Good morning gamers,
Using cavalry: The Thin Red Line
Today’s post kicks off a new series on the “bare
necessities” for any well-balanced army to employ based on the scenarios you
may have to play. While not all unit types (cavalry, archers, and monsters in
particular) are available to all factions, most armies can find a way
to get cavalry-like movement, archer-like shooting, or monster-like heroes into
their armies. In this series, we’ll be looking at some of the most basic things
to include in your army in order to give you the opportunity to score maximum
points in a game (assuming that the scenarios you play are random and not pre-defined). All games are based on both how you play AND how your
opponent plays AND both of your dice rolls, so while your army list doesn’t
guarantee you a victory, it does decide how many points you are able to get. As a review, the following categories give you points in
different scenarios:
- Getting units off your opponent’s board edge (Reconnoitre);
- Getting units within a given radius of one or more objectives/points on the map (Domination, Hold Ground, Capture and Control, Heirlooms of Ages Past, Fog of War, Storm the Camp);
- Having 1+ banners alive at the end of the game (To The Death, Heirlooms of Ages Past)
- Wounding/killing the enemy army leader or enemy heroes (every scenario, but most importantly Clash By Moonlight, Contest of Champions, Fog of War); and
- Wounding lots of models, either because you’re counting models or because you’re trying to Break/Quarter the enemy army (every scenario, but most importantly To The Death, Lords of Battle, Contest of Champions)
- Fast troops who can claim objectives or exit the opposing board edge;
- At least one actual banner;
- Ways of delaying/avoiding being broken (often in the form of large numbers);
- Means of killing enemy heroes; and
- Means of keeping your own heroes alive.
Cavalry vs. fast
infantry – what’s the difference?
There are three kinds of models in the game: there are
infantry, there are cavalry, and there are fliers (who are technically
infantry, but don’t behave like infantry or cavalry when it comes to moving).
While there are many kinds of cavalry (which we’ll address below) and a few
types of fliers, most factions can field (and do field) large blocks of
infantry. While some infantry are faster than others, any army can turn their
infantry into fast-moving units via Heroic March. Let’s see what that gives you…
Moria isn't known for its speed, but Bat Swarms can be very, VERY fast... |
The Moria Goblins in this picture are slow – only 5” of
movement, which means they’ll be getting across the map a bit slower than
human-sized infantry and much slower than cavalry models. In a scenario where
you need to race to the center (Hold Ground or Seize the Prize), this can be a
huge disadvantage. Add to the fact that Moria Goblin Warriors are only average
Defense, your Goblins stand a good chance of being shot to death before they
can bring their blissfully cheap warriors into
combat. To counter this, the Moria Blackshield Captain can call a Heroic March
to turn them from 5” movement Goblins to 8” movement Goblins.
The Bat Swarm in this formation is also aided by Heroic
March, but its move is increased from a 12” fly to a 17” fly, which not only
allows the model to ignore intervening terrain (like the rocks, rivers, or trees), but
also allows it to better choose its final placement so that it doesn’t get shot
to death (which, with Defense 3, is quite likely to happen against Strength 3+
archery).
While Heroic March is great for getting your infantry moving
(and I consider it a must for any Dwarf or Goblin faction), Heroic March
doesn’t allow your units to charge. This means that a March should
be used to get your army in position – two consecutive turns of Heroic marches
will see any infantry army where it should have been in three turns, saving you
a turn of enduring archery or of your opponent getting somewhere first. While
this will lead to generic captains who are drained of Might, the strategic
benefits of good positioning outweigh the tactical benefits that a single Might
point can provide (at least for generic captains).
Aside from not being able to charge, Heroic March also requires your units to stay
within 6” of the hero who called the March, so it allows a block of
units to move together (or not at all), instead of being able to split up into
different groups. This isn’t a problem if you want your units to march
together, but if you need to split up to multiple objectives, it can be a real
problem.
Cavalry get insane benefits from Heroic March... |
But Heroic March isn’t just an infantry thing – one of the
best armies at calling Heroic Marches is Rohan (who has it on almost every
named hero, as well as the generic ones). Like fliers, cavalry get +5” of
movement when they call a Heroic March, so you’ll see those cavalry get 15” of
movement – perfect for racing to the middle or sprinting towards a board edge. While
getting 7-9” movement on your infantry is great, cavalry add a few extra
bonuses besides “even more speed.”
Why spend the extra
money on cavalry?
Cavalry who avoid moving through difficult terrain (with
very few exceptions) are able to knock down enemy infantry (so long as they’re
below Strength 6). In addition, cavalry get a bonus attack when they charge (generally
improving them to 2 Attacks), which gets doubled when they wound models they
knocked over (so two sets of two Wounding dice). While cavalry tend to cost the
same as two infantry with a comparable profile, the increased number of attacks
on a single model, paired with the greater mobility of the mount, means that
cavalry can (if positioned properly) choose their targets better when they approach
and get more isolated targets. We’ll be addressing this more (and concerns for
running cavalry) a little later.
While the mobility (and arriving first) is a great benefit
to cavalry, the damage cavalry can inflict by knocking down is a great boon,
though it is tied to being able to charge. With priority flipping between
players each round (theoretically), cavalry commanders often need to spend
Might to keep their units charging. Without the charge, cavalry are not only
expensive infantry models, but they have larger bases (making it easier for
units to engage/trap them), but they also aren’t allowed to defend by shielding
– a useful strategy employed by infantry to increase their likelihood of
winning a fight when the number of models is stacked against them.
So, let’s look at ways you can employ cavalry in an army –
we’ll begin by talking about using them on combat, but we’ll also be addressing
some of the common misuses of cavalry for achieving strategic goals.
Using cavalry: Flank
Attacks (aka don’t charge head-on … most of the time)
Cavalry have large bases and can’t spear-support each other.
When we first got started playing the MESBG, Tavros (one of our admins) would
take his Knights of Minas Tirith and charge head-long into the enemy ranks.
After getting the charge, he’d find that each of his cavalry was fighting two
warriors, both of whom were supported by spearmen, resulting in 2 dice for his
Knight to win the fight against 4 dice from his opponent to win the fight. The
result tended to be a lost combat for the Knight and a dead horse (or rider).
Needless to say, we all thought cavalry were pretty weak in the game.
Fast-forward almost ten years later: cavalry are still
pretty limited in their ability to charge head-long into enemy formations, but
that’s not what you want to do! Don’t strike where your enemy is strong, strike
where your enemy is weak – on the flanks!
By attacking a formation’s flank (which is easier than you’d
think with 10” movement), you enable your cavalry to attack both the front-line
warrior AND his spearman backup – preferably in two different fights. By
depriving the infantry of their spear supports, you’ll find more of them
shielding and fewer of them striking – and each infantry that shields is a
cavalry model that won’t be dying. Taking it up a notch is an attack on both
flanks, which not only forces your opponent to split his support resources
between two fronts, but also gives your cavalry more room to maneuver and
allows more of them to engage on the first turn.
Cavalry can use their speed to approach a formation from the front and then sweep over to one side and attack the flank. |
Supporting any flanking cavalry charge should be one hero on
each flank who has the job of calling a Heroic Move – preferably from a
position where he can’t be counter-charged. In this case, either Theoden or Aragorn could call a Heroic Move, though Theoden will be the safer bet since
counter-charging him is impossible (and that’ll mean any un-tagged cavalry will
be able to get some charges off OR reposition slightly to use their ranged weapons).
Rohan has access to some of the most flexible skirmish cavalry in the game, as well as a good selection of skirmish heroes (though they can run heavy-hitting cavalry as well). |
Which cavalry you have where depends on your faction (most
factions only have one kind of cavalry), but if you have certain units who
benefit more than others from charging (lances vs. no lances, throwing spears
vs. no throwing spears), make sure those that benefit the most are on the
farthest part of the enemy battle line, while those who don’t benefit attack
units who are closer to the center of the infantry battle line. In the image
above, Riders of Rohan with throwing spears stay on the far side of the enemy
battle line, while those without throwing spears charge the middle. On the
following turn, if the enemy forces get priority first, it’ll be easier for new
opposing models to attack the Riders without throwing spears vs. those with
throwing spears.
While I think charging a flank is the best move for cavalry,
the new Legendary Legion for Rohan makes an all-hero cavalry army not only a
possibility, but a lethal army to fight. With free Heroic Strikes or Heroic
Combats, you can have a host of rider heroes slamming into the front ranks of a
shieldwall, win the fight, and tear apart an entire formation. While it hasn’t
happened to me yet, I
hear it’s pretty awful. With Riders of Rohan becoming F4/S4 on the charge
with 2 Attacks (3 dice with banner) and Rohan Royal Guards becoming F5/S4 on
the charge with 2 Attacks (3 dice with banner) so long as either warrior type
is within 12” of Theoden, a cavalry charge down the center could spell certain
doom for some armies (especially those that have low Fight value OR don’t have
access to spears). While Dol Amroth knights can do a similar thing, most
cavalry don’t have the oomph to tackle shieldwalls head-on.
Using cavalry:
Objective Claiming
I’ve seen mounted models (especially those of the Rohan
variety) ride quickly to a far-flung objective, about-face, and shoot at enemy
models who come to assault them. What most new players forget is that while
claiming the majority of the objectives is important, you only need to be in
control of them at the end of the game – not at the beginning! Spreading
yourself too thin with your cavalry is a bad idea – and you might need an extra
man or two to attack an enemy infantry squad that’s marching to one of your
objectives!
While objective-based games used to be a limited subset of
all the games you could play, over half of the scenarios in the current rules
set have at least one objective in them:
- Domination: five objectives placed on the board
- Hold Ground: one objective in the center of the board
- Seize the Prize: one movable objective in the center of the board
- Capture and Control: five objectives that need to be touched to be claimed (not based on model count within a certain radius)
- Heirlooms of Ages Past: six objectives that might be the one movable objective
- Fog of War: each player chooses a piece of terrain on the opponent’s side of the board to be the objective they try to control
- Storm the Camp: two objectives in the team’s starting corners
That’s seven of twelve scenarios where you need to get
somewhere, and in most of them (not necessarily Domination, Capture and
Control, or Heirlooms), you need to travel half way across the board to get to one or all of the
objectives. Having some cavalry will certainly help you get where you’re trying
to go, but when you arrive at the objectives matters. For scenarios with fixed,
permanent objectives, arriving a turn or two before the game ends takes
planning, but it means you can get the most out of your cavalry before they become
“just another body on an objective.” For scenarios with transient objectives,
arriving first is critical (though the scenarios do require you to be
dismounted in order to try to claim the objectives).
Using cavalry:
Escape!
There is one scenario (Reconnoitre) that requires you to get
models off the enemy board edge. Not only is this incredibly difficult to do
with infantry, but it’s a risk for cavalry factions as well. Here’s why…
In previous versions of this scenario, it was unclear
whether models that escaped the board counted as casualties with regard to your
break point or not. In the current rendition of the rules, it clearly states
that models that exit the board edge don’t count against your break point, so
if you only have 24 models and you run 20 of them off the map, you can’t be
broken. While you might think this is a good thing, it also means that your
remaining models will have to quarter the enemy force in order for the game to
end. And if he’s running an infantry army and stalls your remaining units, he
might get 20 or 30 or 40 models off the opposing board edge before you finish
off his last models on the board. At this point, what seemed like an easy
victory turns into a catastrophic defeat.
So with your incredible speed, how do you use cavalry most
effectively to escape off the board edge in a Reconnoitre game? The answer is simple:
get four models
off the opposing board edge – everyone else focuses on stalling the rest of the
enemy troops. Why four do you ask? Well, here’s how you tally up
points for escaping models in Reconnoitre:
- 7 Victory Points if you have 3+ models escape and you have at least 3x the number of models escape as your opponent does;
- 5 Victory Points if you have 2+ models escape and you have at least 2x the number of models escape as your opponent does; and
- 3 Victory points if you have 1+ models escape and you have more models escape than your opponent.
But what happens if he gets 2 models off your board edge?
With only three models, you won’t have twice the number of escaped models as he
does, so you’ll go from 7 VPs to 3 VPs. By getting off one additional model
(4-to-2), we keep the two-to-one ratio and drop from 7 VPs to 5 VPs. Sure, you
could choose to run three cavalry off the board edge quickly and have one rider
in reserve to run off later, but you’ll want to have four get off the board if
you think your opponent can get two models off himself. Getting four models off
also helps you if your opponent gets three models off the board, since a tie
doesn’t give you any victory points, but outnumbering him 4-to-3 still gives
you 3 VPs.
Using cavalry: The Thin Red Line
While cavalry are fast and are able to get off the board
edge easily, there’s another useful tactic with cavalry that can be employed in a game
of Reconnoitre: the thin red line. The phrase “thin red line” was originally
used to refer to a
company of Scottish Highlanders and Turkish allied soldiers during the
Crimean war at the Battle of Balaklava (the phrase has since been repurposed for many,
many things). In this battle, fewer than 700 British-Turkish allied troops fought off
2500 Russian cavalry by holding a solid line of soldiers that refused to be
breached.
In the MESBG, cavalry have a base size that is nearly twice
the size of an infantry model, but more importantly, you only need 20 cavalry
models to create an impenetrable wall across a 48” board for anything that
doesn’t fly (with a 10mm gap between the outermost riders and the board edge
and a 20mm gap between each rider). Ideally, terrain will be your friend and
you can making a line all the way across – and obviously if your opponent
chooses not to span the entire board with his own troops, you can close the
trap on them and bring your troops around their flanks while still guarding
against stragglers who might try to race around your flanks. The goal for these
riders is both to stall the opponent and die – a very counter-intuitive tactic,
but since the game might end when one side is broken, you want to be able to
break after you get a few cavalry off the board edge. If your general is
mounted, I recommend he should be one of the models to escape, as he won’t
count as a casualty.
As a side note, fast infantry with 40mm bases (like Wild
Wargs and Fell Wargs) can do this strategy too and infantry can make a similar
line with ~27 warriors, so if you’re running a few cavalry models but
predominantly infantry, you can still do this stalling tactic, allowing your
cavalry to focus on scoring.
So, those are three different ways you can employ cavalry in
your armies. Most of these tactics can be done with fast infantry too, but
cavalry tend to do it without the expenditure of Might points (and their impact
on the flanks tends to be felt more). With these three tactics in mind, let’s
close out our discussion by addressing the four different kinds of cavalry
models in the game.
Horses of a Different
Color: Four Kinds of Cavalry
In MESBG, you get four basic kinds of "cavalry" models - here's a quick overview of them:
- Faux Cavalry (war beasts): Some “cavalry” models in the game – such as Wild Wargs and Fell Wargs – aren’t really cavalry at all, but they have profiles very similar to cavalry models. Besides being very fast, these models only lack the Extra Attack/Knock Down rules of their mounted cousins (which makes a huge difference in combat, by the way), but they also tend to be about half the price of their mounted cousins. This means that while you might not get as much bang for each of them, you do get more of them – which is great if you’re trying to get more models off the board or if you’re trying to screen cavalry models during a flank charge.
- Skirmish Cavalry: any cavalry with ranged weapons count as skirmish cavalry (and some do it better than others). Skirmish cavalry can shoot but they don’t have to: with ranged weapons in their arsenal, they can hurry across the field to get within shooting range and then take their time maneuvering while peppering the assaulting infantry blocks to weaken enemy formations. The most devastating kind of skirmish cavalry have throwing weapons, since these can be used to disrupt enemy formations during the Move phase when responses are impossible.
- Heavy Cavalry: any cavalry with heavy armor (on the riders and/or mounts) and usually lances counts as heavy cavalry – these mounted units tend to be melee-only and deal a wallop on the attack (often wounding on 4s or 5s with many, many dice). Some heavy cavalry (like Easterling Kataphracts) aren’t great at doing damage, but resist enemy damage really well, so if you need someone to hold a position while enduring enemy archery (or charging infantry), these might be your men (though my dislike of Easterling units in general is no secret).
- Monstrous Charge Models: there are many, MANY monster units who have monstrous charge – be they ridden mounts like Fell Beasts or unridden monsters like Great Eagles. Regardless of how they get their rule, Monstrous Charge makes a model into a unique kind of cavalry unit, since it gets all the benefits of cavalry (Extra Attack and Knock Down), but they can knock down other cavalry or monsters so long as their Strength is higher than that of their target. These monsters can really mess up a formation (and often have Hurl as an attack option to make the lines even muddier). While these monsters are hard to mass in a normal point limit game, having just one or two on the field can change everything your opponent does.
Well, that’s about it for fast units – this is one element of
the game I’m excited to try out more of (especially with my new Rohan army). In
our next post, we’ll be looking at the second Bare Necessity: banners. As a new
player, I saw banners as foregoing 3-4 warriors and so never took them. Centaur
was the first to go hard-core into banners with Rythbryt right behind him and
now all of us are figuring out how useful banners can be. More thoughts on that
next time – until then, happy hobbying!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFantastic article! I am just learning how to use cavalry myself, and have some thoughts (though I'm still fairly new so be gentle with your responses!)
ReplyDeleteI know you dislike Easterling units, but I've played many games with them now and since you mentioned Kataphrakts by name in this post, I figured I'd highlight some unique Cavalry tricks you can do with them.
They're definitely Heavy Cavalry (I don't disagree with putting them in this category), but they're not as heavy as Dol Amroth knights. In fact, I'd put things like Dol Amroth or Minas Tirith or Rivendell Knights into the "Shock Cavalry" category, and then have things like Easterling Kataphrakts and Galadhrim Knights as "Heavy Cavalry" as they are now.
The reason for this is mobility and durability to shooting. They lack the price points of Dol Amroth and Rivendell knights, and the lances of the Minas Tirith knights, but they are more durable against shooting than all but Dol Amroth (thanks to armored horses), and can outmaneuver all three thanks to the War Drum or Woodland Creature and Fleetfoot.
So while neither one has Lances (like the Shock Cavalry), both Kataphrakts and Galadhrim Knights are better at strategic flanking, spending a few extra turns out of combat and under bowfire without losing many (or any) horses, taking the time to work their way around the enemy flanks wholesale (rather than the approach and slide sideways style you mention in the article).
I hope this makes sense, but essentially the theme is that you forgot a category of excessively mobile armored cavalry, who don't have the head-on Shock Cavalry lance-style maneuver, but instead earn the ability to move more quickly or more easily around the enemy and endure the bowfire for any extra time that would take.
Needless to say, Rohan can also do this, though they're the "jack of all trades master of none" cavalry army. They can Skirmish... kinda (throwing spears are devastating, but expensive. They aren't Khand level of cheap with free bows). They can Shock Cavalry... kinda (no lances, but Str 4). They can flank with heavy cavalry... kinda (Kingsguard are great at enduring bowfire but their horses aren't armored and they lack mobility buffs). They basically have a bit of everything, which makes them the most flexible but I'd argue actually harder to use.
Anyways my $0.02
Didn't get a chance to respond yesterday - you're right: there is a big difference between cavalry with Lance's and cavalry without (but with heavy armor). Since they have Expert Rider, my opinion is that all Galadhrim Knights would do well to take Elf bows (more on that in the coming weeks), so Kataphrakts we're the only models that lived in the "heavy-armor-but-no-lance" category. You're right in that there is crossover between the categories based on how you equip your units though (and this is a great addendum to the conversation). :)
DeleteHey,
ReplyDeletecan a mount fight on its own, instead of fighting as a rider+mount model?
Specifically Wargs and Fellbeasts.
For the latter: Could a fell beast fight instead of the nazguhul to save the willpoints needed for fighting?
In MESBG, the mount and the rider count as a "model" and the "model" fights. As such, you use the best stat for either part (so a Warg Rider would be able to resolve strikes at the S4 of the Warg instead of the S3 of the Rider). Because the Ringwraith is on the Fell Beast, the model will fight and the Ringwraith will need to burn a Will point regardless of whether any of his stars are used.
DeleteModels can dismount and if the mount has at least 1 Attack (like a Warg), it can test for Courage and if it passes, it stays and can act as its own model. Fell beasts have the Feral rule that makes them fail this test every time.