Effective use of forests on defense

[VigilanteP]

I just had several successful heroic victories using this strategy so I thought I'd share it and see what input you guys have.

Basically this is a tactic you would use when the enemy outnumbers you quite a bit and you are backed into a wooded area. You must have a reasonable mix of heavy cavalry and infantry for this to work.

What you do is divide your force into two groups:

The first group is comprised of your general, your foot units (missile and melee) and artillery, elephants, or any other unit that can't hide.

The second group is your mounted units that can hide in the forests.

You line up your foot/general unit in a standard missle/melee/cavalry line and place them in the open with one of their flanks adjacent to the forest.

Inside the forest you place your cavalry in a line so that they are facing just ahead of your main line.

If you have set this up correctly the enemy should attack your main line without noticing your cavalry in the forests. Wait a few moments for them to really get dug in and charge them from the flanks. As you know a rear cavalry charge will put most units into routing mode pretty fast and your main line can bust the now withering enemy line and surround whatever he has left.

This has worked at least 5 times in the current campaign that I am playing and has led to some pretty spectacular victories.

Here are a few quick illustrations I whipped together in paint to show the layout of units:






The drawbacks to this are obviously that you need to be in a wooded area and need a good amount of cavalry, but even just a few cavalry units can make a big difference if you have a large infantry army.

The other problem is if the enemy force has a lot of missile because they can just eat into your main line while your cavalry sits there doing nothing. If the enemy has a lot of cavalry it is also less effective because a cavalry on cavalry charge doesn't have the same effect of a cavalry on infantry charge.

Still, I found this tactic or a variation on this tactic to work very well when outnumbered on defense.

Any comments, or suggestions on using terrain like this?

[mailor]

Very good tactic indeed. Thanks for sharing, I'll sure keep your tips in mind.

[Samir]

works also with a hill that you can ride around or with a wide flanking manouver in general. It even gets more effective if you can do that from 2 sides, or from behind. the tricky part is to bring the cavalry in position without the enemy noticing it. If he notices the cavalry the infantry has to do the charging, which sometimes has a similar result.

you can also disrupt the enemy line with a (light) cavalry bait. which draws some of the enemy force into a position where they are more vulnerable for charges.

and those are no downsides of the tactic that you use, that is the tactic

anvil and hammer
you infantry is the anvil and it is their job to get battered while your cavalry is the hammer.

btw the forests are also great to hide some infantry reserves.

[Metellus]

I used this Hammer/Anvil tactic very often playing New Spain in Americas, although I didn't typically hide my cavalry first. Pretty much as Samir said as long as your flanking maneuver is wide enough. It can work very spectacularly too. At very least if the AI notices your cavalry out on the flank, he'll divide his forces (lots of fun breaking up AI phalanxes in RTW that way!).

[Drag529]

good tip, thanks