Marauder Horsemen

[Oedipus's Stepdad]

One of them can draw away your entire cav flank. THis unit needs to be removed from the game.

[Decomposed]

Focus your archers on them. Don't spend your cavalry hunting them down to the end of the map, it's pointless.

However, since many people are asking to remove them, I'm thinking of making a mod for that.

[Wyvern]

they dont do that much damage, and each race has its own set of hard counters to skirmish cavalry.
Empire - flying lords/heroes, skirmishers, artillery, net of ammyntok, melkoths miasma(the latter two can set up wiping out the enemy skirm cav with another relatively fast unit such as heavy cavalry)
Vampires - flying lords/heroes,Bats, direwolves, melkoths miasma, chillgeists if they get close enough
Dwarves - skirmishers, artillery, gyrocopters
Brettonia - flying lords/heroes, Pegasus knights, skirmishers, artillery(kinda, theirs is inaccurate), mounted yeomen, poison arrows+heavier cav can sometimes work
Wood Elves - flying lords/heroes, Skirmishers, hawk riders, eagles, miasma, poison, prey of anathrema
Beastmen - centigors are actually fast, warhounds with poison, ungor raiders, cygors(kinda, poorly)
Greenskins - wolf mounted heroes, poison weapons of all sorts, wolf riders, skirmishers, artillery, gork'll fix it can slow enemy cav down to easier to catch levels.
Chaos - Skirm cav, especially horsemasters, artillery, miasma, poison hounds

In short, each faction has its own array of counters to skirmish cavalry, and though some require coordinated effort, like spells+cavalry, it is still perfectly functional. The only problem might be if facing wood elves, as their glade riders with poison arrows are amongst the fastest skirm cav in the game, can slow enemy pursuit and out range a fair amount of bottom tier foot skirmishers, other than that all else should be easy pickings.

I also think the biggest problem with skirmish cav and skirmishers is that AI loves to build armies composed entirely or mostly of such units. The amount of empire armies of mass crossbows/handguns, mortars and pistoliers is obscene. Similarly, some brettonian subfactions love to spam mounted yeomen+archer variant and chaos/norsca loves to spam skirmish cav/chariots. Dwarves also love their quarrelers, bolt throwers and grudge throwers, and even greenskins spam goblin/ork/savage ork archers. It doesnt make the game unplayable, but it makes it unfun and annoying.

[Decomposed]

Originally posted by Wyvern2:

I also think the biggest problem with skirmish cav and skirmishers is that AI loves to build armies composed entirely or mostly of such units. The amount of empire armies of mass crossbows/handguns, mortars and pistoliers is obscene. Similarly, some brettonian subfactions love to spam mounted yeomen+archer variant and chaos/norsca loves to spam skirmish cav/chariots. Dwarves also love their quarrelers, bolt throwers and grudge throwers, and even greenskins spam goblin/ork/savage ork archers. It doesnt make the game unplayable, but it makes it unfun and annoying.

Some mods that might help with that:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=761596200
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=692306546
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=779748309

[Nvidiati]

I rather deal with a stack of marauder horsemen than a mixed stack of trolls, chariots...
I think the problem lies in your army composition or the map. In my Empire runs my missile line can deal with them that I simply ignore them. One handgunner or full volley of 3 can rout them quickly.

In forest maps I deploy in the forest or at the edge so that my army has cover. A celestial wizard can shut them down completely, but I have to deal with their chariots and trolls. So yeah I ignore horsemen for the large part. Since they only chip health, which is not really much and that big of a deal.

[Shandor]

Why does anyone rioting over Marauder Horseman if the Bretonia Archer Cav. or Woodelf Bow Cav are much faster then them and with a Lord (in the army not close) they deal alot more damage.

[Darkaiser]

Originally posted by Shandor:

Why does anyone rioting over Marauder Horseman if the Bretonia Archer Cav. or Woodelf Bow Cav are much faster then them and with a Lord (in the army not close) they deal alot more damage.

Because when the Chaos invasion happens, you can get a triple doomstack of Chaos forces (one normal army comp and two that are chariots and skirmish cav). It's not only immersion-breaking, it's as annoying as hell.

My fix for them would be simple: Limit them to 6 shots each (now THERE is a mod I would use!). Their skirmish cav is supposedly dudes on horseback throwing axes. No WAY they can carry as many axes as an archer carries arrows. Give them about 6 or so and then once they are out of ammo they can flee or go melee. To me this is the best solution because it's lore-friendly.