Your best medieval army?

Here is my army, what might have been found in Basil II's reign in the Byzantine Empire, 10th century AD:

CAVALRY

2,000 Heavily armored Cataphracts and Clibanophoroi: Cataphracts armed with lances and swords as a secondary weapon, with chain mail armor for rider and horse. Clibanophoroi armed with maces, with breastplates and chain mail for both rider and horse. Clibs. also have characteristic Sassanian gold face armor.

3,000 Lightly armed cavalry: Mounted bowmen with eastern-style steppe bows and swords, light chainmail armor.

INFANTRY:

3,000 Mercenary and Thematic infantry: Arab infantry with light chain mail, scimitars; Bulgarian infantry with light chain mail and swords, axes; Thematic infatry similarly armed

500 heavily armed Varangian Guardsmen: Mostly Sicilian Norman and Saxon, armed with axes and straight swords, with heavy metal scale armor and tall triangular shields

1,500 archers: lightly armored with curved bows or throwing spears

well, it depends who are u gonna fight.

If I was going against a european nation,

5000 man at arms (well trained and discipline)

500 crossbowmen 500archers

3000 heavy calvary and other thousand skirmish horses.

If going against Turks, believe it or not, heavy knights should me numberous like 5000 and attack in waves light fast moving infantry that would be able to strike after calvary and then keep pounding turkihs infantry from sides with more and more kights. Turkish spahi would destroy european infantry very quickly ()  So make sure the battle does not last long. the only way Serbs/Bosnian nad Hungarian medieval armies ever won a battle against discipline turks is when calvary charged the (flags) Generals and capitan's units and scared em away.  Heavy calvary is useful in Europe where battlefileds are not huge and flat. thunderous charge form the hill with enemy not being able to spread too much, now middle east is a different game.

My bests are the Hungarian horsemen from 10th century. They attacked and defeated every countries of Europe except Scandinavia and the British isles.  They were called the horsemen of Apocalypse, however they had only tipical nomad technics and tactics. They usually destroyed quite bigger armies and visited twice the Atlantic ocean, owerwrote achievement of Attila.

I would take an army of five thousand infantry, two and a half thousand cavalry, and two and a half thousand ranged men. I would want one thousand Arabian Infantry with chainmail and scimitars and four thousand heavily armored Europeans with swords. I would take half of my cavalry heavy Teutonic Cavalry armed with Halberds, Sabres, Breastplates, and chainmail. My other cavalry would by Arabian camels armed with throwing spears, lances, and scimitars. I would want English Longbowmen, French Crossbowmen, and Mongolian archers for my ranged troops.

Originally posted by Nagyfejedelem My bests are the Hungarian horsemen from 10th century. They attacked and defeated every countries of Europe except Scandinavia and the British isles.

Aren't you a little exaggerated? They never reached Spain nor I think they battled in France either...

Maju:

I'm a bit nacionalist, but they were in Spain in 942.

The Hungarian warriors were incredible fast in this time. The Hungarian light cavalries were faster than other armies and every warriors had more than one horses. Only one problem was finding food for men and horses.

In 942 they attacked the Eastern parts of Spain, for example Barcelona and Lerida and they reached River Tajo. Magyars fought against Arabs and captured Arab captains. After that they went home.

Maju:

Nagyfejedelem is right. Magyar raiders reached Spain too. There are written sources mention this campaign. One of the arab caliphs (I can't remember his name.) remarked that all of Hungarian people should be exterminated.

I will look after details for you.

Originally posted by Raider Maju: Nagyfejedelem is right. Magyar raiders reached Spain too. There are written sources mention this campaign. One of the arab caliphs (I can't remember his name.) remarked that all of Hungarian people should be exterminated.

He surely was right

Seriously, Magyar raids are considered among the most criminal of all times: killing all males and also women too old or too young, carrying the rest of women as cattle. Vikings and even Atilla were true delicate gentlement when compared.

Luckily, after Lech, your ancestors decided to change habits and settled down.

I will look after details for you.

Yes please. It's an absolutely unknown episode of Iberian history. Viking raids are rather well known but it's the first time I heard of Hungarians in Iberia at all.

Maju:

Most of the Hungarians settled down before Lechfeld.