Question about Mounted Lords and Cavalry

[Scrimbus]

So as someone completely new to Total War, my only strategy with cavalry is to charge from side or behind or tie up range with them. Only problem is my cavalry melt like a salted Nurgle champion when they remain in melee and not necessarily with spears or halberds (which are their counter). For Lords like Archon and Empire captains I wonder if I should bother mounting Lords and also how I should use mounted Boyz properly.

tl;dr: should I put Archaon on a horsie and how should I use cavalry for max effectiveness because I'm new to TW.

[Archmystic]

to use cavalry more effectively you gotta cycle charge em, like charge in, do damage for 3-4 seconds, make a 2nd cavalry charge in while you pull the first out, repeat so they keep the insane charge bonus cavalry has.

[BigBadB]

Shock Cavalry don't generally do well in extend melee. They're all about the charge, tending to have very high charge ratings. With that kind of cavalry, the best approach is to 'cycle charge' - charge into the enemy, give it maybe 10 seconds to get the most out of the charge bonus while it lasts, then pull them out, move them away so they can get a good run-up and charge again.

Cavalry, on the other hand, tend to be better at extended melee, with lower charge ratings than shock cav but better melee attack and melee defence. They're still at their best on the charge, but if you leave them fighting they tend not to die too quickly.

A great example of the difference are Chaos Knights and Chaos Knights (Lances). The former are Cavalry, while the latter is Shock Cavalry with lower melee attack and melee defence, but nearly twice the charge rating.

[Scrimbus]

Ah, that makes a great deal of sense. Didn't think the difference between shock and vanilla cavalry through all that much. My thanks. What about Lords? Are they able to maintain mounted combat as long as they aren't against halberds/spears?

[Archmystic]

Originally posted by Extra Heresy:

Ah, that makes a great deal of sense. Didn't think the difference between shock and vanilla cavalry through all that much. My thanks. What about Lords? Are they able to maintain mounted combat as long as they aren't against halberds/spears?

depends on the lords, ive found that karl franz on his favourite pet griffi just absolutely party crashes everything he decides to jump on (only had him die once where i accidentally set him after some archers ,lost sight of him, the archers skirmished so far back he got swarmed by 4-5 full units and a hero with ranged support from the skirmishing archers... )

[Scrimbus]

For sure, Karl Franz and his pal Gryph do some work on the battlefield. But what about someone like an ork Warboss on a boar or Archaon on My Little Dorghar? Can they sustain in melee or should I dismount for when he needs to get stuck in?

[Longtoke]

Originally posted by Extra Heresy:

For sure, Karl Franz and his pal Gryph do some work on the battlefield. But what about someone like an ork Warboss on a boar or Archaon on My Little Dorghar? Can they sustain in melee or should I dismount for when he needs to get stuck in?

A mount gives better mobility, and not much more, even a generic lord on a dragon doesn't get as much of a combat buff as you'd think. Your decision to send a lord into combat should be based on that lords ability, you can pretty much ignore the mounts for combat purposes, but be aware of what you fighting. If you send them against troops with anti-large, they can end up taking more damage than they would have unmounted.

Flying mounts are great for deciding the terms of combat, while in the air, it limits what can even attack them, so you can use that to best posistion tham accordingly.