Bow Cavalry is Actually Really Good

[Teutonic Ritterin]

I always heard that Bow Cavalry Sucks,and their attack are just so low.
as a Level 3 Bow Cavalry Sensei
and I will teach you on How to be Villain!!~I mean a Bow Cavalry.

First let's see their stats.
Morale : 10
Attack : 6
Charge : 10
Defense : 2
Armor : 4/3
Range : 150
Accuracy : 60
Reload : 30
Ammo : 25

and from we see,it has a rather good Morale,10 Morale is good.

for melee combat these unit will lose to all Cavalry,but they could win "Finger Crossed" to a Katana Samurai,if they got a good charge,and that 10 charge is just no.

for armor you got that 4 Armor,which is decent,and 3 mount armor,mount armor are the armor used then the unit is mounted,so your cavalry are more vunerable to arrow when mounting.

for range they're quite strange,you'll see that it says that it has lower accuracy,but it actually has a higher accuracy than any Samurai.

The uses of Bow Cavalry:
Bow Cavalry are not strong when alone,they need support from their own bow cavalry.
But Seriously,the only way I was able to win 97% of my campaign,is by Spamming bow Cavalry.
my tactic is simple,19 bow Cavalry,and make 4 or 5 of each bow cavalry a group.
you're not trying to fight the enemy,but to fire with your 400 arrows with 60 accuracy,and retreat.
if the enemy brings bow,you already out bowwed your enemy with your 19 bow cavalry,hit their missile troops,and then their cavalry(use your group,while others distract their cavalry,use the others to shoot their cavalry.),and make their infantry feel like hell!

Upgrades for Bow Cavalry:
Melee Upgrades,just focus on melee upgrades,their Accuracy is the same as Bow Monks,and if you get a Bow Cavalry that can fight,you just have a Katana Cavalry that shoots arrow,plus Bow Cavalry can only be beaten by cavalry and missile infantry,and if you have so much bow cavalry,you know what will happen,their missiles out bowed,and can't even hide behind their cute ashigaru spears,and their cavalry are just shredded when trying to chase them away,and their cavalry can't even chase off your bow cavalry,because they're just too many of them.

for short,use them like a horde of mongolian raiders.

[Zonda Zecarius]

now how about mastering bow ki?
personally i actually find it funny how bow ki get more morale than yari ki, and some decent stats, for less money than bow kachi.
Used bow ki for fast melee and ranged several times, fairly nice performances imo.

[LuNi]

Weak against massed foot archers and weak in siege battles. I never make bow cavalry just because of these two reasons.

[Eat3n]

My (brief) experience with bow calvary wasn't so grand. I sent like 5-6 units out to harrass the enemy as he was marching towards me. 1) The circle and shoot feature is garbage and i mostly shot my own people 2) Skirmish mode didn't work and ashigaru were able to run me down (easy when the horses don't run away).

[Mile pro Libertate]

Originally posted by -EAT3N-:

My (brief) experience with bow calvary wasn't so grand. I sent like 5-6 units out to harrass the enemy as he was marching towards me. 1) The circle and shoot feature is garbage and i mostly shot my own people 2) Skirmish mode didn't work and ashigaru were able to run me down (easy when the horses don't run away).

Yeah I agree. The skirmish seems bugged.

Same in Rome 2, where horse archers will go towards an enemy foot unit and get into melee with it when you have skirmish on and give a fire order. Plus most of the archers aren't shooting in cantabrian circle, just riding around like they're on a ride at the fair 😡....😆

Imo, Med 2 handled horse archers the best.

You could give them a target or move them to a certain sector of the map with fire at will on, and basically forget about them: they'd shoot, retreat a safe distance, and stay out of melee all on their own, even with multiple enemy units converging on them from different directions. They were awesome.

Attila does a pretty good job with skirmisher cav too, much better than Rome 2 or Shogun 2.

Another big problem with Shogun 2 bow cav is that they don't do parthian shot, iirc.

Which is fine by me, because it's historically accurate.

But it makes their utility much, much less than Mongol, Cuman or Cossack horse archers in Med 2, or the various light cav raiders in Attila.

I remember having some hilarious matches in Med 2 multi where hugely expensive armies of mounted knights, foot knights, bill men, halberdiers and such were just absolutely destroyed by my teammates' and mine horse archers 😈

Most hosts learned to ban them or cap how many you could bring. 😏

[Teutonic Ritterin]

Originally posted by LuNi:

Weak against massed foot archers and weak in siege battles. I never make bow cavalry just because of these two reasons.

They do bad against missile troops,but not because they're bad,if you read some of my statement,they actually have 3 armor when mounted,and missile troops are the only weakness for a bow cavalry "Regiment",All of my Experience is not with a Regiment of Bow Cavalries,but with an army of bow Cavalries.

The only way to use bow cavalry is either spam them if you have the economy to sustain them.

and,everyone know that even cavalry is bad at sieges,and the only way for them to fight in a siege is to dismount,but Cavalry are good at Reinforcing a even siege stand out.

Originally posted by -EAT3N-:

My (brief) experience with bow calvary wasn't so grand. I sent like 5-6 units out to harrass the enemy as he was marching towards me. 1) The circle and shoot feature is garbage and i mostly shot my own people 2) Skirmish mode didn't work and ashigaru were able to run me down (easy when the horses don't run away).

Swooping Crane is broken in shogun 2,don't use it,it makes your bow cavalry deal less damage for the cost of continius fire rate.

of yeah,I have to remind you that when you use swooping crane,your bow cavalry can't move,so that's why they didn't fall back,even when you put them to skirmish.

Wait?!,you still use the Skirmish feature,what are you? a Coward?,I've never,Ever used the Skirmish mode since Medieval 2,because I just keep looking at all of my men at the same time.
Battles are not just like you sit and watch,You must take control of your soldiers,not to only give them orders when you just sit in your couch!,Thrust me,noone has ever used the skirmish mode,and the only time you'll need it,it's probably when the battle is too large,which just 40 v 40.

[Zonda Zecarius]

Swooping Crane still allows units to move in multiplayer from my experience, but whatever.
Bow cav probably don't run that well because they have to turn around (and from memory, they usually run forward a bit to turn)

I'm probably going to start dismounting my bow cav and such before firing in some battles.

Also yeah, Skirmish mode users are really annoying, it allows people with gun generals and such to run away, without the player actually realizing the danger he was in. Really annoying having a group of ninjas or something get right up to something, just for it to make a lucky escape from auto-cowardness features of the game.

[Eat3n]

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

Imo, Med 2 handled horse archers the best.

You could give them a target or move them to a certain sector of the map with fire at will on, and basically forget about them: they'd shoot, retreat a safe distance, and stay out of melee all on their own, even with multiple enemy units converging on them from different directions. They were awesome.

Turkish Horse Archers were pretty beastly in MW2. My preferred horse unit was the Spanish Jinetes. Their missile attack was good AND their stats were pretty decent when it came to melee as well. The best part is that you could recruit and retrain them in both cities and castles.

Originally posted by Sylveon:

of yeah,I have to remind you that when you use swooping crane,your bow cavalry can't move,so that's why they didn't fall back,even when you put them to skirmish.

Wait?!,you still use the Skirmish feature,what are you? a Coward?,I've never,Ever used the Skirmish mode since Medieval 2,because I just keep looking at all of my men at the same time.
Battles are not just like you sit and watch,You must take control of your soldiers,not to only give them orders when you just sit in your couch!,Thrust me,noone has ever used the skirmish mode,and the only time you'll need it,it's probably when the battle is too large,which just 40 v 40.

1) The Shogun 2 encyclopedia says skirmish mode and swooping crane can be used in conjunction so i don't know what you're talking about when you say they can't move. 2) I don't know if you're joking or about the "coward" stuff so i'll just pretend you are.I only use/used the skirmish ability with missile cavalry precisely because i wanted to pay attention elsewhere. With skirmish mode on HOPEFULLY the units would be smart enough to know when to run so i don't have to literally tell them to not stand there and let spearmen shove a spear up their ass. It depends on the situation.

Originally posted by Sargent179:

Also yeah, Skirmish mode users are really annoying, it allows people with gun generals and such to run away, without the player actually realizing the danger he was in. Really annoying having a group of ninjas or something get right up to something, just for it to make a lucky escape from auto-cowardness features of the game.

I don't play multiplayer.

[tiberiansun371alexw]

Bow cav are usually misused, so people think they suck. Rome: Total War veterans know the value of fast horses, even wit missile troops. By the way, this game should be called Shogun 2: Total War, official name be damned.

The trick is to micromanage.

Also, who says they are bad against foot arches? One vanilla bow cav at 30% strength can charge and mow down a larger bow ashigaru unit with the armour upgrade.
Put 3 bow cav vs 3 bow samruai. The losses by men will be 8 to 7 in favor of the samurai. Now some might argue that's a problem given that that would mean the bow cav loses that fight, but I don't think that's bad per say. You shouldn't pit bow cav vs bow or matchlock samurai since that negats the advantage of speed.
OK, so they arn't that great against ranged samruai. But they have thier uses.

And... I'm not sure how you managed to win by spamming them to be hoenst. Usually the AI isn't that dumb.

[Teutonic Ritterin]

Originally posted by tiberiansun371alexw:

Bow cav are usually misused, so people think they suck. Rome: Total War veterans know the value of fast horses, even wit missile troops. By the way, this game should be called Shogun 2: Total War, official name be damned.

The trick is to micromanage.

Also, who says they are bad against foot arches? One vanilla bow cav at 30% strength can charge and mow down a larger bow ashigaru unit with the armour upgrade.
Put 3 bow cav vs 3 bow samruai. The losses by men will be 8 to 7 in favor of the samurai. Now some might argue that's a problem given that that would mean the bow cav loses that fight, but I don't think that's bad per say. You shouldn't pit bow cav vs bow or matchlock samurai since that negats the advantage of speed.
OK, so they arn't that great against ranged samruai. But they have thier uses.

And... I'm not sure how you managed to win by spamming them to be hoenst. Usually the AI isn't that dumb.

Well,the only weakness of the bow cavalry are Missile units,and Cavalry Units.Bow Cavalry will totaly rekt Melee Infantry units.
to make bow cavalry beat Missile infantry,you basically need to out missile them,and charge them when they're left in the open,far from their spears.
and baiting their cavalry will also a good idea,you can try to surround the cavalry when the cavalry stray too far from their infantry,and when both Missile,and Cavalry units are dead,you cam have fun with their infantry.

Everytime I played,the AI just let my Bow Cavalry Destroy their Missile Units,and when I bait their cavalry,they just blindlessly try to chase my general,and was either shot down by some bow cavalry,and surrounded in melee.