ShieldWall
Legionary
posted 04 November 2008 05:51
EDT (US)
2 / 3
Yes, I envision armies of Persian Cavalry with their long range bows, with a few cataphracts thrown in to back them up against heavy cavalry. Try a couple of custom battles with an all horse archer army against any faction that takes your fancy. My favourite tactic is to put the army into a long line but with about 6 horse archers behind either flank. You can manoeuvre the army into position quite effectively in this block, more so than you could if they were all in a straight line to start with. It's a good idea to attack the enemy from higher ground - this will allow skirmish mode to kick in automatically and move your horses away from Romans before they can throw pila, but you'll get caught if they're on higher ground than you. The same is true of skirmishers. So to avoid these, move the army into a favourable position, and then run your entire line right up to the faces (as far as skirmish mode will allow) of the enemy and let fly! But hammering away at them from the front like this is no good, you'll use up all your arrows and won't kill too much. This is when you take the six horse archers from either flank and wrap them around the sides of the enemy. Basically your aim is to encircle them and be firing automatically at anything from all sides. They won't stand much of this before the entire army is routing. If necessary, take them off auto fire and target a mass of arrows on one unit at once to get them to rout. Learn how to do this right and you'll find that you can destroy any army with ease and almost no loss.