cav with lance

marty · Post by **marty** » Tue Aug 26, 2008 10:27 pm

I have been thinking/number crunching about cav with lance recently (Im painting up some goth figures). I have also used cav with lance in a number of games of late. I couldn't help but concluding that in general cav are better off without a lance.

The reward of lance ownership is an impact POA that applies in some circumstances. In return you have a tendency to charge out of control ( a problem) and cant evade (a huge problem). I believe these disadvantages outweigh the advantage. As an issue of game balance consider the other troops who can have lance (ie LH, cat and kn). They gain the benefit of lance ownership but are much less troubled by the need to charge against their will, and dont lose the ability to evade. Cav with lance essentially have to fight anything that comes near them and there is very little that they beat.

Have other players reached a similiar conclusion or am I missing something?

What could be done to remedy this?

Perhaps lance should be free for cav (at least then you wouldn't be buying a disadvantage)

Or could lance armed cav in a line not be treated as shock troops?

Martin

geoff · Post by **geoff** » Tue Aug 26, 2008 11:59 pm

Marty,

Lance armed troops only have one job on the field.....to hit things. If you don't want them to charge keep them away from the action. Lance get the bonus of being advantaged at initial impact over Light spear and other cav. Winning the first fight can be critical and is a good thing. I was under the impression that Knights and cataphracts are shock troops and also must charge.
I'm sure when next we play you will prove me correct as your Goths plow through whatever I am silly enough to put in your way

Cheers...............Geoff

Hepius · Post by **Hepius** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:18 am

I'm working up a Bosporan list and am also concerned about lance armed cav. For tournament use I don't see them as a great value. I'd love to be told that I'm wrong, because I like the army.

Hep

Dakadave · Post by **Dakadave** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 3:11 am

I dont quite understand-"Much less troubled by lance ownership"-Cats and Knights most definitely have to charge when they dont want to,cannot evade and are slower than the Lance armed Cav.Remember you also get the Lost To Lancer -1 on Morale rolls if the cav wins Impact.Lance armed cav are great against the right opponents.

PyrrhicVictory · Post by **PyrrhicVictory** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 3:19 am

Dakadave wrote:I dont quite understand-"Much less troubled by lance ownership"-Cats and Knights most definitely have to charge when they dont want to,cannot evade and are slower than the Lance armed Cav.Remember you also get the Lost To Lancer -1 on Morale rolls if the cav wins Impact.Lance armed cav are great against the right opponents.

Agreed. Lance armed cav are just like about every other unit in FoG, great against some unit types, weak versus some unit types.

marty · Post by **marty** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 3:52 am

They are less troubled in the sense that there are a wider range of things they would want to charge (especially the knights). The bigger issue is that they are not losing the extremely helpful ability to evade like the cav are.

Martin

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:34 am

Lancers have advantages and dissadvantages

Advantages are:
POA at impact against a reasonable number of opponents
-1 to enemy cohesion test at impact if beaten by lancers
No CMT to charge if disrupted

Dissadvantages are:
Shock troops so may charge when you don't want them to
Can't evade

Of the advantages the second and third are IMO the most significant, the third is especially useful if facing enemy shooty skirmishers where even if you are disrupted you can charge and clear away the shooters giving you a chance to bolster your troops.

Intothevalley · Post by **Intothevalley** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:06 am

Funny, a few weeks ago I started a thread asking what possible use there was for light spear over lance - thinking that light spear was rubbish. I was quickly disabused of this notion! Guess that indicates that there's some balance between the two weapons.

Primarch · Post by **Primarch** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:58 pm

I have played both Bosporan, and now Seljuk Turk, with Cav Lancers aplenty. Having said that, there is one HUGE advantage to the Cav over the Knights/Cats, and that is mobility. You cant turn 90 and move with undrilled Knights or Cats, but you can with Cav. Cav moves 5, so can double move for 10 for quick redeployment, Knights and Cats only move 4.

What Ive found is that if you use your Cav as a mobile reactionary force it works pretty well. My Lancer cav rarely ever loses a fight, even against Knights and Cats. The reason is because I can maneuver around them to get to flanks and rear. They also work extremely well against any medium foot.

Anyway, those are my .02

Clay

marty · Post by **marty** » Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:21 pm

I'm reassured some people are finding them useful. Hopefully the Goths (probably visigoths with ostrogoth allies) will manage to find enough targets to crush beneath the hoof

Martin

pezhetairoi · Post by **pezhetairoi** » Fri Aug 29, 2008 6:31 pm

yup.

Maneuverability and speed are the two advantages of Lancer CAV over Lancer "others".

Faster than Knights, and Cataphracts. 5MUs versus 4MUs.
Undrilled Lancer CAV maneuvers better than Undrilled Knights, and Cataphracts who are all clased as "other" on the chart -- thus difficult advances, few options...
Hit just as hard as Knights and Cataphracts at impact, unless versus knights.
Not as good in Melee. Lesser armour -- and fewer dice than knights.

And they are cheaper.

marty · Post by **marty** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 5:36 am

it still has to be said though that all these are advantages that come from been cav, not from been cav with a lance. Having lance costs you a big advantage (evading). KN, Cat and LH are not losing this ability when they purchase a lance for the same points it costs cav.

Still I'll wait and see how I go in a few games with lots of lance armed cav before whingeing further.

Martin

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 8:08 am

marty wrote:it still has to be said though that all these are advantages that come from been cav, not from been cav with a lance. Having lance costs you a big advantage (evading). KN, Cat and LH are not losing this ability when they purchase a lance for the same points it costs cav.

Still I'll wait and see how I go in a few games with lots of lance armed cav before whingeing further.

Martin

Having lance instead of light spear does indeed cost you the advantage of evading and makes your cavalry liable to charge when you might not want them to but in compensation you get:

Can always charge when disrupted (very handy against pseky shooty types)
POA at impact against a lot of troops that you don't get with light spear
-1 on enemy CT if you beat them at impact

It really depends if you think these three advantages are enough to counter the loss of the others? Personally I can see uses for both lance and light spear cavalry, the problem is that not many armies have both

carlos · Post by **carlos** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 11:32 am

marty wrote:Having lance costs you a big advantage (evading). KN, Cat and LH are not losing this ability when they purchase a lance for the same points it costs cav.

Kn and Cats can't evade to start with, and lancer-armed LH are only really effective against other LH (LF are crushed by LH regardless of lance). If you think of cav lancers as a sort of light, more manoeuvrable knight, then you are not far off their tactical use. Heck, think of them as Kn(F) in DBM 3.1.

Scrumpy · Post by **Scrumpy** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 11:42 am

How viable are LH La ? THey would be very lucky to catch B armed LH

carlos · Post by **carlos** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 1:03 pm

Scrumpy wrote:How viable are LH La ? THey would be very lucky to catch B armed LH

They are good especially against LH w/ bow. You take some shots coming in of course and you move up to less than an inch away. Next turn they have very limited options. Either way you've taken them out of the game if not killed them outright. A BG of 6 lancer LH can get rid of 2*4 Bow armed LH with no problems (provided there's some cohesion support).

Scrumpy · Post by **Scrumpy** » Sat Aug 30, 2008 10:27 pm

Having a load of Arabic Cavalry lying around unpainted, I am waiting the Kurdish list coming out, massed La armed Cv looks a challenge.

marty · Post by **marty** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 5:21 am

I dont think of anything in DBM terms if I can help it (long time Australian warrior player). They are very "light" knights indeed. By my reckoning if you fight a four element unit of knights in line (same grade (eg sup vs sup) but one class of armour better than you) with 8 elements of cav 2 deep you are going to lose most of the time. ie frontally (and I understand you are supposed to be using your numbers and mobility to avoid these sorts of situations) you can outnumber them 2 to 1 and still expect to get creamed.

martin