Hit & Run Tactic

**aion2006** · October 17, 2007, 01:40 PM

I did this before in Medieval, & Rome Total War™ but I never tried it in Medieval 2.

Does Hit & Run Tactic work in Medieval 2? I've had a debate with a friend about this and want to confirm a few thing. I'm away from a decent computer to play medieval 2 so I can't try it yet.

In Medieval/Rome I would use horse archer and attack a large army. Use as much arrows and withdraw from battle. Reducing their number as they march on the field.

A friend of mine says in Medieval 2™ it sorta work but if you "Withdraw" with nobody killed. Magically you lose like 7 guys out of that 30 horse archer. Is this true?

**~~Miraj~~** · October 17, 2007, 01:42 PM

Yeah I used to do this a lot with the Parthians (for RTR that is) and did this also with the Turk. Though its a bit unfair for the AI.

**Southern_land** · October 17, 2007, 03:17 PM

A tactic i've used too but the horse archers don't seem as powerful in MTW II as in RTW unless you're ponying up against very lightly armoured troops

I use about 4-6 units of mounted archers so some of them are always getting flank or rear shots.

I don't think this tactic is "gamey", lets face it if you're a faction with those troops available are these the tactics these troops are designed for?

**Angarah** · October 17, 2007, 03:53 PM

Well, it really doesnt make sense. The only archers that are worth anything against infantry in the medieval times were longbowmen, and you cant put longbowmen on cavalry. So no dice.

**Mythre** · October 17, 2007, 04:31 PM

Against light infantry HA work fine... but unless you get behind DFK or other types of good infantry they are kinda bad...

**AdmiringtheEnemyeh?** · October 17, 2007, 04:58 PM

Hey i do this all the time. Try to flank them to shoot into their backs, and try to get as close as possible without getting in meele. Turn off skirmish mode. It's a great tactic against an all meele infantry army. Just kill 200 troops with arrows, and withdraw.

**Lost Crusader** · October 17, 2007, 05:30 PM

I rarely use this tactic because I don't need to, sometimes only for fun.

I found that with 5-6 sipahis you can cause around 30% casualties to heavily armored troops (which are not often seen in AI armies), and much more to a usual AI stack. And I did achieve a few heroic victories in battles that were supposed to be hit&run.

If you plan to use hit & run, don't bring your general into the battle. He will only slow you down, and will pick up some bad traits because, technically, you lost the battle. And the AI will rush to the general, forcing you to babysit him, thus loosing the initiative. The downside of this is lower morale to your troops, making them more prone to rout. Unless they have a decent experience.

**pwijnands** · October 17, 2007, 05:27 PM

If you don't win and you withdraw, you will lose some men 'magically'. I had a similar thing while attempting a siege. I advanced with two of my rams, both caught fire after the first ten seconds of flaming arrow fire. The rams broke down, I lost. Most of my units somehow managed losses, even though only the units that were pushing the rams were under fire.

**~~Miraj~~** · October 17, 2007, 06:11 PM

It's really weird that withdrawals count as a loss regardless of what losses you had. Withdrawing from battles that you lose less than 5% of your troops should have been put under "draw". Besides withdrawing from battle to seek better ground was a common thing for most armies - HA or not.