Questions from a newbie

[danno81]

Unfortunately I am the guy in my area trying to get people into historicals, so I lack more experienced players in my area to pick the brain of. As such I thought I'd ask on the forums here instead.

So here's the big question:
Aside from a few units to shore up the flank and a little artillery, I can't seem to find a reason to take anything other than as many units of pike and shot as is possible. So what's the point of anything else?

An example:
A friend and me were playing Late 80 Years War Dutch versus Late Imperial Spanish. He Charged a small unit (4 average Muskets, 2 average Pike) with his Guardias Viejas (4 bases of Superior, Light Lancer, Swordsmen). In the impact phase ALL of the cavalry's POAs were negated, then in the melee phase the were again all negated except for the better armor. With support from other units they were slightly more effective in a later game, but we were both at a loss as to why he was paying nearly twice the points for a unit that has almost zero independent effectiveness in comparison. We thought it might be to get flanks but the Tercio seems to make that a moot goal, and if you don't charge the cavalry gets murdered by the muskets in the shooting phase.

I'm sure we're missing something, but we just can't see it. I know that most armies of the period were heavy on the Pike and Shot formations, but that hardly justifies the point system. Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Dan

[pyruse]

Try softening up his infantry first with artillery and musket fire. Suddenly the Lancers come into their own.
Their mobility lets them get round flanks, and if they do break through, it lets them cause havoc behind the lines, too.

[rbodleyscott]

It may seem like that at first, but you should note that the top tournament player in UK wins nearly every tournament, and uses armies that mostly consist of mounted troops.

He does make use of artillery, dragoons and light foot to soften up the enemy to enable a breakthrough.

One thing that mounted are very good at is exploiting any weak point or breakthough.

[hazelbark]

As an example re-run the combat factors if the foot start off disrupted. The effect is dramatically different.

[danno81]

Thanks, I'll give it another go.

[madaxeman]

I think we've all been round this particuular loop, and ended up realising that a decent amount of mounted is actually a lot more important!!

The things mounted o better than foot are moving long distances fast, and moving and turning, so if you are facing mostly foot you need to use the mounted in ways which capitalize on those strengths - hoping to charge them down frontally ain't on that list !

Whilst Light lancers are fairly near the bottom of the pile in terms of usefulness if instead you try with horse who have better armour than pikes, especially with carbine or shooting pistol armed horse so you can trade shots you will do better, Also don't necessarily charge first, just wait for the Pike and Shot to make the first move/charge... all whilst maneuvering your other mounted units onto their flank.

Also mounted can be Superior, which foot often can't - which can help the mounted stand up to a slog against foot surprisingly well And if the foot get DISR the game changes a lot.