Realistic advice on how to deal with early game orc armies?

[Yimmy]

Orcs will just come at me with armies of mostly basic infantry which sounds manageable on paper but then thousands of orc boys clash against my line and cause routes and the whole thing falls apart.
Crowd control is the answer but how does an army who would be fighting them early (empire, bretonia etc.) get any good crowd control in the early game? I can get a single artillery piece or the odd spell or two but its still not enough to break up the hoard before it hits my line, bows are no good because they cant kill them fast enough and every space in my army used up by a range unit is another unit not holding the line leading to the line breaking even faster.
Any advice on early game units and tactics to thin out the hoards of orcs would be appreciated.

[Dreagon]

Get some cavalry and make use of that early wizard you can get from the first ambush battle as the empire. You can also try to fight them in settlements. The extra troops provided by garrisons can make a difference and usually a strong greenskin army won't be afraid to attack settlements.

[Potion Seller]

Early game it’s totally okay to spam low tier units, if you’re empire and having trouble holding the line then i’d go for spears with shields but only about 10-12 max, the rest spam crossbows, once the orcs hit your lines, flank with the crossbows and any infantry not already committed. If you’re bretonnia dont be afraid to use your lords, bretonnian lords are honestly incredible in melee, use lords and paladins to anchor your lines and inspire your weak infantry once again flanking when you can with bows

[andywarholscorpse]

What has been said above.... and magic.... Lots of magic!

[Yimmy]

Originally posted by andywarholscorpse:

What has been said above.... and magic.... Lots of magic!

you dont have lots of magic in the early game though

[Coldhands]

Orc Boys have shields, right? You might try setting up your front melee infantry line in chevrons, points towards the orcs. The idea being that, when the greenskins engage, they have to turn a bit inward to face your troops, because your troops are standing at an angle, rather than face on.
Put gaps between the chevrons so that once the orcs get close, your crossbows can fall back between them and then, once the orcs turn and engage your infantry, your crossbows can be angled slightly to have a clean shot down the length of the orc unit from the side. That way your crossbows almost never miss, the orc's shields wont help them, your infantry wont have to hold while your crossbows run all the way around and line up on the sides of the battle, and it'll be easier to screen your crossbows against cavalry.

With your crossbows doing max damage like this, and not hitting your own troops by trying to lob bolts over their heads, the orcs should start taking losses faster and break and run quicker.

There was a useful graphic somebody made of this formation for use with handgunners (since they need clear lines of fire to work), but it should work just as well with crossbows, since Orc Boys don't have a ton of armor.

Also, if you're Franz, getting that first unit of Carroburge Greatswords makes a bunch of difference, because they'll kill the **** out of some Orc Boys and get them running even faster.

[Axle]

There's a couple of good ways in the beginning:
1)The AI is generally dumb as rocks; so win the Cav battles on the flanks, then repeatedly rear charge the enemies front lines; units like Boyz will break quickly due to Greenskin leadership. Remember that even ranged Cav like Pistoliers can shoot them in the back, or be charged in for quick damage to psych.

2) Kill the leadership. Greenskins have weak leadership across the board. Depending on your starting units, you can quite easily snipe out a Warboss or Bigboss. This is slightly harder with named lords, but it's still do-able. Most Legendary Greenskins lords lack shields.

3) If you're playing as Empire or Bret; your infantry isn't going to win you any battles. They aren't the worst in the game, but they're middling at best. Your front line is there simply to hold the enemy, force them to blob; and let your Ranged/Artillery/Magic shoot all day (Empire) or hold them in place for Cav charges.(Bret)

4) Support: It's already been noted, but magic is great against Greenskins in general. They tend to blob, or make long spaghetti lines. This makes Vortex or Wind spells great against them. Supporting units are also great, more so for the empire. Warrior Priests offer great buffs that boost tour front lines staying power for days. Light Wizards can net down a soft target, and you can follow up by basically deleting them with Bows or Powder. Etc.

I haven't played as Empire in the newest patch, but this info should at least be somewhat relevant.

[lPaladinl]

Sounds like you're giving Orcs the situation that favors them most.

Their units suck at everything that isn't melee, but are decent once in melee.

So you want less of a frontline clash and more ranged suppression, kill more of them before they reach you. They also often suck in Skirmish battles aside from annoying calvary.

[Ben Argo]

Use pisoliers or free company militia in skirmish mode to pull some of their melee units away

Start the battle with those guys to the sides. The AI will send a couple of units after them. It can often be just enough to secure you win in the main battle. Even if your FCM get caught or fail to kill off the chasing units, if you wipe the main body of orcs,those units should also break.

[Chillum]

outriders/pistolers.

[Gamefever]

Facing off against Orcs is really simple.

Not sure how you found yourself in a situation against Orcs as Empire, thats highly unlikely in the early game as Empire.

So likely your playing Britonia.

Which means you have amazing Lord to go toe to toe against the Warboss...Guess what your Lord will win,...You can even equip your Lord with items to help mitagate the arrow damage which then means when your Lord engages troops/Warboss you can just pepper the area with arrows and catapult fire.

You will also have Cav early game as Brits....Which are super powerful cause you can just Hammer and Anvil away against Orcs.

Your Cav are the Hammer....Your infantry the Anvil.

You dont need to over do archers as Brits.
You just need enough infantry to hold a line.

Brits Armies get better over time even when a good portion of it is just regular infantry. This happens as you win your battles via perks, traits gained, and ranks gained on troops.

Brit Lords are best used to go Lord hunting, its a major part of the gameplay for them, you do not hide out with them...

For the most part though you can use your Lord by placing them way out front and catch orc mobs with them...This staggers out the clash on the front line...However thats a Dawi tactic.

You generally want the orcs to be committed to your front line so your Cav can swing in and smash into them....Which generally breaks moral very quickly.

[Ashantai]

If you can get a captain or second lord, throw them in. The AI has been improved slightly, but they'll still blob up to attack them so you can bomb them. Mortars, fireballs, burning head or wind blast tears through light units. If playing as Gelt don't underestimate the armour spells he has too.

[Empiro]

Early game Greenskins are tough. There's not too much trick to it -- avoid fighting them in a fair fight if possible (use ambush), or have more troops than them. Keep firing the Artillery into large blobs (especially if multiple units in the same spot). They'll hit your troops sometimes, but do far more to the enemy. If you have good melee lords and heroes, use them to take out the general.

An alternative strategy is to put all of your ranged units on one flank and spread out your own troops as much as possible, keeping some reserves. Try to get a clear line of fire and rout a single unit by concentrating fire. This will free up some of your soldiers. Keep them as reserves as your own units will start to rout too. Your goal is to keep the archers safe and firing as long as possible. Concentrate fire on a single unit at a time to rout it.

[Cacomistle]

On dwarves (the most common faction to fight them early), you get red buffs for dwarf warriors and quarellers, and the tech buffs for quarellers. Quarellers now do like 35 damage (probably like 50 if you get them level 7 and the 7 red skills), and your dwarf warriors can hold for like 6 minutes. You crush them.

Empire and Brettonia are pretty similar. Orcs have low armor. Ranged units get stupid buffs. Melee defense is really powerful on units that already have good md (cause reducing a 30% chance to hit down to 20 is huge and that's basically what the 8 md does). You run them over.

Brettonia has the weakest of the early game units vs orcs. But I play carcassone. So I have grail guardians. Grail guardians can kill like legitimately infinite low tier units. Same with Fey Enchantress. Especially if you stack her with ward save and put a paladin near her (that's not till like level 15 but if you fight the rebellions instead of killing orcs you get there), she can literally solo 2 stacks of them (the paladin probably won't die either cause of md stacking and armor and feys attacks reducing enemy ma).

There's not some specific trick to beating them. Its the same trick as beating everyone. Half infantry half archer army (a couple cav is also really good but they're not as easy to acquire). Then make a line and position so your archers have targets. If you're willing to get cheesy, build lords instead of infantry on Brettonia.

[Ferreus the Umbral Arrow]

Originally posted by Emmi:

Orcs will just come at me with armies of mostly basic infantry which sounds manageable on paper but then thousands of orc boys clash against my line and cause routes and the whole thing falls apart.
Crowd control is the answer but how does an army who would be fighting them early (empire, bretonia etc.) get any good crowd control in the early game? I can get a single artillery piece or the odd spell or two but its still not enough to break up the hoard before it hits my line, bows are no good because they cant kill them fast enough and every space in my army used up by a range unit is another unit not holding the line leading to the line breaking even faster.
Any advice on early game units and tactics to thin out the hoards of orcs would be appreciated.

Use a cav unit to ride around them, confusing the AI, pulling some off the main force. As long as you micro said cav, you can deal with a much easier line fight, and then clean up the rest

[Cacomistle]

Actually, maybe go watch someone like legend of total war (or another youtuber who knows how to beat the ai super easily). The fact you're saying archers don't work says to me you're doing something wrong with the battle positioning. Because archers work. Stupidly well in fact. Especially dwarves, you can beat 2 stacks of big uns with dwarf warriors and quarellers. I suspect you're doing something wrong in positioning, because for example when I started playing (and sometimes when I play shogun 2 where battles go too fast to reposition around your mistakes), my armies felt like half as effective as when I play now.