Slitherine

Ok, I've been going over the advice here, and think I have a game plan for my first later crusader army. Do I have enough knights to make it work? Enough LH and spear/xbow to protect the flanks? CinC as IC or downgrade and add ???? Is 9 BG too few given how much the knights cost? Any advice would be greatly appreciated:

CinC - IC
2 x TC
1 x TC (ally)
2 BG of 4 Military Order Knights
1 BG of 6 Other Knights (i know advice is BG of 4, but not enough points to get 2x4)
1 BG of 6 Military Order spear
1 BG of 8 Other Spear
1 BG of 6 Military Order Crossbow
1 BG of 8 Other Crossbow
2 BG of 4 Bedouin Light Horse (ally)
793 points, 9 BG

Thanks much.

Check the madaxeman website, they seem to favour all tc gens and maximum knights, minimum foot.

tvknight415 wrote: CinC - IC
2 x TC
1 x TC (ally)
2 BG of 4 Military Order Knights
1 BG of 6 Other Knights (i know advice is BG of 4, but not enough points to get 2x4)
1 BG of 6 Military Order spear
1 BG of 8 Other Spear
1 BG of 6 Military Order Crossbow
1 BG of 8 Other Crossbow
2 BG of 4 Bedouin Light Horse (ally)
793 points, 9 BG

Thanks much.

Here is my pathetic advice, as I have lost every game with the crusaders...

9 BGs is WAY too few! You have 4 Commanders for 9 BGs! That's almost 1 commander per 2 BGs!?! The IC alone will let nearly every christian march into battle. Some would have you drop the IC for a TC, but I am currently dropping 1 of your sub-generals. Perhaps that is one thing I'm doing wrong...

Second, none of your spearmen are offensive, IMO, they only do a good job at holding up the enemy; you'll be better off downgrading them. Now that said, if you can take those spear as 2 BGs of 6 average, undrilled, spearmen, then you are saving about 30 points! That is almost enough points for another 6 stands of additional spear. Unless you plan to grind through the enemy with those spear, then you'll be better off with more knights (you only need another 46 points to get another 2 stands of knights).

Now, onto your crossbow. You are investing lots of points into units that do not win battles. Crossbows will do great against heavy armoured and armoured knights. However, unless you face off against lots of knights, you are better spending those points elsewhere. I would take the absolute minimum and then save the points for game winning pieces.

Next, let us look at your Bedouins. You are buying a 25 point general for 70-ish points of light horse. That particular command will fold like a house of cards and you need to either scrub them or go in big! What are their purpose? When I play the crusaders, I take 4 BGs of the same light horse. Unfortunately, they do not seem to stand up to much except for enemy light horse (and then, only in theory). I would NOT have them do much else, unless someone is exposing their flanks. In my games, the 4 BGs are there to hold up a flank and little else.

Finally, from more experienced opponents, I keep hearing that I should do a Syrian army with Crusader allies (if I'm so infatuated with holy knights). I'm sure that they are right, but I cannot seem to work up the funds to buy another army's worth of lead (perhaps in 2010).

As someone who plays Arab armies vs Crusaders my suggestion:

Max BG for knights is 4, 6 just can't be used effectively
Drop the LH, in a shooting war the arabs will out shoot you
Min crossbows, I think they are way over priced
Armoured spearmen are your friend, they are tougher than any Arab inf unit. They can be used as another offensive tool, move them up quick and they should be able to take out any arab infantry. I find a great tactic when playing Arab is to field protected poor spearmen and watch the 20+ pt knights break themselves on the spearmen. Your armoured spearmen should be able to counter this tactic.

I see the crossbowmen as being a support for the armoured spear, for 30 odd points they will be an effictive +1 on cohesion tests for 2x 8 man spear units if you field them so the middle file is over the spot where the spear meet.

Two BGs of military order knights is too many, can't afford the AP in this army. So switch that to 1 Military Order and 1 undrilled. drop the other Knight down to a 4 so your knights are now 1 drilled, 2 undrilled and you have gotten 64AP back.

If the military order xbows can be in a 4 do that (I belive they can) so that gets another 14 AP back. So now you have 78 AP to play with. Buy another BG of Bedouin LH (36 AP I believe). This gives you 3 BGs of lancer LH. Use them, pluse the military order Knights and possible some Xbows on one flank to chase off enemy LH. Sure the Arabs might be able to shoot at you, but you set up lancer LH charges back up with Knights/XBows and chase them back in a hurry.

You still have 42 AP to play with which is enough for another 6 of undrilled protect def spear (36AP) and still have 6 AP left. That gets you to 11 BG.

Here are my two options for the Later Crusaders - these are yet to be test on the field.

Commander in Chief FC - - - - - - CinC 1 50 50 - General
Sub General TC - - - - - - - 2 35 70 - General
1 Military Order Knights Kn Heavily armoured Superior Drilled - Lancers Swordsmen - 4 26 104
2 Fedual Knights Kn Heavily armoured Superior Undrilled - Lancers Swordsmen - 6 23 138
3 Separately deployed Turcopoles Cv Protected Average Undrilled Bw* Light spear Swordsmen - 4 11 44
4 Military Order spearmen HF Armoured Average Drilled - defensive spearmen - - 6 9 54
5 Fedual Spearmen HF Protected Average Undrilled - defensive spearmen - - 6 6 36
6 Fedual Spearmen HF Protected Average Undrilled - defensive spearmen - - 6 6 36
7 Fedual Crossbowmen MF Protected Average Undrilled Crossbow - - - 6 6 36
8 Fedual Crossbowmen MF Protected Average Undrilled Crossbow - - - 6 6 36
9 Military Order Knights Kn Heavily armoured Superior Drilled - Lancers Swordsmen - 4 26 104
10 Fedual Knights Kn Heavily armoured Superior Undrilled - Lancers Swordsmen - 4 23 92
11 Fedual Crossbowmen MF Protected Average Undrilled Crossbow - - - 0 6 0
I would prefer an IC and so I will have to play around with the pouints a bit more. I plan to do most of the fighting with the six figure knight unit so it needs to be big enough to fight successive enemy BGs after taking some casualties.

This is my second option

General IC - - - - - - CinC 1 80 80
sub general TC - - - - - - - 1 35 35
allied general TC - - - - - - Ally general 1 25 25
1 Ghilman Cv Armoured Superior Drilled Bow - Swordsmen - 4 19 76
2 Turcomans LH Unprotected Average Undrilled Bow - Swordsmen - 4 10 40
3 Tucromans LH Unprotected Average Undrilled Bow - Swordsmen - 4 10 40
4 turcopoles Cv Protected Average Undrilled Bw* Light spear Swordsmen - 4 11 44
5 Military order knights Kn Heavily armoured Superior Drilled - Lancers Swordsmen - 4 26 104
6 Military order knights Kn Heavily armoured Superior Drilled - Lancers Swordsmen - 4 26 104
7 knights Kn Heavily armoured Superior Undrilled - Lancers Swordsmen - 4 23 92
8 spearmen HF Armoured Average Undrilled - defensive spearmen Spearmen - 6 8 48
9 spearmen HF Protected Average Undrilled - defensive spearmen Spearmen - 6 6 36
10 crossbowmen MF Protected Average Undrilled Crossbow - - - 6 6 36
11 crossbowmen MF Protected Average Undrilled Crossbow - - - 6 6 36

People have suggested lance armed LH but I feel the bow armed LH may be better unless you are going to face a LH heavy army. Based on if you face an enemy that has only a few LF or LH and keeps them out of the way it is hard for your lance armed LH to do anything constructive.

madmike111 wrote:As someone who plays Arab armies vs Crusaders my suggestion:

Max BG for knights is 4, 6 just can't be used effectively
Drop the LH, in a shooting war the arabs will out shoot you
Min crossbows, I think they are way over priced
Armoured spearmen are your friend, they are tougher than any Arab inf unit. They can be used as another offensive tool, move them up quick and they should be able to take out any arab infantry. I find a great tactic when playing Arab is to field protected poor spearmen and watch the 20+ pt knights break themselves on the spearmen. Your armoured spearmen should be able to counter this tactic.

Just and FYI, the LH that we were discussing were not the Saracen Bow Swordsmen that most people adore/hate; these are the Bedouin! Light horse, unprotected, Lancer, Swordsmen! Actually, I have yet to see any REAL value out of them (yet). I seem to find these light horse stands get shot to pieces by archers and the only thing it truly threatens are enemy light foot and horse.

Is this THE way to go with my late crusaders? I don't know, but I do know that If I dropped all 4 battle groups and another 4 poor light foot and allied TC, I would only scrape up enough points for a normal TC and 4 more Drilled Knights... It is a tough call; loose 5 BGs for 1 really good BG.

Ok, made some changes (dropped the light horse ally, dropped IC for a TC and used points to help buy another BG knights).

3xTC 105 points
2x4 Military Order Knights heavily armored 208 points
3x4 Other Knights heavily armored 276 points
1x4 Turcoples drilled 48 points
2x6 Armored other spear 96 points
1x6 Other Crossbow 36 points
1x6 Maronite archers 30 points
10 battle groups, 3 TC, 799 points.

battle line would have DR-UD-UD-UD-DR knights, with 1 Spear/1Crossbow to protect one flank and 1 Spear/1Bow to protect the other, with the turcoples to help the flank on one side. Other advice I've seen is I should have my outside BG of knights on the line both drilled, which is why I'm working to keep two BG of military order knights.

I would rather have done two BG of crossbow instead of 1 crossbow/1bow, but it was one point too many, so I replaced it with the maronite archers. Since I had 5 points leftover, I drilled the turcoples.

Does this look like an improvement?

Small but exceedingly hard. With your army I would try to put down maximum difficult terrain. It disorders MF so they cannot intercept charge from it, and it gives less places for the enemy to hide.
If RGo then cavalry and LH can still get easily away. Difficult and the are reduced as much as you in dice loss and almost as much as you in movement.

Dump the LH lancers, they are junk and over priced. I find the LH + lance the worst combination, about the only time the lance could add value is at impact against Jav LH, in almost any other scenario the lance is wasted.

madmike111 wrote:Dump the LH lancers, they are junk and over priced. I find the LH + lance the worst combination, about the only time the lance could add value is at impact against Jav LH, in almost any other scenario the lance is wasted.

Lances always add value. Its a minus on the CT to anyone that loses against them