Originally Posted by
Ichon
Yeah I was thinking about what Bretonnia could do and other than Mounted Yeomen which are almost identical to Ellyrian Reavers with lower melee stats. Maybe some Questing Knights and Polemen Men at Arms. Making me sort of curious might have to test it myself.
What Lizardmen lineup are you using? I was going to do 12 Saurus Warriors 4 each type, couple Carnosaurs, and a few skinks Slann and melee hero.
Alright, so here's a fairly typical line up, as far as I've been seeing. It varies somewhat, but it generally sticks fairly close to something along the lines of the following:
Map - Huachotli Temple
Lizardmen -
Lord (Sometimes Kroq, but usually a Slann Priest)
1 x Saurus Vet
1 x Skink Chief
5 x Temple Guard (1 x lvl 3 xp, 3 x lvl 1 xp, 1 x 0 xp)
1 x Saurus Inf (0 xp)
2 x Skink Cohort (1 x lvl 1 xp, 1 x 0 xp)
2 x Skink Schirmishers (1 x lvl 1 xp, 1 x 0 xp)
1 x Chameleon Skink (0 xp)
4 x Terradon Riders (2 x lvl 2 xp, 1 x lvl 1 xp, 1 x 0 xp)
1 x Terradon Fire Bola (0 xp)
4 x Cold One Spear Riders (1 x lvl 1 xp, 3 x 0 xp)
1 x Horned One Cavalry (lvl 1 xp)
3 x Feral Carnosaur (1 x lvl 2 xp, 1 x lvl 1 xp, 1 x 0 xp)
1 x Feral Stegadon (0 xp)
1 x Stegadon (lvl 2 xp)
4 x Bastiladon Solar Engine (1 x lvl 2 xp, 3 x 0 xp)
Troop total: 1568
I counter with the following (with some minor variation):
Sudenburg -
1 x Karl Franz (Deathclaw, all other items)
2 x Empire Captains (Nothing)
10 x Halberdiers (10 x lvl 1 xp)
3 x Great Swords (2 x lvl 1 xp, 1 x 0 xp)
2 x Swordsmen (2 x 0 xp)
4 x Handgunners (4 x 0 xp)
4 x Crossbowmen (4 x 0 xp)
2 x Reiksguard (2 x lvl 2 xp)
1 x Empire Knights (lvl 1 xp)
2 x Griffin Knights (Halberds) (2 x lvl 3 xp)
1 x Outriders (0 xp)
1 x Pistoliers (0 xp)
1 x Helblaster Volley Gun (0 xp)
2 x Helstorm Rocket Launchers (2 x 0 xp)
2 x Great Cannons (2 x 0 xp)
2 x Mortars (2 x 0 xp)
Troop Total: 3195
I generally arrange my army to take advantage of the terrain on the map. I start off on a hill, so I put my arty at the top of, facing down the nice little valley the AI pretty much always bottlenecks through to reach me. I arrange my troops in two little quasi square formations a little further down the slope of the hill from my arty - three forward facing sides of halberds, minus the back, with the sides angled outwards diagonally, and an Empire Captain, 2 units of crossbowmen, and a melee unit in the center of each square. I put the great swords on the flanks of the two squares, with one unit in the middle, between the two. Sometimes I put the volley gun just behind the great sword unit in the middle, sometimes I put it on the flank (if I'm lucky, the terradons will fly right into its line of fire and get wiped out early). I put my handgunners on the flanks, with maybe one unit in the middle, between the two squares, just in front of the great swords. I put all of my heavy cav in one group, on the flank, and I generally hide my missile cav in the woods on the other flank, with a melee unit for support (to keep enemy cav from getting behind my lines and wiping out my arty too quickly).
The battle pretty much ALWAYS seems to play out a bit like this:
The lizards march through the bottleneck in the middle, and their infantry get absolutely massacred by my artillery. Some units take more than 50% casualties, and my arty pretty much always seems to rack up kill counts in the dozens, and sometimes even hundreds. They send cavalry around the side, and I move my own cavalry to counter - this generally turns out to be a case mutually assured destruction. Sometimes I win, sometimes I don't, but either way, my cav is pretty much done as an effective force by the time it all plays out.
The rest of the their army advances on my squares, and - initially, at least - things seem to go well, my arty keeps pounding them, and my gunners and crossbowmen get some good shots in. That is... UNTIL the giant units and hero units get involved. My halberds hold for a while, but they ALWAYS get wittled down, and eventually break. Usually, they don't even have very good kill counts - the last battle I played, a lot of my halberds had single digit kill counts, and some even had zero. The great swords fare a bit better, but they're just not enough.
Long story short, everything goes to hell, and the whole thing just turns into a giant rout, with feral carnosaurs chasing around scattered infantry units, as they periodically rally and rout again.
The major problem, as far as I can see it, is that halberdiers just aren't up to the task. I need them to counter the large units in the enemy formation, but they're just not getting the job done. The other problem is that Saurus units JUST. DON'T. ROUT. for whatever reason. They can be down to like 30 men, out of their original 100, and they just keep fighting on. I'm thinking this might contribute to the problems the halberds are having. They're confused on who they need to target, the giant units, or the infantry.
Either way, I always seem to lose when I play this battle with humans. As stated previously, however, the army of dwarves I used in one experiment was able to get the job done, and actually made it look easy.
I did also try just a regular line on a couple of occasions, thinking I was being too fancy. It didn't seem to make much difference.