Chariots

[firefalluk]

A quick question - how do you use chariots? (no, I'm not being facetious, I haven't seen anyone using chariots yet, and quite curious how you get the most out of them) - both light and heavy chariots.

[hammy]

Bow armed light chariots are not unlike bow armed cavalry. Light spear armed chariots are something I have yet to try.

Heavy chariots are more of a shock weapon but many have bow as well. They are not as good as knights but in period a lot of the foot they will face is only medium foot and thus fairly squishy.

They are not exact copies of knights and bow armed cavalry and have their advantages and disadvantages. Egyptian light chariots are really rather nice even out of period, shooty cavalry that fights with 2 dice per base albeit often at a POA dissadvantage.

[gozerius]

One nice advantage of chariots is that when turning a single element wide column 90 degrees, they become a single file, and vice versa.

[madmike111]

Think of heavy chariots as knights, they can't run away if charged and fight with 2 dice per base. Real knights get slightly better POA on impact depending on what they are attacking. heavy chariots with bows are good value as you get a chance to disrupt the enemy before charging so I rate them nearly as good as knights.

Lt Chariots with bow are like slow lt horse. Against foot they should be ok and run away if charged, against mounted they have a good chance of being caught if they try and run.

[Cornerstone]

Bow armed light chariots are excellent at skirmishing. There almost the same as their cavalry equivalent.

Light spear chariots are excellent when fighting lights and medium troops.

Generally I use light chariots to

* Running off light horse,
* Mowing down medium and light infantry in the open,
* And delaying other troop types

Heavy chariots are very similar to knights

All chariots are only effective in open terrain. Don't even think of taking them cross country.

[Polkovnik]

Light chariots seem to me to be one of the best value troop types. Same points as armoured cavalry (IIRC) but fight with twice as many dice in melee combat. Would be good against heavily armoured opponents as there is no armour bonus against them. So would be a good match against catafracts (down a POA but should easily outnumber them).
Vulnerable to shooting though.

[stenic]

So would be a good match against catafracts (down a POA but should easily outnumber them).

You've got to survive the Impact first of course and LCh will be a POA down.

Steve P

[daleivan]

Has anyone had much experience running light spear armed heavy chariots? I'm thinking Kyrenean Greek or Early Carthaginian. I think bow is the way to go myself, if that is an option for a particular army's heavy chariots.

Dale

[lawrenceg]

Has anyone had much experience running light spear armed heavy chariots? I'm thinking Kyrenean Greek or Early Carthaginian. I think bow is the way to go myself, if that is an option for a particular army's heavy chariots.

Dale

I've used them in the Kyrenean Greek. They are not bad, a bit like an inferior version of knights. They are also the only mounted you can have, apart from 1 BG of 4 cavalry, so worth having just to get some mobility. They are a bit better than a lot of opposition including legionaries, and on a par or only marginally worse than some really good stuff like (heavy)armoured lancer/sword. Vulnerable to skirmishers though as they are easy to hit with shooting and can't shoot back nor (usually) catch them when they evade .

Bow chariots IMO are more useful overall (both heavy and light) than the LS versions, but they do cost more. Bow heavy chariots gives you that magic combination of POA for shooting, impact AND melee.