HYW French first battle

[bodkin]

How are you supposed to win the first battle as the french in the HYW campaign?

You have to face a huge army of low country spearman but all you have is cavalry which just bounce off them with no effect? You can't flank them as your cavalry never sticks in combat unless they get a cohesion drop first charge but even if that happens the other spearman swarm in and drive you back. I've tried dismounting the Men at Arms but they don't have the numbers to deal with the spearmans depth of ranks. Playing on Baron difficulty.

[Athos1660]

First defeat the few longbowmen and artiilery, then defeat their numerous spearmen by repeated charges of your mounted knights. Maybe reduce the difficulty setting. The first time I fought this battle, I found it hard to win, not the second time. Btw this first battle of the Campaign reenacts the battle of Saint-Omer in 1340 where 3000 French faced 11000-16000 Anglo-Flemish (according to wiki) !

Your knights don't "bounce off infantry with no effect".

In real life, Knights were very good at charging and defeating at impact. If they didn't succeed in disrupting their enemy at the first impact, they'd fall back, gather together and charge again. On and on. (So imho they favored/chose "this bouncing off" as a tactic, didn't suffer it.)

That's also what happens in game.

And each time, in game, the knights get a CT modifier for infantry testing for losing an impact close combat vs lancers equal to -2 showing that they are very good at impact against infantry (1) !

Try this battle again. The campaign is worth it.
Series of charges and fall-backs are your friend against an infantry army like the Low Countries. They are not when facing English longbowmen behind stakes...

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(1) btw imho they should also adopt this very tactic (charging on and on) and get the same effectiveness against mounted knights too, but I may be wrong and it might change all the dynamics on the battlefield.

[bodkin]

Thanks, I won on the fifth attempt by going for their weaker units and basically scattering my forces all over the map so the enemy ranks became disorganised and I was able to isolate units and repeatedly charge until I got a cohesion drop.

[Athos1660]

Nice !

btw...

You can't flank them as your cavalry (...)

...in real life, it seems that mounted knights didn't adopt flanking tactics, only straight and repeated charges, relying on the power on their lances.

[Athos1660]

For info, here are the battles of the HYW French Campaign :

----- Spoiler ! -------


- ST OMER, 1340 AD
- CRECY, 1346 AD
- NEVILLE'S CROSS, 1346 AD
- POITIERS, 1356 AD
- COCHEREL, 1364 AD
- AURAY, 1364 AD
- AGINCOURT, 1415 AD
- VERNEUIL, 1424 AD
- FORMIGNY, 1450 AD
- CASTILLON, 1453 AD

[ErissN6]

Knights were very good at charging and defeating at impact. If they didn't succeed in disrupting their enemy at the first impact, they'd fall back, gather together and charge again. On and on. (So imho they favored/chose "this bouncing off" as a tactic, didn't suffer it.)
That's also what happens in game.

However it may be false for later battles, as knights had to be more and more heavy (weapons and tactics were invented to pierce them) and so no longer could easily fall back, until they even could become drowned in enemy infantry. So the heavy long-lance was invented but it was a very technical one-shot unstoppable weapon and the knights had to be followed by mounted infantry to exploit their breakthrough and not become surrounded if enemy morale had resist the shock.

Until firepower could pierce this extra-heavy cavalry. Then as armor became less usefull, knights became lighter again, and as they became less protected they kept the lance as a "range" weapon to try to hit first, but lighter and stronger so it could be used several times. One last true cavalry battle (Koramow 1920) is the polish 'winged' cavalry against konarmya bolsheviks, knights won while being 1 vs 10!.. (vs nazi later, it's false, cavalry never charged tanks, they never believed it was dragons )

[Buttons]

How are you supposed to win the first battle as the french in the HYW campaign?

You have to face a huge army of low country spearman but all you have is cavalry which just bounce off them with no effect? You can't flank them as your cavalry never sticks in combat unless they get a cohesion drop first charge but even if that happens the other spearman swarm in and drive you back. I've tried dismounting the Men at Arms but they don't have the numbers to deal with the spearmans depth of ranks. Playing on Baron difficulty.

I frequently find denied flanks to be effective when you’re horribly outnumbered. My best strategy has been using a few crossbowmen and longbowmen to make up half of the battle line curving away from the enemy on the flank, other half of the line has two ranks of knights spaced three spaces apart with commanders in the front. Knights with commanders are solid at engaging offensive spearmen without commanders, and second rank acts as a reserve and possible flanking or exploitation force. Collapse the flank and roll up the line with your generals leading the charge. If your knights don’t get stuck in combat you can fall back the second line or move them towards flanking depending on the situation.

One risky strategy is to stack knights right behind another unit so when the front unit charges it can’t fall back and you can flank the unit.