Hi everyone, i recently played a game using quite a few companies of cavalry however i must say i failed to use them with any real success, so i thought i would come and ask for just a little advise on how best to use them? i want to try as much variety in my games to keep my opponents thinking however i am not sure how to use them really well? please anyone - advise please. Many thanx x

Cavalry in WotR are an OFFENSIVE force. You have to be the one charging with them for them to be at all usable. So that means trying to use their superior speed and mobility to stay out of infantry charge range and/or in the flanks. With cavalry, it is frequently more advantageous to give your opponent priority as that means you can move your cavalry 8.5" away from him safely. He can't charge you (without spending might) but you have a pretty good chance of successfully charging him.

Everything else with cav basically revolves around that principle. Most of the time putting Epic Heroes in cav formations is somewhat risky because they are more vulnerable, especially if there is a captain as well. Some heavy cavalry formations you can get away with it, but light cav like wargs, haradrim and the such, putting an expensive hero in there is just asking to make them a target.

What army(ies) are you playing. We can give some more specific advice then.

I use them in my second row and move them in when I see open ground. Protects the sides and rear of your line quite well.
They can be used as a distraction, to draw attention away from the front giving you numbers up front.
They can usually destroy 2 company formations in a fight. Strike first is handy.
Their charge range is useful. You can call a Herioc Fight and recharge to where your enemy might not have anticipated.
They use smaller trays meaning you can fit more in gaps say maybe between two buildings.
They will generally always win fights. A low courage formation (without a Hero Inspiring them)has a good chance to stay disordered. Disordered companies get 1 die each fighting.
Lances are deadly on the charge.
They maneuver well so time your charges. Reposition yourself for something spectacular.
Never charge if you don't think they are gonna mop the floor with them.
They can get in the thick of things quickly if needed.
Cavalry once you get into the later turns are much more deadly since all of a sudden there is more room to move. Sometimes the enemy will not be able to counter-them later on.

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http://drinkingwotr.blogspot.com/ - Links to my CrAzY House Rules, Games and 'poor man's' terrain.

Cavalry is only useful when it is charging... If you are not in the place to charge first made them go back to safeness. Oh and keep them away from Pikes

To give you the best advice it would be a help if you could say what cavalry units you will be using. Wargs are very different from Morgul Knights.

In general though try to use your mobility to hit flanks, and try not to frontally charge infantry in depth, the Rohan Panzer Army comes to mind (Tactics - Line them up - charge forward - Lose)

Hitting first is only great if your enemy can't hit back as he's dead. If he just takes the losses from supporting companies and hits you back hard your cavalry being half as resilient as infantry will suffer badly.
Cavalry = Mobility, it's what your paying for.

and Dalymyr.

I agree with all that has already been said.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

And never make the mistake of charging anyone in a defensible position (terrain),as you really need that charge bonus.

I have used Warg Riders with good success, but you need to really try for their Prowler special rule as well to be extra sure.

With Harad I have been building up my cavalry as well. In a game against Dwarves I used them with the intention of a distraction and perhaps softening up a few lead Dwarf formations so my real force could have an easier time. As it turned out they lasted much longer than I expected and had some good success in the process. They have such a low Defense I expected them to die off on the first turn they charged, but I managed to get flank charges with my small formations ( 3 company each ), often getting two or even all three companies on them because of their base size. The charge bonus and lances let me deal more damage than I expected and the early hits helped reduce the return attacks and help them win their fight. On top of that I had a couple rolls for the extra charge after winning the combat and hitting a second time, sometimes against a disordered formation this time.

They are an offensive force only. Never forget that while playing. If you're not charging with them you need to be keeping them protected. If you charge then you get lots of extra dice. If you don't charge you are removing lots of extra models.

Some Cav have a pretty high defense and this, combined with an R2, will minimize their losses in combat. But you still need to play them the same. Try to avoid charging the front, never charge pikes or Dalymyr or defensible terrain. If you have access to lances get them. The extra +1 to wound is far more effective than you can imagine until you've played a few games.

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

i play the fallen realms so what cavalry would you use with that army?

Haradhrim raiders, Serpent riders, Khandish mercenary raiders, Easterling kataphrakts, Mahud raiders, Morgul knights...
I believe Morgul knights are the best but to take them in many numbers you will need Dark Marshal.
Next would be the easterlings but they are expensive to afford.
Serpent ,Khandish and Mahud riders are also very expensive.
Haradhrim are the most cheap to be bought alon Morgul knights but they are Common on their own.

The nly cavalry reall worth getting for Fallen Realms are Harad Raiders and Morgul Knuights, the others are too overcosted and difficult to use.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.

Especialy with cav that cause terror (like the morgul knights) to make them their full effectivness cast a sepll on the target you wish to charge your knights into make the spell something negative to the enemies courage and hope they fail the terror test, giving you extra dice for the higher fight value you have plus the charge bonus,plus lances, you should should do well agaisnt most things.

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I have my issues with GW but in the end, secretly, I am a GW fanatic.

The best advice I ever received for Cavalry was to break the units up. Mine have performed much better in 3-4s than they ever did as larger units. It is easiest of all when the 'buddy' for a cav unit is an infantry unit but multiple cav units can buddy each other too.

Cav just gets inevitably worn down in this game so its best to either think of them as something to use for a chosen shorter period of the battle or alternatively as something that can still be useful right down to the last pair of horses.

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http://www.roughwotr.blogspot.com

Thats very good advice about splitting them up. Maybe keep some cav behind a few inches and to the right or left flank of your freindly cavalry infront. This way if the enemy gets prioity and charge front cav, then you can counter charge into them. instead of having a straight loving looking line of cavarly, you would have small formations close togther still but not all in the same spot somthing like this ------_____------- Cav at the top left and right flank while the bottom middle flank is more cav( or even infantry might work well), this should make it a hard desion for your enemy as he/she should know that they will be charge be cavalry further back. then if they dont charge becasue they are too scared, you charge them provided you have the distance, either way you win,well... you know.

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I have my issues with GW but in the end, secretly, I am a GW fanatic.

I like the idea of staggering the lines of cavalry, and placing one formation behind the other, therefore guaranteeing the rear one can charge. With the Misty mountain army which cavalry would you recommend out of the 4?
Wargs - Giant Spider Brood - Cloud of Bats or Spider Brooding Swarm?

You know its funny you ask that cause just yesterday i was looking at my wotr and comparing the cav choices in misty mouintains.

Its hard to say i have never play misty's b4. They all have such low defence so there no diff there.

The giant spiders have a impressive strength of 5 as you would know, however defence 3 letting them down. the bats have some nice movment bonuses and benifits for being considerd a flying monster. the wargs are the most straight forwad to use I would say, they have the best defence of them all. the spider broodlings I would recommend as my choice. The enemy wont even try shooting them with high defence of 10 for shooting attacks, they re-roll ones and they have a decent strength 4. However the main reason why i suggest these is because unless im mistaken they are the only ambushing cavarly in wotr. Ambushing cav in theory would be devestating.

Just imagaine poping up 3 companies here and there and then charging just like cav do. you will catch the enemy by suprise.

anyone else? other opinions on the misty mountain cav choices?

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I have my issues with GW but in the end, secretly, I am a GW fanatic.

I think the Spiders are cool. Not quite cool enough to base an entire army around them (though a mate did, for a laugh) but probably the 'hardest' MM build I have seen is Spiders for commons and Blackshields for rares.

The problem with the ambushes, IMO, is that they are a. a bit terrain dependent (though on our tables this would not be an issue) and 2. The ambush is declared before all other movement. This isn't to say it couldn't work, just that you'd need to pin the target and the ambusher would be in the role of cheeky threat that gets in through being slightly less worrying than everything else. That could definitely work. I think ambushes like that are far better than ambushes that are so tough that they are the major threat when they appear.

Druzhag is obviously the usual MM method of getting cavalry behind enemy lines. I hate that guy - far too cheap for what he does lol. I suspect the theory behind the all spider (including monster spiders, which we gave terror) army was to make the player feel slightly less dirty about using Druzhag.

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http://www.roughwotr.blogspot.com

Yes i would have to agree. I poped up three companies of black root vale archers. It was 3 player Free For All (FFA) and the enenmy wasnt that scared by it ( rightly so it only got a few kills) anyway this allowed for almost the restof the game of shooting about three turns, producing much more casulties. becasue it wasnt a huge threat they were safer and got more kills.

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I have my issues with GW but in the end, secretly, I am a GW fanatic.

Hi I'm an Ent, what is a 3 player free for all? Just 3 armies fighting against each other to the death?

hello.

three player free for all, however we had 5 objectives each objective had a bonus like + 1 defense +1 fight + 1 strength +2'' move and the last objective allowed the formation controlling it to casue terror, if they already casues terror then the enemy woudld get a -1 to their courage when rolling terror tests.

A formation holds an objective by moving over or into contact with it and putting it in thier formation and can move around normaly with it. Obviosuly these objective were models like hobbits etc.

This was very fun and there was an objective in the centre terrian piece. my archers were in there(ambushers). Team with the most objectives at the end of the game wins, or team that wipes out both player wins, whichever is first.

But you could just have a straight to the death battle, but ffa might mean that two could gang up on one, thats were the objectives made the game balanced. I actualy one the game becasue of the ambushers popping up late in the game killing people and securing the last objective FTW!

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I have my issues with GW but in the end, secretly, I am a GW fanatic.

Sounds fun, never played a game with 3 different armies at once.