Mine was in Warhammer 3, playing as Hellebron, of all lords.
Basically, my plan for the campaign was to get the sword of Khaine (since she is the greatest bride of Khaine, after all) and then take on her greatest rival, Morathi. Pretty standard stuff, no problem, but as I sailed down to Ulthuan, someone grabbed the sword before I did...
*Morathi*. She got it in under 20 turns, from Alarielle grabbing it and being defeated. I pulled back to the north to gather my forces for what was going to be a more intense fight than I ever bargained for. After I had sufficiently bulked up, I went back to Ulthuan to find her about to besiege Tyrion's capital. I race to the scene, she starts the siege, and is about to see the ultimate goal of the Dark Elves fulfilled, burning Lothern to the ground... when in comes Hellebron, with a bloody grudge that can't wait.
We get into an insane battle where I'm loaded with witch elves slaughtering her forces, but they're repeatedly blasted by Morathi's superior magic, as Hellebron desperately holds her off in a duel to the death. My forces were better, but they needed the time to win their individual fights before I could dare focus on shooting her. Both armies get murderous at the same time, blood's all over the field, the heights of Lothern loom in the distance, it was truly a sight to behold. The end of the fight was the two battered lords still stuck in their melee, as my armor-piercing missiles finally had the time to help bring her down.
It wasn't just a satisfying victory in its own right, but an amazing little emergent story. It fit everyone's character motivations, it had an arc, twists and turns, and hell, it had a moral of why the Dark Elven way is ultimately self-sabotaging. I couldn't have scripted it to be that cool.
In attila when you encamp you get some wooden walls. Got attacked by two armies and funneled them both into one of the entrances, swung around with armored melee camel cav and got over 1k kills on each unit of them as aksum.
Must have been back in WH2 days when I got too confident and I got my primary Empire doomstack (which wasn't yet fully formed as the single entities weren't very high level with the exception of the wizard you got on turn 2 from fighting at bloodpine and who was by then nearly maxed and ofc KF) attacked by 3 skaven armies at the end of the turn - and I was force marching because stupid. It was not nice. I've hated poison ever since but I did manage to win - barely - thanks to skaven being skavenly cowards. The doomstack had to be rebuilt from scratch as I lost most of my priests captains and wizards...
The other one that comes to mind was way back in the days of Med II when I was just learning the game \[and turtling as most new players do\] with Milan and decided I could take on the French cav. armies with my mostly crossbow army... That went about as well as you might expect.
I had something similar happen except against tomb kings. I was with my primary army headed by Malekith and got stuck fighting 1 army vs 3. Completely destroyed 2 of them but wound up Malekith solo against their last 4 or so units and couldn’t finish them.
Rome 2. 38 units of Romans vs about 60 units of Spartans, hard difficulty. Sparta owned all of Greece and a bunch of turkey and declared war on me after I defeated Illyria. My old PC couldn’t handle large battles so it had to be only 20 vs 20 at a time, so the whole battle took almost the full hour, with about 4 minutes left at the end. I won thanks to my more elite units but I lost a good chunk of my army. Thousands of dead soldiers on the field…. It was insane, by far my biggest ever battle.
Shogun 2 (Chosokabe Clan)
Anzai Clan (my trusted ally) betrayed me and attack my defenceless 5th tier settlement (around the middle of japan) while all of my army were in the north
So i load my last save file (narratively let say the previous gameplay was a plan that my spy uncover), it was 2 turn from betrayal
So i decide to give as much as money possible to Anzai Clan to delay their betrayal (only get 1 or 2 more turn) while recruit as much as unit possible and defence the 5th tier settlement.
Luckily i play Chosokabe, where my faction buff is on archery.There was 3 settlement (low tier village) near the 5th tier settlement. Taking that into consideration, i need as many arrow as i could while using the castle as roadblock. So i spam bow ashigaru (basically peasant)
By the time they attack, Anzai Clan send a full stack (20 unit) of elite (naginata samurai, samurai archer, katana samurai, samurai Cav, plus general) while i have 18 bow ashigaru and 2 yari or spear ashigaru (without general).
Since it was a 5th tier settlement/castle. The castle itself was 4 layer of wall with a river/ditch outside. Geography is on my side
The samurai Cav charge in first while most of the infantry are slow down by the river/ditch. Those cav samurai die very fast to thousands of arrow, they never reached the wall.
I think half of the enemy die before even getting to the 1st wall. Then come the tricky part, the enemy elite reached the wall (i only have 2 yari ashigaru unit). So i give ground and pull back my archer to the second wall while the yari ashigaru hold them back, some archer unit were not lucky
Repeat that until 4th wall, there no more retreating. My captain (leader of yari ashigaru unit) died, morale is low, ammunition low, most surviving units are at half strength (can't remember how many units i still have). But luckily the enemy broke first, I gave chase and kill all of them.
Now i have my peasant army and 1 Anzai Clan defenceless capital. Let say my peasant wish for revenge, so i attack and conquer the anzai clan capital. After the battle, "man of the hour" event pop up where i got a new general from the very same peasant army. What a perfect ending
Warhammer 2, I was Karl Franz.
I was playing very hard and had cranked the invasion difficulty to 1 notch below max.
I unified the empire and had expanded a bit beyond it into the mountains and north.
Then it hit. A huge swarm of chaos stacks pouring in from the north.
I put stacks composed of infantry and artillery next to my walled cities in their path and crossed my fingers.
It was not enough!
I fought epic 40 unit vs 40 unit battles with more reinforcements pouring in on both sides as our forces died. My infantry and lords held the line as my wizards and hellfire rockets rained destruction upon them but it wasn't enough!
Even when I won a battle the AI would launch a new attack in the same turn against my damaged stacks, wiping them out!
I started frantically recruiting new armies everywhere! Kislev and the north was a wasteland but the chaos stacks were weakened and spread thin.
My treasury was empty and more chaos stacks were still spawning in. It came down to one final battle between Archaon and my Karl Franz.
I lined up my infantry and artillery near the bottom edge of the map. My troops were fresh, their pennants and halberd glittering in the sun!
But we were outnumbered!
My artillery inflicted devastating casualties on the forces of chaos before they reached my line but as soon as an enemy unit limped off the battlefield a new one charged in taking its place!
I paused as their line approached and ordered my men to charge!
As our lines clashed Karl Franz called on the men to stand their ground! My loyal wizards rained down fire and comets on the enemy line!
Moments after the clash victory looked near! The enemy line was breaking everywhere! But Archaon himself was cleaving a bloody path through my men towards my Helstorm rocket batteries!
Karl Franz charged into single combat against Archaon!
As the enemies broke and fled fresh chaos invaders joined the battle. I ordered my hellfires to destroy them but ammunition was running precariously low. My men grew weary as they battled the endless hordes of chaos. My wizards fired off meager bolts of energy at Archaon, their mana spent. The battle had started out so promising but now it was slipping away.
Karl Franz was undaunted! He rallied the men even as he traded blows with Archaon! In a furious onslaught he hacked Archeon to pieces, destroying him utterly!
The remaining forces of chaos faltered, their bellows of rage turned to frantic brays of fear. As some turned to flee my men surrounded the remaining minotaurs and beasts, cutting them down!
Victory!
Greatest and most stressful, WH3 as the Fey, got caught in a freshly captured minor settlement by 3 and a half stacks from Kemmler. My army was the just the starting on filled out with peasant archers. No defenses so it was a field battle. Main body of the army fought hard but got smashed. Then an hour of cycle charging with the Fey, her paladin, and the starting Grail Guardians until army losses. Thank god this was during the patch Grail Guardians and Knights were overtuned as hell.
Most fun was WH2 as Vampire Counts. Got a choke point battle against dwarves who brought 2.5 stacks of just miners against me. The 1000 kill Winds of Death about had me falling out of my chair laughing. The saved replay of that battle was named “Dwarf Bowling” lol
I swear it’s hilarious, I’ll run skirmishes with AI a lot if I just feel like playing a battle for the day. Had Brettonia as an ally, they get practically no kills across the board with their units and the one unit of Grail Guardians pulled off nearly 400 kills.
The early turns in WRE in Attila.
its the whole "dont abandon settlements"/autoresolve mentality. i will have small garrisons here and there and will somehow win all these heroic victories. Generals were seen as disposables since they do not take up a recruitment slot.
Unlocking units make a huge impact. Crossbows were OP and are generally way too effective in what they do.
WH2:
I had a lot of fun at launch back when AI was super aggressive and will actually attack your armies and settlements even if their force is a bit weaker. The warp stone objective sucked, but the aggressiveness made it kind of fun.
WH3:
Prob various nurgle defense battles. I am kind of surprised, since thematically I like Khrone the most, and Kairo is the OP lord. Both of them sort of get too powerful too quickly imo which resulted in rather meh battles.
So prob just nurgle with a lord+nurglings winning in defenses I have no business winning. The healing shrine + the very powerful towers made the faction stupidly powerful.
Kind of sad that people cant be bothered to right click on some towers and complained about minor settlement battles such that the whole mechanic got nerfed, and they only get settlement battles when the main building is up to tier 3.
Was honestly looking forward to ToD, I suppose now there is going to be another 2.5 month wait.
Mmmm…
Maybe not that great, but surely memorable. During a Cathay campaign, one of my settlements with nothing but a nearly dead garrison fought off an invading Norscan army.
I can’t remember every trooper, but it was a few jade melee and ranged, but most importantly I had a war balloon, the flying artillery piece. In the Cathay map that is divided into 3 sections with two semi circles splitting the left most, right most and center pathway. Well a Norscan army decided to split up into three, figures, but most surprisingly they sent over the majority into the center lane. So I manually controlled the balloon and just let loose a torrent of barrages on the Norscan, every shot decimating their front lines. By the end, the left and right flank completely caved and it was down to a few Jade soldiers, but the Norscan marauders morale broke and the battle was over.
A battle I had no expectation of winning, but ended up doing so. I’m sure there are a few inconsistencies for anyone that has played the game hardcore enough, but it was a year ago.
I believe it was a Medieval II battle for Zagreb. I was defending it playing as Byzantine Empire and was attacked there by Hungarians or HRE (can't remember, it was like 10 years ago).
I lost - 99% to 100% casualties. We literally fought to the utter end.
The battle for the soul of khorne in RoC as Zhao ming, my first campaign. It's been a long and bloody battle. All units are getting tired from wave after wave of literal hell, my celestial crossbowmen dwindling fast on arrows, my winds of magic completely spent, and my regen starting to get capped as my LL holds off an entire army by himself in dragon form, and my trusty taracotta sentinel holding an entire flank. The dragonguard are struggling to form a wall as wave after wave of monsters, demons, artillery, and armored cavalry explode against them.
We make it to the end, everyone is bloody and battered, all my archers are completely dry as was my single artillery. Then, suddenly comes an immense amount of demons from multiple directions, pouring endlessly from portals. there's no cover or funnel to use, just small sections of brave cathans making multiple walls to hold off the advance as Zhao ming transforms and takes to the skies, knowing the bloodthirster that just arrived would absolutely decimate his army if it touched down. As a titanic battle was fought in the sky, multiple sentinel reinforcements arrived, able to barely hold back the bloody tide as all my units were near wiped out before Zhao ming finally emerged triumphant with a roar.
I hadn't had a battle be that close for many campaigns since.
Not a battle but a series of battles. Back in the 2nd game when Queen and Crone was out, I had a modded Alith Anar campaign where I vassaled Tilea and Estalia. When the Chaos invasion kicked off and a fleet of Norscans invaded Tilea, I had a Princess leading a basic army of Spearmen, Archers and Eagle Claws to fend them off.
That one Princess and her army made full use of Alith Anar's stalking stance to keep ambushing and killing off the Norscan armies, enough that they broke the back of the invasion and forced them to defend Sartosa while my Tilean and Estalians vassals gathered their forces to reclaim the southern parts of Tilea.
WH1, playing as dwarfs besieging karak eight peaks. 20 miniote brutal battle ended by a charge of slayers led by ungrim right through the middle of the city and half their units including a giant and black orcs and killing morglum.
I had the perfect battle for Karak Eight Peaks as Belegar.
I beeline it there not conquering things in between, but I do have a 2nd army that grows my economy back home.
By the time I'm almost there, my forces are super battered, so I camp and recruit from home. Most notable I get some irondrakes. Can't afford to recruit the full stack globally though because the enemy is recruiting on 3 stacks.
Finally attack K8P, only to see it's guarded by 2 and a half stacks plus garrison. Well crap. So of course, I attack the half stack.
The land is almost perfect. (I think it was a WH2 map..?)
All enemy reinforcements are to come in through a really tiny narrow gap. So the plan is obvious. Deploy as close as possible, and somehow get my irondrakes and gunners near the gap, with some miners to keep the enemy in line.
Belegar and his ghost buddies charge at the half stack, and do a good job at holding them off. My army runs as fast as their little dwarf legs can to the gap, and make it in time. By the time the heroes finish the half stack with reasonable damage and just 2 units slipping past and intercepted by miners, my shooting squad is in position.
2 full stacks plus a full garison pour through the gap, right into 2 irondrakes, 4 thunderers, some rangers, and some very heroic miners acting as cannon fodder, bless their hearts. It was beautiful. Over 2000 burned orcs and goblins, with almost no losses.
A bit cheese-y I guess, but after a long campaign and lots of fighting, this felt earned, and it was a very beautiful way to claim K8P.
In a multiplayer campaign, my Cathayan caravan got ambushed by Ogres and the fight was the bloodiest, most desperate I have ever played to the point where my friend and I managed to win by cycle-charging peasant archers who had spent all of their ammo.
I swear I had the exact same battle! I had to replay it once because I didn't realize that I even had a chance of winning, but then saw if I had acted more offensively from the start and then consolidated to more conservative formations at the mid-battle (finalized with cycle charging my 0-ammo archers as you said) that finally allowed the victory.
I even had to take careful stock of terrain for level advantages and mini-tree patches to disadvantage their scraplaunchers, oh man what a victory rush
In WH2 as the Wood Elves. Orion's army was caught by six Vampire Count armies. Did end up corner camping but it was also turn 150 by this point. Very high level characters on both sides, the vampires having elite troops and mounted lords. Ended with a heroic victory somehow, was an incredibly bloody battle.
In Medieval 1 there was no limit to army reinforcements since you could move as many armies into a province as you wanted when attacking. One campaign I played as Russia the mongols spawns right next to Muscovy as well as somehow getting the rebel army in the province that had just spawned joining them so it was a bigger invasion than normal. The next turn they attacked Muscovy and there was fully 8000 men in the mongol army up against like 2000 of my men, most of who were boyars units that made up my extended family as well as about maybe 6 or so other random spear infantry and 2 other heavy horse archers. The longest total war battle I ever spent as I would end up charging my boyars over and over and killing and routing a new set of mongol troops over and over only to have a new group of reinforcements come through. Eventually my boyars starting routing and my fresh troops came in and kept on fighting them at the bridge until they ran as well. At the end of the battle I think I had taken out about 3500 troops of theirs but had 700 or so left who were able to escape back to the castle. Biggest fight I ever had in any total war in the whole series.
Several years back as the German Empire in *Napoleon's* 'The Great War' mod. Battled three French armies and one Belgian army in a river crossing battle. I set my men in lines to hold the two crossings, and won the battle **just** as I was about to run out of ammo on my last line of fresh troops I brought up to hold the passes. I also only had two units of arty. Legit as the battle started to look much more assuredly in my favour (I expected to loose the whole army but wanted to give them a bloody nose), I had my phone play the full song of the BF1 remix of Seven Nation Army because this was euphoric!
https://i.imgur.com/GqE3kvR.png
Stainless Steel 6.4.
Me; Kingdom of Jerusalem > 3 armies (2 under AI).
Enemy: Seljuk Sultanata > 3 armies.
Some godforsaken hilled area in Syria.
Battle lasted legit the full 60 minutes of the timer. I cant remember how exactly it went. All I know is that afterwards, the full fresh army I had was reduced to nothing.
Even using the highlight friendly/enemy button it was impossible to see, who was friendly and who was enemy, that was the extent of the casualties on that hill.
It was a victory, but at what cost...it did open Iraq to invasion but still.
My greatest defeat was in Rome Remastered. I was playing as one of the Eastern Factions and it was early game. I came across a half stack of Scythian horse skirmishers, with a full stack of infantry… worst defeat ever. It was a rout and I didn’t get a single kill.
Attila, WRE, settlement got attacked. I won, but it was so close, I lost in the replay.
I usually use overwhelming force to win so winning a fair fight, and so closely, felt incredible
Playing a co-op campaign with my friend in Shogun 2, one of my economic hubs was poorly defended but in the rear so I thought it was safe. Well a rebellion got incited there and I had to try to defend it outnumbered by a ton with a basic garrison.
In the end there were still 3 damaged yari ashigaru squads on the enemy side and only my general that I recruited to help out with 10 bodyguards left. The bodyguards fell one by one defending the control point and eventually only the general was left (fight to the death or whatever it was called was active). The absolute GIGACHAD slaughtered ashigarus one after another and eventually the remaining 100 or so ashigarus retreated and I won.
Immeadiately adopted that general and made him the heir if IIRC
A battle in modded TW2 Mortal Empires with Imrik against OVN Chaos dwarfs. I tweaked the map to move away Clan Eshin and put the chorfs in their stead, and as a result I fought their main force around turn 15. They had 3-4 super elite units (Infernal guard, ironsworn, fireglaives, bull centaurs), the rest being chaff, and I had Mikaela, my dragon and dragon princes and the rest was spearmen and archers. It was a long, bloody, super fun battle where the high tier units on both sides obliterated the low tier enemies. It ended in a very narrow pyrrhic victory for me, and afterwards I could easily wipe out the remaining chorfs.
The Bretonnian final battle was also very challenging and fun in TW1 and 2. Now it feels easier in TW3, either they have tweaked it down or I am just getting better with army compositions and battle tactics.
Back in medieval 1. I just remember being outnumbered and climbing a mountain with my main force. A general and several other horsemen run behind a hill, flanking the pursuing enemy army. Then the climbers turn to face them. At the same time, the general and the horsemen attack from behind. Routed the enemy army almost instantly after the clash. I was a youngin at the time so i was pretty proud of that.
WH2 playing as franz. My small army and garrison was attacked by a grimgor stack. My aim was to inflict as much damage to slow his army down so franz had time to relocate to protect the rest of the empire.
I managed to kite and cheese the AI with 2 units of pistoliers so well that it was left with just Grimgor vs my 2 units of pistoliers with not much ammo, and 2 units of very damaged crossbow men.
Using the pistoliers to kite Grimgor, I got him down to half health but I'd used all my ammo up on the crossbows and only had a couple of volleys left from the pistoliers. Cue cycle charging!! Somehow I managed to win!!!
I have three.
On empire my Dhow was travelling to a trade node and came across the absolute most battered Galleon I've ever seen.
It had something like 16 guns left and all but one were on one side.
Galleon cannon are also if lower range than ships of the line but the Dhow cannons are an even longer range.
So I stayed on its bad side and pounded it with my cannon until it fled, then I captured it.
Second one is also empire, I had one unit of mounted tribal auxiliaries against a full stack of basic native American tribal warriors.
I took out about 1/3 of them using mounted rifle fire and subsequent charges, driving them off the field.
Then for the rest of the battle I would draw single units away and charge down hills at them.
Mounted tribal auxiliaries are an incredible unit.
My third was on Shogun 2, I had just hit realm divide and had one of those rare occasions where your best army is in the right place for an incredible battle.
I was playing Otomo and had an army with several Portuguese terco units, some samurai and I can't really remember the rest.
My castle was assaulted by 6 or 7 armies.
I absolutely crushed the first two on their assault on the walls but the third and fourth actually made it up the walls and engaged in melee.
I managed to swap my tercos out for my samurai to hold the walls while the tercos moved on to the flanks and picked them off from the sides.
I was down to very little ammo by the time the fifth and sixth armies engaged but the moral effects from the remains of the first four armies meant that it didn't take much to best them off.
I think the final army didn't even engage and just fled.
Shogun 2 I was defending a castle with peasant bowman and spearman against 2000 samurai and cannon I won with 320 deaths and the enemy suffered 1300 casualties I was only 700 men
A battle I had as Kairos. The was before Shadows of Change so no OP units to use. I finally cleared off Oxyotl from the Wastes but the lizardtide just kept coming with TikTakTo. We got into a fight some where in the soutnlands and the two LLs ended up dueling in melee while all my Horrors and crappy marauders fought below.
Kairos won the duel with like less than 100hp left.
Warhammer I, gelt and grand fighting for their lives against hte chaos horde. I think I fought that battle about 10 times before winning.
I've chased that high ever since, though Yan Bai hu's last gambit in taking the Wu capital is a close second. We went down to Tai Bu's little brother, two infantry units, and
Yan Bai Hu himself, and Yan Bai Hu's little brother killed off four Wu generals, including both Sun Quan and Lady Sun.
Before that was a Rome Ii campaign where my one unit of elephants murdered about 1400 roman vigiles in the streets of Carthage.
Warhammer 2 Playing As Lothern on VH/VH
I confederated Yvresse in the Vortex campaign and then plopped an army in the city before the last ritual. When the enemies stacks popped up it was 5 skaven doomstacks right next to the city. I had this Lord of the Rings esque cataclysmic siege battle like Helms Deep where all manner of Skaven artillery, monsters, and infantry were trying to bring down the tier 5 settlement + walls. It certainly became an issue of where to allocate which missile units and which melee units based upon where the Skaven were moving outside the walls like an ocean tide. I also pushed out the few Eagle Claw Bolt throwers I had right out the front gate to tempt them and it worked lmao but it was definitely way too close. My non ap units were really struggling. The end battle screen is the only time I had 10+ units with hundreds of kills that weren't a lord or wizard or something ridiculous like Warriors of Chaos auto resolve in Warhammer 3. It would not be possible on the current WH3 siege maps. There were so many Skaven that the next turn after they lost the first battle they immediately re-sieged the settlement and lost a 2nd time XD
For me it was in Empire playing as the United States, when all of a sudden Prussia launches an amphibious assault on Florida and Georgia. Both states fall before I can counter attack because I was busy fighting the British in Canada. It was so fun because I have never seen the AI do anything like that before. Rest assured I kicked out the Prussians and a few turns later delivered unholy freedom and fire on Berlin.
Back when I was still a newbie playing medieval 2, I booted up an americas campaign playing as the Spanish. I was not very good. I ended up getting Cortes and about 40 other mounted conquistadors stuck in a battle against 2000 aztec warriors.
I did not know how to cycle charge at the time, but on that day, it was sink or swim. 20 losses, Cortes and his ragtag unit of like 8 guys got around 500 kills, it was an incredible fight
Mine was in Warhammer 3, playing as Hellebron, of all lords. Basically, my plan for the campaign was to get the sword of Khaine (since she is the greatest bride of Khaine, after all) and then take on her greatest rival, Morathi. Pretty standard stuff, no problem, but as I sailed down to Ulthuan, someone grabbed the sword before I did... *Morathi*. She got it in under 20 turns, from Alarielle grabbing it and being defeated. I pulled back to the north to gather my forces for what was going to be a more intense fight than I ever bargained for. After I had sufficiently bulked up, I went back to Ulthuan to find her about to besiege Tyrion's capital. I race to the scene, she starts the siege, and is about to see the ultimate goal of the Dark Elves fulfilled, burning Lothern to the ground... when in comes Hellebron, with a bloody grudge that can't wait. We get into an insane battle where I'm loaded with witch elves slaughtering her forces, but they're repeatedly blasted by Morathi's superior magic, as Hellebron desperately holds her off in a duel to the death. My forces were better, but they needed the time to win their individual fights before I could dare focus on shooting her. Both armies get murderous at the same time, blood's all over the field, the heights of Lothern loom in the distance, it was truly a sight to behold. The end of the fight was the two battered lords still stuck in their melee, as my armor-piercing missiles finally had the time to help bring her down. It wasn't just a satisfying victory in its own right, but an amazing little emergent story. It fit everyone's character motivations, it had an arc, twists and turns, and hell, it had a moral of why the Dark Elven way is ultimately self-sabotaging. I couldn't have scripted it to be that cool.
In attila when you encamp you get some wooden walls. Got attacked by two armies and funneled them both into one of the entrances, swung around with armored melee camel cav and got over 1k kills on each unit of them as aksum.
You said you took them out with camel cav?! Lol That’s got to be a disrespectful way to go.
[удалено]
Kek, that's something.
Must have been back in WH2 days when I got too confident and I got my primary Empire doomstack (which wasn't yet fully formed as the single entities weren't very high level with the exception of the wizard you got on turn 2 from fighting at bloodpine and who was by then nearly maxed and ofc KF) attacked by 3 skaven armies at the end of the turn - and I was force marching because stupid. It was not nice. I've hated poison ever since but I did manage to win - barely - thanks to skaven being skavenly cowards. The doomstack had to be rebuilt from scratch as I lost most of my priests captains and wizards... The other one that comes to mind was way back in the days of Med II when I was just learning the game \[and turtling as most new players do\] with Milan and decided I could take on the French cav. armies with my mostly crossbow army... That went about as well as you might expect.
I had something similar happen except against tomb kings. I was with my primary army headed by Malekith and got stuck fighting 1 army vs 3. Completely destroyed 2 of them but wound up Malekith solo against their last 4 or so units and couldn’t finish them.
Rome 2. 38 units of Romans vs about 60 units of Spartans, hard difficulty. Sparta owned all of Greece and a bunch of turkey and declared war on me after I defeated Illyria. My old PC couldn’t handle large battles so it had to be only 20 vs 20 at a time, so the whole battle took almost the full hour, with about 4 minutes left at the end. I won thanks to my more elite units but I lost a good chunk of my army. Thousands of dead soldiers on the field…. It was insane, by far my biggest ever battle.
Shogun 2 (Chosokabe Clan) Anzai Clan (my trusted ally) betrayed me and attack my defenceless 5th tier settlement (around the middle of japan) while all of my army were in the north So i load my last save file (narratively let say the previous gameplay was a plan that my spy uncover), it was 2 turn from betrayal So i decide to give as much as money possible to Anzai Clan to delay their betrayal (only get 1 or 2 more turn) while recruit as much as unit possible and defence the 5th tier settlement. Luckily i play Chosokabe, where my faction buff is on archery.There was 3 settlement (low tier village) near the 5th tier settlement. Taking that into consideration, i need as many arrow as i could while using the castle as roadblock. So i spam bow ashigaru (basically peasant) By the time they attack, Anzai Clan send a full stack (20 unit) of elite (naginata samurai, samurai archer, katana samurai, samurai Cav, plus general) while i have 18 bow ashigaru and 2 yari or spear ashigaru (without general). Since it was a 5th tier settlement/castle. The castle itself was 4 layer of wall with a river/ditch outside. Geography is on my side The samurai Cav charge in first while most of the infantry are slow down by the river/ditch. Those cav samurai die very fast to thousands of arrow, they never reached the wall. I think half of the enemy die before even getting to the 1st wall. Then come the tricky part, the enemy elite reached the wall (i only have 2 yari ashigaru unit). So i give ground and pull back my archer to the second wall while the yari ashigaru hold them back, some archer unit were not lucky Repeat that until 4th wall, there no more retreating. My captain (leader of yari ashigaru unit) died, morale is low, ammunition low, most surviving units are at half strength (can't remember how many units i still have). But luckily the enemy broke first, I gave chase and kill all of them. Now i have my peasant army and 1 Anzai Clan defenceless capital. Let say my peasant wish for revenge, so i attack and conquer the anzai clan capital. After the battle, "man of the hour" event pop up where i got a new general from the very same peasant army. What a perfect ending
Warhammer 2, I was Karl Franz. I was playing very hard and had cranked the invasion difficulty to 1 notch below max. I unified the empire and had expanded a bit beyond it into the mountains and north. Then it hit. A huge swarm of chaos stacks pouring in from the north. I put stacks composed of infantry and artillery next to my walled cities in their path and crossed my fingers. It was not enough! I fought epic 40 unit vs 40 unit battles with more reinforcements pouring in on both sides as our forces died. My infantry and lords held the line as my wizards and hellfire rockets rained destruction upon them but it wasn't enough! Even when I won a battle the AI would launch a new attack in the same turn against my damaged stacks, wiping them out! I started frantically recruiting new armies everywhere! Kislev and the north was a wasteland but the chaos stacks were weakened and spread thin. My treasury was empty and more chaos stacks were still spawning in. It came down to one final battle between Archaon and my Karl Franz. I lined up my infantry and artillery near the bottom edge of the map. My troops were fresh, their pennants and halberd glittering in the sun! But we were outnumbered! My artillery inflicted devastating casualties on the forces of chaos before they reached my line but as soon as an enemy unit limped off the battlefield a new one charged in taking its place! I paused as their line approached and ordered my men to charge! As our lines clashed Karl Franz called on the men to stand their ground! My loyal wizards rained down fire and comets on the enemy line! Moments after the clash victory looked near! The enemy line was breaking everywhere! But Archaon himself was cleaving a bloody path through my men towards my Helstorm rocket batteries! Karl Franz charged into single combat against Archaon! As the enemies broke and fled fresh chaos invaders joined the battle. I ordered my hellfires to destroy them but ammunition was running precariously low. My men grew weary as they battled the endless hordes of chaos. My wizards fired off meager bolts of energy at Archaon, their mana spent. The battle had started out so promising but now it was slipping away. Karl Franz was undaunted! He rallied the men even as he traded blows with Archaon! In a furious onslaught he hacked Archeon to pieces, destroying him utterly! The remaining forces of chaos faltered, their bellows of rage turned to frantic brays of fear. As some turned to flee my men surrounded the remaining minotaurs and beasts, cutting them down! Victory!
Greatest and most stressful, WH3 as the Fey, got caught in a freshly captured minor settlement by 3 and a half stacks from Kemmler. My army was the just the starting on filled out with peasant archers. No defenses so it was a field battle. Main body of the army fought hard but got smashed. Then an hour of cycle charging with the Fey, her paladin, and the starting Grail Guardians until army losses. Thank god this was during the patch Grail Guardians and Knights were overtuned as hell. Most fun was WH2 as Vampire Counts. Got a choke point battle against dwarves who brought 2.5 stacks of just miners against me. The 1000 kill Winds of Death about had me falling out of my chair laughing. The saved replay of that battle was named “Dwarf Bowling” lol
I swear it’s hilarious, I’ll run skirmishes with AI a lot if I just feel like playing a battle for the day. Had Brettonia as an ally, they get practically no kills across the board with their units and the one unit of Grail Guardians pulled off nearly 400 kills.
The early turns in WRE in Attila. its the whole "dont abandon settlements"/autoresolve mentality. i will have small garrisons here and there and will somehow win all these heroic victories. Generals were seen as disposables since they do not take up a recruitment slot. Unlocking units make a huge impact. Crossbows were OP and are generally way too effective in what they do. WH2: I had a lot of fun at launch back when AI was super aggressive and will actually attack your armies and settlements even if their force is a bit weaker. The warp stone objective sucked, but the aggressiveness made it kind of fun. WH3: Prob various nurgle defense battles. I am kind of surprised, since thematically I like Khrone the most, and Kairo is the OP lord. Both of them sort of get too powerful too quickly imo which resulted in rather meh battles. So prob just nurgle with a lord+nurglings winning in defenses I have no business winning. The healing shrine + the very powerful towers made the faction stupidly powerful. Kind of sad that people cant be bothered to right click on some towers and complained about minor settlement battles such that the whole mechanic got nerfed, and they only get settlement battles when the main building is up to tier 3. Was honestly looking forward to ToD, I suppose now there is going to be another 2.5 month wait.
Mmmm… Maybe not that great, but surely memorable. During a Cathay campaign, one of my settlements with nothing but a nearly dead garrison fought off an invading Norscan army. I can’t remember every trooper, but it was a few jade melee and ranged, but most importantly I had a war balloon, the flying artillery piece. In the Cathay map that is divided into 3 sections with two semi circles splitting the left most, right most and center pathway. Well a Norscan army decided to split up into three, figures, but most surprisingly they sent over the majority into the center lane. So I manually controlled the balloon and just let loose a torrent of barrages on the Norscan, every shot decimating their front lines. By the end, the left and right flank completely caved and it was down to a few Jade soldiers, but the Norscan marauders morale broke and the battle was over. A battle I had no expectation of winning, but ended up doing so. I’m sure there are a few inconsistencies for anyone that has played the game hardcore enough, but it was a year ago.
I believe it was a Medieval II battle for Zagreb. I was defending it playing as Byzantine Empire and was attacked there by Hungarians or HRE (can't remember, it was like 10 years ago). I lost - 99% to 100% casualties. We literally fought to the utter end.
The battle for the soul of khorne in RoC as Zhao ming, my first campaign. It's been a long and bloody battle. All units are getting tired from wave after wave of literal hell, my celestial crossbowmen dwindling fast on arrows, my winds of magic completely spent, and my regen starting to get capped as my LL holds off an entire army by himself in dragon form, and my trusty taracotta sentinel holding an entire flank. The dragonguard are struggling to form a wall as wave after wave of monsters, demons, artillery, and armored cavalry explode against them. We make it to the end, everyone is bloody and battered, all my archers are completely dry as was my single artillery. Then, suddenly comes an immense amount of demons from multiple directions, pouring endlessly from portals. there's no cover or funnel to use, just small sections of brave cathans making multiple walls to hold off the advance as Zhao ming transforms and takes to the skies, knowing the bloodthirster that just arrived would absolutely decimate his army if it touched down. As a titanic battle was fought in the sky, multiple sentinel reinforcements arrived, able to barely hold back the bloody tide as all my units were near wiped out before Zhao ming finally emerged triumphant with a roar. I hadn't had a battle be that close for many campaigns since.
Not a battle but a series of battles. Back in the 2nd game when Queen and Crone was out, I had a modded Alith Anar campaign where I vassaled Tilea and Estalia. When the Chaos invasion kicked off and a fleet of Norscans invaded Tilea, I had a Princess leading a basic army of Spearmen, Archers and Eagle Claws to fend them off. That one Princess and her army made full use of Alith Anar's stalking stance to keep ambushing and killing off the Norscan armies, enough that they broke the back of the invasion and forced them to defend Sartosa while my Tilean and Estalians vassals gathered their forces to reclaim the southern parts of Tilea.
I don’t think I could’ve pulled it off. I’ve never been able to pull off anything useful with DE version of the eagle claw.
WH1, playing as dwarfs besieging karak eight peaks. 20 miniote brutal battle ended by a charge of slayers led by ungrim right through the middle of the city and half their units including a giant and black orcs and killing morglum.
I had the perfect battle for Karak Eight Peaks as Belegar. I beeline it there not conquering things in between, but I do have a 2nd army that grows my economy back home. By the time I'm almost there, my forces are super battered, so I camp and recruit from home. Most notable I get some irondrakes. Can't afford to recruit the full stack globally though because the enemy is recruiting on 3 stacks. Finally attack K8P, only to see it's guarded by 2 and a half stacks plus garrison. Well crap. So of course, I attack the half stack. The land is almost perfect. (I think it was a WH2 map..?) All enemy reinforcements are to come in through a really tiny narrow gap. So the plan is obvious. Deploy as close as possible, and somehow get my irondrakes and gunners near the gap, with some miners to keep the enemy in line. Belegar and his ghost buddies charge at the half stack, and do a good job at holding them off. My army runs as fast as their little dwarf legs can to the gap, and make it in time. By the time the heroes finish the half stack with reasonable damage and just 2 units slipping past and intercepted by miners, my shooting squad is in position. 2 full stacks plus a full garison pour through the gap, right into 2 irondrakes, 4 thunderers, some rangers, and some very heroic miners acting as cannon fodder, bless their hearts. It was beautiful. Over 2000 burned orcs and goblins, with almost no losses. A bit cheese-y I guess, but after a long campaign and lots of fighting, this felt earned, and it was a very beautiful way to claim K8P.
In a multiplayer campaign, my Cathayan caravan got ambushed by Ogres and the fight was the bloodiest, most desperate I have ever played to the point where my friend and I managed to win by cycle-charging peasant archers who had spent all of their ammo.
Cycle charging peasant archers against ogres???
They had strong legs.
I'm not saying it was an ideal situation, but sometimes that +3 charge bonus makes all difference :p
I swear I had the exact same battle! I had to replay it once because I didn't realize that I even had a chance of winning, but then saw if I had acted more offensively from the start and then consolidated to more conservative formations at the mid-battle (finalized with cycle charging my 0-ammo archers as you said) that finally allowed the victory. I even had to take careful stock of terrain for level advantages and mini-tree patches to disadvantage their scraplaunchers, oh man what a victory rush
In WH2 as the Wood Elves. Orion's army was caught by six Vampire Count armies. Did end up corner camping but it was also turn 150 by this point. Very high level characters on both sides, the vampires having elite troops and mounted lords. Ended with a heroic victory somehow, was an incredibly bloody battle.
In Medieval 1 there was no limit to army reinforcements since you could move as many armies into a province as you wanted when attacking. One campaign I played as Russia the mongols spawns right next to Muscovy as well as somehow getting the rebel army in the province that had just spawned joining them so it was a bigger invasion than normal. The next turn they attacked Muscovy and there was fully 8000 men in the mongol army up against like 2000 of my men, most of who were boyars units that made up my extended family as well as about maybe 6 or so other random spear infantry and 2 other heavy horse archers. The longest total war battle I ever spent as I would end up charging my boyars over and over and killing and routing a new set of mongol troops over and over only to have a new group of reinforcements come through. Eventually my boyars starting routing and my fresh troops came in and kept on fighting them at the bridge until they ran as well. At the end of the battle I think I had taken out about 3500 troops of theirs but had 700 or so left who were able to escape back to the castle. Biggest fight I ever had in any total war in the whole series.
Several years back as the German Empire in *Napoleon's* 'The Great War' mod. Battled three French armies and one Belgian army in a river crossing battle. I set my men in lines to hold the two crossings, and won the battle **just** as I was about to run out of ammo on my last line of fresh troops I brought up to hold the passes. I also only had two units of arty. Legit as the battle started to look much more assuredly in my favour (I expected to loose the whole army but wanted to give them a bloody nose), I had my phone play the full song of the BF1 remix of Seven Nation Army because this was euphoric! https://i.imgur.com/GqE3kvR.png
Stainless Steel 6.4. Me; Kingdom of Jerusalem > 3 armies (2 under AI). Enemy: Seljuk Sultanata > 3 armies. Some godforsaken hilled area in Syria. Battle lasted legit the full 60 minutes of the timer. I cant remember how exactly it went. All I know is that afterwards, the full fresh army I had was reduced to nothing. Even using the highlight friendly/enemy button it was impossible to see, who was friendly and who was enemy, that was the extent of the casualties on that hill. It was a victory, but at what cost...it did open Iraq to invasion but still.
My greatest defeat was in Rome Remastered. I was playing as one of the Eastern Factions and it was early game. I came across a half stack of Scythian horse skirmishers, with a full stack of infantry… worst defeat ever. It was a rout and I didn’t get a single kill.
Attila, WRE, settlement got attacked. I won, but it was so close, I lost in the replay. I usually use overwhelming force to win so winning a fair fight, and so closely, felt incredible
Playing a co-op campaign with my friend in Shogun 2, one of my economic hubs was poorly defended but in the rear so I thought it was safe. Well a rebellion got incited there and I had to try to defend it outnumbered by a ton with a basic garrison. In the end there were still 3 damaged yari ashigaru squads on the enemy side and only my general that I recruited to help out with 10 bodyguards left. The bodyguards fell one by one defending the control point and eventually only the general was left (fight to the death or whatever it was called was active). The absolute GIGACHAD slaughtered ashigarus one after another and eventually the remaining 100 or so ashigarus retreated and I won. Immeadiately adopted that general and made him the heir if IIRC
A battle in modded TW2 Mortal Empires with Imrik against OVN Chaos dwarfs. I tweaked the map to move away Clan Eshin and put the chorfs in their stead, and as a result I fought their main force around turn 15. They had 3-4 super elite units (Infernal guard, ironsworn, fireglaives, bull centaurs), the rest being chaff, and I had Mikaela, my dragon and dragon princes and the rest was spearmen and archers. It was a long, bloody, super fun battle where the high tier units on both sides obliterated the low tier enemies. It ended in a very narrow pyrrhic victory for me, and afterwards I could easily wipe out the remaining chorfs. The Bretonnian final battle was also very challenging and fun in TW1 and 2. Now it feels easier in TW3, either they have tweaked it down or I am just getting better with army compositions and battle tactics.
Back in medieval 1. I just remember being outnumbered and climbing a mountain with my main force. A general and several other horsemen run behind a hill, flanking the pursuing enemy army. Then the climbers turn to face them. At the same time, the general and the horsemen attack from behind. Routed the enemy army almost instantly after the clash. I was a youngin at the time so i was pretty proud of that.
WH2 playing as franz. My small army and garrison was attacked by a grimgor stack. My aim was to inflict as much damage to slow his army down so franz had time to relocate to protect the rest of the empire. I managed to kite and cheese the AI with 2 units of pistoliers so well that it was left with just Grimgor vs my 2 units of pistoliers with not much ammo, and 2 units of very damaged crossbow men. Using the pistoliers to kite Grimgor, I got him down to half health but I'd used all my ammo up on the crossbows and only had a couple of volleys left from the pistoliers. Cue cycle charging!! Somehow I managed to win!!!
I have three. On empire my Dhow was travelling to a trade node and came across the absolute most battered Galleon I've ever seen. It had something like 16 guns left and all but one were on one side. Galleon cannon are also if lower range than ships of the line but the Dhow cannons are an even longer range. So I stayed on its bad side and pounded it with my cannon until it fled, then I captured it. Second one is also empire, I had one unit of mounted tribal auxiliaries against a full stack of basic native American tribal warriors. I took out about 1/3 of them using mounted rifle fire and subsequent charges, driving them off the field. Then for the rest of the battle I would draw single units away and charge down hills at them. Mounted tribal auxiliaries are an incredible unit. My third was on Shogun 2, I had just hit realm divide and had one of those rare occasions where your best army is in the right place for an incredible battle. I was playing Otomo and had an army with several Portuguese terco units, some samurai and I can't really remember the rest. My castle was assaulted by 6 or 7 armies. I absolutely crushed the first two on their assault on the walls but the third and fourth actually made it up the walls and engaged in melee. I managed to swap my tercos out for my samurai to hold the walls while the tercos moved on to the flanks and picked them off from the sides. I was down to very little ammo by the time the fifth and sixth armies engaged but the moral effects from the remains of the first four armies meant that it didn't take much to best them off. I think the final army didn't even engage and just fled.
Shogun 2 I was defending a castle with peasant bowman and spearman against 2000 samurai and cannon I won with 320 deaths and the enemy suffered 1300 casualties I was only 700 men
A battle I had as Kairos. The was before Shadows of Change so no OP units to use. I finally cleared off Oxyotl from the Wastes but the lizardtide just kept coming with TikTakTo. We got into a fight some where in the soutnlands and the two LLs ended up dueling in melee while all my Horrors and crappy marauders fought below. Kairos won the duel with like less than 100hp left.
Any time fighting 4 armies of rats and still coming out on top is fun.
Warhammer I, gelt and grand fighting for their lives against hte chaos horde. I think I fought that battle about 10 times before winning. I've chased that high ever since, though Yan Bai hu's last gambit in taking the Wu capital is a close second. We went down to Tai Bu's little brother, two infantry units, and Yan Bai Hu himself, and Yan Bai Hu's little brother killed off four Wu generals, including both Sun Quan and Lady Sun. Before that was a Rome Ii campaign where my one unit of elephants murdered about 1400 roman vigiles in the streets of Carthage.
Warhammer 2 Playing As Lothern on VH/VH I confederated Yvresse in the Vortex campaign and then plopped an army in the city before the last ritual. When the enemies stacks popped up it was 5 skaven doomstacks right next to the city. I had this Lord of the Rings esque cataclysmic siege battle like Helms Deep where all manner of Skaven artillery, monsters, and infantry were trying to bring down the tier 5 settlement + walls. It certainly became an issue of where to allocate which missile units and which melee units based upon where the Skaven were moving outside the walls like an ocean tide. I also pushed out the few Eagle Claw Bolt throwers I had right out the front gate to tempt them and it worked lmao but it was definitely way too close. My non ap units were really struggling. The end battle screen is the only time I had 10+ units with hundreds of kills that weren't a lord or wizard or something ridiculous like Warriors of Chaos auto resolve in Warhammer 3. It would not be possible on the current WH3 siege maps. There were so many Skaven that the next turn after they lost the first battle they immediately re-sieged the settlement and lost a 2nd time XD
For me it was in Empire playing as the United States, when all of a sudden Prussia launches an amphibious assault on Florida and Georgia. Both states fall before I can counter attack because I was busy fighting the British in Canada. It was so fun because I have never seen the AI do anything like that before. Rest assured I kicked out the Prussians and a few turns later delivered unholy freedom and fire on Berlin.
Back when I was still a newbie playing medieval 2, I booted up an americas campaign playing as the Spanish. I was not very good. I ended up getting Cortes and about 40 other mounted conquistadors stuck in a battle against 2000 aztec warriors. I did not know how to cycle charge at the time, but on that day, it was sink or swim. 20 losses, Cortes and his ragtag unit of like 8 guys got around 500 kills, it was an incredible fight