How to use knights

[CyberHetman]

after the Lithuanians failed

The attached Osprey page says that the Lithuanians escaped. It was uncertain for a long time whether it was an rout or a Tartar or Mongol style maneuver (a sham escape to draw enemy units from the battlefield or to direct them in trap). Recent research, however, points to the latter variant. They pulled out many Knights from the battlefield and they themselves were rather light cavalry so they managed to return to the battlefield much earlier than the pursuing Teutons. The Knights returned when the battle was already decided.

[Dux Limitis]

after the Lithuanians failed

The attached Osprey page says that the Lithuanians escaped. It was uncertain for a long time whether it was an rout or a Tartar or Mongol style maneuver (a sham escape to draw enemy units from the battlefield or to direct them in trap). Recent research, however, points to the latter variant. They pulled out many Knights from the battlefield and they themselves were rather light cavalry so they managed to return to the battlefield much earlier than the pursuing Teutons. The Knights returned when the battle was already decided.

I think "escaped" means they're routed but not chasing too much then by knights.So they escaped but not suffered too many casualties in relatively,then they rallied up and re-joined the battle when the battle turned to the Poles' favour,just like some times in the game.

[pompeytheflatulent]

Anyone else finding knights, especially the later ones, extremely underwhelming?

Knights are at a +100 PoA charging average spearmen, which translates to about a 50% win chance. The spearmen have a 40% chance of passing cohesion test (-1 losing close combat, -1 significant casualties in close combat, -1 losing to lancers, +1 heavy foot, so a roll of 8+ to pass). So overall the knights only have a 30% chance of disrupting the spearmen per charge. That's pretty bad considering how easily the knights get themselves trapped in melee. Unlike cataphracts, knights lose all 100 swordsmen PoA against steady spears, and so fare much worse when trapped in melee. Also a unit of raw spearmen standing on a stream stops knights dead in their tracks, whereas grandpa's old fashioned cataphracts would have powered through via melee. And the later knights share the cataphracts slow movement and inability to fight its way through a wet tissue on rough ground. I think I much prefer the earlier, less armored knights.

[Nosy_Rat]

Anyone else finding knights, especially the later ones, extremely underwhelming?

Knights are at a +100 PoA charging average spearmen, which translates to about a 50% win chance. The spearmen have a 40% chance of passing cohesion test (-1 losing close combat, -1 significant casualties in close combat, -1 losing to lancers, +1 heavy foot, so a roll of 8+ to pass). So overall the knights only have a 30% chance of disrupting the spearmen per charge. That's pretty bad considering how easily the knights get themselves trapped in melee. Unlike cataphracts, knights lose all 100 swordsmen PoA against steady spears, and so fare much worse when trapped in melee. Also a unit of raw spearmen standing on a stream stops knights dead in their tracks, whereas grandpa's old fashioned cataphracts would have powered through via melee. And the later knights share the cataphracts slow movement and inability to fight its way through a wet tissue on rough ground. I think I much prefer the earlier, less armored knights.

Yeah, I agree, so far I've been pretty disappointed every time I've tried to use knights against infantry. It just takes far too long for them to do something useful - first the unsuccessful charges, then, once you get that disruption, the negative combat strength modifier kicks in so despite having big POA advantage actual chances are not that great, and infantry often has time to rally up. And if knights get stuck in melee against steady spearmen (even 24 point raw ones, only 1/3 of knights' price!) they are basically dead. And if enemy has crossbows (or any other shooters really, even well-armoured knights take surprisingly a lot of damage from lights) then knights get mowed down pretty quickly.

They are pretty good against cavalry with their +4 AP on pursuit, though, at least there's that.

[SnuggleBunnies]

They are pretty good against cavalry with their +4 AP on pursuit, though, at least there's that.

Are they though? It's still only a 25% chance to catch.

[Nosy_Rat]

They are pretty good against cavalry with their +4 AP on pursuit, though, at least there's that.

Are they though? It's still only a 25% chance to catch.

They get +4 AP on each pursuit, so if launched at right trajectory they keep triggering new pursuits and often catch up to something (not necessesary the first unit you were charging, though) and completely mess up horse archer formation. Making them chase lone cavalry units is a waste, though, yeah.

[pompeytheflatulent]

It is quite funny, if a little immersion breaking, to watch knights suddenly go from cataphract movement to light cavalry movement when they start chain-chasing evading troops.

[pompeytheflatulent]

Here's a fun little puzzle for everyone:

Suppose you weren't paying much attention last turn and got your knights into this situation:

Screen_00000000.jpg (187.41 KiB) Viewed 2223 times

How would you get yourself out? The best I could come up with is: a) sit there in a Mexican standoff and wait for rescue. or b) sacrifice one of the knights to bust the other one out. Can anyone think of any other way?

[Ludendorf]

Here's a fun little puzzle for everyone:

Suppose you weren't paying much attention last turn and got your knights into this situation:

Screen_00000000.jpg

How would you get yourself out? The best I could come up with is: a) sit there in a Mexican standoff and wait for rescue. or b) sacrifice one of the knights to bust the other one out. Can anyone think of any other way?

The best thing to do would be bring up skirmishers or a cheap unit to engage the enemy/force them to charge to get your knights out of hock. Failing that, a fallback action might get a unit of knights away for long enough to challenge the only unit of spears that could follow up after them... if they can keep cohesion, of course.

[Dux Limitis]

The knights works well for me gentlemens,the really important thing is put the knights in front of the army,and leave the spaces to let the knights fall back if they can't disrupted the enemy after the first charge,always use the infantry to support them in close combat if they can't disrupted the enemy after rounds of charges(Some times enemy can pass the cohesion test many times) or they stucked in close combat(Get plusses).Don't let your units blocked the knights' backs unless knights are winning the battle.

[SnuggleBunnies]

I'll withhold hard conclusions until I've finished my league season, but so far I am leaning towards Nosy and pompey that the late knights need a little help, whether that comes in the form of lower costs, extra cohesion penalties inflicted, or something else.

[Atherys]

I'm also leaning towards knights being too overrated for their price. Once they're disrupted, their impact power (the most common reason to buy a knight instead of two spearmen) are gone. They become only as useful as your next spearmen. Due to unmaneuverability and 12 AP allowance, they are also not fit for usual cavalry purpose of flanking and more as a formation ram. May as well void yourself of flanking capability due to unit counts if you don't have standard cavalries.

[SimonLancaster]

At the moment I think knights are about right. Disrupting units on first charge can happen quite a lot. They can also fall back after losing a melee which allows for another charge.

They do frustrate me because of their slowness but I think this is probably historically accurate. I wouldn’t want them to become super units that get spammed.

[Geffalrus]

I've been using my time in the current DL to stress test knights a bit. Here are some of my current thoughts:

- Knights are basically super impact Cataphracts. As such, they are cavalry designed to operate in the main line rather than on the flanks.

- In terms of cost, they are very similar to Byzantine hybrid lancers where they pay a lot to do well in a certain role, but are inefficient at other tasks. Byzantine lancers are fantastic at ZOC locking infantry units, but are inefficient when facing dedicated horse archers or lancers. Knights are great at charging things frontally, but inefficient when trapped in melee or getting shot while stationary.

- So the platonic ideal of the Knight is riding up as part of your main line, charging the enemy in the open, and repeat until RNGesus blesses you with an enemy cohesion fail. This, to me, is things working as intended. They're like what lancers wish they were.

But what actually happens when you're facing a human opponent?

1) You both have knights and they smash into each other and wait for RNGesus to choose a winner. This seems authentic to me.

2) Your opponent uses non-open terrain to counter your knights. Historically valid and appropriate.

3) When possible, your opponent buys a bunch of medium and/or light crossbows. With armor piercing, 4 range, and no proximity penalty since they have melee capability (the medium version), crossbows are a real danger to knights. If knights can charge in, they're fine and will eat the xbows no problem. But with just a bit of blocking or terrain, xbows can easily have two chances to shoot the knights before contact. And while superior knights can pass cohesion checks decently well, the relatively high casualties the xbows cause can leave the knights vulnerable in melee when faced with other knights.

4) To counter the crossbows or non-open terrain, you focus on bringing light troops and medium troops which your opponent has to then in turn try to counter. Very quickly, the question of the battle shifts from "how to deal with the powerful knights" to "how to deal with all the cheap support troops that are actually deciding the battle."

That's my take on the battles I've played so far. 74 point late knights - ARE - a sizable threat, but they have definite counters. The armies that do well are those that have the tools to deal with potential counters. If any changes are made, I'd favor those that keep knights working as intended. Personally, I'd rather see them shifted a bit so that they're not necessarily guaranteed to win the impact, but that if they do, then the enemy is more likely to drop cohesion. Practically speaking, that would be a combination of toning down their impact poa and increasing their cohesion penalty to -2. That's just my two cents. Generally I think they're fine and that the real issue is rather how easy is it to deal with their obvious counters.

[tyronec]

In my games am seeing them function quite differently to heavy cavalry in Ancients. With a balanced army in Ancients the cavalry often operates on the flanks. They have the speed and manoeuvrability to get around the map and when they do attack it is often with a lot of space available to fall back. If they do break through the enemy line then maybe they get mobbed by a swarm of light infantry but more often they get to turn around and do serious damage.

In Medieval the Knights are often the battering ram through the center. The game balance for them charging infantry or cavalry from the seems to be about right. If they get a pursuit charge then it can work out as a spectacular avalanche or should they pick on some light infantry in heavy terrain then more likely a total flop. So far all well and good.

What seems to me that is not working so well is when the Knights get caught by a couple of enemy units. They pursue out of position and get flank charged by raw spears; then the next turn another unit of raw spears pitches in. One unit of knights in a raw spear sandwich is toast and the spears are at no risk in executing the kill if they get it set up right. You can get a similar effect from a flank charge by unarmoured horse archers, followed up by another unit in the rear for a disorder. I think this is not that common in Ancients because the cavalry are more mobile and are used differently. However in Medieval it is happening in just about every game I play and often more than once, in fact have been structuring my armies to have some cheap units like raw spears available to get stuck into Knight flanks as they become available.

I think this is where Knights are under performing for their AP cost. Low power melee units like raw defensive spears and/or medium unarmed bowmen/archers should not be that effective against Knights even if they have a 2:1 advantage in units.

[pompeytheflatulent]

The best thing to do would be bring up skirmishers or a cheap unit to engage the enemy/force them to charge to get your knights out of hock. Failing that, a fallback action might get a unit of knights away for long enough to challenge the only unit of spears that could follow up after them... if they can keep cohesion, of course.

Keep in mind that the 2 knights cost 148 points while the 3 spearmen cost 108 points. So realistically the English would already have a spare crossbow shooting at the knights. I suspect that in a standoff where both the French knights and English spearmen are getting shot at the knights will fold first.

I haven't thought of falling back just one of the knights before. But the problem I see is that if one knight falls back and the other stays put, the free spearmen would then occupy the space the knight just vacated, thereby making fallback impossible for the knight that stayed put. In that situation I think a frontal charge at the trapped knight by one of the spearmen is feasible. The PoA scale tops out at 200 PoA, so a frontal charge by the spearmen would be at worst a 85% lose chance and basically a coin flip in terms of not disrupting.

[Athos1660]

Crossbowmen (with swordsmen) shooting at 240 Knights is very powerful at close range, given the CT/modifier rules, with 14-48 expected casualties on non-difficult terrains.

[companion]

What if later knights are allowed to move through an enemy infantry unit that it is in melee with, similar to light infantries moving through friendly non-lights, but with a cost? i.e. suffer some casualties and pass a cohesion roll.

Yes, this is a jail free card rule but escape route is not towards friendly lines but deeper into enemy territory.

I hear that there were some instances of knights passing through middle of enemy infantry formations without causing visible cohesion shock to the said infantries. Might serve as a valid historical basis for the rule.

[rbodleyscott]

What if later knights are allowed to move through an enemy infantry unit that it is in melee with, similar to light infantries moving through friendly non-lights, but with a cost? i.e. suffer some casualties and pass a cohesion roll.

Yes, this is a jail free card rule but escape route is not towards friendly lines but deeper into enemy territory.

I hear that there were some instances of knights passing through middle of enemy infantry formations without causing visible cohesion shock to the said infantries. Might serve as a valid historical basis for the rule.

Interesting, but perhaps a bit radical.

[Horde]

That's my take on the battles I've played so far. 74 point late knights - ARE - a sizable threat, but they have definite counters. The armies that do well are those that have the tools to deal with potential counters. If any changes are made, I'd favor those that keep knights working as intended. Personally, I'd rather see them shifted a bit so that they're not necessarily guaranteed to win the impact, but that if they do, then the enemy is more likely to drop cohesion. Practically speaking, that would be a combination of toning down their impact poa and increasing their cohesion penalty to -2. That's just my two cents. Generally I think they're fine and that the real issue is rather how easy is it to deal with their obvious counters.

I fully agree with your point of view, as marked in bold, and I though it myself. If "feels more right", and I think that high chances of winning by the knights should come from the differences of quality between troops, and specially from the quality of the footmen recieving the charge. So if the household knights of the King of France charge some militamen, they should have high chances of utterly destroying on the charge, because the footmen can get nervous and start to run. But if Norman knights charge some steady housecarls, the infantry line will hold and the knight won´t fully charge, perhaps fencing a bit before retreating (so neither victory or loss, and the Norman do retire for another charge). But I also feel that the current balance is ok.