Slitherine

Steady/unsteady... what happens if both aren't steady?

Are we forgetting the armoured cavalry with sword here. From what I have read about battles between the Turks and the Austrian, unless the Austrians had armour for heads and arms, they suffered to the superior sword skills of the Turks. Current the pistols would have advantage every round.

Don

That is because my reading is that formation cohesion was the most important thing against the Turks. If the western cavalry stayed cohesive in formation they held the advantage, however, if things broke up the better individual skills of the Turkish horsemen gave them the advantage - hence swordsmen getting a PoA if their enemy are not steady and the Pistols losing theirs. As the Turks themselves are abandoning armour by the end of the C17th the Austrians keeping theirs gives a mitigation if things break up.

ravenflight wrote:Steady/unsteady... what happens if both aren't steady?

Well what I am suggesting is "Close combat opponents are Unsteady" so your own steadiness would not be a factor - so if both are unsteady the one with better armour gets the PoA.

I've done some analysis on the two suggestions. To be clear, we're talking about Mounted troops here, I don't believe there's a perceived issue with armour for foot troops. So, for Proposal 1, which is:

POA for better armour only applies if the BG with better armour:

Has 2 levels of better armour
or
Is Unsteady.

The table below shows POAs for interactions between mounted troops in current and proposed scenarios. In each case the POA shown is that for the troop type in the left column. In the proposal views the situations where that POA is better than current is shown in green and red where it is worse:



+/- = POA, E = no POA

Now for Proposal 2, which is:

POA for better armour only applies against Determined Horse or Cavaliers if their opponents have 2 grades better armour.

The basis is the same as for the other table. Any interactions not shown are unchanged.

I have only two issues with the rules as written, the first is captured artillery, which I've commented on in the relevant thread. The second is the cost v effectiveness of DH. My view is that the use or lack of armour is handled well at the moment, and really doesn't need looking at as a way of sorting out the DH issue, especially if it means adding in another conditional situation as to whether a POA is applicable.

I must admit I agree with Three. I don't want to have to calculate does armour come into play or not. Keep it simple, the Pistol option, ie. if you have pistols you negate armour is simple and easy, and means the armoured/unarmoured DH combats become evens. After all why did they discard the armour once everyone was using pistols, because it wasn't helping would I suspect be the main reason.

If you want to give the Heavily armoured some plus's then say pistols negate one level difference in armour.

Nik

I think that this is a change too far. Armour for mounted troops seems to come back into fashion towards the end of the period so the states must have felt it was worth paying for. One option might be to ban 3rd moves for HA/FA mounted. Most foot shoot and shot troops don't care about opponents being armoured, in general anyways.

benjones1211 wrote:After all why did they discard the armour once everyone was using pistols, because it wasn't helping would I suspect be the main reason.

Unfortunately for that theory it was about 100 years after pistols become command that armour started to fully disappear from mounted troops.

So as a rationale I'm afraid I don't think it works.

However, if it gets the right effect it is worth considering regardless

If only there were 0.5 PoAs ....

Nik

Currassiers etc are still armoured in the 1800s. Horse are using pistols in most armies by the 1600s.

French Cuirassiers were wearing full kit until 1914 at least.

timmy1 wrote:Nik

Currassiers etc are still armoured in the 1800s. Horse are using pistols in most armies by the 1600s.

Yup - it came back into use after our period ends. I have seen it attributed to a psychological benefit more than an actual protective one

Three wrote:French Cuirassiers were wearing full kit until 1914 at least.

For a given value of full

However, from about 1670 to the end of our period French cavalry had pretty much abandoned armour.

In that case increase the benefit of armour - anything to make the French worse is ok in my book...

Mustn't forget the incident with Sir Arthur Haslerig at Roundway Down. Complete in all his cuirassier armour he resisted every shot and numerous sword cuts aimed at him; three point blank pistol shots "but a flea biting to him" according to Richard Atkyns, one of his opponents.

So pistol negates armour?

In the ECW cuirassier kit was rare because of the cost, not only of the armour but the horse to carry such rather than a lack of effectiveness.

Vespasian28 wrote:Mustn't forget the incident with Sir Arthur Haslerig at Roundway Down. Complete in all his cuirassier armour he resisted every shot and numerous sword cuts aimed at him; three point blank pistol shots "but a flea biting to him" according to Richard Atkyns, one of his opponents.

So pistol negates armour?

Exactly.

I honestly have the same issue with the heavy weapon classification... "more effective" against armor did not mean "completely ignores" armor.

Also, rules like this always make for game-balance conundrums... you pay for an ability that is either overpowered or completely useless... in other words it's balanced by being unbalanced.

What's needed is some sort of mechanism that is worth less than a POA, but generally useful enough to make it desirable for the cost. Maybe an adjustment to quality rerolls (average to superior is generally worth about half a POA in the math)... or maybe a modification to the death roll?

Jhykronos wrote: What's needed is some sort of mechanism that is worth less than a POA, but generally useful enough to make it desirable for the cost. Maybe an adjustment to quality rerolls (average to superior is generally worth about half a POA in the math)... or maybe a modification to the death roll?

A half PoA would be so useful and probably not just for this issue - Pike and Shot shows that nicely, however, we don't have that available

As you point out the re-roll is the closest we have. You could have better amour bump the reroll up - Superior with better armour re-roll 1s and 2s and so on.

Not sure that modifying the death roll would quite work - but that is a gut feeling and it is worth pondering.

Of course any change away from a PoA effect might impact on commanded shot depending on what happens to that

Any more comments or thoughts on this one? It is quite a biggie so more discussion is better

I stand by my earlier remarks. One thought that flew by my head was that maybe having better armour should just give one level better rerolls (to a maximum of rerolling 1-3) or drop the enemys reroll, but I think the present system works.