Isengard battle strategy

[Hounf of Culan]

So just wondering if you guys have found any battle formations to be especially effective as Isengard. Right now my biggest troubles is bringing my deadly Uruk crossbows to bear without exposing them to melee fights, especially against Rohan's cavalry. Typically I organize my army's in this setup. X is a crossbow, P are pikemen, S are heavy uruk swordmen, R are reavers, B is berserker and W is warg riders.


P P P P
W R X X X X R W
S S B S S
I don't know how to make it appear the way it does in the game but picture that the pikemen, crossbows and swordmen are are all lined up 1 to 1 with the reavers and wargs jutting out the sides on the middle row.
Do you guys recommend any army setup that seems to work better than that? The goal I'm looking for is maximizing crossbow firepower before I commit the infantry to a melee.The Pikemen currently stop any frontal charges from reaching the crossbows, but they normally only get a few volleys in before the melee begins and they stop shooting. I then swing the reavers and wargs around the flanks into the rear and commit the heavy swordmen and berserkers if it is especially hairy. I've tried putting the crossbows in the very front but the AI wisely charges them straight away and they are at too much risk of a melee.

[TheBromgrev]

Since crossbows require direct line of sight to be effective, you're probably doing the best you can. Archers can arc their shots, and are more useful overall than the hard-hitting crossbows.

You should also consider using lots of cheaper units for your attack-stacks, as your current setup, while very effective, is also very prone to attrition. Any losses your elite units take will be difficult to replace, especially when campaigning against poorly developed Rohan, High Elven, and Arnor settlements deep in enemy territory. Your core units should be used as a "last resort" to tip the battle in your favor, given how expensive they are. Pretty much how the typical medieval army worked (militia do the grunt work, elites and nobles finish the battle).

[NSFW]

P P P P
W R X X X X R W
S S B S S
I don't know how to make it appear the way it does in the game but picture that the pikemen, crossbows and swordmen are are all lined up 1 to 1 with the reavers and wargs jutting out the sides on the middle row.
Do you guys recommend any army setup that seems to work better than that? The goal I'm looking for is maximizing crossbow firepower before I commit the infantry to a melee.The Pikemen currently stop any frontal charges from reaching the crossbows, but they normally only get a few volleys in before the melee begins and they stop shooting. I then swing the reavers and wargs around the flanks into the rear and commit the heavy swordmen and berserkers if it is especially hairy. I've tried putting the crossbows in the very front but the AI wisely charges them straight away and they are at too much risk of a melee.

If you've got your Xbows behind your pike line then they really won't be doing much good, unless you're on hilly terrain & they have LoS over the pikemen's heads.

Xbows are pretty useless for indirect fire, IMHO the Uruk archer would be a better choice if you're going to keep your missles behind the front line; in that position the archer is faster & more accurate vs lightly armoured foes, & with fire arrow on probably about on a par with an indirect firing Xbow vs armour, with the added bonus of causing fear.

Personally though I used to have a Xbow out front on each wing in 2 deep, close or 3 deep, loose, & a unit of uruk archers out front, centre, in loose but in a deeper formation, so they were a bit closer to the enemy and tended to draw more agro than the Xbows.

TBH I quite like having my missles out front as a lure for enemy cav; neutralising enemy cav is one of the major challenges for any orc army, so im generally quite happy for them to charge towards my pikes and other infantry.
You can't rely on skirmish to get you back behind the pikes in time to avoid a cav charge, it needs careful manual timing, and even then you'll likely loose a few missle troops, but if it costs the enemy a bunch of their cav it's probably worth it IMO.

I'd also use a couple of units of Raiders, in deep formation, in my main infantry line. Their main purpose was as first wave cannon fodder for the infantry enagement, but I also found them useful for counter charging enemy cav once it started to get close. This tended to give the missles a bit more time to escape and helped bog the cav down while anti cav units moved into place to crush it.

IIRC my high end formation looked something like this:

_____Xb___UA___Xb
___GO_Ra_Pi_Pi_Ra_GO
Wa_Re_____Be_____Re_Wa
___Be______HI_____Be
___HI______Ge_____HI

Xb=Xbows, UA= Uruk Archer, GO= Guard o' Orthanc, Ra=Raider, Pi=Pikemen, Wa=Wargs, Re=Reavers, Be=Berserk, HI= Hvy Infantry, Ge=General

The Guards of Orthanc were a bit of an expensive extravagance but this stack type was for my leader &/or heir, so it seemed fairly fitting, plus they're a more durable unit for anchoring the end of the line than pikes; Mostly their role, in combination with the wargs & if needed Reavers, was to screen the infantry lined up on the wings from cav while it advances to flank units engaged with the Raiders. Athough this stack is quite elite unit heavy for the most part it was the non-elites (Raiders, Reavers, Pikes, Archers & Wargs) which tended to take most of the punishment during battles.

Three berserkers is quite extravagant too, in other armies this slot would be filled by a catapult (which would set up in centre line, between the two pike units), another unit of Uruk archers, (set up behind the pikes), or more wargs.

Hope that makes sense, and is some help.

[eugenioso]

again? cant you just check the forum for the other 3 trillion threads that say the EXACT SAME THING?

[General500]

again? cant you just check the forum for the other 3 trillion threads that say the EXACT SAME THING?

Yes Again.

[Wolfsblut]

Yes Again.

Why?

[Ozzmosis]

The strategy I use for most factions with good archers (Gondor and Elves and Empire in CoW) is to have heavy spearmen/pikes in the middle making up the front line, and then missile units stretched out on the flanks, with at least one unit of heavy infantry or spearmen very close behind them. This way, they have a clear shot for most of the battle, and if any enemies try to get close, you can easily pull your missile units away and engage with the infantry. Then you can position the missile units behind the enemy for maximum morale impact!

[eugenioso]

chill dude, he clearly wants the thread to be shut.

[NSFW]

Huh, how do you work that out mate?
The only people with complaint about this thread are the forum nazis who feel the need to stomp and pout whenever anyone dares to raise a topic which has at some point been discussed in the past; probably the same crowd who also get on people's cases about necro-posting in threads.

Don't understand why people with nothing useful to contribute can't just leave a thread in peace, rather than wasting their and everyone elses time by cluttering the thread up with whining; that way the truly useless threads would sink, & topics which folks are interested in wouldn't get clogged up with pointless ing. *shrug*