How to win when outnumbered?

[Myokonin]

So, i'm fairly new to the game (around the 50 hours mark) and at the moment i have two campaigns going on, a beginner(100th day) and a veteran(50th day).
I still can never even think of dealing with 17 orcs/raiders with my 12 lads without getting absolutely wrecked.
When can i expect to reach that capability? I mean i have the money for heavy armour (230 durability) but even my most experienced sellswords have nowhere near enough fatigue to actually wear them.

Is there something i am doing wrong or...?

[Noquack]

Would help if u post a pic. from u merc group ( what lv ur mercs are, the formation,are u using nets ? etc. )

[Azov]

Get your mercs to lvl 10-11 at least, have the following perks: battle forged + brawny. Try use shields for more sustain, add 2 handers when you feel you need more dps than sustain. Use spearwall for free attacks.

[Kernest]

There's no uniform strategy for when you're outnumbered, because that should be most of the time over the course of a single campaign. You need different strategies against different types of enemies.

Overall however, you need to invest enough in your guys' Resolve, so that they don't lose morale and become more inefficient as a side effect. For high level bros, +50 is the bare minimum, but you can avoid going too much past 60 if you have a dedicated +100 Resolve Sergeant character carrying the banner.

[Myokonin]

Originally posted by lars:

Would help if u post a pic. from u merc group ( what lv ur mercs are, the formation,are u using nets ? etc. )

http://imgur.com/ltla0hj
http://imgur.com/X8xdnr4
Here are my setups. No, never used nets.

[Sir Clavius]

You need to get better armor. Also, two-handers guys with 110 armor is not very good idea.

[Kernest]

Couple of pointers:

1) You really want to go out of your way to find more talented guys, usually those with stars in melee attack and defense for frontliners, ranged A&D for ranged units, Melee A & Ranged D for backliners (pikes, billhooks).

2) 111 HP is overdoing it for a backliner, even if you've got Colossus (which I hope you do at that HP ). You probably don´t need it that high even for a front line tank, and overdoing it in one regard hurts you elsewhere.

3) I don't think positioning your backliners like that makes much sense, with 2-tile melee weapons in one end and ranged on the other, it's probably better to mix them up, so that you don't need to re-position them so much.

That's most of what I can say / can think to say based on those images.

[Myokonin]

Originally posted by Kernest:

Couple of pointers:

1) You really want to go out of your way to find more talented guys, usually those with stars in melee attack and defense for frontliners, ranged A&D for ranged units, Melee A & Ranged D for backliners (pikes, billhooks).

2) 111 HP is overdoing it for a backliner, even if you've got Colossus (which I hope you do at that HP ). You probably don´t need it that high even for a front line tank, and overdoing it in one regard hurts you elsewhere.

3) I don't think positioning your backliners like that makes much sense, with 2-tile melee weapons in one end and ranged on the other, it's probably better to mix them up, so that you don't need to re-position them so much.

That's most of what I can say / can think to say based on those images.

My thinking behind giving those guys decent armour as well was that in an emergency they could swap and replace a gravely injured frontliner.

What are good hp numbers for frontliners and secondliners? I am not sure, so most of the time i just keep pumping into hp by default

And by overlapping their ranges i thought i could focus enemies and cut them down faster!

[Caveira]

Everyone must have a minimun of 60 hp, for tanks I tend to get to 80.

[Kernest]

Originally posted by Totenkopf:

Everyone must have a minimun of 60 hp, for tanks I tend to get to 80.

I tend to go higher for my frontliners & tanks, especially if they've got stars there or otherwise roll lucky, but yeah, 60ish for backliners is ok.

Backliners don´t need much HP because they should not be getting melee attacked (take Footwork to avoid Orc Warriors and such), nor ranged attacked (20ish ranged def + Anticipation should deter any ranged enemy from targeting them).

[King Joffrey]

Probably level, and underdog.

[Sathra]

Yeah, investing too much into HP, not enough into defenses and attack. Or stamina, which is how you manage heavier armour.
Defense skills (ranged and melee) let you avoid being hit. More Mdef is always good for any kind of melee, rDef depends on role. You can get away with less rDef with heavier armour, though you'll still want some because Heavy Crossbows. Underdog and brawny are easy picks for frontline melee, the rest depends on role.

As for tactics, its about efficiency and targetting. Living enemies, you're trying to trigger mass morale checks. So focus and kill quickly. Nearly all enemy groups contain some fragile troops (skirmishers, youngs, billmen) or they rely on numbers (bandits, goblins). Skirmishers have less Rdef than Ambushers, so are technically more fragile than ambushers. Even if they don't flee, having low morale debuffs all their attack and defense stats.
Against undead, its more about focus. Fallen Heroes, it depends on the weapon (2H are dangerous). You're mostly trying to trim the numbers to boost your own morale and reduce the number of incoming attacks. So kill those Wierders fast, and try to pick off the Necromancer with ranged or a flanker. There's multiple threads about Geist tactics, so search for them.
Ancient dead, its nearly always about killing those Pikemen. Greatsword split, wrapping a flank or smashing through a shieldwall section. The ones with Shields are mostly to stall you from doing so. I find Honour Guards easier since they tend to have few with shields, so its mostly selective targetting and burning them quickly.

[That One Guy]

Orcs might charge into a spearwall, but raiders wont. The biggest thing is to recognize what your enemy is likely to do.

Does the raider have a shield? He'll probably shieldwall and take part of a turn to do so. Now who's this bloke with a pike and no head armor? I don't know, but you're going to kill him befoe you kill that raider who has a shield. Raiders for some reason seem to enjoy not wearing helmets. I punish them for this by using 2-3 men with flails when fighting them. Another thing that I do with raiders is wait for the guy with a shield to take his turn to shieldwall and then attack once. After he does this, I'll break his shield with a longaxe, hit him with another polearm, throwing axe, or arrow/bolts if possible, then kill him off that turn. Breaking a raider's shield and then letting him use both attacks with double grip can sometimes make you regret breaking his shield if you aren't going to kill him right away. Raiders like to turtle around their archers. The ones that don't turtle might rush you alone. Show them how much you appreciate these one by one assaults by stabbing them in the face and then waiting for the next one.

My favorite weapons early game are maces, because they can stun, and they inflict 10 fatigue on any hits. I've learned that if the enemy can make more turns and therefore attacks than you, you should try to kill them as fast as possible, or stun them so that they don't get as many turns.

If I see that most of a group of raiders is composed of marksmen, I'll try to engage them at night.

Also, a two step forward then shieldwall is a good strategy against marksmen.

If you're in a fight that you cannot win, then retreat, and preferably get all your men to the sidelines before doing so.

[Myokonin]

Originally posted by Sathra:

Yeah, investing too much into HP, not enough into defenses and attack. Or stamina, which is how you manage heavier armour.
Defense skills (ranged and melee) let you avoid being hit. More Mdef is always good for any kind of melee, rDef depends on role. You can get away with less rDef with heavier armour, though you'll still want some because Heavy Crossbows. Underdog and brawny are easy picks for frontline melee, the rest depends on role.

As for tactics, its about efficiency and targetting. Living enemies, you're trying to trigger mass morale checks. So focus and kill quickly. Nearly all enemy groups contain some fragile troops (skirmishers, youngs, billmen) or they rely on numbers (bandits, goblins). Skirmishers have less Rdef than Ambushers, so are technically more fragile than ambushers. Even if they don't flee, having low morale debuffs all their attack and defense stats.
Against undead, its more about focus. Fallen Heroes, it depends on the weapon (2H are dangerous). You're mostly trying to trim the numbers to boost your own morale and reduce the number of incoming attacks. So kill those Wierders fast, and try to pick off the Necromancer with ranged or a flanker. There's multiple threads about Geist tactics, so search for them.
Ancient dead, its nearly always about killing those Pikemen. Greatsword split, wrapping a flank or smashing through a shieldwall section. The ones with Shields are mostly to stall you from doing so. I find Honour Guards easier since they tend to have few with shields, so its mostly selective targetting and burning them quickly.

Wow i've never even had to deal with the enemies you mentioned apart from Wiedergängers but i'll keep that in mind!

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions!

[jfoytek]

So there is definately many different ways to skin a cat in this game!

However, I have found that you should avoid breaking formation and keep your formation tight...
Especially when outnumbered....

Moving around the battlefield can often lead to death.... Use that space bar and wait let the enemy come to you let the enemy act and see what they have given you to exploit....

Try to avoid chasing after them but if you do move be sure its for a good reason... IE, Pikes infront of your line you need to move once to close the distance and kill the pike because the pike is High DPS and that guy next to him with a shield is not....

Prioritize who to kill and keep the ranks tight let your front line defend your backline and let your back line do the killing....

[Evolutionsgemüse]

A few more suggestions:
Use the terrain to your advantage. Trees can provide cover and fill a gap in your battleline. Fighting in forests against larger warbands has so far also worked for me. Find bottlenecks where your tanks can take on an equal or smaller number of enemies. Often it takes the AI a while to position their troops in a way that their shielded guys are fully supported by backliners, but you can do it quicker.

When you are positioned on a hill you can lure enemies by exposing your backrow. Lure them on hexes between a shielded brother and a hex on a lower level (2 or 3 levels lower). Push them down there. In the right place this can give you some time, but it's also risky. Have footwork perk on your backliners and only use this if you can't cover all the hill top anyway.

When on a hill, remember that polearms can't reach more than 1 height level down- or upwards. If you position your brothers smartly, your backliners may attack, but your enemy won't.

Using your own polearm users on the ancient dead polearm:
when you have broken trough the shield wall of the ancient dead you'll still have to deal with their polearm guys who dish out a lot of damage. If your unlucky they'll gang on one of your tanks and kill him.
But you can still use your own polearm users as support without them getting hit. If your polearm acts first and is out of reach, wait, let the skelleton act. Then move in, hit. Next turn your polearm is first since the ancient dead are slow - move him back out. I usually have my archers use polearms against the ancient dead as well, so I have got 5 backliners jumping back and forth, supporting my tanks wherever possible.

When fighting a horde of ghouls, keep in mind that you should cover the corpses. But there's more:
Sometimes groups of ghouls will already have a few of the highest tier of ghouls with them - the ones that can swallow your bros. These ghouls are usually evenly distributed to both flanks of the ghoul group, so what I do is creat an angle in my battleline. With the top I move slowly forward to the first group of the highest tier ghouls, while I try to avoid the others. Keep in mind that the small ghouls act first, so they'll build a barrier between you and the swallowing ghouls which gives you additional time as well.
Basically, position yourself in a way that you can take on enemies at a suitable pace and use the dumb ghouls against themselves.

If you have a brother with very high defense you might send him to bind as many enemies in melee as possible - then use riposte. I have a brother with low melee skill (around 60 at level 15 something), but very high melee and ranged defense, so he can hold of several orc warriors at once.

Speaking of orc warriors - they'll rarely push your bros aside if you keep no backliners behind your bros. Keep backliners away and use them to fight flanking forces while your tanks hold the orc warriors away (who won't push now). When there are only enemies left that are fighting your tanks you can either use the same jumping back-and-forth technique from the ancient dead to attack with polearms and then falling back, before the orc warriors act again (as long as you keep your backliners away they'll rarely push). Ranged fighters can flank and shoot the orcs from there.