Answered Sword Dancer vs Mage

[DeletedUser9733]

I'm playing on mobile, am trying to win an encounter in a silk province, my squad size is 114, theirs is 102 for 4 mages and 1 Cerberus. I keep losing, no matter that I use my own Cerberus' or 5 Sword Fighters with *** vs mages - doesn't make any sense and is terribly frustrating/upsetting!
In a vain attempt to figure out my error, I was now defeated 6 times, but still no idea what I'm doing wrong. In my last three tries, 3 of their mages survived - why are they immortal?
What am I missing?

 

[FieryArien]

What we don't see on mobile is that the battlefield has obstacles. Some encounters have basically no obstacles and some have basically just a narrow passage for reaching the other side. In this particular case the most probable problem is that the terrain plays terribly against you. Your units are not able to reach the enemy all at once, they are queued in a narrow passage, advancing one by one and getting slaughtered by concentrated attack of the enemy units. You might be able to win this encounter, if you use Archers. However, the best move is to negotiate such an encounter.

By the way, if you have access to browser version of the game, you can choose "manual fight" and look at the battlefield yourself.

 

[DeletedUser9733]

Thanks a lot for your reply and explanation!

Would have been nice if there were somewhere a hint/warning of such a situation - like one wiki-page dedicated to explain what's different on mobile - and it takes away much joy or any sense of accomplishment or mastery, just another stupid lottery where you depend on luck

 

[AstralSoul]

On PC, a manual battle has its tactics, for who has the time. Auto battle too, as it matters where you place a unit, what unit next to it (support), etc... That plays a big role too, in addition to the terrain. You will know eventually with auto-battle when you are losing because of the terrain alone.

 

[Gargon667]

Light Melee units are the worst in the game. Even though dogs are somewhat better than Sword Dancers, they are still not great. If you have a fight with somewhat bad geography, you loose. That is rather normal.
Instead of using Light Melee, try using Archers, their range is smaller than Priests/Blossom Mages (but bigger than Sorceress/Banshee), so if you are lucky it is big enough to hit the mages even if there are obstacles blocking you in. But even if we are not talking about this particular fight. I nearly always use Archers to kill mages, not LM, they are simply a better overall unit.
Good luck.