turn and lucky enough the romans walk right into it.

They have no time to prepare. I had about 1400 men and the romans around the same. I deploy my men either side of the roman army with a couple of units to attack head on. My cavalry to attack the rear. The battle began and what a slaughter! The romans were a worthy foe but they could not fight when surrounded from all sides.

The roman force was totally destroyed while I still had around 900 men.

[Lord Thesaurian]

cool man! way 2 go I was once in a situation similar 2 yours (gaul vs rome). i was losing until i ambushed a huge roman army in a battle simialr 2 Lake Trasimene. I had a gen, 2 warband, 1 sword, and one light cav against something like 6 Hastati, 4 principes, 2 equites, 1 gen 4 velites. I pretty much did the same thing u did, except i charged them all at once and pinned them against a river. Luckily, they all routed at once except the gen. which I then killed and pursued them all to the death.

[D.B. Cooper]

Awesome victory, especially since it turned your campaign around.

[Juicemisbruk]

you don't need to ambush to do that... if i have enough cavalry i always go after the general first, then his infantry. after i killed the general(s) i can charge infantry engaged with my infantry, and they all rout... minimum losses for me, tons to the enemy. I find ambushes useless as its easy to run around the enemy battle line and attack from behind, without it...