Javelin armed cavalry skirmishing

[ShrubMiK]

Has the possibility of javelin armed cavalry being allowed to...you know ...actually go through the motions of chucking the damn things at the enemy ever been considered

Yes I know that not getting to roll dice should probably be taken to indicate that the fire is inevitably ineffective, rather than that it doesn't happen...but it still seems odd to me. Is there a rationale?

Probably should only be allowed when actually in single rank.

Not all light spear cavalry would be candidates for javelin capability - but some like Romans of certain eras who apparently emphasised missile capability and practiced special formations to that end could qualify.

Whether it should be an extra point paid for the capability, or a freebee added to compensate for what most people (I think) see as a slight cost ineffectiveness of light spear cav compared to lancers...TBD.

[philqw78]

If in one rank they would find it hard to do any damage as javelins only get 1 dice per 2 bases. Almost as useless as Bw*

[Strategos69]

It would be good to let them their skirmishing role but only if they are underpowered a little when attacking steady foot. In the beta group there was an interesting proposal by pezhetairoi regarding all cavalry types to get them right for all the roles they were used.

[ShrubMiK]

Phil, obviously I'm assuming that in this case they would get one dice per base, analogous to proper bow-armed cavalry!

I can't remember exactly what the rules say on the subject, and I don't have "Brood and Scold" army lists so don't know what special rules may have been introduced on a per-army basis to handle MF with pretend-javelin capability...but isn't the javs get 1 dice per 2 bases thing purely a result of it being generally LF or LH that have javelins capability?

Strategos, agreed. I do think that non-shock cav are a bit too effective in the present rules against steady foot, since most cav are superior and armoured if they can just survive impact without ill effect they are on to a good thing in ongoing melee. The proposed changes to make impact phase more decisive might address that though.

[Delbruck]

In the beta group there was an interesting proposal by pezhetairoi regarding all cavalry types to get them right for all the roles they were used.

Are you allowed to share the basics of the proposal?