Well, first off, you're going to notice that the Dalesmen unit is superior to all your other units. The second thing you should notice is that you have cheap/numerous archers of semi-good quality. The third is you have a lot of skirmishers and cheap meat-shield Watchmen. The fourth is that you really have no cavalry.
Start your campaign going for economy. I have a post you can read on how to do that with precision - just go to the homepage, and on the right hand side there is a search option and an archive you can use to find it.
The Dalesmen are expensive. While you'll want a leavening of them throughout your major armies, don't attempt to make them a primary component, nor should you be getting them whenever possible. They are not worth it. Instead, get Hearth Watchmen and Rivermen. You should get Watchmen and Rivermen whenever possible, and in close to the ratio of two Watchmen units to one Rivermen unit.
You will use these in a standard battle line like I have described before - A thick line of infantry with ranged units behind. Generally, here, a 5 thick line of Watchmen with a 3 thick line of Rivermen will stop an enemy force in its tracks. If you have Dalesmen, put them on the ends, but behind the Watchmen, sort of next to the Rivermen, so that they can counter any flanking maneuver. Being slightly tougher will help them succeed, especially since flanking attacks can sometimes be made of more than one unit.
If you just cannot fit all your Rivermen behind your Watchmen in the above formation, try reducing the Watchmen to a line 4 men thick. If you still can't do it, don't increase the thickness of your Rivermen line. Instead, start a new line about 3 men-width behind the front line of Rivermen.
If you have archers, line them up behind the Rivermen in the same manner, a three-man thick line with more lines behind it if needed.
You can get some very bad cavalry by going into the traditional Rhovanion area (that big rectangle of territory north of Mordor that's all grassy plains) and recruiting mercenaries. I believe there are some infantry mercenaries as well.
As tempting as it is to try to cut off the Dwarves and take all the territory for yourself, this will make your game much harder. Instead, try to focus on pushing west south of the river. Rhun and/or Mordor will take it if you do not, and they will be more difficult to eradicate than rebels. You can go into Mirkwood and pick up some extraordinarily powerful (compared to your units) Silvan Volunteers, which are swordsmen, but try not to piss of Mordor too much, and also try not to cut off the Silvan Elves.
Your main advantage is your disposable Watchmen front line shielding the massively damage-dealing Rivermen line. The key here is DISPOSABLE. Hit Rhun, and don't stop. Don't leave three men behind to guard. Leave one if you must and keep steamrolling as you constantly train new units and bring them down.
Speaking of bringing down troops... YOU CAN PUT BOATS ON THE RIVER! Get three or four boats and form a chain, either one boat to the next or always having one boat ready to take units for retraining while one is always ready to bring new ones down, with one or two in between.
Let me know how this works for you. It worked for me, playing with everything as difficult as possible aside from deleting the Garrison Script.
-Sapoman
Your article was very interesting and particular, even though i have played Total War series for 6 years. But with your knowledge, can you tell me that what is Dalesmen good for?
ReplyDeleteBecause i have set up a lot of custom battles to research on Dalesmen, and i found nothing good, except their upkeep cost is higher than Hearth Watchmen (180 gold).
Dalesmen vs militia swordmen: fail, Dalesmen vs militia horsemen (bonus fighting cavalry, right?): fail, Dalesmen vs skirmishers: fail, Dalesmen vs normal armored pikemen (effective against armor, right?): fail. All of the tests i have listed were taken place in open grass plain. In defence of siege battle, somehow they survived, but not much as Hearth Watchmen. I think shields give them a bonus to survive, like Isengard's Dunlending Veterans, they win a battle 1vs1 against Gondor's Fountain Guard.
Do you have any advice how to use them properly? Because i just only want to remove them from my main army, and keep them as reserve troops when there is no more men to retrain the main units.
Note this is for MOS...if you’re playing Vanilla or DaC it might be different.
DeleteDalesmen are 2-handed axe units, with minimal armor and no shield. Ranged troops will eat them alive. Also, as axemen can’t brace for impact, they shouldn’t be the ones getting charged by cavalry; that’s what spears are for. They shouldn’t be on the front lines getting the brunt of the charge or getting shot at by arrows.
Dalesmen, having two handed axes have a high charge value. They should be charging (and preferably, not getting charged themselves). It’s best for them to do a flanking or rear charge on already engaged units. While they could get away with a head-on charge against orc infantry or crappy starting infantry, they should never charge professional troops or cavalry head-on.
They should be used in combination with hearth watchmen or other spearmen.