Ambush at Divo

[Redpossum]

I have now finished both campaigns on Hard, and Very Hard isn't something I'm ready to tackle yet.

So I thought I'd try to finish a Roman campaign without any heavy infantry at all, not even Spearmen.

I did allow myself one Elephant unit.

I just finished "Ambush at Divo", the scenario with the hordes of L10 Heavy Cavalry.

I put my 3x Militia, 3x Auxilia, and 2x Velites in that patch of woods. I lined up my Elephant and 2x Heavy cavalry along the right side to face the column of heavies on that side.

I placed the 2x Archers behind my Elephant and Hvy Cavalry.

My two Hvy Cav obliterated the column they faced, with support from the Elephants and the Archers.

And they did so well before the left column of Celt cavalry was in contact. Then the archers scampered into the woods, and the two cavalry units circled north of the woods.

The remaining column of Celtic cavalry thundered into the woods, and just got slaughtered by my light infantry.

Here's what the numbers looked like...

You'll forgive me for the silly names, I'm sure. An active, perverse imagination is a terrible thing to waste

All three of my Militia units and both my Heavy Cavalry now have the "Frenzy" skill. This is one of those very interesting high-level skills that only becomes available when you have maxed out a certain combination of other skills, and even then only to certain unit types.

Frenzy works like this -
+5 damage
+5 concuss
+6 to hit
+25 Morale
-5 melee armor
-5 ranged armor

It seems to only be available to certain unit types, including but not necessarily limited to Auxiliary Cavalry and Militia. Apparently it is not available to Auxilia.

It seems to become available in the L21-L24 range.

It seems to become available when the unit has Master Feint and Master Swordsman.

It seems to have a third requirement that I have not yet identified.

Interesting, no?

[tora_tora_tora]

This is from Demo Campaign and not Standard campaign, so things can be different.
From level 12 to level 13,
Legate can get Frenzy as one of promotion choice.
I'm not sure it got masterswordman or something like that.

[honvedseg]

I wonder who was being ambushed? The bulk of the enemy heavy cavalry ran head-on into 2 of my own aux. cav., with a couple of heavy infantry cohorts and a cluster of archers in support. The opposing lights were divided between the auxilia in the woods and my remaining cav unit and cohorts in the open, with their own supporting archers. The final tally came to 286 Kills / 37 Casualties on Hard.