Slitherine

Hi All,

You're designing an army. You have 12 Drilled Cataphracts in your army. Do you take 3 BG's of 4, or 2 BG's of 6.

Advantages in 4's:
Manouverable;
Add an extra BG; and,
More flexible (you can weight one wing and still keep a small strike force on the other).
Any more?

Advantages in 6's:
Harder to kill; and,
General affects a larger number of dice.
Any more?

Are the cataphracts drilled or undrilled? It makes a big difference to my answer.

Edited:

Sorry, I though it would be obvious from my previous threads... after my last effort with undrilled Cataphracts I'm scared to death of them... I'll only take Drilled

Ian

In my experience the answer is simple

Drilled Cataphracts equals four's

Undrilled Cataphracts equals sixes

Others views may vary of course...

For once I agree with Mr Ruddock

4s for drilled, 6s for undrilled. If you use drilled in 6s then you are probably going to end up using them like undrilled ones anyway and pay through the nose for the priviledge.

Depends also on the quality: average in 6's, superior in 4's.

MadBanker wrote:Depends also on the quality: average in 6's, superior in 4's.

Nah, average drilled in 6s are really not a good buy IMO. For drilled I think the choice is superior in 4s or none.

hammy wrote:For once I agree with Mr Ruddock

4s for drilled, 6s for undrilled. If you use drilled in 6s then you are probably going to end up using them like undrilled ones anyway and pay through the nose for the priviledge.

Interesting.

I would normally take Cataphracts in 4's, however at BMW could only afford one BG of Cataphracts and minimum was 6, so that was answered - one BG of 6.

I found drilling was quite important. I used them as quite the mobile strike force.

I can see what you're saying about limiting their effect, and in the scenario I've put out here I it's totally different, we're talking about a large number of Cataphracts, but I'm not convinced that Drilled 6's are overly wasteful.

Then again, I've reconsidered my 'Undrilled Cataphracts' stance .

Ian

hammy wrote:

MadBanker wrote:Depends also on the quality: average in 6's, superior in 4's.

Nah, average drilled in 6s are really not a good buy IMO. For drilled I think the choice is superior in 4s or none.

Couldn't agree more. 4's superior and drilled is what I choose too.
What I wanted to say (quite poorly I admit) is that if you somehow wanted to take them as average, you really needed to take them as undrilled 6's (and stick a TC with them)

You need a choice of : Only take Cats if forced

John

recharge wrote:You need a choice of : Only take Cats if forced

John

Yes, but you make that choice when you choose a Cataphract army

Ian

DaiSho wrote:

recharge wrote:You need a choice of : Only take Cats if forced

John

Yes, but you make that choice when you choose a Cataphract army

Ian

I just finished a Parthian army and took it out for a trot last week. 2BG of 6 undrilled and 1 BG of 4 undrilled cats seemed fine. It was a bit of a catfight though. I was against indo-scythian riff raff. Amost identical armies except they had elephants and their coawardly light horse brought swords to a shootout - this just meant I had more LH to tip the balance.

It was good outsizing the opponent's cataphracts - who were all in 4's) while my group of 4 could break off or swing out wider without sacrificing so many points.

DaiSho wrote:Hi All,

You're designing an army. You have 12 Drilled Cataphracts in your army. Do you take 3 BG's of 4, or 2 BG's of 6.

Advantages in 4's:
Manouverable;
Add an extra BG; and,
More flexible (you can weight one wing and still keep a small strike force on the other).
Any more?

Advantages in 6's:
Harder to kill; and,
General affects a larger number of dice.
Any more?

Based on my opinion (I played a lot with Palmyran and Sassanid), I prefer Drilled BG's wit 4 bases for the same reasons.

6's cost a lot if you have 4/ 5 BG and so you can have an army with less than 12 BG's, but you can use it for example with an Ally (see Armenian with Dominate Roman).

My advice is to try to charge in the right way footmen (in particularly with 8 bases), I mean in order to have and avoid overlap/ risk flank charge.

Sergio