Tactics against Khergits?

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Rhodok does work well vs horse archers.
Just place your crossbow archers on a hill, then set your other infantry before them. So if the charge arrives, your infantry will be overrun, but your crossbow archers wil shoot down the kergits. When your infantry is up, just let them charge nearby units, then let them stand close to the crossbow archers.

Note: When you have selected 'Hold this position!',  use 'stand closer' a lot of time, this makes the crossbows compact and also your infantry wil be more difficult to run over.
 
Get a lot of crossbowmen (archers run out of arrows fast if you're not controlling their shots) and back them up with some solid heavy infantry. Make use of hills if you can spot them on the battle map.

Optional: Add a small cavalry force to the mix, and order them to follow you. Circle around the Khergit cavalry and some of them (if not most of them) will eventually come after you. This is to distract them from your main force of infantry and crossbows. If the Khergits have a lot of lancers, this tactic is especially useful because your main force won't have to absorb their charge all at once. It can also save your army if you don't have a hill nearby, and may allow you to beat Khergits on the open fields.

References: Lots of experience fighting Khergits on open grounds, hills, sieges, forests etc etc.
 
Against lancers: Take heavy infantry, let them hold their ground and stand closer together. Get on a steep hill if there are any. You now have a horse-shredding machine at your disposal.

Against horse archers: Use sharpshooters. Infantry doesn't work here, because horse archers like to kite much. Get some light cavalry to chase them if the sharpshooters have a hard time.
 
I remember fighting them in vanilla as a Nordic mercenary. Everyone on hold, preferably on a hill, standing close together. Now you wait. Eventually, they will all try and charge into you. The arrows do little damage against a shield wall and they will eventually try and smash the shield wall by charging their horses into it. That also tends not to work against a shield wall....
 
wale999 said:
Fight fire with fire, charge them with Swadian Kinghts, it always works.
While that might be the ultimate answer to Khergits (and every other threat in the game except for Mamluks), but I fear that takes quite some time to raise a sizeable force of Swadian Knights. And every knight you lose isn't easily replaceable. So unless you have the means and time to train Swadians all up to knights, I'd suggest some cheaper and faster strategies.
 
The main principle against cavalry is clogging them so that they can't move freely, then use ranged unit to decimate them. My way of doing it is having ranged unit in front of infantry (infantry is to backup the ranged unit in case, they can go through my cavalry to hit the ranged unit, then they will be clogged between the ranged unit & infantry), holding fire and time their charge arrived then release my 1st attacked cavalry head on to clog the enemy in effective firing distance of my ranged unit, 2nd cavalry on the flank (I lead them) to block their side movements. Under the murderous fire of my ranged unit while fighting against my cavalries, they won't last very long. Release the infantry into the battle if needed. My set piece is minimum 100 troops. Work in normal damage difficulty and good AI. Result of this set piece against all formations is very good up to 1:2 ratio. 1:3 to 1:4, I still can win but suffer heavy casualty in normal difficulty, around 20% dead and another 50% injuries, with total party skill level 6 in tactic, 7 in surgery, 6 in first aid and 6 in wound treatments.
 
Huscarls and Nord Veterans.

That has always been my answer to Khergits. Not only do they tear through any cavalry that manages to get stuck in them but their axes have a funny habbit of hitting the horses on the horse archers and taking them down.
 
Huscarls are my favorite anti-khergit force. Having 60 Huscarls in a 3 deep brick wall those Khergits stand 0 chance.  After the initial charge I have my knights go around my infantry and surround any khergits still alive.
 
Grab some Swadian man-at-arms/Sarranid horseman with some hard infantry (nords or rhodoks) and tell all calv to hold a position and stand closer, now order inf to be right behind them, as soon as its finished order all horsemen to dismount and fall back behind the inf.

Let the khergits charge all they want, the horse your calv had will block them like a solid wall (at most lancers wont hurt your units but kill a horse of two).  The next thing you know, your inf will slice them into pieces.  Done.
 
I say get some horsemen don't really matter which ones khergit or sarranids get horses probably the fastest. They will distract/slow down the khergit then get crossbow men and some infantry( I would go with nord since they are better at low tier than rhodoks imo). The horsemen will break the khergit charge and cause them to focus on the horsemen while the crossbow men and infantry take care of them.

This is usually my strategy for the khergit all though difficulty and other things should be taken into account like terrain. In normal difficulty I usually had swadian knights so the cheap horsemen might not work on that difficulty.
 
Heavy cavalry, Rhodok spearmen and crossbowmen, seem to work well aagainst them.

Edit: I know about heavy cavalry from using them, and I know  Rhodok spearmen and crossbowmen from getting my horsemen crushed by them.
 
I tend to rush them with heavy cavalry to check their charge, then send in my infantry aswell, and then try to regroup my men in time for the next wave. This is playing with battle sizer, so the potential to get overwhelmed is far greater.
 
Try not to put archers in too tight of a formation, if you do they will block each others line of fire. Normally i have elite infantry my tactic involves hold ground and tight formation then wait for them to run out of arrows. > profit.


Edit: Tight fornation ranged does work providing one team has a decent height advantage.
 
Not too helpful I admit, but I just spam Swadian Knights at them, turn the damage settings to their lowest then sit back and do something else whilst my Knights supported by companions with a high level deal with it. I really cant  be bothered chasing horse archers anymore.
 
InFi[D]eL said:
Not too helpful I admit, but I just spam Swadian Knights at them, turn the damage settings to their lowest then sit back and do something else whilst my Knights supported by companions with a high level deal with it. I really cant  be bothered chasing horse archers anymore.

Lowering damage option only works for your companions, other troops aren't effected by them.
 
tzlop said:
InFi[D]eL said:
Not too helpful I admit, but I just spam Swadian Knights at them, turn the damage settings to their lowest then sit back and do something else whilst my Knights supported by companions with a high level deal with it. I really cant  be bothered chasing horse archers anymore.

Lowering damage option only works for your companions, other troops aren't effected by them.

When you have 7 companions though it helps.
 
# Your group must be have this units: Rhodok Spearmen, Rhodok Sharp Shooter, thats enough. :smile:
First when you start battle tell your soldiers ''Follow Me'' and bring them to a hill or something like where and say to sharp shooters ''Stand here'' and take the spearmens little more forward and tell them stay here and wait.

My English not good. I'm sorry if there is any mistakes. :razz:
 
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