Slitherine

Hi,
after a recent game with an army with some HCH's and another one with CT's, I have this question and I guess it can be interesting discussing.
Comparing the costs per base for some kinds of HCH's, KN’s and CT’s:

- HCH (drilled superior) 22 point
- KN’s (drilled average heavely armoured) 21 point
- T’s (drilled superior heavely armoured) 20 point

why CT’s don’t’ use 2 dice per base and can fight only in one rank (remembering that CT’s in DBM were KN(X))?

For example CT’s as a +POA in impact with HCH but if 1 BG of CT’s charge 1 BG of HCH (even if it win the impact) in the melee HCH has more dice and is very hard to beat them.

Another example: if you compare a Latinikon or a Norman KN's with Parthina/ Sassanid CT certainly the armour of CT’s is stronger than KN's.

So in my opinion CT's should be considered as KN’s.

Sergio

sergiomonteleone wrote:
why CT’s don’t’ use 2 dice per base and can fight only in one rank (remembering that CT’s in DBM were KN(X))?

Because Catafracts are just very heavily armoured ancient cavalry and there is no indication that they fought in formations that were different (thinner) from other ancient cavalry. The DBM classification is not relevant to FoG.

In DBM they were crap against lancer cavalry and heavy Chariots (DBM Kn F, O or S)

sergiomonteleone wrote: So in my opinion CT's should be considered as KN’s.

I thought about this too, but came to the lesser conclusion.

Do we have ANY historical examples of Cataphracts fighting Knights or heavy chariots?

I think the answer is no. If that is true then we need to realize that despite the horrible fetish for open competitions, we first need to think how these troops interacted against their historical foes. Upgrading the cataphracts to Knights makes them pretty awesome against a lot of their period opponents.

Then we need to consider how it interacts in game terms for non-historical matchups.

Options could be:
1) Have catphracts when facing an enemy using heavily armoured knights become upgraded to HA Knights too. With point adjusemten elsewhere.
2) Just have the Cataphract lance count as a knightly lance versus knights. Modest POA balancing in non-historical fights.

I could see an argument for 2. Option 1 is somewhat cumbersome.

Did the Nike. Byz. cats take on Norman knights ?

hazelbark wrote:horrible fetish

Wow, what a wordsmith Use that in any speaches recently?

Steve

nikgaukroger wrote:

sergiomonteleone wrote:
why CT’s don’t’ use 2 dice per base and can fight only in one rank (remembering that CT’s in DBM were KN(X))?

Because Catafracts are just very heavily armoured ancient cavalry and there is no indication that they fought in formations that were different (thinner) from other ancient cavalry. The DBM classification is not relevant to FoG.

Hi Nik,
but some authors of FOG are the same of DBM and I guess whe they made army lists the Wargame Research Group made very good reserches to decide Cataphracts as KN.

In your oponion, for example, if you compare, considering armour (of Cavalryman and of cavalry) and formation to fight, Normans with Sassanid/ Palmyran there are some big differencies?

Sergio

hazelbark wrote:

sergiomonteleone wrote: So in my opinion CT's should be considered as KN’s.

Do we have ANY historical examples of Cataphracts fighting Knights or heavy chariots?

I think the answer is no. If that is true then we need to realize that despite the horrible fetish for open competitions, we first need to think how these troops interacted against their historical foes. Upgrading the cataphracts to Knights makes them pretty awesome against a lot of their period opponents.

Then we need to consider how it interacts in game terms for non-historical matchups.

Options could be:
1) Have catphracts when facing an enemy using heavily armoured knights become upgraded to HA Knights too. With point adjusemten elsewhere.
2) Just have the Cataphract lance count as a knightly lance versus knights. Modest POA balancing in non-historical fights.

I could see an argument for 2. Option 1 is somewhat cumbersome.

I completely agree, in fact I'have thought about this topics fighting for the first time with CT's vs HCH's. Even if CT's have POA in impact you need to charge with some BG (4-5) if your opponent has 3 BG of HCH's in order to hope to win the melee.
Sergio

sergiomonteleone wrote: Hi Nik,
but some authors of FOG are the same of DBM and I guess whe they made army lists the Wargame Research Group made very good reserches to decide Cataphracts as KN.

One from three authors and he joined Phil in DBx after Phil had drawn up the basic classifications in DBA

Thinking can change a lot over time and the DBx classifications are pretty much 20 years old. The games are also quite different and so representations can look quite different - DBx has just one type of really hard charging mounted, the Kn class (with 4 varieties), whereas FoG links this to a combat capability, the Lancer one, and thus it can be spread around a wider variety of troops due to having more classification (armour, etc.) whilst in DBx you have to use a variety of Kn.

In your oponion, for example, if you compare, considering armour (of Cavalryman and of cavalry) and formation to fight, Normans with Sassanid/ Palmyran there are some big differencies?
Sergio

Enough to be material IMO - Sasanid/Palmyran types are firmly within the classical mounted mould whereas the Normans are a more hard hitting, more bloody minded sort of case with, as far as I can tell, formations tending to be thinner later but no less, and possibly more, effective.

Scrumpy wrote:Did the Nike. Byz. cats take on Norman knights ?

I am not aware of any accounts of combat between them. About the closest I am familiar with is Anna Comnemna's comment the Frankish (generic western European) knights' charge could break through the walls of Babylon which gave the overall impression that their charge was much more ferocious than any Byzantine troops. Of course this is written after Manzikert so at a time when the Byzantines are no longer using the cataphracts and when the overall quality of Byzantine cavalry had declined due to the loss of most of Asia Minor.

For what it's worth, overall I am generally happier with FoG's treatment of Cataphracts as a separate troop class versus DBM's KN(X) category.

Chris