Countering Horsemen with Drakes

[Velensk]

Saurians at night in good terrain don't take much damage from spearmen, even when attacking with melle.

[zookeeper]

Saurians at night in good terrain don't take much damage from spearmen, even when attacking with melle.

Countless of times wanted to say that the word is melee!

[thespaceinvader]

Actually, it's mêlée...

=P

The moar you know.

[multilis]

Original guy I responded to suggested not using saurians. I am talking about the latest 1.3 versions of game where saurians are boosted against spearman. (1.2 loyalists had edge over drakes/saurians, with spearman their most popular unit)

Burner, Fighter, Clasher, Skirmisher, Augur are all good against the spearmen.

Burner... overall barely more attack damage (spearman half the time are strong), better mobillity (bonus as ranged vs melee unit), few more HP but...
Spearman cost way less and have much better defense. (Guarding a village, spearman only gets hit 1/3 less than burner).

Overall I would rate burner even, until one factors in that loyalists might also have a few horseman (cavalry/fencers feared to lesser extent). Meanwhile drakes (without saurians) don't have a good secondary unit.


Fighter... much better mobillity, more hp but...
Spearman cost less, have better defense, slightly better attack, firststrike.

Overall Spearman can out melee the fighter from better defense, cheaper price, slightly better hit.


Clasher...better melee attack, more hp, slightly better mobillity...
Spearman cost much less, better defense, range attack back for free.

Spearman at least even until one factors in archer backup (drakes don't have a good backup strike to match archer)


A counter has to be better to be effective, breaking even isn't good enough->enemy will just counter you back.

Drakes by themselves cant counter spears well.

However saurians with their pierce resistance, speed, even better defense, and opposite time of day peak (combined with speed, saurons more often pick their battles) give drakes the edge.

Saurian spearman can out melee and range a spearman at night, has slightly better defense, can skirmish for extra attacks/trap/escape.

Augur can outrange a spearman at night, ignores defense as magic attack, heals allies. (Attacking a spearman guarding a village, mage does very slightly better average than burner. Mage costs way less, heals other units, can better use mobillity advantage with chaotic vs lawful)

They both are cheaper than drakes.

...

In conclusion, my point is drakes alone tend to lose to loyalists heavy in spearman with usual backup of archers, horsemen, fencers (skirmish abillity), cavalry (cheaper fast unit)

However throw in some saurons and drakes compete well against spearman loving loyalists. Loyalists shift units to better deal with the saurians which in turn helps the drakes. (Drakes slaughter mages)

[irrevenant]

It sounds like you're playing on fairly open maps. If you engage somewhere a bit more woody/hilly wouldn't the drakes would have better movement than the horsemen?

[Jetrel]

Saurian skirmishers are the grief of horsemen, purely because the horsemen have charge, and the skirmishers usually have good defense (do not put them on grassland during midday, in range of a horseman). A horseman is powerless to attack most skirmishers, except at rare times, because the skirmisher's attack is so magnified against him. Cavalry don't have it so bad, but the 40% defense vs. what is often 60% defense, and the pierce weakness, and the four strikes, and the ranged attack the cavalry can't retaliate against, means that they have a hard way to go. Plus the skirmishers have good enough mobility to threaten a horseman with suddenly being dogpiled by multiple skirmishers if he isn't careful.

The trick with saurian skirmishers isn't so much to try and attack horsemen/cavalry - the trick is to just use them to blithely grab the villages the horsemen are going around grabbing, because the horsemen/cavalry (generally) can't attack the saurian to try and root him out. Target the villages, rather than the horsemen itself. If the opportunity ever presents (and often will at night), see if you can't weaken a horse unit; if you don't, just back away and get back to village grabbing, if you do, finish him.

Drakes don't have a good counter to spearman... cheap, pierce, better defense, peaks at same time of day so mobillity less useful.

Burner, Fighter, Clasher, Skirmisher, Augur are all good against the spearmen. As long as luck is not bad.

What spearmen don't have, is an "obvious and easily exploitable weakness". Nor should they, really. They have some mild weaknesses; there isn't much to their ranged attack, so the sudden appearance of two burners/augurs/etc can cause them grief without really stinging the deliverers of said grief.

Also, probably the big thing is that drakes can keep the pressure on at all times of day, whereas humans have to hunker down at night. A general thing for the drakes is that if you see a crack in a human unit, dive in for the kill, and then get the hell out of there; at night, you can do this with the saurians, rather well. If you've pounded the heck out of something during the end of the daylight hours, and then got all your drakes out after 1 turn of the exchange, the drakes can limp away to safety. But the already wounded humans can then get harried by the saurians, and if you pick a few of them off during this time (before getting the fragile saurians out of there), you're on your way to a net lead over your opponent.

The trick to doing this is to not push these alternating engagements too long - do the punch, hurt them a bit, and then get out before the drakes/saurians get hurt too badly. If you're keeping the drakes or the saurians in the ring after they've gotten any significant amount of damage (usually after one or two fights by them), you stand to _lose_ a significant number of them, and then this strategy will actually harm you.

[Doc Paterson]

The trick with saurian skirmishers isn't so much to try and attack horsemen/cavalry - the trick is to just use them to blithely grab the villages the horsemen are going around grabbing, because the horsemen/cavalry (generally) can't attack the saurian to try and root him out. Target the villages, rather than the horsemen itself.

What odd map are you thinking of here? A randomly generated one? You talk about the saurians "grabbing the villages that the horsemen are grabbing...." There aren't any default maps where a P1 saurian can get a guaranteed village steal, much less against a P2 with multiple horsemen (odd in and of itself) doing the scouting. I think that the general principle of "deal with horsemen by avoiding them" is pretty flawed, but maybe I'm misunderstanding you. Let's assume though, for the sake of argument, that a player is careless enough to let a saurian swipe one of their villages. Saurians have only 50 defense on your average village, and a village-sitting skirmisher will be lucky to last more than a single turn during the day. Even facing the two units you spoke of, the horseman and the cavalry, it's easy exp. for the Loys- One cavalry followed by one horseman equals a dead saurian, most of the time. Assuming that the cavalry lands one hit (7 in 8 chance), there is then a 3 in 4 chance that the saurian will be killed by the horseman. Does that sound like a good gamble for the Drake player?

If you do think that what you described is a generally sound tactic, maybe you could post a replay that fills in the gaps in your above description? It's been my experience that that sort of thing really only works when someone isn't paying attention, has done poor recruiting (multiple horsemen?), or is playing a randomly generated/unbalanced map.

[Sorrow]

I was talking to a guy who said drakes had nothing to fight spearmen, all those units fare fine in their proper time of day and decent terrain.

[Federalist marshal]

Tactics used are just as important as the units used...

[Gena]

its easy to fight horsemen with drakes all you need is a drake slasher in day the do 54 damage to a horseman per strike thats your answer a drake slasher

[Aethaeryn]

its easy to fight horsemen with drakes all you need is a drake slasher in day the do 54 damage to a horseman per strike thats your answer a drake slasher

Slashers are lvl 2, unless it is Age of Heroes, you can only have a clasher. Clashers, however, are an answer to horsemen.

[Xandria]

Ever since they got first strike, they do a great job.

[chains]

Clashers are the unit your missing with first strike added in 1.3 they are the dread of a horseman. (in 1.2 Drake are hurting vs loyalist, but that was why it was fixed in 1.3) Augers and Skirms counter spearmen, but Clashers are the counter to horsemen. He will look to charge you during the day, so during the day you play defense (duh) with the clasher out in front. If he wants you, make him come at you through a clasher. If he avoids your clasher and charges your skirmisher, He is likely to miss and take serious damage. And, your clasher will finish off the horse in one attack.

There is no counter to luck, nor any counter to lucky horsemen. Except play well enough that you still have something left when his luck runs dry.

[Doc Paterson]

Clashers are the unit your missing with first strike added in 1.3 they are the dread of a horseman

Thanks for taking the time to repeat that, chains.

earlier in this thread:

Clashers rip up any horsmen who engage them, very well.

Clashers are what you are looking for.

Ever since they got first strike, they do a great job.

Clashers kill horsies

During the day: - clashers

Clasher is tough, good horseman killer as stated by others

* * * * *

Anyways-

Augers and Skirms counter spearmen, but Clashers are the counter to horsemen.

Very oversimplified....Do I really need to get into it?

If he avoids your clasher and charges your skirmisher, He is likely to miss and take serious damage. And, your clasher will finish off the horse in one attack.

This seems like a very artificial contruct. Is it a common situation where a loyalist will want to start an attack with a horseman, and be choosing between two targets, one a saurian on 60, and the other a clasher?

Also, is landing one hit (out of the two) 64 percent of the time (assuming the saurian is on 60) what you would call likely to miss? There will be certain situations in which charging a saurian at day will be a viable option. If you're covering/screening etc. your horseman correctly, the risk is often minimal.

All of this ("success against X or Y faction," etc.) is situational of course, which is why advice pertaining to highly uncommon or imaginary scenarios (without any precise information on surrounding units) isn't of much use.