Combat Movement and Rainbows

Movement in Combat
The single most important thing to know about combat mechanics is that units move forward each round towards the enemy but that they do this in different ways, dependin' what unit they are. This is important because units will not (with exception) ignore enemies in their path and will stop to attack them each round. This leads to the issue of the Rainbow Formation (see below). Units will also attack each turn, and based on their range and attack against the enemies defence and life, will do varyin' amounts of damage or kill them.
This is also an issue where speed can be pretty important, becasue it affects how quickly your troops move past traps, or reach their target enemy or destination. It can also mean your troops can reach large groups of enemies too fast (See Compass/HBR in technology). This is the one thing that leads to the most casualties in battles and more often than not is the answer to why attacks on NPCs failed.
Also, always remember that movement preceeds attacks. All units on the field will move before their attack phase of that round, unless a specific mechanic (such as stand and shoot) dictates that they stay still.

Movement will also affect archers damage. Ranged units will recieve deductibles based on the distance of their target, which makes the enemy speed an issue. The faster the enemy will run through the optimum range and into melee range, the more of a threat they are, while the slow units that will spend several turns into optimum range (such as raams) will give the archers plenty of time the wreak havoc on them. The deductible is as follows:
100%~51% range = 50% damage
1%~50% range = 100% damage (optimum range)
0% range (melee) = 25% damage

Rainbow Formation
A rainbow formation is sending anywhere between 1~1k of each unit that moves faster than your main attack force. The reason for this is that enemy troops will halt their advance to tackle the units in the rainbow formation before continuing on to hit your main force.
This gives you at least a full extra round to achieve your task. If your main attack force is archers, (keepin' in mind that archers stand and shoot, allowin' all non-seige units to run ahead of them) you get a full extra round w/ no one attackin' you and in which your full force can fire a wash of arrows at the enemy. If you're using ponies, then you get a full extra round to advance forward w/o having to stop/be killed.
To make a rainbow formation, send 50~1k troops of each unit (the higher numbers for the large/massive scale battles) as layers in w/ the wave of your achers. A typical example of a full rainbow formation w/ archers would be:
50 warriors
50 scouts
50 pikes
50 swordsmen
50 ponies
50 'phracts
99,700 archer
Workers are usually not sent for the sole reason that they move so much slower that they slow down the entire attack force from reaching the destination quickly. Using seige units as rainbow is also a problem for this, but they also have the issue that they move so much slower that they might not be able to keep sufficiently far ahead of the archers to successfuly rainbow them and potentially waste archer slots in your march.




On this report there is an example of a successful rainbow formation against an NPC10. Heavy pikes and swords with light scouts, warriors, ponies and 'phracts rushed forward in front of the archers, slowin' down the enemy warrior horde enough for the archers to wipe out a massive amount of them. By the time the warriors reached the archers there was only enough left to kill a few before they all died. Note that this example could potentially reduce losses of archers by up to 10k, by havin' an extra 10k archers to attack and a much higher attack hero and/or buffs.

This is just about the most overpowered tactic in the game at this time because it allows waves of archers to get in several rounds of damage from the safety at the back at the mere cost of only a few fodder units. Expect this to be used in almost every attack against you and expect to require usin' it in nigh every attack you send short of valley warfare.