Armoured Swordsmen vs Dismounted English Knights

[dorratz]

Hello everyone!

I am playing with England, I am in turn 55, and I have already built few citadels. I wanted to ask you - which infantry unit should be the backbone of my army - the Armoured Swordsmen or the Dismounted English Knights? they are really opposite - the Armoured Swordsmen have sword() and they have great defence. the Dismounted English Knights have a axe and they are pretty powerful attackers.

Armoured Swordsmen - 13 Attack, , 22 Defence, 3 Charge

Dismounted English Knights -21 Attack,13 Defence , 6 Charge

Who is better?(PLEASE IGNORE ANY MONEY'S CONCERNS)

[Imperator_Maximus]

You really can't compare a sword unit and a pole arm unit. I would say put both in your armies. The Dismounted English Knights I think are very useful against France's horsemen while the Armoured Swords are good with dealing with the lightly armored Scots.

[Fishrudder]

You really can't compare a sword unit and a pole arm unit. I would say put both in your armies. The Dismounted English Knights I think are very useful against France's horsemen while the Armoured Swords are good with dealing with the lightly armored Scots.

Which means go with the Dismounted English Knights, the Scots are easy to take out, well easier then France. I would say Retinue Longbowmen. If you want to cheat that is. But out of those two, Dismounted English Knights, definetly

[Lost Crusader]

I'd say both.

Armoured Swordsmen to hold a line, and Dismounted English Knights to outflank. You can also use the heavy billmen for this purpose.

If I really have to choose, I'd choose Armored swordsmen. No particular reason, just a personal preference.

[SGD2C]

use armored swordsmen as base and DEK as support to charge after the armored swords are in battle. if i had to have 1 or the other, i'd go with armored swordsmen.

[redhawk13]

it depends on your style of play really; as some others here have said DEK are great when flanking or charging after the enemy has already been engaged, but are poor front line troops because of their low defense. I have also found that DEK are very poor when assaulting with ladders, and vulnerable to archers as well, so I'd be careful about using them in sieges.

[pwijnands]

I prefer armored swordsmen over dismounted english knights. Their attack is a bit quicker then the knights. I can't seem to get those knights to fight much, they spend more time blocking and getting hit than actually striking. Although using them to charge an already engaged unit would obviously make them useful, but I prefer to do that with cavalry.

[Harald Hardrade]

I prefer the armored swordsmen. The Dismounted knights take extremely
heavy losses when duking it out on the front line. I guess I like the
survivability of the swordsmen rather than the high (inflated, phoney) attack of the dismounted knights.

[TheOnion]

Armoured Swordsmen would be my choice. They are tough as nails.

[MaDmAn_1988]

I would have the armourd swords as backbone however never leave out the DEK as there high attack with high charge bonus can do serious damage especially on flanks,

for example as ur armourd swors hold the line however if u are fighting france for example eg chivalric knights ur gng to have a real long slog ahead, best thing bout DEK is move around the side.....and then from a distance charge straight into the flanks, the armour percing high attack and charge will kill every enemy that is hit atleast 10 if charge hits well, then watch as there flanks start to giveway......................then hopefully u can get there flanks to start routing and slowly this will work its way inwards,

problem is u could just use MOUNTED Engkish knights for this tactic and this would probly be more effective,

in conclusion armourd swords are the backbone of melee side of ur army suported by longbows, then personelly i would rather mounted knight therefore i neva used DEK, but hey if ur finances are tight they are cheaper than heavy cav and they do the same role by flanking charges,

[Problem Sleuth]

As long as you keep them away from cavalry forces, as well as archers, Dismounted English Knights are pretty schnazzy units to have; they eat up Heavy Infantry like no tomorrow. Generally, though, if you're going something like assaulting a ranged-heavy opponent up a mountain, I'd strongly advise using Armored Swordsmen as your frontal assault forece to soak up damage; the fact that they have a shield helps against even good AP missile units, such as Genoese Crossbowmen and Retinue Longbowmen.

Armored Swordsmen --------- Meatshield
Dismounted English Knights --- Shock trooper/infantry destroyer


Also, your "PLEASE IGNPRE MONEY CONCERNS" message is kinda stupid, no offense, because money and cost effectiveness is really the base of everything; casualties are merely a method of representation, and hold little in reality - I'd rather suffer 50 losses with a 75-man 200g unit than 25 with a 40-man 800g. And, overall, I'd rather pwn the enemy and take 0 losses to any unit.

[Razbojnik]

Use both,but Swords are the backbone,Knights are flankers

[Hungary Horace]

Put them in your army with a 2-1 ratio of Armoured Swordsman to Dismounted English Knights.

Do not forget Heavy Bill men either - I'd go for 4 swordsman with 2 of each heavy billmen and Dis - eng knights. have the rest as archers and English knights and lancers = kick ass.

Remember that as England, Archers should be the core of your army. Retinue longbowmen can hold their own in melee.

[Kratos]

Use armoured swordsmen as your standard heavy infantry and bring a few units of dismounted knights as shock troops.

[Garnier]

If you consider money:

DEK are 225 upkeep, while AS are 150. So DEK cost 1.5x as much. I don't consider the DEK to be 1.5x as good in combat.

[WarLord 1991]

if it was up to me, i would go with a 3:2 ratio of swordmen and poleaxe. this is because you get the best of best worlds.

that is if money was no object

[Captain Spanky]

This is what I do:
5 AS
3 DEK
4 Longbow

The longbowmen deploy stakes, but leave a gap in the middle. I deploy my DEK i the middle of my line, with AS on the sides. The DEK are the first in, hitting the enemy in the center, they usually end up fighting infantry initially. The AS come next, in a line, to cover the stakes and finish off any more cavalry or infantry units about.

I find that having a few units lead a charge into the center makes the rest of the force envelope your men, making them easier to rout when you pile in your cavalry, which you can do because you left a gap in the stake line.

[Cyrus Spitama]

Regarding English armies in vanilla, don't you think heavy billmen are unbalancedly cheap units? For 300 you can have a heavy assault unit that can eat up about any kind of light and even heavy infantry that can cost up to the double.

[Captain Spanky]

You do raise a good point, but I suppose this is balanced out because they tend to be quite delicate, whenever I use them they seem to go down quickly, but do take an awful lot with them.

[spanish_emperor]

armoured swordsmen without a doubt. i've tested unit against unit and it seems defense is way more important than attack. you can have one same unit with 13 attack and 22 defense and the exact same other with 22 attack and 13 defense and the one with more defense crushes the other.

And anyways, the ai normally gets spearmen not swordsmen so dismounted english nobles arent that good.