Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[joncleaves]

In a message dated 2/3/2006 13:47:30 Central Standard Time,
greg.regets@... writes:

This is all I'm talking about doing ... on a case by case basis,
taking a look at the history, and seeing what does and doesn't
fit ... and presenting that information to FHE. There can never be
too much historical information, in my opinion.>>
Good stuff. But please remember - with the vast amount of technical
assistance and brain power available today, a guy watching a combat in Iraq
doesn't
get what he sees right even half the time. The chances that any so-called
authoritative source from 500, 100, 3000 years ago is right just because he was
an eyewitness are even worse. I'm very interested in this line of thinking
- and others like it - but everything is taken with a grain of salt.

J




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Mark Stone]

Seems to me it is worth having a separate discussion on Greg Regets' "knights"
thread about mixing knights with lesser cav.

In the context of "My Opinion Only", here's what I have always thought the
rationale was for the current approach, an approach that I believe goes back as
far as WRG 5th edition at least:

Conventional wisdom is that knights come with a mounted retinue (squires, pages,
etc.). This retinue has an effect on the combat capabilities of knight units,
and the question is how to represent this effect.

One effect is to create ready-made horse-handlers for when knights dismount. I
have always assumed this was why knights got to dismount 1-1, because they were
assumed not to be losing figures to take the role of horse handlers.

Another effect concerns the back rank of knight units. Again, I have assumed
that there were basically two unresolved schools of thought, and that players
were free to choose which school of thought they were representing:
(1) Knights, pages, and squires function overall as a unit to create what we
call EHK and SHK, and thus both front rank and back rank of units should be the
same;
(2) Knights occupied the front of the unit, and their lesser-armed mounted
retinue occupied the back of the unit, and thus the back should be something
like HK, HC, or MC, depending on time period and nationality.

I think there are at least a couple of issues worthy of discussion here. First,
how many actual knight units reflected this "conventional wisdom" view? Does
the conventional wisdom reflect reality, or is it only reality seen through the
lens of some idealized view of knighthood (think Malory)?

I'm not expert enough in primary source period material to speak to this issue,
but it does strike me as an issue.

Second, even if we accept the conventional wisdom view, it would still seem we
ought to list knight units exemplifying that view as:
"reduction to downgrade 1/2 of each unit to [HK/HC/MC]... all/none"

I don't think this is how the army list books are at present: too many instances
of "any" that should perhaps be "all/none".

And I don't mean to criticize the fine work done in Feudal Warrior and Holy
Warrior by these comments. This is more in the spirit of looking at some
constructive alternatives for consideration at some point in the future.


-Mark Stone

[Greg Regets]

I seem to be doing a very bad job of articulating this ... but on the
positive side, it is leading to good discussion.

My thought has nothing to do with eliminating lesser armed squires
and pages from the back ranks of more heavily armed knight units. In
instances where that sort of system is historically supportable,
those would be left as is. In my own opinion, most knight units
should probably be of mixed armored types: SHK/EHK, EHK/HK, etc ...
to simulate the guys with the better armor up front, with lesser
armored behind.

I'm talking about taking a serious look at examples that do not fit
into that scenario. To use an existing example, I helped out on the
Knights of St. John list in Holy Warrior. In the old TOG 6th Edition
and NASAMW list, there was a troop type listed as Brother Sergeants,
Reg B HC, L, Sh, and that troop type could be mixed with knights.
There are some pretty accurate payroll records available for the
order, as a matter of fact you can find translations online. There is
no mention of this troop type at all, you can't even find anything
that would fit the model. In 1346AD, Grand Master Dieudonne de Gozon
is said to have forbade knights of the order from keeping either
squires or pages, or even servants of any kind. This in response to a
scandal that we won't talk about on this website, ha-ha! The last
little clip of information is the wealth of the order, and the access
they had to large amounts of the very latest in armor technology,
along with the money to pay for it. This information was presented to
FHE when making the list, and we get what we see today ... there are
no Brother Sergeants, because there is no proof that they exist, and
there is relative uniformity of armor, because there were really no
lesser armed squires and pages to fill out back ranks.

This is all I'm talking about doing ... on a case by case basis,
taking a look at the history, and seeing what does and doesn't
fit ... and presenting that information to FHE. There can never be
too much historical information, in my opinion.

Thanks for furthering the discussion Mark. As usual, anything you
contribute is well worth the read.

g




--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, Mark Stone <mark@...> wrote:
>
> Seems to me it is worth having a separate discussion on Greg
Regets' "knights"
> thread about mixing knights with lesser cav.
>
> In the context of "My Opinion Only", here's what I have always
thought the
> rationale was for the current approach, an approach that I believe
goes back as
> far as WRG 5th edition at least:
>
> Conventional wisdom is that knights come with a mounted retinue
(squires, pages,
> etc.). This retinue has an effect on the combat capabilities of
knight units,
> and the question is how to represent this effect.
>
> One effect is to create ready-made horse-handlers for when knights
dismount. I
> have always assumed this was why knights got to dismount 1-1,
because they were
> assumed not to be losing figures to take the role of horse handlers.
>
> Another effect concerns the back rank of knight units. Again, I
have assumed
> that there were basically two unresolved schools of thought, and
that players
> were free to choose which school of thought they were representing:
> (1) Knights, pages, and squires function overall as a unit to
create what we
> call EHK and SHK, and thus both front rank and back rank of units
should be the
> same;
> (2) Knights occupied the front of the unit, and their lesser-armed
mounted
> retinue occupied the back of the unit, and thus the back should be
something
> like HK, HC, or MC, depending on time period and nationality.
>
> I think there are at least a couple of issues worthy of discussion
here. First,
> how many actual knight units reflected this "conventional wisdom"
view? Does
> the conventional wisdom reflect reality, or is it only reality seen
through the
> lens of some idealized view of knighthood (think Malory)?
>
> I'm not expert enough in primary source period material to speak to
this issue,
> but it does strike me as an issue.
>
> Second, even if we accept the conventional wisdom view, it would
still seem we
> ought to list knight units exemplifying that view as:
> "reduction to downgrade 1/2 of each unit to [HK/HC/MC]... all/none"
>
> I don't think this is how the army list books are at present: too
many instances
> of "any" that should perhaps be "all/none".
>
> And I don't mean to criticize the fine work done in Feudal Warrior
and Holy
> Warrior by these comments. This is more in the spirit of looking at
some
> constructive alternatives for consideration at some point in the
future.
>
>
> -Mark Stone
>

[Mark Stone]

--- On Feb 3 Doug said: ---

>
> But are the "retinue" actually good enough at warfare to be class C troops?
>
> Seems to me that most of the knight's servants don't even possess
> horses.
>

Well, that's why I was careful to restrict my initial comments to mounted
retinue.

So, to state the "conventional wisdom" position a bit more carefully, there are
probably two principles:

(1) Non-mounted retinue have no fighting effect on Warrior, are not represented
by figures, but are available as horse handlers permitting knights to dismount
1-1. This part of the retinue falls loosely under the heading of "pages".

(2) Mounted retinue are either implicit in EHK/SHK units, or should be lesser
armored back rank figures. This part of the retinue falls loosely under the
heading of "squires".

I have no problem with squires being "C" class, or even "B" class if in a unit
together with front rank knights. The Irr B classification in Warrior can mean
a lot of different things, and it doesn't necessarily imply that Irr B are
better trained than Irr C or Irr D. It can mean that, but it might also mean
that they are simply more willing. Trying to make finer distinctions that this
might make Warrior more realistic, but it would also make an already complex
game vastly more complex. In my opinion Warrior offers enough choices to get a
reasonable representation across a very wide range of periods and nationalities
-- an easy thing to do.

What I'm less sure of is whether or not the "conventional wisdom" view was
actually very prevalent. Both Germans and Spanish had somewhat different Feudal
structures. Italians probably followed this structure to some extent early on,
but certainly not by the time we get to the Condotta period. Hungarians had a
different structure. And Greg's comments about Knights of Saint John are
exactly right.

So the two nationalities to which this might best apply would be French and
English. Feudal French and Feudal English seem well handled already, as these
begin with HC but permit upgrades to EHK. Anything one would want to represent
by way of mounted retinue can be represented.

100 Year's War English seems well represented also, given the large number of HK
figures one can have. And this makes sense given that the proportion of knights
among fighting men was probably lower in English armies than in French.

Later periods -- War of the Roses English and French Ordannance -- already
represent a pre-Rennaissance organization.

So I think the only army I'm not entirely happy with is Medieval French. Some
retinue doubtless fought independently -- that's the Irr C HC you can get. But
it seems like there ought to be a line like:
"reduction to downgrade 1/2 of each men-at-arms unit to HC.... all/0"

That's a small nitpick, and even that concern might be off base. It may well be
that the conventional view of knight-squires-pages was an idealization seldom
present on the actual field of battle, a quaint hold-over from an earlier and
now obsolete view of Medieval history.


-Mark Stone