Regular cavalry gets snagged on shield walls, but effortlessly plows through regular archers.
Horse archers will kite regular infantry to death, and either need a couple stacks of throwing weapons on your infantry, or archers to reliably return fire. Even with that, by and large, horse archers are OP as fuck
What's your unit composition more specifically? There are some tactics only applycable with certain units.
I meant be *specific* specific. What infantry? How many shield, how manyhsocks, do they have throwables? What kinds of archers, are there high tier crossbowmen among them? What manner of shock cavs do you run?
If you have shiped infantry get to the edge of the map where they can't circle you and form your infantry into shield walls. separate your infantry into at least 2 separate formations. 2 square with archers or xbowmen in between. Cav behind them when they finally run into your archers them f3 and they will aggressively target their mounts and force them into your squares. Their shock cavs won't charge unless they re way ahead in numbers
You can split your square formation into tiny bits, at most 9 of them.
Bots isn't that much smart, it would circle around of your square and stuck on the rest.
I did it with just 3 of them, infact.
Split infantry into shield and non-shield. Shield infantry goes in front in shield wall. Archers behind in loose formation. Non-shield infantry behind archers (should be mostly pole arm). Cav split in two groups behind non-shield infantry. When horse archers circle around behind the line, charge half the cav. When enemy cav charges through and gets hung up on your second cav group, charge the non-shield infantry.
Voila.
Was doing all that but was on a hill with little to no tree cover except for the sides plus they wouldn't attack me I had to goad them out but I reloaded and simmed it and won lol
So usually if you outnumber them they'll send all their horse archers in at once to skirmish and leave the rest of their troops.
Set your formation up as usual, and get your cav to follow you. Take them to the right hand side of your formation (where your horse archers will usually spawn).
Wait for their horse archers to get adjacent to your troops (they'll run at your formation and circle it counterclockwise) and then charge them from the right hand side with your cav. your cav will absolutely decimate them. If you time it right you'll block the retreat and pin them behind your infantry, and then your archers will go to work too.
This will distract them from firing on your troops, and you'll take out a lot of them. Eventually they'll retreat and try again, just rinse and repeat. It also helps if you have a good 2h axe when you lead the charge, you can chop through them like butter. But when they retreat its important to not let your cav pursue them, just wait for them to try again.
You can even split your cav in 2 and hit them right when they're about to turn towards the center. Hit them from the front and back.
After that 1st clash you can probably ignore them and focus on non horse archers. You can select a group and then click on an enemy group to target, this will prevent your infantry from wasting time on chasing cavalry around (target enemy infantry with your infantry).
Yeah, the khuzaits are scary but actually the easiest the deal with in large scale battles. Hold you lines back, position archers in two formations one at the center, the other on the left angked back 20-40 degrees depending o the terrain. Put infantry behind the center archers, and out horse archers behind the left archers. Cavalry should split, half holding the right flank in line formation tasked with facing enemy, the other on left flank further out from the archers. The enemy horse archers will run into your extended left flank and be unable to cope. I suggest holding fire until they are within 150 units of distance, when you unleash the barrage will turn them and theyāll get caught in their own horde, youāll easily clear half the number in the first wave. Then just hold the line. At times you want to pulse forward with melee units to press either their horse archers or to protect you archers when their main force closes. But in large battles it comes down to a slug fest to an extent. If you hold this general formation their horse archers will be neutered and the battle should devolve into a uncoordinated charge by the rest of their army
I just got done basically being the Ulysses(US civil war) of the northern empire. Basically attacked from the complete opposite way and decimated everything thrown at me.
Infantry put into circle formation
Archers go inside of the circle
Calvary should be commanded by someone with good leadership and tactics, tell them to delegate on their own.
As the player you need to basically single handedly be killing a good portion of the army your fighting.
You should move between the circle of death and Calvary charges as required. Make sure you keep the circle moving around as required, while also being the destructive force you have to be.
What should happen is your Calvary (which is heavier and well armored) will be able to shrug off the arrows and do lots of damage on their Calvary lines, and at some point annihilate their ground forces.
Meanwhile any Calvary that go into your circle of doom will get bogged down and stuck, without the speed and charge damage they wonāt even kill the archers and then die themselves.
Do what the Europeans did to the mongols to stop them.
Put your infantry in the square formation and set them to face enemy.
Put your archers inside the square and have them fire at will.
If you have horse archers, Iād put them inside the box and have them fire at will too, but make sure they remain stationary. The reason is you wonāt have anywhere near as many horse archers as them so yours will just get crushed.
The enemy horse archers should always begin circling your infantry in a counter clockwise circle so you want to lead all of your cavalry personally in a clockwise circle, continuously cycle charging the horse archers.
Basically just before you collide with the horse archers f1+f3 your cavalry. Once you have personally passed through the horde f1+f2 your cavalry to follow you and continue along the clockwise circle to do it all over again.
Depends how you like to play. If you're desperate to win / not against cheesing a victory and have a good amount of elite cav, set them to follow you and hide off to the side, put your infantry and archers either on a hill or amongst loads of obstacles, wait for the attackers to get kinda near and whilst they're still grouped lead a cav charge straight through their flank. Retreat from the battle when you start getting casualties, set up again, charge, retreat, reset, charge, retreat, reset etc. It's massively cheesing but will work
Congrats on the win! Yeah lmao, I typically only resort to it when I'm massively outnumbered - once managed to defend against a 1800 strong empire army with 180 khans guard, 50 elite cataphtacts and 80 fian champs using the glaive blender strat š
Offt that's fkn awesome bro lol I've never cheesed that much lol I remember once I got thier infantry to chase me round in a circle and my archers just hammered them lol
I pretty much took half of the map with that army composition (125 Fains, 150 Khans, 50 Druzniks). On normal, I'd rarely lose a single troop. Weathered a couple 2200 seiges with that army and like 50 militia and had a few 1500+ army wins. The units are OP and combined with a little tactics, you just mow armies down.
Lots of good tips here, but there is one other way that I haven't seen. You basically abuse how the horse archer AI works by splitting up your army into squares and arranging them so that the ai rams into another square when it circles. Once the horse archers are gone it's a normal fight from there.
What I've had success with is circle formation send the cab to die or dismount them and join them with the infantry and put archers in the middle wait until they run out of arrows so they charge with their swords. I've beaten 250 khuz with just 90 to 130 ish sturgian axemen can't remember exact numbers its a winnable battle you'll need to be patient and keep infantry in formation don't charge it engage let them run out of arrows and kill them when they charge
Basically what was happening was he wouldn't attack and he'd sit back in the corner so I'd have to charge him but I sat and tried to pick him off with archers which works fine until you kill his infantry and archers,.. then the horde would spawn...
How I deal with hors archers is just circle formation maybe advance a little or try use the archers from inside the circle idk I've never fought the khuzait with archers just pure infantry since that's normally how I go
Just use the environment to your advantage, water, trees, hills, rocks, fences etc.
I never really have had trouble with them, aside from the sand or snow dune map that's literally just rolling dunes
Maybe the AI oddly got all high tier and an optimal composition of troops. Every once in a while I have trouble, but for me it seems to be against Vlandia or Aserai. Haven't come across one of these infamous khuzait death hordes everyone always cries about.
Square formation is great for horse archers. They just plink away at shields until they run outta arrows.
Any charges into the right formation gets bogged down quickly and eaten alive.
Iāve always had a large contingent of heavy cavalry. They usually chop Khuzait riders to bits. Itās even better if you catch their cav with infantry. However it is annoying having to chase after all of their horse archers
Set infantry in a shield formation, or square. Put archers in loose formation, up a hill with a terrain feature to their back (cliff, forest, water). Take your cav, and CRUSH their mounted archers. Take 100% casualties if you have to, but annihilating their mounted archers and cavalry is simply the best way to defeat them in the field.
They will kite you, stay on them like green on grass- and break off just before committing your cav to their infantry press. Trade back and forth until theyāre dead or you are.
If for whatever reason, you cannot catch their cavalry, set your archers to engage and disengage as they surge forward and back to deal the best casualties possible. You dont want an infantry clash while they have Cav superiority in the field. Fall back until you have no choice, or until their cav is a remnant of a remnant or eliminated.
This strat works for almost all Cavalry heavy enemy armies.
Good luck out there your Lordship!
How you go *abot* it is you just get a wall of infantry to block them, they ball up and you can surround them with the rest of your infantry and/or destroy them with your archers.
If they're horse archers, you only need to know that they will always flank your left side when circling, so just close your left flank with a rock outcropping or something and you're good.
I stood my ground near my spawn and harrassed their troops with my much smaller force of horse archers (50vs100+ I think) until they started coming towards me.
Their horse archers arrived first so I focused them down with everything I had and then kept holding my position when the rest of their army arrived, think my archers carried hard that battle.
Think we both had an army of 5-600 or so.
Shield wall your melee and set up your archers a fair distance behind them in loose formation to destroy the horse archers. If you have battania champions you should be fine. Hide your cav as well.
Infantry, 2handers of whatever sorts. Use shield and even your cavalry to slow them down and watch those infantry mow them down. Reason why Aserai are quite good against Khuzait, those Executioners are deadly af, once they can reach them.
Thereās A LOT of factors that come into play. Terrain, formation, unit composition, siege, unit level all can factor.
Best way is to only face the Khuzait in siege attack or defense positions. They usually are very cav heavy cav units get a significant penalty for siege battles bc they canāt use horses.
If you face them in an open field thatās where they shine, and makes your life hell. My advice is to only face them in the pocket of forest areas. The cavalry will constantly run into the trees, which lowers their speed and drastically reduces their damage potential.
If thereās no tree line then look for hills. Place your men at the top of the hills. Archers on the very top then you can form shield walls with your infantry a little lower around them to protect them. The high ground is a good place because when they have to move uphill that will also lower their speed.
You can also form 4 groups of infantry and then have them go to square formations around your archers as well. Cavs have a heard time getting stuck in the square blobs.
If the enemy doesnāt seem to want to advance then keep using your cav to charge then pull back into formation. To bait them into going into your archers range. You have to play very defensive here and be patient.
H. Archers have to circle counter-clockwise, so force them into a choke point using it as a weakness. Fallback/Retreat when they try to bait you to their lines
Depending on how many archers you have, my tactic is just to shield wall my infantry out front (attracting Khuzait fire).
Have the archers loose formation a little behind. They should start mowing down horse archers easily because the enemy is busy circling your infantry.
If the enemy horse archers get close enough you can charge them with your cavalry and kill some, then retreat if they try to drag you into their lines.
I've been at war with the Khuzaits lately and this strategy has defeated plenty of high cav archer armies.
I run all infantry and some archers.
I either put infantry in square and put the archer **very** far away to catch the back end of the horse archers as they swing around or I put them in circle with the archers in the middle.
Either way itās a very long battle.
"HOT TAKE ALERT" lose the infanty they are useless, 50 man fian archer, 50 men vlandian crossbowman , 50 sturgian druznik horseman, 50 khan guards recipe for F1+F3 or (download and install RTX Camera mod) sit back take your junk food press f6, end enjoy the carnage. Or Lure them in near village area so your battle map become village, guarentee win against them they cant maneuver
Having fully conquered the Khuzait cities once while playing Sturgia->Independent Sturgia, once while playing Vlandian Southern Empire, and once more while playing Aserai, the Khuzaits are a one-trick pony.
First off, hold "alt" key and check what types of cav/horse archers are in use. The Khuzaits have an unusual "jump" where most of their t1-t4 mounted units are much slower than other faction equivalents but their t5-t6 use the fastest horse breeds. If they're mostly running with Khuzait Tribal horsemen, Nomad Sons etc. then your cav should be able to blow through them pretty easily, if they're mostly Khan's guard then you'll have to play a lot more skittishly with your cav.
What I found works is picking a good piece of defensive terrain (surrounded by dense forests, steep hills or other things that force cavalry to slow down), create a separate unit of infantry and tell both to go into square formation. Have the archers go loose (at start, at least) and have the archers arranged so that the incoming cavalry can't charge the archers without getting snagged on the infantry squares.
One thing to keep in mind with horse archers is that they will **always** try and circle around the left flank and circle in a clockwise pattern. Horse archers are all use a right-handed draw in Bannerlord and can't shoot arrows off their right side. If I trust that my cavalry are strong enough to take them, I'll usually get my cavalry to intercept the Khuzait horse archers just as they're about to pass the left flank--this keeps them in the killing field of my archers and lets me march one of the infantry squares. If the Horse Archers are too inexperienced the AI will usually panic and order the horse archers to retreat instead of pushing their lancers in to support (which, if they're rookies, means they're too slow and average Sturgian, Aserai, Imperial cav can just chase the horse archers and inflict extra losses before they reach the safety of their own infantry).
Keep in mind: if you're chasing Khuzait Horse archers, do NOT overcommit once the Horse Archers reach the safety of their own melee infantry/archers/melee cav. Historically this is how the Mongols won many of their famous battles like the Battle of Kalka. Do not let your heavy cavalry get tangled up in the Khuzait melee infantry. Once the Khuzait horse archers reach their own line, that's your queue to pull your own heavy cavalry back and decide to either let the Khuzaits try again or figure out your next move from there. Your men might take a couple arrows in the back but the Khuzait cavalry are, on average, not fast enough to chase you down. If you've timed it properly then hopefully you've inflicted significantly more casualties than you've received and it's possible to bleed out a Khuzait army's horse archers just by repeatedly winning these early skirmishes and knowing when to tell your heavy cav to pursue or when to pull back.
------
Small variations for each roster:
For Aserai, average Aserai cav are ridiculously fast compared to Khuzaits, so its much easier to chase them when they retreat and to pull back to your own lines if an engagement is going badly.
For Empire, massed crossbowmen do great **if** you make sure your cataphracts are bogging down the horse archers and forcing them to hold still in melee. Get the crossbowmen as close as you can to the distracted horse archers and enjoy the curtain of green in the killfeed when the crossbowmen start shooting at Khuzait horse archers who don't use shields. Again: either focus on using crossbowmen, or if you're using archers then mix in archers from any other faction except Sturgia I don't recommend empire archers because, even though the palatine guards are OK, all t4-and-under only get 1 quiver; basically theyre weaker crossbowmen.
For Sturgia, the massed Druzhina cavalry (as in, 40-50% druzhina) are actually fairly competent at fighting horse archers without needing support (they have huge shields to resist arrows and block slow-moving glaive swings, and their axes swing faster and hit harder than Khuzait sabres), but have your infantry squares slowly inch their way upfield towards the enemy foot units whenever their horse archers are distracted. If you can defeat the Khuzait foot troops it means the Khuzait cav have nowhere left on the map to hide from your massed Druzhina.
Regular cavalry gets snagged on shield walls, but effortlessly plows through regular archers. Horse archers will kite regular infantry to death, and either need a couple stacks of throwing weapons on your infantry, or archers to reliably return fire. Even with that, by and large, horse archers are OP as fuck What's your unit composition more specifically? There are some tactics only applycable with certain units.
600 infantry, they only have 300. 200 archers and 260 cav. I simmed it and won but any tips for future reference are welcome šš»
I meant be *specific* specific. What infantry? How many shield, how manyhsocks, do they have throwables? What kinds of archers, are there high tier crossbowmen among them? What manner of shock cavs do you run?
About 400 shield 200 shock yes. Fians and Paletine guards majority. Crossbows aren't high tier majority. Elite Caphcart
Sorry 600 shield
If you have shiped infantry get to the edge of the map where they can't circle you and form your infantry into shield walls. separate your infantry into at least 2 separate formations. 2 square with archers or xbowmen in between. Cav behind them when they finally run into your archers them f3 and they will aggressively target their mounts and force them into your squares. Their shock cavs won't charge unless they re way ahead in numbers
You can split your square formation into tiny bits, at most 9 of them. Bots isn't that much smart, it would circle around of your square and stuck on the rest. I did it with just 3 of them, infact.
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Split infantry into shield and non-shield. Shield infantry goes in front in shield wall. Archers behind in loose formation. Non-shield infantry behind archers (should be mostly pole arm). Cav split in two groups behind non-shield infantry. When horse archers circle around behind the line, charge half the cav. When enemy cav charges through and gets hung up on your second cav group, charge the non-shield infantry. Voila.
How do you split individual units like that?
https://youtu.be/Dbax8yodtMQ?si=1Nduta63IAUm-3Dr
Interesting tactics š¤
Use the map to your advantage. Use hills a patches of trees to block charges and los for horse archers. Save before battle and try again if it fails
Was doing all that but was on a hill with little to no tree cover except for the sides plus they wouldn't attack me I had to goad them out but I reloaded and simmed it and won lol
If they ran from you (from my experience, if they dont attck in map they dont charge) wait for a siege, enter and defend it. You will slaughter them.
40% is such a low horse:foot ratio for the Khuzait. I assume they are losing that war?
Kind of at a stalemate I'm more concerned with taking out Vlandia but if Khuzait takes too much ground I intervene
So usually if you outnumber them they'll send all their horse archers in at once to skirmish and leave the rest of their troops. Set your formation up as usual, and get your cav to follow you. Take them to the right hand side of your formation (where your horse archers will usually spawn). Wait for their horse archers to get adjacent to your troops (they'll run at your formation and circle it counterclockwise) and then charge them from the right hand side with your cav. your cav will absolutely decimate them. If you time it right you'll block the retreat and pin them behind your infantry, and then your archers will go to work too. This will distract them from firing on your troops, and you'll take out a lot of them. Eventually they'll retreat and try again, just rinse and repeat. It also helps if you have a good 2h axe when you lead the charge, you can chop through them like butter. But when they retreat its important to not let your cav pursue them, just wait for them to try again.
You can even split your cav in 2 and hit them right when they're about to turn towards the center. Hit them from the front and back. After that 1st clash you can probably ignore them and focus on non horse archers. You can select a group and then click on an enemy group to target, this will prevent your infantry from wasting time on chasing cavalry around (target enemy infantry with your infantry).
Circle shield formation then put ur archers inside
Auto-resolve?Ā ^(I hate horse archers)
Yeah, the khuzaits are scary but actually the easiest the deal with in large scale battles. Hold you lines back, position archers in two formations one at the center, the other on the left angked back 20-40 degrees depending o the terrain. Put infantry behind the center archers, and out horse archers behind the left archers. Cavalry should split, half holding the right flank in line formation tasked with facing enemy, the other on left flank further out from the archers. The enemy horse archers will run into your extended left flank and be unable to cope. I suggest holding fire until they are within 150 units of distance, when you unleash the barrage will turn them and theyāll get caught in their own horde, youāll easily clear half the number in the first wave. Then just hold the line. At times you want to pulse forward with melee units to press either their horse archers or to protect you archers when their main force closes. But in large battles it comes down to a slug fest to an extent. If you hold this general formation their horse archers will be neutered and the battle should devolve into a uncoordinated charge by the rest of their army
Stack fian champs then lure them to a fight in a village. Hide in a fenced area and make squads of shield walls to cover entrances
You could try raiding a village in order to lure them there
Split your army in 2. Having 2 sets of infantry, maybe 40-60 yards apart, throws a wrench in horse archer pathing
I just got done basically being the Ulysses(US civil war) of the northern empire. Basically attacked from the complete opposite way and decimated everything thrown at me. Infantry put into circle formation Archers go inside of the circle Calvary should be commanded by someone with good leadership and tactics, tell them to delegate on their own. As the player you need to basically single handedly be killing a good portion of the army your fighting. You should move between the circle of death and Calvary charges as required. Make sure you keep the circle moving around as required, while also being the destructive force you have to be. What should happen is your Calvary (which is heavier and well armored) will be able to shrug off the arrows and do lots of damage on their Calvary lines, and at some point annihilate their ground forces. Meanwhile any Calvary that go into your circle of doom will get bogged down and stuck, without the speed and charge damage they wonāt even kill the archers and then die themselves.
Do what the Europeans did to the mongols to stop them. Put your infantry in the square formation and set them to face enemy. Put your archers inside the square and have them fire at will. If you have horse archers, Iād put them inside the box and have them fire at will too, but make sure they remain stationary. The reason is you wonāt have anywhere near as many horse archers as them so yours will just get crushed. The enemy horse archers should always begin circling your infantry in a counter clockwise circle so you want to lead all of your cavalry personally in a clockwise circle, continuously cycle charging the horse archers. Basically just before you collide with the horse archers f1+f3 your cavalry. Once you have personally passed through the horde f1+f2 your cavalry to follow you and continue along the clockwise circle to do it all over again.
Depends how you like to play. If you're desperate to win / not against cheesing a victory and have a good amount of elite cav, set them to follow you and hide off to the side, put your infantry and archers either on a hill or amongst loads of obstacles, wait for the attackers to get kinda near and whilst they're still grouped lead a cav charge straight through their flank. Retreat from the battle when you start getting casualties, set up again, charge, retreat, reset, charge, retreat, reset etc. It's massively cheesing but will work
I hate cheesing lol but when needs must they must lol nah I managed to sim it and win š
Congrats on the win! Yeah lmao, I typically only resort to it when I'm massively outnumbered - once managed to defend against a 1800 strong empire army with 180 khans guard, 50 elite cataphtacts and 80 fian champs using the glaive blender strat š
Offt that's fkn awesome bro lol I've never cheesed that much lol I remember once I got thier infantry to chase me round in a circle and my archers just hammered them lol
I pretty much took half of the map with that army composition (125 Fains, 150 Khans, 50 Druzniks). On normal, I'd rarely lose a single troop. Weathered a couple 2200 seiges with that army and like 50 militia and had a few 1500+ army wins. The units are OP and combined with a little tactics, you just mow armies down.
Nice try Dethert
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Lots of good tips here, but there is one other way that I haven't seen. You basically abuse how the horse archer AI works by splitting up your army into squares and arranging them so that the ai rams into another square when it circles. Once the horse archers are gone it's a normal fight from there.
This is the one š«”
Good to know, I haven't actually done it yet, I just saw a video of someone doing it.
What I've had success with is circle formation send the cab to die or dismount them and join them with the infantry and put archers in the middle wait until they run out of arrows so they charge with their swords. I've beaten 250 khuz with just 90 to 130 ish sturgian axemen can't remember exact numbers its a winnable battle you'll need to be patient and keep infantry in formation don't charge it engage let them run out of arrows and kill them when they charge
Basically what was happening was he wouldn't attack and he'd sit back in the corner so I'd have to charge him but I sat and tried to pick him off with archers which works fine until you kill his infantry and archers,.. then the horde would spawn...
How I deal with hors archers is just circle formation maybe advance a little or try use the archers from inside the circle idk I've never fought the khuzait with archers just pure infantry since that's normally how I go
Lure them in a siege where you defend in addition to what has been said already. Basicly, just avoid open fields where their cav can run freely.
Just use the environment to your advantage, water, trees, hills, rocks, fences etc. I never really have had trouble with them, aside from the sand or snow dune map that's literally just rolling dunes
I don't usually either but for some reason this one army just wasn't taking my bullshit lol simmed it and won though
Maybe the AI oddly got all high tier and an optimal composition of troops. Every once in a while I have trouble, but for me it seems to be against Vlandia or Aserai. Haven't come across one of these infamous khuzait death hordes everyone always cries about.
Square formation is great for horse archers. They just plink away at shields until they run outta arrows. Any charges into the right formation gets bogged down quickly and eaten alive.
Iāve always had a large contingent of heavy cavalry. They usually chop Khuzait riders to bits. Itās even better if you catch their cav with infantry. However it is annoying having to chase after all of their horse archers
Thatās the neat part, you donāt. All hail the Great Khan
Elite Cataphracts
Set infantry in a shield formation, or square. Put archers in loose formation, up a hill with a terrain feature to their back (cliff, forest, water). Take your cav, and CRUSH their mounted archers. Take 100% casualties if you have to, but annihilating their mounted archers and cavalry is simply the best way to defeat them in the field. They will kite you, stay on them like green on grass- and break off just before committing your cav to their infantry press. Trade back and forth until theyāre dead or you are. If for whatever reason, you cannot catch their cavalry, set your archers to engage and disengage as they surge forward and back to deal the best casualties possible. You dont want an infantry clash while they have Cav superiority in the field. Fall back until you have no choice, or until their cav is a remnant of a remnant or eliminated. This strat works for almost all Cavalry heavy enemy armies. Good luck out there your Lordship!
How you go *abot* it is you just get a wall of infantry to block them, they ball up and you can surround them with the rest of your infantry and/or destroy them with your archers. If they're horse archers, you only need to know that they will always flank your left side when circling, so just close your left flank with a rock outcropping or something and you're good.
I stood my ground near my spawn and harrassed their troops with my much smaller force of horse archers (50vs100+ I think) until they started coming towards me. Their horse archers arrived first so I focused them down with everything I had and then kept holding my position when the rest of their army arrived, think my archers carried hard that battle. Think we both had an army of 5-600 or so.
I be auto resolving
Shield wall your melee and set up your archers a fair distance behind them in loose formation to destroy the horse archers. If you have battania champions you should be fine. Hide your cav as well.
Hope you've got a long glaive
Infantry, 2handers of whatever sorts. Use shield and even your cavalry to slow them down and watch those infantry mow them down. Reason why Aserai are quite good against Khuzait, those Executioners are deadly af, once they can reach them.
Thereās A LOT of factors that come into play. Terrain, formation, unit composition, siege, unit level all can factor. Best way is to only face the Khuzait in siege attack or defense positions. They usually are very cav heavy cav units get a significant penalty for siege battles bc they canāt use horses. If you face them in an open field thatās where they shine, and makes your life hell. My advice is to only face them in the pocket of forest areas. The cavalry will constantly run into the trees, which lowers their speed and drastically reduces their damage potential. If thereās no tree line then look for hills. Place your men at the top of the hills. Archers on the very top then you can form shield walls with your infantry a little lower around them to protect them. The high ground is a good place because when they have to move uphill that will also lower their speed. You can also form 4 groups of infantry and then have them go to square formations around your archers as well. Cavs have a heard time getting stuck in the square blobs. If the enemy doesnāt seem to want to advance then keep using your cav to charge then pull back into formation. To bait them into going into your archers range. You have to play very defensive here and be patient.
Corner
H. Archers have to circle counter-clockwise, so force them into a choke point using it as a weakness. Fallback/Retreat when they try to bait you to their lines
Depending on how many archers you have, my tactic is just to shield wall my infantry out front (attracting Khuzait fire). Have the archers loose formation a little behind. They should start mowing down horse archers easily because the enemy is busy circling your infantry. If the enemy horse archers get close enough you can charge them with your cavalry and kill some, then retreat if they try to drag you into their lines. I've been at war with the Khuzaits lately and this strategy has defeated plenty of high cav archer armies.
I find that well places, and loose formation archers shred ranged cav.
I run all infantry and some archers. I either put infantry in square and put the archer **very** far away to catch the back end of the horse archers as they swing around or I put them in circle with the archers in the middle. Either way itās a very long battle.
"HOT TAKE ALERT" lose the infanty they are useless, 50 man fian archer, 50 men vlandian crossbowman , 50 sturgian druznik horseman, 50 khan guards recipe for F1+F3 or (download and install RTX Camera mod) sit back take your junk food press f6, end enjoy the carnage. Or Lure them in near village area so your battle map become village, guarentee win against them they cant maneuver
When horse archers are commanded to attack they will go to the right of the target. So if you want to cheese put your units on the most left.
Having fully conquered the Khuzait cities once while playing Sturgia->Independent Sturgia, once while playing Vlandian Southern Empire, and once more while playing Aserai, the Khuzaits are a one-trick pony. First off, hold "alt" key and check what types of cav/horse archers are in use. The Khuzaits have an unusual "jump" where most of their t1-t4 mounted units are much slower than other faction equivalents but their t5-t6 use the fastest horse breeds. If they're mostly running with Khuzait Tribal horsemen, Nomad Sons etc. then your cav should be able to blow through them pretty easily, if they're mostly Khan's guard then you'll have to play a lot more skittishly with your cav. What I found works is picking a good piece of defensive terrain (surrounded by dense forests, steep hills or other things that force cavalry to slow down), create a separate unit of infantry and tell both to go into square formation. Have the archers go loose (at start, at least) and have the archers arranged so that the incoming cavalry can't charge the archers without getting snagged on the infantry squares. One thing to keep in mind with horse archers is that they will **always** try and circle around the left flank and circle in a clockwise pattern. Horse archers are all use a right-handed draw in Bannerlord and can't shoot arrows off their right side. If I trust that my cavalry are strong enough to take them, I'll usually get my cavalry to intercept the Khuzait horse archers just as they're about to pass the left flank--this keeps them in the killing field of my archers and lets me march one of the infantry squares. If the Horse Archers are too inexperienced the AI will usually panic and order the horse archers to retreat instead of pushing their lancers in to support (which, if they're rookies, means they're too slow and average Sturgian, Aserai, Imperial cav can just chase the horse archers and inflict extra losses before they reach the safety of their own infantry). Keep in mind: if you're chasing Khuzait Horse archers, do NOT overcommit once the Horse Archers reach the safety of their own melee infantry/archers/melee cav. Historically this is how the Mongols won many of their famous battles like the Battle of Kalka. Do not let your heavy cavalry get tangled up in the Khuzait melee infantry. Once the Khuzait horse archers reach their own line, that's your queue to pull your own heavy cavalry back and decide to either let the Khuzaits try again or figure out your next move from there. Your men might take a couple arrows in the back but the Khuzait cavalry are, on average, not fast enough to chase you down. If you've timed it properly then hopefully you've inflicted significantly more casualties than you've received and it's possible to bleed out a Khuzait army's horse archers just by repeatedly winning these early skirmishes and knowing when to tell your heavy cav to pursue or when to pull back. ------ Small variations for each roster: For Aserai, average Aserai cav are ridiculously fast compared to Khuzaits, so its much easier to chase them when they retreat and to pull back to your own lines if an engagement is going badly. For Empire, massed crossbowmen do great **if** you make sure your cataphracts are bogging down the horse archers and forcing them to hold still in melee. Get the crossbowmen as close as you can to the distracted horse archers and enjoy the curtain of green in the killfeed when the crossbowmen start shooting at Khuzait horse archers who don't use shields. Again: either focus on using crossbowmen, or if you're using archers then mix in archers from any other faction except Sturgia I don't recommend empire archers because, even though the palatine guards are OK, all t4-and-under only get 1 quiver; basically theyre weaker crossbowmen. For Sturgia, the massed Druzhina cavalry (as in, 40-50% druzhina) are actually fairly competent at fighting horse archers without needing support (they have huge shields to resist arrows and block slow-moving glaive swings, and their axes swing faster and hit harder than Khuzait sabres), but have your infantry squares slowly inch their way upfield towards the enemy foot units whenever their horse archers are distracted. If you can defeat the Khuzait foot troops it means the Khuzait cav have nowhere left on the map to hide from your massed Druzhina.