Camels

garyb · Post by **garyb** » Tue May 22, 2007 1:53 am

Had a situation tonight where poor quality camels sat just behind MF bow were used to drive down the factors of the knights fighting the bow. Seemed odd that a unit my opponent wanted nowhere near an actual fight would be tucked in just behind the front line and have a huge impact (nearly the entire frontage of the Kn were fighting disrupted the whole time). Far better to have them there than actually fighting.

markm · Post by **markm** » Tue May 22, 2007 8:05 am

I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that Arabs did this against Romans by putting all their baggage camels in a group and then defending around them?!

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Tue May 22, 2007 6:34 pm

Moors and to be honest something of a desperation tactic IMO and they were behind the tethered camels.

I'm not aware of camels beiung used as Gary described to disorder enemy mounted from behind other troops - so seems cheese to me. Perhaps they should only disrupt mounted who are in contact with them?

paulcummins · Post by **paulcummins** » Tue May 22, 2007 7:32 pm

or maybe nothing in between?

huwpy · Post by **huwpy** » Wed May 23, 2007 7:27 am

Just a thought, but if the camels were behind the MF Bow then surely they wouldn't disorder anything as the attackers wouldn't be within 40mm (1 base width) of the camels anyway?

rbodleyscott · Post by **rbodleyscott** » Wed May 23, 2007 7:32 am

huwpy wrote:Just a thought, but if the camels were behind the MF Bow then surely they wouldn't disorder anything as the attackers wouldn't be within 40mm (1 base width) of the camels anyway?

They would be, but only the front rank. (within = "at or closer than"). Thus they would lose at most 1 dice. Not a huge return on investment considering that Poor unprotected Arab camelry cost 10 (bow) or 12 (bow, sword) points each. If the enemy win anyway, the camelry will be burst through and then (almost certainly) massacred.

lawrenceg · Post by **lawrenceg** » Wed May 23, 2007 7:53 am

rbodleyscott wrote:
huwpy wrote:Just a thought, but if the camels were behind the MF Bow then surely they wouldn't disorder anything as the attackers wouldn't be within 40mm (1 base width) of the camels anyway?
They would be, but only the front rank. (within = "at or closer than"). Thus they would lose at most 1 dice. Not a huge return on investment considering that Poor unprotected Arab camelry cost 10 (bow) or 12 (bow, sword) points each. If the enemy win anyway, the camelry will be burst through and then (almost certainly) massacred.

In 5.04 the camels have to be within "less than 1 base width" away.

However, the trick would work with HF or a single rank of MF, although you would be better off fighting 2 ranks of MF against undisorganised cavalry and putting the camels into contact on the other half of the frontage.

Disorganising one rank removes 1 dice per three in impact, or for knights or chariots in melee, which is significant.

garyb · Post by **garyb** » Wed May 23, 2007 8:16 am

In the case the other night it was against knights so the impact was significant. It may be the desired outcome if there's evidence it was used like that but it struck me as clever rule manipulation (which I have no problem with in general but is one of the things I thought the testing was to look for).

If it does now say "less than" a base then they would have had no impact and would have been butchered when the knight had finished with the Bw.

I was quite surprised by how ineffective the Bw were against the heavily armoured knights, I dropped one cohesion level on the way in between two groups. The impact phase was a shock too, I thought it would be the big knight phase as they hit home but actually it was more like the last stand of the Bow as they got a stack of extra dice for rear ranks.

lawrenceg · Post by **lawrenceg** » Wed May 23, 2007 8:31 am

garyb wrote: I was quite surprised by how ineffective the Bw were against the heavily armoured knights, I dropped one cohesion level on the way in between two groups. The impact phase was a shock too, I thought it would be the big knight phase as they hit home but actually it was more like the last stand of the Bow as they got a stack of extra dice for rear ranks.

After reading a little medieval history other than Agincourt, Crecy and Poitiers, I soon came to the conclusion that knights were regarded as the antidote to bowmen, rather than the other way around. Hence the use of stakes, hedges etc.

The extra dice look scary, but they don't really compensate for the -- POA.

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Wed May 23, 2007 10:44 am

Indeed. The English in the 100YW were very careful to have at least a hill advantage and if possible something else such as pits, stakes or similar. It certainly looks as they didn't expect their archers to stand in the open against French knights - and this was demonstrated on occasion. The French "Somme Plan" for the Agincourt campaign relied heavily on a mounted charge being effective against archers as late as 1415 by which time they were well aquainted with the longbow.

whitehorses · Post by **whitehorses** » Wed May 23, 2007 11:08 am

lawrenceg wrote:
garyb wrote: I was quite surprised by how ineffective the Bw were against the heavily armoured knights, I dropped one cohesion level on the way in between two groups. The impact phase was a shock too, I thought it would be the big knight phase as they hit home but actually it was more like the last stand of the Bow as they got a stack of extra dice for rear ranks.

After reading a little medieval history other than Agincourt, Crecy and Poitiers, I soon came to the conclusion that knights were regarded as the antidote to bowmen, rather than the other way around. Hence the use of stakes, hedges etc.
The extra dice look scary, but they don't really compensate for the -- POA.

How effective are Longbowmen in stopping Knights in the games played to date? And is it advisable to have them parked in Rough or on a hill as an additional safeguard?

Were the English the only ones to use Pits (before the introduction of Stakes) against enemy Knights?
They seemed to have been effective in the 100YW battles that the English were on the Defensive for - ie. well prepared for a French attack - but not used if the English were attacking.

Cheers,
Jer

lawrenceg · Post by **lawrenceg** » Wed May 23, 2007 11:56 am

How effective are Longbowmen in stopping Knights in the games played to date? And is it advisable to have them parked in Rough or on a hill as an additional safeguard?

As discussed in another thread, the longbowmen really need favourable terrain to have a decent chance of standing up, and stakes (or pits) as well to be confident.

paulcummins · Post by **paulcummins** » Wed May 23, 2007 12:11 pm

my experience of using HYW English is that the fear of the bow far outweighs the impact. This is probably a DBM hangover. Ive spent most games chasing mounted troops with my longbowmen, rather than setting up to defend.

Ive stopped using the stakes as I seem to be chasing rather than defending. I have had one instance of kn charging in, but I was lucky and they bounced. 4 average armoured kn into 8 Longbow - the bow made all their tests, the kn bounced and then had to face longbowmen with stakes deployed if they wanted to try again (they didnt want to btw)