Cavalry Charge: The Checker Board Formation and the Battle of Lechfeld

Good morning gamers,

In today's formations post, we're tackling an ancient and difficult problem: how do you tackle skirmish cavalry in MESBG? As a brief review, there are several different classes of cavalry in MESBG (see our first article in the Cavalry Charge mini-series for what these are) and by "skirmish cavalry," we're referring to any cavalry model that has a ranged weapon.

Before we dig into the MESBG theory, let's look at a historical battle that featured some very interesting tactics for catching enemy cavalry archers - the battle of Lechfeld.

The Battle of Lechfeld: Cutting Off Escape Routes

Per the usual for this series, you can see a visualization of this battle over on the BazBattles YouTube channel - and per the usual, it's great. In the early Tenth Century AD, the King of Germany, Otto I, faced an invasion by Magyar horse archers from Hungary. These invaders pillaged and burned most places that they invaded, never staying long in one area. Since they used their horses to avoid pitched battles, they were some of the most devastating invading forces that plagued central Europe. In 910, the first Battle of Lechfeld featured Magyar horse archers destroying a German army that tried to drive them away from Augsburg, luring the German units forward in pursuit of them and then swarming them in a furious charge. This isn't the battle we're going to focus on today (you can read about it here though), but it does serve as a cruel reminder of what skirmish cavalry can do to you if they can whittle down your numbers.

In 955, however, the Magyars settled in the German duchy of Bavaria and laid siege to Augsburg instead of just raiding - they were here to stay. Otto I mobilized troops from various other duchies in Germany and met them outside the city. The Magyars attacked one of the divisions under Otto's command and began to plunder their belongings. When the Germans launched a counter-attack with their heavy cavalry, the Magyars retreated. Otto didn't race to pursue them with his forces, however - he advanced his infantry blocks steadily and pursued the enemy until they ran out of room to maneuver (in part because harsh weather conditions made maneuvering difficult). Without the ability to fade away from the enemy, the Magyar forces were eventually caught and defeated soundly by the heavy infantry and cavalry of the Germans.

Reality isn't always mirrored well in MESBG - but the nature of skirmish cavalry is captured pretty well (well, everything except the Cantabrian Circle, at any rate). Let's look at some of the specific tools we'll need to combat skirmish cavalry - and a neat little formation that almost any army can use to break them.

Skirmish Cavalry in MESBG: How To Catch Them

While our last article in this formations series focused on heavy cavalry (who are often melee models), we're focusing today on models that have at least one kind of ranged weapon. Because war beasts don't intend to walk away from the enemy, we won't be considering them as skirmish cavalry today. While there are lots of heroes that meet this requirement too, the warrior options that qualify as "skirmish cavalry" include the following (points/model included in parentheses):

• Rangers of the North on horses¹ - I know, they're not warriors, but they're LIKE warriors, aren't they? (40)
• Citadel Guard on horses with longbows¹ (17)
  
• Riders of Rohan¹ (14)
• Riders of Rohan with throwing spears (16)
• Rohan Royal Guards on horses with throwing spears² (17)
  
• Rohan Outriders on horses¹ (13)
• Rivendell Knights with shields¹²³ (22)
• Galadhrim Knights with Elf bows and shields¹²⁴ (21)
• Warg Riders with Orc bows¹ (12)
• Warg Riders with throwing spears and shields (13)
• Orc Trackers on Wargs¹ (12)
  
• Warg Marauders⁴ (30)
• Khandish Horsemen¹ (13)
• Khandish Charioteers with bow⁴ (30)
• Haradrim Raiders with bows with poisoned arrows and war spears¹³ (13)
• Mahud Raiders with blowpipes with poisoned darts and war spears¹³ (19)
• Hunter Orcs on Fell Warg with Orc bows¹ (17)
• Mirkwood Spiders - yes, they're Faux Cavalry and not technically cavalry, but they also kind of count (20)
  

¹ Can only skirmish at half-speed

² Heavy cavalry

³ Has a Lance or War Spear

⁴ D5+ mount

That's a lot of skirmish cavalry - but there are a few things we can glean from this list: first and foremost, two-thirds of the models have to move at half speed in order to move-and-shoot (not Rohan Royal Guards/Riders of Rohan/Warg Riders with throwing spears, Warg Marauders, Khandish Charioteers, and Mirkwood Spiders). This means that in most cases, skirmish cavalry have to move about as fast as normal infantry move. We may get a few inches of gain on skirmish cavalry each time we move - and if we can get extra movement (whether through Heroic March or war drums - or both), we can remove turns that they can use to shoot at us. 

One further note: of the six profiles that can move full and still shoot, only two of those (Warg Marauders and Khandish Charioteers) have more than 8" range, which means that in order to shoot, they'll need to be "close" (giving us options to catch them if priority flips our way at the right time).

Second, of the eighteen profiles that we listed above, most of them (eleven) cost more than 15pts/model (and of the remaining models, only one doesn't have a S2 bow - and it's a Warg Rider with throwing spears). If you're paying 15pts/model, an infantry force that's trying to catch the skirmish cavalry might have twice the models of the enemy - especially if they chose cheap heroes to create an infantry horde. Skirmish cavalry can be annoying - but they're generally quite expensive.

Third, only three of the skirmish cavalry are heavy cavalry (Rohan Royal Guards, Rivendell Knights, and Galadhrim Knights), which means most skirmish cavalry will be D4-5 riders - and most skirmish cavalry period are on D4 mounts. As a result, having S3-4 archery to harass the skirmish cavalry in return can have HUGE implications - and even S2 archery can pose a huge risk for their horses (only three models have D5+ mounts - Galadhrim Knights, Khandish Chariots, and Warg Marauders while the shield-carrying Goblin is alive).

Finally, if skirmish cavalry move directly away from a model, the ability to close the gap on them is hard - but if skirmish cavalry are forced to move towards someone or move diagonally away from their assailants, the gap can be closed much faster. A skirmish cavalry model that's being pressed from two or three directions will have to move fewer inches away from one threat in order to keep any kind of gain from a different threat. This can have huge implications in a maelstrom scenario (where models can arrive from different board edges), but can also occur if you form up your battle line to face the enemy on a diagonal. As the enemy gets closer to their own board edge, they'll need to drift closer to one flank.

So given all this, what formation can we use to hunt down skirmish cavalry? Well, I present to you the Checker Board formation.

The Checker Board Formation

Let's assume we need to catch an army that is heavily skirmish cavalry - like, I don't know, the Riders of Theoden:

• Theoden, King of Rohan with everything [ARMY LEADER]
• 2 Riders of Rohan
  
• 2 Riders of Rohan with throwing spears
  
• Eomer, Marshal of the Riddermark with everything
• 2 Rohan Royal Guards on horses with throwing spears
• Dernhelm with throwing spears
• 1 Rider of Rohan with throwing spears
• 1 Rohan Royal Guard on horse with throwing spears
• Gamling, Captain of Rohan with everything
• 2 Rohan Royal Guards on horses with throwing spears
  
• Deorwine, Chief of the King's Knights on horse
• 2 Rohan Royal Guards on horses with throwing spears
  

700pts, 18 models, 2+2 bows hitting on a 4+ AND 12 throwing spears hitting on a 4+ AND 1 S1 thrown stone hitting on a 3+ (that we're unlikely to see, but still), 11 D6+ models/2 D5 mounts, 17 cavalry + 1 passenger, 15+ Might points

I know what you're going to say - if this is a skirmish army, we should have Elfhelm in there! Yes, we certainly could - and if you want to drop Deorwine (free Heroic Combats outside of the Death! turn), Gamling (free Might on a hero who's exhausted himself), Dernhelm (the cheapest 3A Rohan hero), or Eomer (um, no - don't do that), we could have added him in. Dropping warriors to get him didn't seem worth it to me (it would have cost me 5 models, bringing us down to 14 models total - with only 13 40mm footprints). So yes, no Elfhelm - sorry.

This kind of list is STILL going to be hard to face - all but three of the models are shooting-capable (Theoden, Deorwine, and Gamling), some of the skirmish units have bows, but most of them have throwing spears - and most of those are D6-D7 riders. Sheesh, how do we deal with this? Well, let's look at a list that I've been running lately and that I LOVE to field - and one that theoretically shouldn't have any chance of catching these guys: The Defenders of Erebor!

• Thorin III Stonehelm [ARMY LEADER]
• 6 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 6 Iron Hills Dwarves with spears
  
• 1 Iron Hills Dwarf with crossbow and spear
• Bard II, Prince of Dale
• 6 Warriors of Dale with Esgaroth bows
• 6 Warriors of Dale with Esgaroth bows and spears
  
• 2 Knights of Dale
• Bifur the Dwarf, Champion of Erebor
• 6 Iron Hills Dwarves
• 6 Iron Hills Dwarves with spears
  

700pts, 42 models, 12 Esgaroth bows hitting on a 4+ AND 1 crossbow hitting on a 4+, 30 D6+ models, no fast units, 8+ Might points

The Erebor alliance is a bit more than double the size of the Rohan contingent, but has far fewer heroes, is much less mobile, and doesn't have F5 warriors to prevent those Royal Guards from rolling over them. True, the Iron Hills Dwarves will be D7-8 (forcing the Rohan Royal Guards to get 6s to wound them), but if skirmish damage is able to whittle down our ranks, we could see tons of models go down on a turn when all those Rohan heroes call free Heroic Combats. We should do something about it - and the answer lies in a formation we talked about ages ago now: the Tercio Square.

For more information about Tercio squares, check out this formations article - we're not actually going to make an open square in today's article, though. No, instead we're going to zoom out a bit and focus on how Tercios were used in combat at the strategic level: in a checker board grid. Why? Each Tercio block was its own castle of defense, able to resist attacks from all sides equally well. When fighting cavalry, this is essential - you don't want an exposed flank. But what happens if you can form up your army in multiple blocks? They can form a "grid" of sorts to protect each other using the often-underappreciated rule of "control zones". Check out this formation for example:

Some WIP Iron Hills Dwarves and some Numenoreans standing in for Dale guys 

We have three blocks in front - one with Bifur in the first rank and two with "just Dwarves", while the two mega heroes and all the archers are set up in the rear blocks. As we move up the field, we know that there are very few bows in the enemy force, so he's going to want to get closer to us (within 8") so he can harass us. This gives us several advantages: first and foremost, because we have 12 shots/turn that can hit the enemy from 24" away with S3-4 missiles, we can stop moving and stand and shoot much sooner than our opponent can. 12 S3 shots hitting on a 4+ should land us ~6 hits/turn, which should translate into 1-2 wounded horses/riders each turn. With only 12 throwing spears in the Rohan ranks (and an expected 4 hits/turn if he moves-and-shoots against D7-8 models should lead to less than 1 wound/turn), our opponent can't skirmish with us - he has to close.

This is particularly true if we target the heroes with our shooting. Death! is a really powerful special rule - if the Rohan heroes are still mounted. True, Rohan Infantry heroes can still call a free Heroic Combat/Strike with Death, but their punch is greatly diminished (especially against D7-8 Dwarves who are wounded on at least 6s by all the heroes). By targeting their heroes, we can force the skirmish cavalry to play on our turf and by our rules - and they cease to skirmish.

We've also got three solid blocks in front (with two more supporting in the wings) of heavy infantry - all D7-8 models who can absorb S2 bow-fire easily and can even stand up against S3 bow-fire or throwing weapons. While this army is a bit of a special case (you can't always have Iron Hills Dwarves - or Dwarves in general - in your front rank), anyone who is D6 will be more-or-less just as effective against skirmish cavalry. Since skirmish cavalry are going to reduce the model count of an army, anything that can be wounded on 6s and is fairly cheap can mean the overall utility of skirmishing goes down.

This is especially true if you can get some extra movement: whether these are 9" move Easterling Warriors, Warriors of Minas Tirith getting Marched around by Aragorn, or a Morannon Orc spam being pushed forward by a drummer (be he an Orc Drummer or a Mordor Troll with war drum), if you can get high Defense models to present themselves as targets to the enemy for roughly 8pts/model, you have a very good chance of ignoring most of the punishment the skirmish cavalry want to do - especially if those cavalry are relying on throwing spears to be effective. If you can't get extra movement (like the Defenders of Erebor in this example), make sure you have some shooting to drive the enemy to you instead - it's kind of like moving faster . . . kind of . . .

Finally, by having some blocks in front and some blocks behind, we've created a system of reserves in our force: yes, some of our units could receive a cavalry charge, but we're ready with our force to press the enemy hard OR draw them into pockets where retreat will be difficult. If our opponent gets in a bind where he needs to charge (or else be charged), if he can't catch all of our models, we'll be able to respond to his charges by moving the units he couldn't reach - and the spaces between our ranks are large enough for an infantry to pass through, but not a cavalry model. Of course, if the cavalry are starting to close on us, we might be able to retreat the blocks back a few inches and skirmish with them - this is a pretty flexible formation, after all.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed today's post - catching skirmish cavalry can be really difficult sometimes, but there's very little in this game that feels more satisfying than catching someone who's trying to play keep-away and slaughtering them (or forcing them to play your way and engage). If you have additional tricks, share them in the comments below! We're taking a break for a bit on cavalry but when we return, we'll wrap up this mini series on cavalry (at least for now) by talking about "the most important thing" about using cavalry in SBG. Tune in later this summer to find out what it is! Until then, happy hobbying!