Polearms

[Sporky]

Should you always go for the couched lance damage? I seem to miss a lot with it though. Voice your thoughts on it.

 

[rageshrub]

Just practise. That means fight fight fight with polearms. After a while you'll get a feel for when to couch and when to thrust.

 

[Sporky]

Just practise. That means fight fight fight with polearms. After a while you'll get a feel for when to couch and when to thrust.

Aight, thanks I'll be polearming a lot more now. I usually just get a big heavy 2 handed battle axe and swing it at the enemy lol.

 

[fragonard]

Your riding skill and horse have a lot to do with polearms as well.  It's important to get up to couching speed quickly after making a turn or going up a slope so a fast horse helps a lot.  A steppe horse recovers speed quickly but it isn't that fast to start with so I find that a hunter is the best compromise between speed and durability.

 

[csouth1]

Ive found that its definitely bad to couch against another rider coming at you with a couchable weapon.  They will thrust and beat you on reach every time.

 

[LocNlol]

I found quite the opposite personnally, couching always beats thrusting for me. Are you using a heavy lance though ?

 

[csouth1]

Maybe if you use a jousting lance you can win the reach war with a couched lance against a thrust but not with anything shorter.  I use a Heavy Lance...the thrust on the jousting lance is just too slow for me.

 

[Tercero]

heavy hunters are the best horses in the game IMO

couching is funny, but you should try fighting on foot

 

[Momaw]

If you aim for the head, a thrust with a spear from horseback is usually a one hit kill anyway due to insane speed bonus.  On the rare occasions I'm persuaded onto a horse I usually just stab everything.

 

[JohnnyThunder]

I like to mix it up depending on the density of my opponents, if they are spread out I just go from couch kill to couch kill.  If they are mixed up I go for the thrust, because you miss too many kill opportunities otherwise.  Some times I ride tightening circles, couching off the straggelers to create a "bait ball" then I just ride through it thrusting left a right, great fun.

Couching is also excelent for taking out enemy horses if you just want to unseat a bunch of knights or Khergit lancers.  The lance/polearm doesn't come out of the couch position if you're only killing horses, so I just ride accross the heads or rumps of groups of horses and put the riders on the ground.  I think my best is killing 5 Caravan Guards horses off a single couch, before I accidentally hit an actual caravan guard and my couch ended.