Slitherine

sadista wrote:Detracting back to the original post.
My initial thought regarding Syrian States is the fact its foot is not compulsory.
Its LH contingent is strong and it contains lancer cav.

Have you thought of dropping the spear making room for more LH?

Something along the lines of

4 x TC
2 x 4 Cv Arm Sup Drilled Bow Sw
3 x 4 Cv Arm Sup Undrilled Lancer Sw
5 x 4 LH Bow Sw
2 x 4 LH Lancer
2 x 6 LF Poor Bow
1 x 8 Mob

Strange I said the same thing 2nd or 3rd post in.

And the thread starter replied

I understand your point, but from a painting and enjoyability (?) point of view, I do prefer variety and don't mind sacrificing wins to achieve this

which started the OT discussion...

david53 wrote:

sadista wrote:Detracting back to the original post.
My initial thought regarding Syrian States is the fact its foot is not compulsory.
Its LH contingent is strong and it contains lancer cav.

Have you thought of dropping the spear making room for more LH?

Something along the lines of

4 x TC
2 x 4 Cv Arm Sup Drilled Bow Sw
3 x 4 Cv Arm Sup Undrilled Lancer Sw
5 x 4 LH Bow Sw
2 x 4 LH Lancer
2 x 6 LF Poor Bow
1 x 8 Mob

Strange I said the same thing 2nd or 3rd post in.

What intially attracted me to the army was the mix of spear, bw cav and lancer cav, which I thought would give me a fun force to paint and play with. That being said, if the general consensus is that poor foot are rubbish then I could change my list to abbasid arab, fatamid egyptian or ayyubid egpytian... I think

Here is my girlfriend's list. She had similar thoughts and wanted a colorful army with some variety:

Fatimid Egypt

1 x FC
3 x TC
2 x 4 Cv Arm Sup Drilled Lancer Sw
2 x 4 Cv Arm Sup Drilled Bow Sw
2 x 9 HF Prot Av Drilled LS Sw + LF Bow
1 x 9 HF Prot Av Drilled Def Sp + LF Bow
2 x 6 MF Prot Av Drilled Bow
1 x 4 LH Av Bow Sw
1 x 4 LH Av Lancer Sw
1 x 6 LF Av Bow

I'd stick with your original plan to use the poor foot. They're fun to paint, and they can be effective. I've used poor defensive spear before with some success.

Hey, this is a great revisit!

So, let me start with my experiences...
The poor quality militia has not held much of anything in my experiences. In the last game with those militia, I had knights charge in and break both BGs from the charge and following melee! One BG double dropped on impact and then broke in melee. The other BG dropped to Disrupted on impact, Fragmented from melee and then broke from seeing their buddy run. Many people have argued that this was improbable (sure enough). Also, the cost of the militia BG is 33 points. Meanwhile the knights were 92 points. So, you could argue that 66 points of militia SHOULD go down to 184 points of knights. Okay, I just find the militia a point sink and only useful if you want inexpensive filler. Even then, the cost of 33 points for militia is more than the useful 28 point light horses with javelins. Likewise, militia is only 7 points less than turcoman horse archers. Lastly, the militia can field themselves as poor mob. So, a single BG of mob is only 12 points! So, I think that the militia is more cost effective as mob and don't do much better in combat.

Also, I don't own any (yet), but I have seen how the drilled cavalry lancers in action from very good generals. I like them! Yes, I am a huge fan of knights, but those lancer cavalry can out-maneuver most enemies quite easily and STILL pack a big punch in melee and impact! Additionally, the lancer cavalry are cheaper than knights by 24 points!

So, my personal Syrian army has a crusader ally and then fills up the rest with Ghilman and turcomans. So, I can dance with my ghilman and light horse but still pack a serious punch with undrilled knights.

What you have described is exactly why IMO armies with a large block of poor HF are fun to play

It's up to you, as the general, to come up with a plan a bit more involved than either "stand there and let him charge my worst troops with his best troops while the rest of my army achieves nothing very much" or "advance all my forces into contact as quickly as possible vs. whatever is directly ahead of them"!

Like I said earlier, if you get the timing wrong you are in trouble. And really you want the poor foot to avoid breaking within one round of combat which is where larger BGs and rear support can help.