Novogrod Roster

[chewy]

Does anyone else feel that Novgorod's units are fairly weak? I'm using SS 6.1, RC, RR, with Byg II supply mod and their units feel really sub par against western factions. Druzihana and Tsar Guards just can't compete at all agianst western calvary while spearman just get crushed agianst late calvary charges. DM druzihana are fun until late where plate troops just overpowers them through armor. It just seems all they have is horse archers and more horse archers

[Barser]

I thought this was about the novgorod unit rooster mod.

you might wanna get this: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=172793

[Caesar Clivus]

Does anyone else feel that Novgorod's units are fairly weak? I'm using SS 6.1, RC, RR, with Byg II supply mod and their units feel really sub par against western factions. Druzihana and Tsar Guards just can't compete at all agianst western calvary while spearman just get crushed agianst late calvary charges. DM druzihana are fun until late where plate troops just overpowers them through armor. It just seems all they have is horse archers and more horse archers

As Barsar said, try out Battle for the Baltic. Novgorod gets (amongst other new units) the Novgorod Home Guard, a heavy spear unit. They can stand up to just about anything

[chewy]

I did and wasn't that interested in the units. I was just wondering why did Russia go from late game powerhouse like it was in vanilla to middle game power and if anyone else shared my view on Russia's general lack of firepower late game.

[RollingWave]

any faction with solid HA roster isn't weak.

[chewy]

sure it is when archers can rape unarmored horses to all hell and with stakes spread around the factions a lot more, it makes using archers as a defense line against HA pretty simple. Dvor might be heavily armored, but thier slow easy to tie down with light cav then slamming heavy cav for the kill. not to mention they start at light mail i think as basic armor not exactly ideal until you upgrade to partial plate at least.

[RollingWave]

you simply don't have enough HAs then, or your walking them up to the enemy in a nice little block of target practice.

try running in loose formation. I never use tight on my HAs unless I'm closing in to charge.

I ran over the map easily with the Cumans. who had NOTHING but HA's

[chewy]

aren't you contradicting yourself then? cuman had nothing but HA, but you still wiped them?

[crunchyfrog]

Novrogod has a great roster?

Heavy mail axe (AP) wielding infanfry.
Light and Heavy horsearchers.
Musketeers and basilisks.
Dismounted Dvors who are great in melee to.
Only thing lacking is heavy cavalry with lances, other than that they have it all.

[aduellist]

aren't you contradicting yourself then? cuman had nothing but HA, but you still wiped them?

No, you're reading what he said backwards. He said he had no trouble beating anyone else when he played as Cumans.

[Barser]

No, you're reading what he said backwards. He said he had no trouble beating anyone else when he played as Cumans.

Ha thats funny.. So did I

[The Noble Lord]

Novgorod has relatively strong roster. Make sure that your Heavy mail axe infantry is alway in the front of the line, they can take some pretty heavy hammering. If they stay and fight, then others will too.

[chewy]

Ha thats funny.. So did I

indeed i completely misread that statement.

Anyways I already said what the problem seems to me in the OP. Heavy mail is fine early, but once plate comes they just lose to swords, spears will get crushed by couched lances, tsar guards can't handle western cav due to 16 charge lances. dvor is fun though, but slow and thier missles can barely hurt armored heavy cav. Muskeeteers might be super omgwtfbbq awesome, but im not at 1500 ad yet >.>. I think thats when they show up anyways.

Well I think the main crutch is just heavy cav. Its fine if spears can't tackle heavy cav, but when novogrods heavy cav gets crushed by those lances too it just seems kinda wrong.

[RollingWave]

The thing here is that almost all your melee cavs are using AP axe, pound for pound they tend to do very well against the knights unless they got charged unprepared.

The logic here is that you first engage them with some kazaks and Dvors in loose formation , lureing their knights away from the infantry support. once they are far enough from their infantry you just send all your Drunhiza and Boyar sons against them in melee (well you could send Boyar sons earlier just to throw the javlins)

Between the javlin and axe and your superior number / speed (both Druhinza and Boyar sons are much cheaper than knights. and your army should be more based on cavs) you should be able to chop them to shreads before their infantry can rally to the knight's support. by then it's basically free picking as you slowly witt down the infantries with missiles before overruning them with your melee cavs.

Novogod shouldn't rely too much on it's infantry, I'd think that just carry some spear / crossbow milita and Axeman should do on the field if you feel the need (in my Cuman campaign I almost never used infantry unless except for seige and garrison. )

If anything, the eastern factions tend to be more dangerous on the field. but crappier (or utterly crap ) in seige. a pure HA army on the field is VERY hard to beat unless your just camping on a hill with mass crossbows. (and that's not really beating them, that's just defending against them)