Your Tactics?

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Pevs

Recruit
Thought I'd post a thread about how you "do your thing" in M&B :smile: Also though it'd be a good place to pickup tips... if it'd been done, I apologize, feel free to mock me and/or post a link to the other thread :razz:
Anyway, to get the ball rolling...

My Character: Mounted Archer/Spearman with good Polearms skills. No shield, Sword or 2H Weapon skill (relative)

Starter loadout: 14 Javelins, 1 Lance and a Shield

Tactic: Lead the charge! Run in there, and go for the horses, always. Kill a horse and the rider soon follows. If there are none, then I target the archers/slingers amongst the rabble, charging into them, and throwing at the last second (when their shields are knocked aside)

When I'm out of Javelins, and IF all the Mounted foes are down, I pull back to my baggage and pull out the bow and hammer. Target all the un-shielded Opponents with the bow, when they're taken care of use the hammer to knockout the remaining guys and capture them for the dosh :smile:

It works well for me. I have 2 Hero's along side me, 1 using a Bow and Javlins, the other Sword and Shield. Both on Horses. The way I do it allows me to stay mobile, and help them when they get swamped by enemies.

ANYWAY, heh, thats how I do it :smile:

Pevs
 
Horseback: Bardiche---

Using the bardiche on horseback, rush the oncoming column of horsemen. I like to keep the bardiche cocked back to the right and let my horse pass the column on my right side. The warrider damage will allow your bardiche stroke to instant-kill almost anything. Then circle around and start cleaning house. The bardiche has a good reach.

But be wary of being swarmed on horseback by foes on the ground. Just 4-5 footsoldiers can cut you down to size quikly without allowing you any return blows. Detach from combat and reapproach.

One technique I use against foes on foot is to ride close and slowly pivot while holding the bardiche cocked back. It will slide across the foe's throat at you turn and typically kill him. This works against mounted foes too..

It helps having the most nimble horse for these techniques. A Spirited Charger is best but a Hunter works well too.

BTW: For the other weapons slots I arm the metal javelin thingee, a morning star, and a spear. I use the spear when traling a fleeing horse archer. The morning start seems quicker for ground combat---I sometimes dismount when fighting masses of unmounted foes.

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On Foot: Shield & Lance---

At low level, when you are more lightly armored and can run faster, a technique I have use to defeat almost any number of foes is to fight with a 1-handed lance and a shield. When the footmen attach just keep backing up and jab-jab-jab. If you do it right they will never be able to land a blow. You can kill dozens at low level that way.

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Cheers,
Edwarc
 
I ride a spirited courser for speed. I charge into battle with a steel shield and a hardened scimitar and usually manage to kill a few enemies in one pass. Immediately after I circle left and riddle them full of arrows from my war bow. Then engage again, kill, turn, arrows, repeat.

I don't remember the last time I was unhorsed, I just don't let anyone get near me.
 
I get my party to halt straight away (guard my inventory :grin: ) so they can mob the enemy when they arrive. I usually pepper the enemy with arrows until they get close to the party then I pepper my own side with arrows until pretty much everyone ends up dead. When the enemy knights have been taken care of, I charge the party in to take care of the archers. Usually at that point an enemy horse archer gets a lucky headshot and knocks me out. :???:
 
It all depends - if my party is mainly footmen, I'll get them to hold position, but if horsemen play a big part, I'll charge them in. As I often use a ranged weapon (crossbow or bow) I tend to dismount and fire off bolts or arrows at the enemy while all my men do the same. This often ends up with an invincible circle of crossbowmen (or archers) with rings of dead foemen around us, although if we're being faced by large numbers of knights then I'll sometimes mount up and draw the enemy away - I don't want all my elite men swept away in a devastating charge.

I've also got a new character, who I've affectionately called Berserker Erik, and he goes into battle totally unarmoured except for his shock of red hair, without any men in his party, and with a thumping great war axe. He picks on bands over-confident enemies (river pirates, sea raiders, deserters), charges in, lays about him with his huge innuendo-weapon, and emerges victorious, often at death's door. He's now at level 6 and makes a living off selling all that sea raider armour he takes in battle.
 
Character theory: Knight in charge of a Warband of mounted Knights

Level 34
One Hand 234
Pole Arm 220ish
2H Weapons 180ish
Leadership 6 points

Weaponry: Great Lance, Balanced Fighting Axe (1h), Balanced War Sword (2h); Thick Steel Shield
Armor: Thick Plate, Iron Greaves, Reinforced Helm (24 armor)
Horse: Spirited War Horse (Got him at level 5, I love random loot)

Company: My goal is to have an all Swadian Knight company plus Borcha, I can have 53 in my company right now on 6 slots:
-Me
-Borcha
-Swadian Knights (30 right now)
- Swadian Men At Arms (10-12)
- Swadian Footmen (8-10)
- Swadian Militia (Remainder)

As my troops die I am constantly training replacements from the taverns, my 4 non-hero units are the natural progression to Swadian Knight. As the militia train to footmen to Men at Arms, to Knights... they are constantly resupplying my horsemen. We are a shock unit and all of my mounted units are heavily armed and armored including Borcha.

When we go into battle I have my 'battle size' all the way to the right. I love 20+ mounted Knights charging the enemy and this just rocks. When our line hits just right you can tell where we hit because there is just a mound of dead horses and enemy troops. :mrgreen:

Our downfall are large clots of archers on hills and foot soldiers in river canyons. I hold my forces out of those areas and either kite them out of the canyons or dismount and kill the archers.

Weaker enemy (anything not 50+ Dark Knights/Hunters or a Vaegir War Party):
We charge. They die. I lead the charge and we kill their horsemen. I then survey the battle switching to my 2h sword and help out any of my outnumbered Knights against the ground pounders. If my boys aren't being ganged up on, I then target mounted archers then foot archers. If severely personally outnumbered I switch to shield and axe to kite the enemy so they're attacking my shield (847 hit points on the shield) until my Knights arrive and skewer my attackers. The one weakness of my company against bandits/raiders/non armored foes are the river canyons. I tell my troops to hold until the enemy crosses the river or gets out of the canyon, then we charge and kill them like dogs. If I am slow and let my unit charge footmen in a river canyon then we take very heavy casualties and I get pissy :evil:

Stronger Enemy:
Immediately tell party to Hold Position. I scout ahead and kill 2 or 3 while kiting the remainder around to maneuver them into a kill zone. I find a kill zone and direct my company to Hold This Position. Very good idea to lance-kill enemy horses if they are horse-heavy. Also good idea as you are scouting to chase down enemy mounted archers as they tend to do the solo hero thing more often and are typically very squishy. When I've spread the enemy out and put them were I want them, we Charge. During my Scouting I will put the enemy in a position where they have to go uphill to my company or into a long flat valley where my troops can get up the velocity to get Warrider damage. If that is impossible I will try to extend them as much as possible and lead them into my Knights. I try to limit the damage to my company as much as I can. After the initial Charge and clot of enemy is dead. I tell the company to Hold and then repeat the process.

I refuse to fight the large clots of 50+ Swadian Deserters that are entirely Crossbowmen. They do very bad things to my unit and offer little reward for the amount of damage they inflict, so I simply avoid them. I have fought them twice, and while victorious I find they take out maybe 25% of my force and that's a long retraining period. I'd rather fight the 100+ Vaegir war bands. Thus do the Knights dislike concentrated archers :shock:
 
Hi Everyone!

My Main Character is primarily a mounted Archer... (actually he is a ranger... but since the chance of surviving on food as an archer are near nil against most groups...)

Equipment:
Warbow
Great Lance (second greatest range reach in game, and since I never met enemies with justing lances I can happily couch it and kill everything *g*)
Steel Shield
Sword of War (don't use it much, since my enemies seem to be superhumans and can block the sword with a club while I'm charging at top speed... :roll: )

Troop:
Marnid
Borcha
Some Sword Sisters in training... if they didn't get killed off again. *sigh*


Normaly I take the Bow, 2 packs of arrows and the Lance, unless I know I'm up against many archers/throwers/crossbowman, then I replace one pack with the shield.

The First thing is commanding my troops to hold position and dismount - they are less likely to get themself killed when they're on foot, and if they they don't ride the horses when they're knocked out then the horses stay on the battlefield - which is quite useful when you're Spirited Charger just took 50-70something damage...

Then I ride itwords the direction my people where running and scout for the enemy.

If there are riders, I attack them first, leading them after me, killing those without shields and shooting the horses of those who do.
When I run out of arrows, I lead tem as far as I can form my inventar, then gallop at full speed towards it, change the arrows, and return.

After the horsemen are dead, I kill the archers (with couched lance, unless I try something stupid again...), footmen without shield (bow or lance), then the ones with shields.


Favourite Enemie: Dark Knights - they don't have ranged weapons and don't ride very fast horses, so unless I do some really stupid mistake they have no chance against me... unless I run out of arrows, which happened to me once at max Battle Size...

Least Favourite: Kerghit Mounted Archers... closely followed by any ranged unit that is somewhat acurate - like those sea raiders - allways avoided crossbowmen, else they would take that place, proably...
 
I ride a heavy charger, just because sometimes footmen sidestep into my horse and not my axe, so i want them to feel the pain

I use full black armour with steel shield, i use a heavy fighting axe, it does 35 damage and its ONE HANDED. Basicly all my units are mounted, so when i come across a veigir warparty or some thing they are cake. Because i charge ahead, horseman follw me, a lead them around in ovals, and when they came close, hack them off thier horses. I can eliminate 13 horseman in about 30 secs this way. Then when im done i head bac and see what my knights have done. if they have trouble with footman, then i dismount

foot soldiers are cake. When you get a group you back up, notice they follow you, slashing as they go, and they usually do it in single file :???: So you block most of the time, but i jsut keep swinging, mostly im out of thier range, still backing up, after the first guy in line take a swing step foward and slash, block if he retaliates and hit him again. its easy once you get the hang of it and i can kill about 17 foot soldiers or so in a minute.

im on day 124 so i got lots of money and have a big party (56 Swadian Knights)

I absolutle love the fighting axe. when you riding right up next to an enemy, or even chargin head on, i have never been hit with a lance once since ive had it.

Now crossbowman just piss me off. So i order my men to dismount (hit the 5 key) and charge them, when they pull out thier weapons, i pull out my sniper crossbow, skill one, then draw my axe and kill them all

Well, sorry for the long reply, but this game is damn cool.

Ian
 
Foot Archer:

My level 18 foot archer has a war bow, two large bags of bodkin arrows (3 more quivers in the inventory) and a heavy great axe (all my characters have one, i'm a fan :lol:). He has a party of 30 Swadian crossbowmen/sharpshooters, and 7 or 8 infantry/sergeants. I put the heros on the top of the troop roster, the archers in the middle, and the sergeants on the bottom. When the round starts, I will have about around 8 units; both my heros, 5-6 archers, and 1 sergeant. I tell my troops to hold position, and order a dismount so that my heros don't go off and get themselves heroicly gangbanged by shirtless river pirates. As the enemy comes into view, my archers fire away (not really, but this is what's supposed to happen. more on this later, in a different post). If the enemy is on horseback, I aim for the horses. The footmen hold up their shields if they have them, but the barrage of crossbow bolts shatter their shields in 3-4 hits. Then they get hit. It's enourmously satisfying to watch a measly group of troops advance, men dropping dead left and right. If some do get through, (usually because I can't kill their horses fast enough) there's only 2 or 3 of them, and I switch to my great axe. I can kill most enemies in 2 hits. Not only that, I have a sergeant and two of my heros to back me up. Also, my archers take out their melee weapons, and the lone soldiers are smashed by a mass of weapons. For horsemen that are able to ride past, they get shot as they turn around to come back for a second charge.
 
I equip with a superpike (speed 111, reach 170, 23piercing) a strongbow + bodkin arrows and a sword, unless I'm taking prisoners, in which case I'll select stones, a mace, pike and shield.

If the terrain allows, I'll ALWAYS get my guys to hold in a hollow, preferably with some trees or rocks in it.  I dismount my cavalry and companions as far from the enemy as possible.= reserves.
I then lead the archers to the lip of the hollow.  This sets an ambush.  The enemy archers can't kill my guys in the hollow, so they have to attack, becoming lowrate infantry.  Enemy cavalry get taken out by my archers, and the survivors get stuck in the hollow if its a good one, and butchered.  Pike comes in handy here!

If there are no hollows, I'll take a steep riverbank.  If there's NOTHING, then I leave infantry at the spawn point, archers a bit closer to the enemy, and let the companions and cavalry charge.  I'll charge too, but circle as a horse archer after the initial contact.
When I run out of arrows I go back to my infantry, dismount, and lead them.  The pike, again, is tops against horses.

It doesn't always work, but it's fairly reliable - if the hollow is steep and full of trees its a battle-winner.
 
Level 25 Horse Archer/Lancer
Good Combat AI and Normal Damage with BattleSizer mod set to 100

With Leadership 3, I get a total troop size of 32.
I get the infantry and archers to hold on top of the nearest slope and lead the charge with Borcha and Marnid and any cavalry.

We wheel about having gotten cavalry to follow me and we make multiple cavlary passes infront of the hill where my archers/infantry is.

My first targets are horsemen, i go for the riders as they typically take less damage than targeting the horse. And the occasional pot shots with the bow to get those riders who are going the same direction as yourself.
Then once things settle down and i've ordered the final cavalry/infantry charge, I assist with the horse archery.

Quite terrain dependent and tactic dependent as I need to keep the main enemy formation away from my archers/infantry.

Oriental Hero

 
Depends on terrain and the conditions.

When I have a mix of infantry, cavalry and ranged (as I usually do) and face enemies mostly consisting of infantry and ranged, I tell my archers to stay on high ground and then tell the others to follow me to the charge.

When I have mostly infantry and/or archers, and face cavalry, I try to keep my troops together (large masses of peasants, especially ones with pitch forks or other polearms, can easily take down knights who get stuck in the middle of the infantry. If the situation gets desperate, I order all my troops to hold a high ground or island (yes, there sometimes are small islands in the rivers), and if the enemy only or mostly consists of cavalry I tell mine to dismount and join the formation. Then the enemy cavalry will eventually do charges and get their asses kicked. When there's only infantry/dismounted cavalry left, I do a charge.

As equipment, I prefer a lance, a bastard sword, the best kite shield I can get, heavy armour and a warhorse. Charger does too, but I like the look of the warhorse.
 
yeah, I actually replace the charger mesh with another warhorse.  It means I can have a charger and still look the part.  Which is highly imprtant for my tactical performance
 
Level: 25(?)
Horse riding Axeman/archer
Leads 30 troops, at least 50% are mounted

After starting the charge, I break off from the pack and try to get the enemy riders on the fringe and the rear. After the first pass (hopefully killing one or two, and confusing the enemy'y attack), I continue to the foot soldiers in the rear, trying to take out some archers. I then return to the cavalry clash, where by then my foot soldiers have arrived and the enemy cavalry is broken up and being track down by my own cav. The rest is mopping up and charging the new enemies as they arrive, hopefully pinning them to the wall.

Different story with Khergits, which tends to be a bit more chase and be chased. I usually try to lead them into my ground troops and archers.

I try to look for battles where I can conscript new troops.
 
My character has about 15 manhunters and slavedrivers, and a few peasant women. My general tactic is tell them to hold position while I charge ahead with my trusty Courser, Biff, to cut down any horsemen or archers with my epee batarde. I try to scatter the infantry around a bit, before letting my men have a few kills. Then one of my slavedrivers gets shot in the head by a follower woman, so I retreat, reload, and start over. :mrgreen:

I typically like an all cavalry force, in which case I typically try to string them out with the follow command, then charge. Sometimes I charge ahead to cause Shock and Awe(:lol:), then order them to attack. If using infantry, I usually order them to hold position while I snipe any truly dangerous enemies(horse archers, horsemen with piercing or cutting weapons, foot archers, footmen with cutting or piercing weapons, in that order).
 
Charge in Samurai style. go to th end of the map turn around and charge back in. then circle and kill all the foot dudes. MASSACRE  :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :mad: :razz: :mrgreen: :grin: :mrgreen:
 
What I usually do is to get 60 or so peasants into my army, and then attack a powerful enemy group.  I usually target groups that have prisoners, in order to make some profit and to recuperate from my expected losses.  In battle, I charge ahead of my peasants and get close to the enemy.  Hopefully, they would focus on me and follow until more pressing concerns pop up.  The basic idea is to distract two or so horsemen and possibly archers, that way my peasants can get close enough to the enemy to mob them.  I usually have heavy casualities and have to wrap up the battle, but I tend to get upgraded units as a result, plus some new high-powered or unique recruits.  After all of that, I drop off my current set of 'good' troops at my castle and repeat the process.  The intended goal is to get a bunch of mid-level soldiers, for dealing with dangerous odds.
 
My tactics... CHARGE!

 Or a good old 'hammer and anvil', tell the infantry to hold and take my cavalry into a flanking position, once we're ready I lead a reckless charge into the enemy rear or flank, decimating them in the process. If it worked for Alexander the Great then it is good enough for me.
 
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