The Bare Necessities, Part I: On Cavalry (or Fast-Moving Infantry)

Good morning gamers,

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)

When you break down these five points, it leaves you with five elements of your army that you would need to include if you wanted a chance at maximum points in a scenario:

• 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.

These five points will be the crux of what we’re going to be looking at over the next five posts. I figured I’d begin with the one that I’ve only recently come to appreciate: the inclusion of fast troops in your list for strategic purposes. In this post, we’ll be looking primarily at cavalry, though we’ll also be looking for ways you can get access to cavalry-like speed without cavalry (for the factions that don’t have access to them). For additional reading on cavalry, I highly recommend some thoughts Centaur wrote in 2012, a very detailed analysis of what mounts get you from Rythbryt in May 2019, and some of my own thoughts on throwing weapons (if you’re looking into skirmish cavalry).

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.

You might look at this and say, “Ha – I only need to get 3 models off and I’ve got the points in the bag!” Well, not exactly. If you can keep your opponent from getting anyone off, this is a true story – three models will do the trick. Even if your opponent gets a single model off your board edge, you’ll still get 7 victory points (since you’ll outnumber him 3-to-1).

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.

Conclusion

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!