Fighting in woods against horse archers

**Daeger** · July 24, 2008, 05:29 PM

There are 2 things that I hate more than anything.. fighting in woods and horse archers.. How do you deal with full stack of horse archers in a fight in woods if you're the attacker. :hmmm: Those horse archers are truly a pain in the ass in my ERE campaign, I can't kill them efficiently enough, I always lose tons of men trying to catch em. What to do, ow what to do.

**Shadowcry** · July 24, 2008, 05:31 PM

use your op generals bodyguards, either that or get your own, their are plenty of armeinain mercs and auxiliaries abound

**Coeur de Lion** · July 24, 2008, 08:08 PM

take away their advantage

they are best on open, flat ground. For you, the trees are worst cuz of visibility etc

personally, I would go on a serious rampage with a couple of full stacks and take as many enemy cities as possible. If I remember rightly, the turkish lands east of ERE are very rocky and mountainous...take some archers and some decent spearmen and block all the passes into your realm. Let them try and ride all those horse up the side of steep ravine with you perched on top and them still fancying a fight lol

**Bull** · July 24, 2008, 10:56 PM

Horse archers avoid melee, so MAKE them fight!!

Manouvre your army around, wait around, then catch the horse archers in broken terrain where they cannot run free, or assault an adjacent city so they have to run towards you in defense of the town center (they usually die trying to reach the castle gates...through walls of heavy spearmen).

Since unit cohesion is not that great in MTW2, you can also use that to your advantage. Charge your lancers towards enemy HA, and they'll skirmish and stay out of combat. But usually one or two guys would fall behind and be caught by your cavalry, then the whole unit would enter melee combat. You might not win lopsidedly though, since some horse archers are also capable melee fighters (especially the ghulams, they are slower but definite fight harder).

The trees are very annoying, since they are unrealistically tall and thus block your views. Some one somewhere made a "realistic tree" mod for RTW, wonder if that's going to happen for MTW2.

**Shadowcry** · July 25, 2008, 12:26 AM

The best tactic against horse archers is simply to get your own, using the plentiful maybe too plentiful mercs that surround the Armenian lands plus some random horse archers in central anatolia. Another damn cheap method is up near Trebizond and Constantinople their are plenty of Kypchak HAs willing to help you out. Mass toxotes, armenian auxiliaries or archer auxiliaries, and Italian crossbowmen and defend them with some spear men and you should be able to keep them at bay. While you can charge them with lancers, its quite wasteful and usually your hosarii lancers will get butchered or route without doing little more than breaking their line. Play defensively and it will work towards you advantage.

Like I said earlier if you want to try and catch them, you can use your bodyguard which is practically immune to their arrows to pin down their HAs in melee while you get a lancer or infantry to close in on them. Rinse and repeat and you can defeat any stack that comes your way.

**Daeger** · July 25, 2008, 02:01 AM

Thanks for the tips, guys. I've fought against those Vulga bulgars now and there's a lot of woods in their territory so Im the attacker here. So far, the best tactic I've tried has been a lancer charge but it's not effective against full stack of HA's because lancers are expensive to upkeep and I only have 4 lancer units in a stack at max. 2 lancer in most stacks. :hmmm:

I thought of trying to make a wide battleline, as wide as I can and then just march towards the enemy and try to encircle them, but it seems to be a little hard to organize this whole thing, especially in woods because of the crappy visibility.

**Shadowcry** · July 25, 2008, 02:20 AM

Volga bulgars?

**Daeger** · July 25, 2008, 02:23 AM

Originally Posted by Shadowcry

Volga bulgars?

Yea I mean those Kapchiks or whatever. To the north of ERE.

Hey, uh, I was wondering.. Is it possible to disable the numbers that show how many men I have in a unit?

**kensai_loki** · July 25, 2008, 02:58 AM

bah. just get a stack of spears and attack their stack of HA. AUTORESOLVE. you WIN totally. put in a good general and make sure their HA stack is not full armor HA like toassin. you'll still win. just higher casualty rate. saves you a lot of trouble....

**Commander Ruunu** · July 25, 2008, 05:29 AM

I don't know, in my opinion it's quite easy to fight HA in woods because trees alter their movement and then it's simple job for heavy cavalry or run them down with your own HA and then call heavy horses in

**Lupu** · July 25, 2008, 10:04 AM

Originally Posted by kensai_loki

bah. just get a stack of spears and attack their stack of HA. AUTORESOLVE. you WIN totally. put in a good general and make sure their HA stack is not full armor HA like toassin. you'll still win. just higher casualty rate. saves you a lot of trouble....

Coward

**kensai_loki** · July 25, 2008, 01:22 PM

hei im just being a realist. easiest solution to a problem Lupus.

**The Noble Lord** · July 25, 2008, 01:46 PM

and then it's simple job for heavy cavalry

Precisely.

CHEERS

**Daeger** · July 25, 2008, 04:39 PM

I figured spamming those merc HA's and some infantry was a very good tactic against those Kapchik HA stacks.:hmmm:

When they're closing a "real army" of mine I'll attack them with a merc army and auto resolve it, then they either win or lose, regardless the job will be a lot easier for the real army then.

Of course it might be a little difficult to use mercs if Im poor but for now, Im getting tons of money from my conquests and cities.