What would you do against heavy cav in open field? (tournament game)

[JensAtSaxony]

I played and lost the tournament battle with anglo-saxons agains normans. My counterpart had 4 superior units of offensive spearmen and the complete rest of the army consisted of heavy lancer cavalery.

Some of you played the same battle. My army consisted of huscarls, offensive spearmen and only 4 units of heavy cav (not lancers), some skirmishers. My first thougth was to camp on the hill, but then I thought that this would be ... camping ... so I made the best of the situation and formed a diagonal line BUT...

Heavy lancer cavs can charge and retreat all the time in open field so there is no chance to flank or put light skirmishers behind the enemies line. My men were continueously disrupted and broken after some time from charges. Almost every charge of enemy heavy cav resulted in loosing on my side. At the end I had some fights with 3 of my units fighting one of his heavy cav until it autobroke... that is much too ineffective, I think. I used a house on the flank to prevent his heavy cav from flanking me with great success, but it was enough to charge me in the front to disrupted my army.

I reflected the battle and only see a winning game with camping on the hills. What have you done to win against these bulk of heavy lancer cav with mostly offensive spearmen and huscarls?

EDIT: What do you think about camping as part of strategy in the tournament battles?

[Jack-3kBattery]

If your opponent took all the knights and only 4 infantry, you then had the Infantry and Quantity advantage which could be used in several ways.

One important thing to note are the possible outcomes of Knights charging at your infantry. There are 3 that generally come to mind and of the 3 only 1 of them is really a negative but even then it can still be turned around to your advantage. The 3 outcomes are: a) Knights get stuck in melee but do not disrupt your infantry; b) Knights get stuck and do disrupt your infantry and; finally c) they fall back after charging. Of the three only B is a negative, let me explain.

A) is a positive because a knight stuck in melee with a non disrupted infantry unit will lose the melee and will also allow them be ganged up by multiple infantry units (This is where your quantity advantage comes in) this is especially more so when they are flank charged so be sure to setup your line accordingly to accommodate for possible flank opportunities. B) is a bad outcome for you but can still be turned around to your advantage using the same tactic in situation A, just have your infantry flank charge/gang up on the knights. C) is not necessarily bad either and can still be used to your advantage, repeated fall backs by knights will eventually lead to them being surrounded (The knights that get stuck in melee will be left behind by the knights that fall back)

With these in mind, my tactic as the Anglo saxons were to present a solid infantry line with a lot of reserves at the back for possible flanking/ganging up opportunities. Sure a few of my infantry got disrupted by their knights but they also got surrounded because of my numbers advantage. I also refused to advance on my right flank, where he concentrated most of his knights, and shifted my lights there to disrupt them this rendered them generally irrelevant for most of the match. This allowed my numbers advantage in the center and left flank to push through and decimate his infantry.

Another great battle plan was used by Richard Yorke. He used his numbers advantage and aggressively enveloped the Normans with a wide line. He had infantry reserves to flank charge the knights that got stuck while the front line continuously ZOCed the knights and made the knights retreat whenever their charge failed to produce any decent effect.

[tyronec]

In this game battles are usually won by getting flank charges in. As the Saxons you should have a larger army, use it to get around the flanks of the Normans and get some flank charges in. If you can get an infantry charge in against the flanks of the Norman knights, even if they are unengaged, then that charge will generally win and will pin the knights. When they turn to face get another charge in with a second infantry unit. The knights are then pinned in place and can no longer bounce back to regain their lance bonus and have little if any chance to survive. So two mediocre infantry units can kill one unit of knights, as long as you can get the original flank charge set up right.
Use your good infantry to hold off the rest of the Normans while you are getting this into place. Use your few missile units to shoot up the knights between their charges, or by getting around behind them, and if you get a disrupt there may be more chances to get an infantry charge in and pin them.
If the Normans have spent a lot of their points on their mounted knights then maybe there is a chance to get stuck in to their infantry.

Retreating to a hill surrenders the initiative to the enemy and unless the rest of the terrain is favorable (which I don't think it was in this game) you are unlikely to be able to take advantage of your greater numbers.