The difference between chariot and cavalry

[Cyber Diver]

So the biggest difference is Chariot is best used for charging and breaking the front line while Cavalry is best used for rear charges?

[archmag]

I don't think it is good to rush chariot through the front, so they are still better used for rear charges. They are highly vulnerable to missile fire, I don't think even one type of them has shields. They have lowers numbers but higher mass and charge bonus this allows them to go through the enemy infantry instead of retreating as cavalry has to do. So the difference in use in my opinion - chariots charge from the rear and go through the enemy unit to apply damage to more models while cavalry charge from the rear, stay for few seconds until charge bonus starts to run out and back away to charge again.

[What Up Doc]

um yes you can use chariots to break a frontline but most of the time front lines will be braced spearmen which can wreck your chariots charge. so often a good use for chariots is to charge them in after your first wave of infantry so the spears are no longer braced and then yes chariots can break a front line but you realy want to keep them moving and force path them through into the vulnerable stuff behind as they will die quickly if stuck in melee, cav are best used for going around flanks and getitng rear charges but if the enemy is charging you, you can sometimes get free charges off on units that are running with nearly no damage back on your cav, basicaly only do this if you see the unit that is runny and not braced, and when you charge, leave cav in for a few seconds then pull back out before to many models can stand back up and do damage.

on a side note for cav, it can depend on the type of cav, shock cav always want to be moving, charge in, stay for a few seconds to use up the charge bonus, then pull back and keep cycle charging. however some cavs like bretonian questing knights are more melee focused cav and can benefit more from stay in combat for longer, however you still dont want to leave them in against high teir anti large units like pheonix guard and so on and even melee cav can often benefit more from cycle charging so they can avoid alot of damage themselves.

[Wyvern]

Chariot units with multiple models are basicslly exclusively meant to kill infantry. They have high mass, high charge bonus, do guaranteed damage on impact but tend to have terrible sustained melee stats, so you basically just want to constsntly be pulling them through units and cycle charging. In comparison cav is a lot more versatile, performing much better against cav, monsters or chariots than chariots can dream of, but their low mass makes them more likely to get bogged down by infantry. They also dont do guaranteed impact damage and even shock cav will outperform chariots in sustained melee.

As a few asides, chariots tend to do really well at slaughtering routers, and high weapon strength single entity chariot units like doomwheels, hero chariots or mammoths tend to be rather capable against any multi entity unit and sometimes even single entities. Their damage distribution usually also means they can grind in sustained combat. This is not the case for all single entity chariots thougj, and low ws ones like black coaches are best only used vs infantry and cycle charged.

[Budoshi]

they require too many focus from the player to be useful and then every other units lacks focus from you because of it,. i never use them. in short they suck ..they wont do what cavalry can do and better.

[Kinja]

Budoshi a écrit :

they require too many focus from the player to be useful and then every other units lacks focus from you because of it,. i never use them. in short they suck ..they wont do what cavalry can do and better.

Pretty much this. I sort of like to have one when i'm playing HE or TK early game but it just takes too much micro for what it can do and if you also have shock cav to manage i feel just focusing on regular cav yields better results, at least for me.

[Cacomistle]

Budoshi a écrit :

they require too many focus from the player to be useful and then every other units lacks focus from you because of it,. i never use them. in short they suck ..they wont do what cavalry can do and better.

In multiplayer you don't have that many units to control and the game is balanced around top players who are capable of a lot of focus. In campaign, below legendary you can just slow the game down if its that difficult.

On legendary difficulty or if you just don't want to pause/slow the game to make orders, they're a little bit weak but its still not that hard. Playing against the ai really doesn't require that much focus. Theres no pressure on your backline, their backline will run away from their supporting units, if you so much as put spears to the side they'll often just charge into them. If you bring low focus units for the rest of your army (say tomb kings early game where everything is just trash line infantry), its pretty easy to have focus left over for chariots.

Then lord chariots are actually really powerful. Their weakness is they can get bogged down in melee or killed by enemy lords. But you just throw a couple ward save items and maybe a fencers blade on them. At that point can literally just throw them into infantry and forget.

[Myrmidon]

Be careful that there is a huge disparity between chariots in historical TW than fantasy, unlike cavalry which are relatively similar between the 2. Chariots in fantasy TW are for all intents and purposes "monster units" with a chariot skin.

[Chillum]

In custom battles I dont really have the micro needed for chariots. Cav im fine with but for some reason I always fail the micro on chariots, either accidentally leaving them inside archer fire and forgetting or just plain forgetting them off on a flank. At least with them charging through Ive yet to leave one in melee.

That being said. Chariots in auto resolves are nice.