Army for a Open Comp

[grahambriggs]

Disregarding points, if you go into contact with Cataphracts, you go in two deep, so in melee you get two dice. With knights you go in one deep so you get two dice (naturally, you'll need twice as many Cataphracts to deal with the same frontage of Knights, so you're going to be 'out pointed'). On impact you're going to be disadvantaged, but it's not a totally lost cause. Additionally, you lose your combat dice at half the rate he loses his.Ian

Think about it from an AP perspective and it is pretty awful.

For 2 melee dice of superior catpharacts you pay 36-40 AP
For 2 melee dice of heavily armored knights you pay 23-26 AP

So what is the knight army getting for their extra 13-17AP a file?

For the price of 8 drilled superior cataphracts (320AP) you could get 12 Knights plus 8AP. So the knights could face off those 2 BGs with 3 of their own, each of their BGs with an element in reserve and still have an overlap!

So for me at least, the "you lose dice more slowly" things is pretty illusory.

For experienced Kn commanders the answer will probably be "a spare Kn base in the rear rank in case we take casualties"

In an open competition though you can't just focus entirely on "what happens if I come up against x", though a plan B for X is a good idea.

So the issue might be whether cataphract armies are sufficiently better than Kn armies against all comers to make up for their weakness head on against Kn.

[david53]

Knights are overrated . The reason they get 2 dice is that they are trained from the strat to be warriors . Well what about the mongols, what about veterans of so many campaigns and so on . But it is the way it is in the rules .

I cannot understand why they get those 2 dice . They usually are superior , armored if not heavily armored and a better POA at the charge against almost anyone, even other lancers . But it seems it is not enough

Everyone gets two dice at impact. Knights get 2 dice after but only one rank, so enemy can get equal numbers of dice if they are two deep.

Not if the enemy knights fight in one rank they will have extra 2 dice for overlap, if fighting one BG .

[ethan]

So the issue might be whether cataphract armies are sufficiently better than Kn armies against all comers to make up for their weakness head on against Kn.

I would be careful about just terming it a "weakness versus Knight head on" thing.

That is an easy to write example, but Knights and Cataphracts both do the same basic job, they are heavily armored lancers. They have vers similiar (nearly identical, slight advantage to the knights) PoAs. Knights get the job done more cost efficiently. IMO that is true even if you want to count the "cataphracts lose bases more slowly" as an advantage - as you can just buy extra Knights with the points saved. That was really the point of the example.

So for cataphract armies to work they have to be "sufficiently better" to overcome the overall AP disparity in buying troops to do the same job. I believe this is very difficult to do, at least partly because I don't think there is any Cataphract army with anything that unique and special at least in comparison to what is available as a Knight army. Many later Medieval armies have very good support troops...

Cataphracts and LH? Lithuanians and Hungarians can do that, probably Teutonics as well. I believe Hungarians could choose to almost exactly mirror say a Parthian with Knights instead of Cataphracts.
Catapharcts and good heavy infantry? Medieval Spanish, Medieval Germans, Free Companies

This is the touble I see with Cataphract armies in opens. I just don't see what they buy you that you can't get in a Knight army and 13-17AP a file is worth an awful lot....

[DaiSho]

Knights vs Cataphracts at impact is not an evens fight. The "Other lance" POA does not count against the "Knight lance" POA so the knights will be one POA up at impact and evens in melee. Not good.

Julian

Julian, I even said it's an uphill fight - which interstingly is the same POA literally as it is figuratively.

Read my post again and specifically read 'AFTER IMPACT'.

There are more turns of "Melee" than there are of "Impact". The knights get 1 POA on Impact - that's it. The rest of the time it's evens. If you can roll off the damage of impact then all is fine. It's an uphill battle, but it's not a lost cause.

Ian

[bahdahbum]

I poersonnaly think the 1 POA of the knights is enough . if it wins, you mostly will have to test with à -2 ou -3 ( -1 for lancers, - 1 for 1 hpbases and even perhaps a difference of 2 hits ..). Can be deadly to be disrupted vs KN !