Missile Cavalry Tactics

[JasonDomination]

Love them or hate them, how would you use them and what would you use against them?

[The Juggernaut]

Honeslty, my only experience with missile cavalry was in multiplayer against a friend of mine, I just brought a lot of slingers. He tried to get close, my slingers killed off a few, and he just kept trying to find a weak spot until all his horse archers were dead. Then my Macedonian phalanxes ripped him apart.

As far as using them is concerned... just bring slingers. At least until they get balanced lol

[BSGfan]

my only experience is with partha and a full cav army 1/2 of them horse archers and the rest a mix of medi cav and heavy cataphracs
my horse archers are groupd in 5 groups of 2 units each
i always attack even when on the defensive and usually send my horse archers out to the enemy flank and let them concentrate on single units with my medi cav near by in case the AI sends his own cav to my archers
if done proper the enemy will be surrounded with my heave cata s in front of him charging medi cav in his flanks and horse archers in his back and flanks evena pjalanx army goes down pretty fast because the ai seems to be unable to cope with the idea and just go into passive defence mode

[zorak]

I love and hate them.

You can't just leave them on the field and let them do their thing, they'll up and get slaughtered. They need constant micromanagement which takes away from the rest of your force.

But, I've had great success with them (especially the Parthian horse archers, who are in my opinion better and cheaper than the noble variety, who just wear more armour). It may seem sometimes that they are doing not a lot, but at the end of the battle you'll see how many they have killed.

Here's my biggest tip, and it seems obvious but a lot of people don't realise it: Never attack from the front with horse archers. You'll spend most of your time running backwards away from an oncoming enemy; thus drawing the enemy onto you before you've had a chance to whittle and tire them down. If you come in from the sides, you have more time and room to manoeuvre. The enemy is not protected by a shield. This will increase your kill rate. If the enemy turn and face you, you can drive your main force right into them.

[Ultra123]

I love them. despite the 'arcs' for the archers the horsemen DO turn around when firing to the left while moving. You can do some epic drive bys with them decimating a lot of the enemy forces. However they could do with a damage boost still.

Usually i can create large horse archer armies have them in a line and have my center retreat while im attacked and the wings move around to shoot the enemy in the back. deadly as hell.

[The_Adm0n]

Love them.

I've been a cavalry commander since M2TW (which I still play). When fielding armies made entirely of cavalry, is this: When on the battle map, split your army up into smaller groups of 2-3 missile cav with 1 melee cav in close support. Move them in groups around the map to encircle the enemy and chew them up with arrows from all sides.

Use the melee cav to protect the missile cav from enemy cav, and to run down missile units. Also to mop up any routers

[macdaddy]

Love them.

I've been a cavalry commander since M2TW (which I still play). When fielding armies made entirely of cavalry, is this: When on the battle map, split your army up into smaller groups of 2-3 missile cav with 1 melee cav in close support. Move them in groups around the map to encircle the enemy and chew them up with arrows from all sides.

Use the melee cav to protect the missile cav from enemy cav, and to run down missile units. Also to mop up any routers

I loved using Parthia in RTW, being able to mass slaughter opposing armies with just HA and a few cataphracts. The down side was, you could never auto-resolve because the resolve engine would always make you lose badly, and you had to bulk hire mercenaries (ye old eastern spearmen) to take any city.

In RTW2, they work just as well and you can use cheaper Median cavalry for the shock troops. I do exactly as this poster suggests. squads of 2-3HA and 1 shock cav; used exactly as he suggests. Also, if you find yourself with an enemy unit separated from the pack by trying to come to grips with a HA unit, you can send in the shock cav!

In RTW2 it is easier to auto resolve when you want to, and you can capture most settlements without having to hire mercs. However, I have noticed that skirmishers dont run away and keep un-engaged as effectively as they did in prior versions. Makes that a little more micro manage.

[NavyBee]

I like using a cavalry heavy army from time to time, just for a change from the classical western Roman / Hellenistic army setups.

When playing a cavalry army I try to focus on:

1. Offensive posture: Light cavalry and shock cavalry must constantly move, strike and retreat; this involves a lot of micromanaging and activity during the battle. When i am not in the mood for a click-and-scroll-fest, i use a more balanced army.

2. Freedom of movement: A cavalry army can fully use its battlefield mobility only if the enemy can not deny it. If the enemy brings mobile forces (cav, chariots) of his own, these should be priority targets. Additionally, the terrain should be suitable for a cavalry battle.

3. Leadership: Using its superior mobility, a cavalry army should offer a highly dynamic challenge to the enemy, i.e. attacks from various angles, skirmishing, threatening the flanks of the phalanx etc. In R2TW, a strong defending infantry army with missile support is unlikely to beat, as R2TW battles are too short to involve logistics. But the more the enemy has to react, the more often he may make mistakes, thus generating opportunities for a quick strike. If the enemy could even be enticed to split up his force and move... then the more mobile force should get the advantage.

4. Fatigue and attrition: Playing on superior mobility again, a cavalry army can outrun and outmaneuver enemy infantry. The more fatigued the enemy infantry units are, the more effective the coup de grace will become - shock cavalry charges into the rear of exhausted and isolated enemy infantry units which have already suffered losses from cavalry missile attacks.

[TuranianGhazi]

NavyBee nailed it!

In steppe warfare, most missile cavalry were armed with short spears for melee, not daggers, like CA depicts. So in my NTE mod, I created a new animation table to handle that. This way, the same missile cavalry force may charge into the rear of an enemy infantry unit that is chasing after another missile cavalry unit. Dual role in one unit. Of course, their charge is nowhere near as good as a dedicated lancer, but it's still a charge which can whittle down the enemy force and may join in with lancers/heavy lancers for more morale shock of two units in melee.

[rrgg]

I think horse units actually have a smaller firing arc than infantry.

In either case, I've noticed that a lot of javelin-armed cavalry doesn't really do too badly if you leave FaW on and just give them melee orders (they aren't going to do any worse than, say, germanic scouts at least). They'll throw their javelins while charging and then continue throwing while they are in melee. It's actually sort of cool to see them holding their javelins up like lances and then chucking them in people's faces.

[fws2468]

I always make it a point to recruit 4 units of missile cavs in my Roman army as they seriously lack good missile troops. Another reason is they double up in chasing down routing enemies and fulfill the missile support role at the same time, freeing up recruitment space for more melee units. The only replacement I can think of for missile cavs are archers with longer range.

Back to topic, once I engage enemy cav in melee, my missile cavs are free to do almost anything they like including harassing enemy melee infantry reinforcements. I also use terrain cover to shield them from enemy artillery until they are close enough to charge and destroy the artillery. One thing that's vital to all missile cav tactics imo is to pin down enemy units that can wipe them out quickly in melee so the missile cav have a chance to wreck havoc on those that cannot/are too weak to strike back.

[irontaino]

One thing I enjoy doing with my armored horse archers is a volley-charge. Have them fire at will, and as they're closing in, they'll fire an arrow volley then close in and break up the enemy line, then I pull them out and. Works well for the weaker enemy units.

[Chewie]

read the old guides. missile cavalry tactics never change in total war