Need help sieging Erebor

**Gashweir** · March 31, 2015, 09:52 PM

I 'm looking for some advice/suggestions on how to capture Erebor.

In my Rhun campaign I have eliminated Dale, and I am besieging Erebor. However, I cant ever take the the place by assualt. At first it works like normal: I encircle the town and wait, and 1 turn before they starve and the City falls, they mount a sally to break the siege lines. So far so good. The problem is I cant win the fight. If I auto resolve I lose badly. If I manually fight the battle, they don't actually leave the depth of Erebor even though they are supposedly sallying out to defeat the siege and avoid starvation. So I have to go in after them, and tactically... Well lets just say it's an absolute horror show.

The dwarves field mainly melee infantry, and during most battles I defeat them using armies composed of 5-6 fast skirmish units, 2-3 archers, and 5 -6 cavalry. I use fairly standard tactics - I maneuver my cavalry so I can charge their ranged units and disrupt their formation. When they send melee infantry to try and engage, I retreat, and once they turn and start heading back to the main force, I hit them from behind. Meanwhile my javelin skirmishers and archer units attack them as they try and close the range (I typically focus all ranged fire on the 1-2 closest units) and then retreat when they get to close. Basically I use fast ranged infantry to run them around, and heavy cavalry (mainly my horde of generals) to charge them from the rear and flanks.

Most of the time these tactics and this type of army works. Assaulting Erebor though, is completely different tactically, and is unique from any other siege I've conducted. You have to go down hill in a confined space and assault them essentially head on. There is almost no room to maneuver - I don't have the space to deploy heavy cavalry, so I don't bring them. I prepare and use an army composed almost entirely of infantry, mainly archers and javelin throwers, but with a few spear units, and a single mounted general unit.

It goes fine at first. I creep down until I have a few units in range and shred them with javelins, and then rinse and repeat. Eventually though I run out of ammo, and I realize I'm totally screwed. At this point I have one tactical option - send my loyal clansman straight down the meat grinder. Which being the hardened warlord that I am, I don't hesitate to do. They fight well enough, and even go beard to beard with the big stuff, the armored heavy infantry the dwarves love so well, but the physical constraints of the place make it nearly impossible to come at them with more than two to three friendly units per enemy unit at a time. There is no way to locally concentrate my force, so I basically just have to slug it out toe to toe. Naturally, I eventually bog down, and then stop all together. And then time runs out and the battle is over. Losses are very even at about 800 each, and the battle ends is a draw.

And a draw would be fine, except that it resets the siege clock. And that gives them 6 more turns until they have to sally forth again. And even though they never broke the siege, and thus should be nearly dead from hunger, they are able to recruit more heavy infantry form inside Erebor. And of course the units they recruit are heavy armored infantry. Now I applaud the AI programming. The fact that they don't sally out and instead make you come in after them is genius.

I would totally do the same thing. It's basically the only scenario where their almost total reliance on slow heavy infantry isn't tactical suicide. And the very concept and character of the action seems in character, if you know what I mean. However, I do have a problem with the fact that they can reset the siege timer that way AND still recruit new elite units at a seemingly normal rate. And of course normal seems shockingly fast, in this type of situation

"OMFG! How can they 900 hundred of those bastards again so soon?"

Seemingly the only option is to go back down in there with fire and sword and wipe them out to the dwarf, but I honestly wonder if I can even form an army large enough to be capable of doing that, given the unit size limits in the game and the type of units I am using.

Maybe I'm missing something.

I'm sure someone has taken Erebor by assault. What did you do? Has anyone had them actually come out of the mountain and fight when they sally forth the turn before the siege timers hits zero?

Does anyone have any suggestions or bright ideas?

**Mr. Blob** · April 01, 2015, 02:48 AM

I am assuming you are playing vanilla 3.2 TA. As I can recall Erebor custom settlement in vanilla is without gate. Sally out doesn't work for the settlements without gate. That is Medieval 2 problem, AI just keeps searching for the gate which isn't there, henceforth it never leaves the settlement.

The best thing for you, since you can't beat the Dwarves in grinding melee with Rhunnic units, is to do forced sally out. Namely, you can wait for some Dwarven units to appear in front of settlement, then attack that stack and Erebor garrison would reinforce it, so you would have open field battle. You just have to destroy both armies.

Or you can do sally out cheat. Search the youtube to see how it works.

**Arachir Galudirithon** · April 01, 2015, 04:54 AM

Also, the AI is pretty dumb, if you leave a scout at Erebor and move your army away, they will eventually move their garrison out and you can siege the far smaller force as you were just waiting nearby.

Have you tried splitting your force and coming in from all gates at once? The AI don't do too well with this as they feel obliged to defend every gate so their force will be spread thin and you can overwhelm them at at least one of the points. the surge for the control points.

If all else fails, abandon your dreams for Erebor defend the borders of your realm and return when you have the mighty Loke-XXX units. The dwarves still outclass them but not by as much and I am pretty sure one of your elites has AP meaning you basically can wave at the dwarves as you pass through them like butter.

**Gashweir** · April 01, 2015, 11:33 AM

Thanks very much for the replies. What finally worked was beseiging Erebor with three full stack armies and then autoresolving when they sallied forth. My losses were horrific but I prevailed and my rear is secure. Some time though I will have to play again and try to manually root out the dwarves using Loke-Grim infantry. They are indeed AP, so that might work. I will also try assaulting from more than one entrance as suggested.

After taking Erebor, I moved my capital to Dorwinion to take advantage of better income from Dale, Esgaroth and Erebor. Now I just need to try and keep up with the pace of conquest set by Mordor. They are going through the silvan elves like the proverbial hot knife.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

**LuckyPistol** · April 01, 2015, 11:35 AM

Blob has the right idea. Get some heavy cavalry, stock up on those javelins (they have armor piercing) and make a thin front line of infantry so your javelins don't hit your own forces when the melee starts. At the same time use your cavalry to take out any ranged units and after hit the dwarves from behind.

I recommend targeting the general unit(s) first so you can use your cavalry to gobble up routing units.

Dwarves are tough, but if I can do it with Snaga and Goblin Infantry, by Eru you can do it with freaking Rhun

**DrDragun** · April 01, 2015, 11:46 AM

The tactics mentioned above are all very good ways to deal with Erebor. Pikes and AP units also do very well vs Dwarves inside the hallways of Erebor. A pike line can kill even heavily armored Dwarves by stunlocking them. In a typical Erebor siege the dwarves will usually have 50% of their units fighting in the hallways and 50% in the final pit. You can do a lot of damage with a ballista on the ramp of that final pit...

**Gashweir** · April 02, 2015, 12:34 PM

Maybe not the right place for this, but I would like to say that I am totally blown away by the quality and attention to detail of TA:TW. I realize I'm a little late to the party, but I wanted to give props to KK for creating such a fabulous mod. It has totally re-ingnited my interest in TW, and to be honest its hard for me to imagine playing vanilla M2TW ever again. I may do so again some time, but for the foreseeable future I am hooked at TA.

Major props.

Just for the record I am a major Tolkien fanatic, so I feel right at home here.

I started a OoTMM campaign last night and just took Rivendell (Imladris) by using three units of trolls to force the bridge. It was an absolutely glorious slog and slaughter, and watching 36 heroic trolls grind through about a thousand elves before perishing, was a thing of beauty. Being able to conquer in Middle-Earth has a savor that can't be matched by generic medieval combat. I've been completely obsessed since finally installing this mod a week ago. Kudos again to the creator.

**Arachir Galudirithon** · April 02, 2015, 01:53 PM

Welcome to the forum! A safe haven for all us Tolkien fanatics.

It is of course the wrong place but you are new and praise is a welcome thing wherever it is posted. KK has long since been absent but the sentiment is excellent nevertheless.

**eugenioso** · April 03, 2015, 11:54 AM

Originally Posted by Gashweir

I 'm looking for some advice/suggestions on how to capture Erebor.

In my Rhun campaign I have eliminated Dale, and I am besieging Erebor. However, I cant ever take the the place by assualt. At first it works like normal: I encircle the town and wait, and 1 turn before they starve and the City falls, they mount a sally to break the siege lines. So far so good. The problem is I cant win the fight. If I auto resolve I lose badly. If I manually fight the battle, they don't actually leave the depth of Erebor even though they are supposedly sallying out to defeat the siege and avoid starvation. So I have to go in after them, and tactically... Well lets just say it's an absolute horror show.

The dwarves field mainly melee infantry, and during most battles I defeat them using armies composed of 5-6 fast skirmish units, 2-3 archers, and 5 -6 cavalry. I use fairly standard tactics - I maneuver my cavalry so I can charge their ranged units and disrupt their formation. When they send melee infantry to try and engage, I retreat, and once they turn and start heading back to the main force, I hit them from behind. Meanwhile my javelin skirmishers and archer units attack them as they try and close the range (I typically focus all ranged fire on the 1-2 closest units) and then retreat when they get to close. Basically I use fast ranged infantry to run them around, and heavy cavalry (mainly my horde of generals) to charge them from the rear and flanks.

Most of the time these tactics and this type of army works. Assaulting Erebor though, is completely different tactically, and is unique from any other siege I've conducted. You have to go down hill in a confined space and assault them essentially head on. There is almost no room to maneuver - I don't have the space to deploy heavy cavalry, so I don't bring them. I prepare and use an army composed almost entirely of infantry, mainly archers and javelin throwers, but with a few spear units, and a single mounted general unit.

It goes fine at first. I creep down until I have a few units in range and shred them with javelins, and then rinse and repeat. Eventually though I run out of ammo, and I realize I'm totally screwed. At this point I have one tactical option - send my loyal clansman straight down the meat grinder. Which being the hardened warlord that I am, I don't hesitate to do. They fight well enough, and even go beard to beard with the big stuff, the armored heavy infantry the dwarves love so well, but the physical constraints of the place make it nearly impossible to come at them with more than two to three friendly units per enemy unit at a time. There is no way to locally concentrate my force, so I basically just have to slug it out toe to toe. Naturally, I eventually bog down, and then stop all together. And then time runs out and the battle is over. Losses are very even at about 800 each, and the battle ends is a draw.

And a draw would be fine, except that it resets the siege clock. And that gives them 6 more turns until they have to sally forth again. And even though they never broke the siege, and thus should be nearly dead from hunger, they are able to recruit more heavy infantry form inside Erebor. And of course the units they recruit are heavy armored infantry. Now I applaud the AI programming. The fact that they don't sally out and instead make you come in after them is genius.

I would totally do the same thing. It's basically the only scenario where their almost total reliance on slow heavy infantry isn't tactical suicide. And the very concept and character of the action seems in character, if you know what I mean. However, I do have a problem with the fact that they can reset the siege timer that way AND still recruit new elite units at a seemingly normal rate. And of course normal seems shockingly fast, in this type of situation

"OMFG! How can they 900 hundred of those bastards again so soon?"

Seemingly the only option is to go back down in there with fire and sword and wipe them out to the dwarf, but I honestly wonder if I can even form an army large enough to be capable of doing that, given the unit size limits in the game and the type of units I am using.

Maybe I'm missing something.

I'm sure someone has taken Erebor by assault. What did you do? Has anyone had them actually come out of the mountain and fight when they sally forth the turn before the siege timers hits zero?

Does anyone have any suggestions or bright ideas?

First, you are playing with the timer on. Turn that nonsense off. What kind of ridiculous battle scenario would have been the battle of Stirling Bridge if midway through the battle a gong went off and both sides called it a draw?

Second, Rhun gets some tremendously good AP melee units, the Loke Rim Somewhat Somesuch (its a weird name). Depending on how long its been going, you should maybe recruit some of them. They wont beat dwarves 1 on 1, but they will certainly get a good kill death ratio before they die. As for units, get a whole bunch of melee units and just swamp them. Assaulting them through attrition is the best way to do it.

**regnak999** · April 03, 2015, 01:32 PM

Originally Posted by eugenioso

First, you are playing with the timer on. Turn that nonsense off. What kind of ridiculous battle scenario would have been the battle of Stirling Bridge if midway through the battle a gong went off and both sides called it a draw?

Both sides can get too tired to continue. That is how multiple day battles occur. I turned the battle timer on after one Timurid assault in vanilla M2TW. I destroyed 60% of their army in a city defense but the rest just sat outside beyond range of my towers thinking, 'Just wait the human will have to give up, come out or go to bed eventually.' Never again.