Strat Clut thoughts

[CountMRVHS]

I've had a great time with Strat Clut, but could use some suggestions regarding army composition and tactics - especially for the much-vaunted archers and cav that are a stated strength of this faction.

My experience (playing VH/VH/VH) is that I was able to carve out a stable realm for myself (I was going for a fame victory so didn't conquer too aggressively - got Ioua for the monastery and down to Cumbria/Bebbanburg), but West Seaxe went on a rampage, vassalized Mercia and then absorbed all of its territories, so basically everything south of me is now the unified faction of "England".

I got involved to prevent them from destroying Westmoringas, but don't think it's possible to halt them. That's ok - it's kind of historical, actually! - but I wonder how any of you use the cav and archers to best effect.

I've teched up to all but the last node in the cav and missile trees, but am a little underwhelmed with these units. Against England's mailed thegns and mailed spearmen they seem to do very little damage, which I guess makes sense. But even earlier in the campaign, I'd have situations where viking archers would out-range me and often push my own archers to rout during a missile duel.

Is this a function of playing VH? Or does the AI rush missile tech?

With regard to cav, I typically set these guys up on the flanks and can win the cav fight, but after that it's pretty hectic. They take substantial losses, and charges don't have quite the power I'd expect based on other players' reports.

After a few battles against England, I got the impression I was bringing too many archers and cav to the fight. I would typically aim for around 6 bows and 6 cav in an army, with the rest being a mix of spears, axes, and swords. But now I'm thinking I should have focused more on infantry, with the archers and cav being more of a minor investment.

So - how do you use archers and cav? How many do you bring, and how do you set them up? I'm curious to hear about your difficulty level as well, to help calibrate expectations.

I don't think this particular campaign can be saved (England is fielding stacks & stacks & stacks), but I'm thinking ahead to the next one :)

[wibblywobblywonder]

Well, with only 12 spears and/or other melee units, your army is a bit unbalanced for this game since both missiles and cavalry are not really meant to be the battle winners that they are in the other TW games. With so many archers, I imagine the AI closes in pretty quickly, which means your 12 melee units are up against more than their number early in the battle, fighting units which have barely taken a scratch, and stacked full of bonuses because of the VH difficulty.

I suspect that if you swapped out 2 cavalry and two archers for a couple of javelinmen and axemen/swordsmen, you'll have more options for defeating the more heavily armoured units.
Even a few more spears could be used to give you a wider frontage to outflank the AI and pepper them from behind with your archers. Then they'll start racking up the kills.

[Mile pro Libertate]

For cav to be most effective against heavy infantry, they should charge from the flank or rear.

In executing this, your infantry need to only distract the enemy infantry from the front, and don't need to be strong.

With factions such as Circenn and Strathclyde, you don't need to form a stationary battle line. Having lots of missiles and cav means that mobility is your friend, while staying stationary to get into a slugfest is usually a very bad idea.

Don't forget that many Strathclyde units have the ability to do "Guerllia Deployment," which ties into the idea of being mobility focused.

Use the speed advantage of your missiles and cav to draw enemy infantry units apart from each other, and to tire them out by having them chase you. Tired units suffer both morale penalties and combat maluses. Moving units are also not able to form full shieldwall and lack bracing and cohesion bonuses.

Even very heavy infantry (Daneaxes, thegns, etc.) will suffer severe casualties if they are hit in the rear or flank by cavalry while moving. If this is combined with fatigue and being under missile attack, they'll suffer huge casualty rate (i.e. the rate of unit deaths), which in turn causes morale drops. A high casualty rate within a short time span is usually more damaging to a unit's morale than sustaining larger numbers of overall casualties, which is especially useful to understand when attacking late tier ("elite") infantry.

This is why catching late tiers between missile attack and flank/rear charges, and while they are moving + fatigued = routs.

Forces with lots of cav and missiles can be extremely powerful; they just require a lot of micro management to exploit the most effective tactics suited to them, which are movement-based tactics. These type of tactics usually require having units spread further apart, and in several locations on the battle map simultaneously.

If the micro doesn't suit you, I'd suggest avoiding the Gaelic and Welsh factions, and instead sticking with a faction that uses more static formation tactics, regular lines of shieldwall and such, such as the GHA or Anglo-Saxon factions.

[CountMRVHS]

Originally posted by wibblywobblywonder:

Well, with only 12 spears and/or other melee units, your army is a bit unbalanced for this game since both missiles and cavalry are not really meant to be the battle winners that they are in the other TW games. With so many archers, I imagine the AI closes in pretty quickly, which means your 12 melee units are up against more than their number early in the battle, fighting units which have barely taken a scratch, and stacked full of bonuses because of the VH difficulty.

I suspect that if you swapped out 2 cavalry and two archers for a couple of javelinmen and axemen/swordsmen, you'll have more options for defeating the more heavily armoured units.
Even a few more spears could be used to give you a wider frontage to outflank the AI and pepper them from behind with your archers. Then they'll start racking up the kills.

Thanks for this - shifting my army composition a bit did make a big difference. 4-5 archers and 4-5 cav seemed to leave enough room for more infantry to hold the line, and made it easier for me to actually micro my skirmishers/cav a bit.

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

For cav to be most effective against heavy infantry, they should charge from the flank or rear.

In executing this, your infantry need to only distract the enemy infantry from the front, and don't need to be strong.

With factions such as Circenn and Strathclyde, you don't need to form a stationary battle line. Having lots of missiles and cav means that mobility is your friend, while staying stationary to get into a slugfest is usually a very bad idea.

Don't forget that many Strathclyde units have the ability to do "Guerllia Deployment," which ties into the idea of being mobility focused.

Use the speed advantage of your missiles and cav to draw enemy infantry units apart from each other, and to tire them out by having them chase you. Tired units suffer both morale penalties and combat maluses. Moving units are also not able to form full shieldwall and lack bracing and cohesion bonuses.

Even very heavy infantry (Daneaxes, thegns, etc.) will suffer severe casualties if they are hit in the rear or flank by cavalry while moving. If this is combined with fatigue and being under missile attack, they'll suffer huge casualty rate (i.e. the rate of unit deaths), which in turn causes morale drops. A high casualty rate within a short time span is usually more damaging to a unit's morale than sustaining larger numbers of overall casualties, which is especially useful to understand when attacking late tier ("elite") infantry.

This is why catching late tiers between missile attack and flank/rear charges, and while they are moving + fatigued = routs.

Forces with lots of cav and missiles can be extremely powerful; they just require a lot of micro management to exploit the most effective tactics suited to them, which are movement-based tactics. These type of tactics usually require having units spread further apart, and in several locations on the battle map simultaneously.

If the micro doesn't suit you, I'd suggest avoiding the Gaelic and Welsh factions, and instead sticking with a faction that uses more static formation tactics, regular lines of shieldwall and such, such as the GHA or Anglo-Saxon factions.

Thanks for the tips!

I'm most familiar with the earlier TW games (like the original RTW and mods based on it), so I needed to do a bit of adjusting here I think. The principles are still the same - micro, drawing units apart, flank/rear charges are all things I do in RTW - but the mechanics of the units feel different enough here that I wasn't confident in the same tactics working.

I think I haven't played with guerrilla deployment enough to use it effectively. I suppose one strategy would involve just hiding a few cav units off to the side, to spring on the enemy from the flank/rear as they advance toward your main army? I don't see a lot of benefit to using it on the attack, since as you say it's better to hit the enemy when they're moving, not standing still. And I've been reluctant to send out archers unsupported, far ahead of the main army, because archer duels seem very punishing on VH (and Strathclyde's archers are generally poorly armored), and the AI would probably rush its cav at me anyway. But maybe I'll give it more of a try with a next go-round.

I *did* manage to turn around the campaign though, and beat the English in the field enough times so that I was able to eventually get a ceasefire and go on to win my first short Fame victory. :)