Cavalry Charge: The Importance of Reserves and the Battle of Tinchebray

Good morning gamers,

Today we're wrapping up (at least for now) our series on cavalry by talking about the most important principle for using cavalry in MEBG: reserves. If cavalry models can get the charge in MESBG, they can be absolutely devastating - often doubling their Attacks when dueling and doubling THOSE dice when fighting most infantry models. A well-timed charge can be absolutely crushing for an enemy force, but it's that NEXT turn that can really seal the deal. If you commit all of your cavalry on one big charge, you may be forced on the following turn to risk several Heroic Moves just to have the chance of getting in a few charges. Since counter-calling Heroic Moves can be a waste of Might points, it's better to have some cavalry who can't be charged on the following turn so that someone can get charges in if you don't get to move first. To illustrate this, we turn to an important battle in history - the Battle of Tinchebray!

The Battle of Tinchebray

As usual, you can find a great visual summary of the battle on the BazBattles channel on YouTube - I absolutely love their stuff! In 1100, the ruling King of England, William Rufus, the son of William the Conqueror, was killed in a hunting accident. With no heir of his own, the bid for the rule of England was up for grabs between his brothers Robert Curthose of Normandy (who was on the First Crusade at the time) and Henry Beauclerc (who was in England at the time and was crowned in Robert's absence). When Robert got back to England in 1101, Robert got some concessions from Henry, but also identified lords who were unhappy with Henry's rule. Robert had difficulties managing his duchy and from 1105-1106, Henry "invaded" Normandy and took various castles from Robert. When Henry besieged Tinchebray castle in 1106, Robert mustered his nobles to drive Henry off.

Robert formed two lines - one with a mix of heavy cavalry and infantry, the other with infantry held in reserve. Henry formed three groups - one with dismounted knights, one with infantry reserves, and the final with heavy cavalry in deep reserves. As Henry's first corps began to falter, the infantry reserves were ordered to support the main line while the heavy cavalry swept around the exposed flanks of Robert's line. Robert saw that his forces were being flanked and called in his reserve forces - but seeing the losses mounting up on Robert's side, his reserves decided not to engage and fled the field. This led to a rout of Robert's forces, but Robert himself was taken captive and imprisoned for life.

We talk about this a lot in these formations posts, but real life isn't always reflected well in MESBG. However, the importance of cavalry reserves is a HUGE deal in MESBG and historically. It's very tempting when you have cavalry to commit them all in one big charge - but that isn't always the best plan. In this formations post, we're going to look at several different formations that will give you cavalry reserves so that you can make sure you get in a good charge on two consecutive turns. Let's take a look!

Cavalry Reserves: The Wide Wrap-Around

This is perhaps the easiest strategy for having reserves - send some of your cavalry wide of the battle line, remaining at least 0.5" out of their maximum movement range (keeping in mind where they might be if they back away from combat). We've shown cavalry doing this in several posts, including a post on the Bayeux Tapestry and a recent post in our Fantasy Fellowship series (Eomer's Return). While we want to be out of the enemy's charge range, this strategy relies heavily on being able to actually charge into useful things on the following turn. As such, you'll probably only get a handful of cavalry in, so your choices are to either have a few cavalry try wrapping around this way OR having a lot of cavalry wrap around with the knowledge that you're setting up reserves for more than one future turn of charging.

As you can see in the picture above (from the Eomer's Return scenario), I have a bunch of cavalry ready to charge on the following turn - but there's no way they're all going to be able to charge in. As such, those that can't charge in can continue moving around the flank of the enemy to threaten the rear, where their charging opportunities on subsequent turns will probably rise due to having more enemy models within their charge range. As you do this, keep in mind where your opponent's models might be after backing away from fights.

This is a simple plan to execute - and can also be really good if you're playing a scenario that requires you to get to objectives (as a few cavalry that could be used as reserves are already racing around the enemy flanks). In more combat-oriented scenarios, continuing to wrap around the enemy will force your opponent to devote resources defending against an ever-threatening foe. But wrapping around the enemy too much can force your center to fold - to deal with that problem, we have another formation to look at . . . 

Cavalry Reserves: The Controlled Gaps

It's very tempting to line up your cavalry so that you can charge two infantry models with each of your cavalry models - and if you've got good heroes on mounts, you certainly want to charge two people each. However, your cavalry are likely to be out-diced if you charge into two infantry models who are themselves supported by two spearmen (or four pikemen!). As such, since we want our charge to happen on a turn when we don't have priority (so our opponent doesn't have the opportunity to react), our best strategy for charging is actually to charge one model with each of our cavalry, leaving a model unengaged near them. This not only gives our heroes something to charge if they call a Heroic Combat near these warriors, but it also means our opponent's line gets chunked up more easily. To capitalize on this on the following turn, we want our reserves set up like this:

Those unengaged infantry are going to still be there on the next turn, so our reserve cavalry should remain 0.5" out of charge range of these models. We very much want, however, to make sure we not only have cavalry behind our lines to charge these unengaged models, but we want a few more cavalry held in reserves to take the place of any cavalry that are killed in the first charge (we can't assume we'll win all our fights, after all). This is particularly necessary if you find yourself fielding so-so cavalry as opposed to elite cavalry - if you're going to tie Fight Values (or have the lower Fight Value), you definitely want cavalry in reserve to just take the place of anyone who dies.

This can mean that if you know you're only going to have F3-4 cavalry, you should take more cavalry than normal so that you have reserves baked in. Once you hit F5, there are very few infantry warrior models outside of Elves, Half-Trolls, and Beornings (and Easterlings/Minas Tirith/Fiefdoms/Moria guys if certain heroes are nearby) who are going to rival your Fight Values. If you're rolling two dice to win the fight when you charge, you have a better than 50% chance of getting a 5-high or 6-high, so having the reserve dedicated to replacing dead models is a lot less necessary (though as I wrote in a math post earlier this year, you have a roughly even chance of beating 4 dice with 2 dice if you have the higher Fight Value - so be sure to only charge into one guy!). 

Both of these formations should make sense if you've got melee-only cavalry - but let's take a moment to look at what this looks like if you have skirmish cavalry in reserve . . .

Cavalry Reserves: Maximizing Skirmish Cavalry

Skirmish cavalry can use either of the previous formations really well - those getting around the flanks can attempt to pick off enemy spearmen during the first round of fighting and continue to harass second-rank models (or auric third-rank models) as they maneuver around the enemy flanks. These models are best equipped with throwing weapons (especially throwing spears), since they're free to move their full movement and still contribute to the damage of the team.

Bow-armed skirmish cavalry can be used around the flanks, but are much better equipped to support from behind the main line, shooting at whatever models are unengaged by the initial cavalry charge. This may require positioning your charging cavalry so that you have clear lines of fire to these models - you definitely don't want to hit your own horses as you're trying to clear out enemy models! Whichever way you run them, I'd recommend using a triangle to keep your shooting options open - we've talked about this before with regard to infantry formations, but it works for cavalry also. When formed up in a triangle, these cavalry models have built-in reserves from the 1-2 front models should you miscalculate the distance between you and your opponent.

But there's another way you can run skirmish cavalry that preserves reserves - a Cantabrian Circle. This goes back to one of the first formations articles I wrote and is a case study in how reality isn't reflected well in MESBG. However the principle of the formation is solid - by having skirmish cavalry form up in a loose circle (if you want more people to shoot, you can make the circle larger than is shown in the article) not only makes it so that you have good firing arcs away from your cavalry, but it also means that there are innate reserves that can counter-charge to help their friends. This is a great formation to start with as you prepare for a charge, since you can then break out your cavalry to race around the flanks OR form up behind the main lines to prepare for the second charge.

Even if we don't get to move first on the next turn, there should be a lot of cavalry models that can't be charged by the enemy - this gives us a good chance of keeping some of the damage rolling on the next turn! I like doing this with the Riders of Eomer Legendary Legion, but you can do a similar stunt with the Riders of Theoden Legion as well as cavalry-heavy variants of the Serpent Horde (who have phenomenal cavalry, albeit on the low-Defense side of the house), the Iron Hills/Erebor Reclaimed (no skirmish options, but those guys hit like trucks), Warg Riders (potentially supported by Morgul Knights if you run them from Mordor/Barad-Dur), or Rivendell (who probably have the best shock cavalry in the game).

Conclusion

This closes out our series on cavalry - at least for now. I've been playing around with cavalry-heavy factions for most of the year and have learned a lot about using them. Hopefully this post was useful for you and if you have tips and tricks for using cavalry, please let us know below! Next month, we'll be back with some formations that focus on skirmish infantry (something else I've been using a lot this year). Until then, happy hobbying!