Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Mark Stone]

Quoting "WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com" <WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com>:

> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2003 10:12:58 -0500
> From: "Greggory A. Regets" <gar@...>
> Subject: Kight Armies
>
> <<<From Ewan>>>
>
> On a different track, I think that knight-heavy has always been the only
> way to go with medieval armies. It's amazed me to see folk try to play
> with two or three knight units and a supporting cast. I suspect Sean
> thinks the same way, but the Imperialists are perhaps the extreme case:
> I run them with 10-11 SHK units, whole bunch of reg LI (mostly HG,
> useful against other K!), and little if anything else. Sometimes some
> HI w/ Pa to soak up missile fire if I'm playing at 1600; never at 1200.
>
> <<<Greg>>> This post was interesting to me, not that I disagree per-say, but
> that I have never really been able to get this tactic to work with any
> success, nor seen it used against a good player with any success, especially
> since the advent of the 1/2 broken/shaken to retire, rules change. Again, not
> to say it can't work, just to say I have not seen it, and we almost
> exclusively play knight armies in 15mm around here.
>
> My best success with knight armies, has been careful selection of the army to
> ensure a good supporting cast; this supporting cast mixed with four or five
> units of knights. The idea is to use the supporting cast to either dominate
> terrain to set up a good killing scenario for the knights, or to pin the
> enemy, force him to go online, so that the knights may pick a favorable point
> v. point, kill potential.
>
> Good discussion ... hopefully more people will weigh in.
>

Weighing in....

Well, as someone who has played exclusively lance-armed cav armies, mostly
knight armies, with reasonable success for the last several years, I figured I'd
throw in my 2 cents. Note that a lot of what I have to say here was learned by
getting my ass kicked by Dave Stier, Frank Gilson, or some combination thereof.
Dave isn't on this mailing list, but maybe Frank will chime in.

First, the strategy Greg outlines above is generally the right one. Knights need
a supporting cast, it needs to be a supporting cast of strong skirmishers, and
the job of the supporting cast is to pin the opponent disadvantageously and thus
create the right moment of opportunity for the knights.

Knights hit with a lot of punch against many things, but they have some definite
vulnerabilities:
1. Match up poorly head to head against bow-armed light cav.
2. Will demolish light infantry, but are then vulnerable to countercharges
through the routing light infantry.
3. Because of 1 and 2, knights are not an ideal way to clear out skirmishers.
4. Knights can beat P or LTS head on, but often fail to follow up effectively
because small cav units accumulate casualties much faster than large regular
foot bodies.
5. HK and EHK will not do particularly well against close order foot with some
kind of missile weapon, i.e. Romans.
6. Knights just don't want to deal with elephants at all.

Given these kinds of constraints, knights really need to be set up carefully. To
do that, you need excellent skirmsihers. This means that the classic knight
armies are actually not the best: Feudal French, Medieval French, 100 Years' War
English all have some significant limitations. Of these, 100 Year's War English
are the best, since the longbowmen can be used as skirmisher killers/skirmishers
after a fashion. Just ask Dave Markowitz.

What you're looking for in a supporting cast is:
1. Shielded light infantry;
2. Regular light cavalry with bow;
3. Irregular light cavalry with javalin (bow too is good);
4. Regular loose order missile fire, preferably bow, then longbow, and only as a
last resort crossbow. Oh, and these guys need to count shielded at contact too.

Finally, 4 or 5 knight units is not enough. You need 6 or 7 if SHK, and 7 or 8
if HK or EHK. The reason is you're going to need 4 or 5 when you finally get to
the right time and the right place on the battlefield: 1 to charge at the moment
of opportunity, 1 or 2 to follow up this charge, and the ability to do this in
two adjacent places simultaneously. But in addition, you need 1 or 2 additional
knight units that are "expendables". Something to take a free shot at charging
loose order foot in the open in hopes of a waver, or something to charge off
that one annoying LI unit that is all that supports an enemy flank.... that sort
of thing. Some of this could be done with HC sergeants, but the bottom line is
you're going to need a minimum of 42 lance-armed cav to get the job done.

There are only a handful of armies that provide all of this, though thankfully
there are more with Warrior and the new lists than there were under TOG. In TOG
it was basically Sicilian Hohenstafen (because back then you needed wedge) or
Teutonic Knights. Nothing else would really do.

Now days the Cadillac of knight armies is Medieval Spanish; with the current
interpretation of "Moogs" that will be all the more true once Feudal Warrior is
out. Other good lists to look at are the various Byzantine lists; I'm leaning
towards Later Paleologan myself.


-Mark Stone

[Rob Turnball]

Gentlemen
Is there any plan for a Warrior tournament at origens in Columbus?
All the best
Robert Turnbull