The 2nd Siege of Moscow battle (Russia Vs the Mongols)

[Escuratii va bene]

This is a battle I had yesterday, with the mongols - they had a Ballista unit, 2 units of Levy Spearman (one full at 75 and the other at around 60) a unit or 40 missile cavalry (Mongol heavy horse archers), a unit of the generals' bodyguard and 4 - 5 units of light Cavalry

I had around 5 units of Spear militia, yep Spear militia, 2 units of Horse archers, and 2 units of Archer militia, generals' bodyguard and a unit of 40 light Cavalry

Numbers weren't an issue, I had slightly more men anyway and I had 5-6 units of spearmen so I wasn't too worried about an all out battle outside the city

anyway I got my missile cavalry (both units) to attack the Mongol heavy horse archers, which took freaking forever and they both went down to 20 - from 40 in the unit, took a good half hour+ with an assist from both my units of archers too, I literally got all my missile units out to pelt their forces and just eat away at them

The half hour+ of just missile unit skirmish completely destroyed them more so quite comically, before I even touched any of his units with my infantry or a cavalry charge after my horse archers ran out of arrows, literally. I killed 57% of the mongol mini-horde with just archer fire/return fire on his spearmen, light cavalry and horse archers, seriously I was like you have got to be kidding me

Marched my spear militia in a solid formation straight to his cavalry before he could charge me and break some of my ranks potentially. (I had the 2 units of horse archers on either side of the mongol army at this point with no arrows left) then I had them positioned at either side of the mongols, engaged my spear militia with his main force and charged my missile cavalry, complete hammer and anvil. Well an altered hammer and anvil (with no real attack on his exposed rear. Haha, I know)

Suffice to say he got decimated, I suffered 16% losses or so and I destroyed almost 100% of his army, his generals bodyguard took a beating though, I swear 19 or so of them nearly routed all of my missile archers... seriously

Battle rating? Standard creativity and intuitive battle plan? Nothing special?

[Medkirtys]

So what, its nothing special, you battered them with arrows, then standart hammer & anvil, everyone does that

[Escuratii va bene]

Fair enough, just wanted to tell my little battle story. 57% killed in the missile skirmish only though, I was impressed anyway.

[VIP]

I can relate your story with my first experience in using crossbow units. The battle-ground was bridge, where my units engaged opposition of approximately same size. My foe decided to defend far bridge exit. In answer, I sent my crossbowmen to soften them up before charging across with complete army.

To my surprise, I quickly learned how deadly crossbows are against stubborn defender who has no potential to answer in the same fashion - my army had four crossbow-units; opposition had only one. By the time my x-bows run out of bolts and army charged across the bridge opponent's resistance was weakened to the point of no-hope. What was intended as "softening" ended as slaughtering.

Anyway, congrats on victory, Escuratii.

VIP

[EmperorDan]

in conclusion: always keep some missile units in your army... particulary xbows...

[Lennert]

Mongols are wimps.. you can kill/rout an entire fullstack of them with 8 militia units defending a friggin fort.. Tims are a different story though.. their elle's and strong infantry pretty much take away the obvious weaknesses mongols have.

[Orion the hunter]

Mongols are annoying skirmishing around but i usually deal with them with the use of light cavalry to chase down their horse archers then while they are busy my other troops deal with the rest of them

[Norwegian_viking]

Congrats

Both longbowmen and crossbows are extreamly powerfull against cavalry in tight positions