Knights and armours.

[Berserk27]

Hello,

I have just one question about the armour type of the knights.
Why the quality of their armour increases after 1150?


The armours didn't know greats transformations between Hasting and the first armour of plates. It was just a chainmail with helmet and shield.

Thank you and sorry for my bad English and my unknowledge in the feudals materials...

[batesmotel]

I assume the classification as heavily armoured after 1150 reflects the adoption of more complete chain mail armour and closed helms, along with the more common usage of horse caparisons and barding gradually introduced based on European experience in the 1st Crusade and later warfare in the Holy Land.

Chris

[Berserk27]

Yes but, I have the feeling of a better difference with the appear of the armor plate.
I think there is more differences between the armours of the battle of Azincourt and the armours of the battle of Hattin than the armours of Hattin and the armours of 1st crusade.
And in the game, the knights of Hattin and the knights of Azincourt wear the same armours.

[babyshark]

I think the answer is that the authors had to pick some point to make the transition from armored to heavily armored. The choice was always going to be somewhat arbitrary, whatever date was picked. And so 1150AD was chosen. Not, perhaps, entirely out of the air, but close to it.

Marc

[nikgaukroger]

I think the answer is that the authors had to pick some point to make the transition from armored to heavily armored. The choice was always going to be somewhat arbitrary, whatever date was picked. And so 1150AD was chosen. Not, perhaps, entirely out of the air, but close to it.

Marc

More or less - we did dither around other equally reasonable dates but in the end went for the one that, for better or worse, a lot of players are familiar with.

C. 1150 isn't too bad as around then mail chauses and fully enclosed helms have become pretty common along with some sort of horse covering.

For Berserk27 - it doesn't really matter what the actual details of the armour were between, say, Hattin and Agincourt it is getting the right effect of the classifications; spending time trying to compare different periods and over analysing is futile.

[Berserk27]

Yes, I understand your point of view, in the game a knight with heavy amours against other troop is dominating and it's the idea of the game.

But for the example of Hattin, the armours of the shock troops ayyoubide during this battle was the same quality of their opponents knights?

[grahambriggs]

Yes, I understand your point of view, in the game a knight with heavy amours against other troop is dominating and it's the idea of the game.

But for the example of Hattin, the armours of the shock troops ayyoubide during this battle was the same quality of their opponents knights?

But surely at Hattin the Ayyubids wore down the crusaders through thirst, smoke and surrounded them while they marched for a day in the sun. The crusader rearguard of military orders made numerous charges that the Ayyubids fell back from and a body of crusader knights cut their way out of the trap.

While the armour may have been equivalent, the behaviour was not.

[nikgaukroger]

Yes, I understand your point of view, in the game a knight with heavy amours against other troop is dominating and it's the idea of the game.

But for the example of Hattin, the armours of the shock troops ayyoubide during this battle was the same quality of their opponents knights?

But surely at Hattin the Ayyubids wore down the crusaders through thirst, smoke and surrounded them while they marched for a day in the sun. The crusader rearguard of military orders made numerous charges that the Ayyubids fell back from and a body of crusader knights cut their way out of the trap.

While the armour may have been equivalent, the behaviour was not.

IMO, and YMMV, the average levels of armour amongst the Christian milites was higher than that of even the best of the Ayyubid mamluks. Whilst you possibly could argue for a small number of Ayyubids to be Heavily Armoured as Graham points out the correct behaviours of the two sides is best brought out by not doing so - and where such classification calls exist we try to go with the one that gets the correct historical behaviour.

[batesmotel]

Yes, I understand your point of view, in the game a knight with heavy amours against other troop is dominating and it's the idea of the game.

But for the example of Hattin, the armours of the shock troops ayyoubide during this battle was the same quality of their opponents knights?

But surely at Hattin the Ayyubids wore down the crusaders through thirst, smoke and surrounded them while they marched for a day in the sun. The crusader rearguard of military orders made numerous charges that the Ayyubids fell back from and a body of crusader knights cut their way out of the trap.

While the armour may have been equivalent, the behaviour was not.

IMO, and YMMV, the average levels of armour amongst the Christian milites was higher than that of even the best of the Ayyubid mamluks. Whilst you possibly could argue for a small number of Ayyubids to be Heavily Armoured as Graham points out the correct behaviours of the two sides is best brought out by not doing so - and where such classification calls exist we try to go with the one that gets the correct historical behaviour.

As a side question, does the category of heavily armoured cavalry even exist in the rules? Some how I don't think what the Ayyubids would want is heavily armoured cataphracts against the Christian milites

Chris

[ethan]

More or less - we did dither around other equally reasonable dates but in the end went for the one that, for better or worse, a lot of players are familiar with.

C. 1150 isn't too bad as around then mail chauses and fully enclosed helms have become pretty common along with some sort of horse covering.

One thing to bear in mind is that Heavily Armored knights are significantly more dangerous than armoured knights to just about everything. In a troop vs troop sense what matters is when this happens not how much more effective they become. FoG deal in jumps in effectiveness, not incremental changes.

So in the 1050-1150 period Knights are pretty dangerous to armoured cavalry but with a bit of luck the cavalry can win. So you might try to stand in front of knights with your Ghilman in two ranks, shoot them up on the way in. The Ghilman getting 2 rounds of 6 superior dice of shooting at a BG of 4 Knights scoring a bit more than 3 hits each time. After 1150 the cavalry is almost certainly doomed in any frontal engagement.

So from a match-up perspective the date should reflect a point at which no other cavalry (barring elephants) in the world has any realist chance of stopping a knightly charge, rather than on the details of armor development.

[Berserk27]

YEs, I think the knight Statut is already a great advantage versus the cavalry and show the behaviour of knight! the Heavy armoured is maybe too much for the période 1150-1300?

[Ghaznavid]

Being classed as knight is a mixed blessing actually. While your frontal power increases you become pretty unwieldy, especially if undrilled (and only few knights are drilled and those pay heavily for the priviledge). So yes if your (cavalry) opponents obligues and stands in front of you being a knight is a huge advantage, but if they make the best out of their higher mobility even undrilled Cv can outmanvouver knights.
All in all I don't think Heavily armoured knights are to powerfull before 1300 and I usually feel confident about taking on a knight heavy army with some type of LH + Ghilman army. (Unless it turns out the battle takes part in an about 80 cm wide space between a cost and several woods. )

[Polkovnik]

YEs, I think the knight Statut is already a great advantage versus the cavalry

Why ? They get a + at impact and are even in melee (Armoured knights vs armoured cavalry, both swordsmen). I'd hardly call that a great advantage.

[philqw78]

Why ? They get a + at impact and are even in melee (Armoured knights vs armoured cavalry, both swordsmen). I'd hardly call that a great advantage.

Because Knights get2 dice per base in melee. The cavalry get one.

[rbodleyscott]

But for the example of Hattin, the armours of the shock troops ayyoubide during this battle was the same quality of their opponents knights?

This is precisely the reason why armour ratings are chosen to get the right overall effect in historical refights, not entirely based on rigidly adhered to bottom-up classifications.

However similar their equipment, Crusader knights in practice had an overwhelming close combat advantage over even the best Ayyubid cavalry.

This is what needs to be reflected in the rules, and this is what is reflected in the rules. It's a top-down approach. The exact details of how it is achieved are unimportant - but strict adherence to a bottom-up approach can often interfere with getting the right historical effects.

Unlike some rule systems, the FOG army lists are an integral part of the rules system, and we use them to fine tune interactions to get historical effects between contemporary opponents.

We don't worry about what would happen if 1200 AD knights met 1500 AD knights because that is a fantasy matchup, so who cares?

Some 15th century separately deployed valets de guerre would be as well armoured as later Crusader knights, but they are graded as Armoured Cavalry. Not logical, you may say, but it more accurately reflects their behaviour and interactions with contemporary troops, and we are interested in historical results, not rigid adherence to a fixed set of bottom-up criteria.

[Berserk27]

Thanks for yours answers, I undertand the concept of the game.

[Scrumpy]

The truth at last.... in 1150 a Benedictine priory is founded at Birkenhead, England, resulting in the first recorded ferry across the Mersey.

Nik is a massive Gerry & the Pacemakers fan, so the date seemed appropriate.