Slitherine

I'm starting out on building a Late Crusader army and having worked out the composition, it's turning out to be the smallest army i've collected so far.

3 generals
2 units of 6 Military order Knights
1 unit of 6 other Knights
2 units of spearmen
2 units of crossbows

This comes to 800 points, well just under.
This is a very small army. Most of my other armies have 12-14 units in them, but then at 26pts each those Crusader Heavily armoured knights are expensive.

I had thought of 4 base units for the knights, but it felt to vulnrable. 6 base units i'm hoping will be able to cope with being shot at. It will take some planning to win a game with just 3 offensive units so i'm hoping their as hard as they look. I don't have a clue how to use them so any advise would be good.

As knights only fight with the front rank you have to make sure that you fight on a wide front. Though a BG size of 6 stands may be too wide to manoeuvre effectively. Running them in two ranks so you can manoeuvre them better may mean that when you go to expand your frontage there is no room. A cunning opponent may trying and hit your knights first if they are in two ranks to minimize any advantage you might have.

Just my two cents worth.

Keith

I think the research of "invincible" unit is hopeless, because even the most strong unit can be torn to pieces by overwhelming number of enemy, if they are able to surround your unit. I suggest you accept a bigger percentage of risk and use BG of Knight in 4.

Drilled HA Knights are very good in 4's. In sixes you are wasting points as they will almost never get to fight with all bases. The undrilled, since superior will be better in a 4 but placed at the end of your OOM so it is in the right place. Spend the points left on another BG of filler.

why not putting the knights per 4, getting some LF as screener and having at least one LH with light spear something to chase off enemy LH or to slow down an enemy wing to flank you?

getting any LF or LH is the problem with this army

Just had a look on the list. Well indeed it's a problem.
The drilled turcopole cav could be pretty good to fix off enemy light troups, for the rest except ally I dont see another solution... besides morphing into some cilician armenian

I would go with knights in 4s for this army. Especially the drilled ones are pretty handy and maneuverable in 4s which will be wasted in 6s.

Thanks for the advice.

I'm still not sure on the size of the knight units. I'm still leaning towards 6 base units due to the amount of shooting they'll recieve. However with a bit of alteration i might be able to have 2 x6 and 2 x 4 knights instead of 3x6 units. The 2 big regular units on the outside of the 2 smaller.

As for skirmishers there aren't any in the lists unless i have allies. Allies are pretty much ruled out because of the cost of the knights and the compulsary spearmen/crossbows, unless i go to 1000pts. We normaly game 800 so there's little point in that.

I'm not sure how this army can be used hostoricaly either, with the knights charging through the spearmen/crossbows. It's going to be a tough army to use, should look pretty though. I'll just have to paint the backs of the figures extra well as it's all that will be seen as their running off.

J_Pattison wrote:Thanks for the advice.

I'm still not sure on the size of the knight units. I'm still leaning towards 6 base units due to the amount of shooting they'll recieve.

Bigger BG attract more shooting. Square on, with a 6 base frontage you could take 12 shots. On a 4 base frontage 6. Bigger units are worse off IMO. You will be taking shots from mounted in the main so charge every time and you will get your turn to bolster, normally.

J_Pattison wrote: I'm not sure how this army can be used hostoricaly either, with the knights charging through the spearmen/crossbows.

A formation that mixed Knights and Crossbows might not be a bad choice against enemy LH/Cv. It would let you deploy the knights with some ranks in reserve with the gaps filled wtih Xbows to help chase away (or at least make more painful) skirmishers. Maybe with Spears on the outside of the whole lot.

Something like (with knights in BGs of 4)

K=Knight, C=Crossbow, S=Spear
Ideally with some Military Order knights and Turcopoles I would do something like (M=drilled knights, T=Turcopole Cavalry), I would also spread the formation out a bit move and try and get X-bows in eights and do something like, assuming you are planning to wheel with the outside of the wheel being your left flank. Sure you can't move as a battleline, but you are being skirmished anyway....This whole line is 30 bases wide or 1.2m

An interesting notion, Ethan. How do you deal with the fact that--eventually--the Kn will fail a CMT not to charge? Or, is charging part of the plan? Kn charge, the foot move up.

Marc

babyshark wrote:An interesting notion, Ethan. How do you deal with the fact that--eventually--the Kn will fail a CMT not to charge? Or, is charging part of the plan? Kn charge, the foot move up.

Marc

Mostly I would plan on charging with the crossbows following up and shooting at things in range. It may also be worth having the knights set back a bit, perhaps attaching themto the rear rank of hte crossbows intead of the front rank to make shooting at them harder.

I looked at this army a while back and it is one that really does benefit from a bedouin ally, a BG of lancer Cv with a couple of BGs of lancer LH (instead of the Turcopoles) is pretty handy for running off the skirmishers.

IC, 2xTC
2 X HA undrilled Knights (4s)
1 X HA drilled Knights (4s)
2 X 8 undrilled prot Xbows
2 X 8 protected undrilled def spears is 630 points

Bedouin could be something like

TC, 2x unprotected average lancer cv (4s), 2xlancer LH (4s)= 25 + 72 +72 = 799 11 BGs overall. I might try and find a way to get say 4 military order drilled Xbow as a single BG if I could. Points might be off going by memory but the geneal idea is there.

ethan wrote:......but the geneal idea is there.

I thought it was a nice idea too.

I think Light Horse are necessary. I am building a list with Bedouin allies:

3 TC
1 TC (ally)
4 KN (Military Order)
4 KN (Military Order)
4 KN (Other)
4 Turcopoles
6 Spearmen (Military Order)
8 Spearmen (Other)
6 Crossbow (Other)
6 Crossbow (Other)
4 Bedouin LH
4 Bedouin LH
4 Bedouin LH
4 Bedouin LH

792 pts
12 units

J_Pattison wrote:Thanks for the advice.

I'm still not sure on the size of the knight units. I'm still leaning towards 6 base units due to the amount of shooting they'll recieve. However with a bit of alteration i might be able to have 2 x6 and 2 x 4 knights instead of 3x6 units. The 2 big regular units on the outside of the 2 smaller.

If you have 3 BG's of 4 knights you can run two up front with on behind giving rear support. If a BG of 4 takes two hits from shooting then you will have the same chance of failing a cohesion test as a BG of 6 with no rear support. If a BG of 4 takes three or more hits from shooting you have less chance of failing a cohesion test as a BG of 6 with no rear support.

Regards
Martin

ottomanmjm wrote:If you have 3 BG's of 4 knights you can run two up front with on behind giving rear support. If a BG of 4 takes two hits from shooting then you will have the same chance of failing a cohesion test as a BG of 6 with no rear support. If a BG of 4 takes three or more hits from shooting you have less chance of failing a cohesion test as a BG of 6 with no rear support.

I don't agree with you in this specific case, even if I use a lot rear support. With a such army your strategy must be a strong blow against your opponent. You must choose the path for your undrilled Kn, which cannot manoeuvre, then reserve to your BG of drilled Kn the most difficult duty, they are your best troop, and at last deploy your other troops to support your attack (of course this must not be the order of march as for FOG deploy rules).
Rear support is good for armies with a lot of Bgs, when you use your better troops to give support to first attack by average troops.

I believe that better troops should be deployed in BGs of 4, with weaker troops being in bigger BGs. The added flexibility in having 3 BGs of 4 outweighs the diasadvantage of the smaller size as the quality of the troops can compensate for the latter. So if your Knights are average, they should be in 6s, if superior, in 4s.
I use Late Republican Roman a lot and have always used the superior legionaries in 4s. I don't think that I have ever had a game where I have thought afterwards that I should have been using them in 6s. I also use Ordnance Burgundian and always use the Knights in 6s as they are average.

I finally had a game of Late Crusader Vs Comnenan Byzantine. The Byzantine player went for mainly a light horse army with some H/c and an ally. Hoping to shoot the crusaders up rather then risk fighting the extra heavy Knights.

The Crusader army i chose consisted of:

1 inspired CinC
2 Troop commanders

2 battle groups of 4 bases each, Drilled Military order Knights.
3 battle groups of 4 bases each, undrilled other Knights.
1 battle group of 8 Militatry order spearmen drilled.
1 battle group of 8 military order crossbow men drilled.
2 battle groups of 6 other spearmen undrilled.
2 battle groups of 6 other crossbowmen undrilled.
1 battle group of 6 turcopole cavalry drilled.


A total of 12 battle groups against 17 battlegroups of the byzantines of which about 12 were LH.

The byzantines started well and were able to move in close and shoot at the crusader battle groups. Unfortunatly the shooting was inefective and the crusaders had at most 2 units disordered without any loses. The crusaders had deployed in a single line with no reserves or rear lines. The army kept moving forward charging the LH when possible. The Byzantines just couldn't make any headway against the crusaders (2 units of cavalry were caught and routed by the Militery order Knights)and kept falling back until they were trapped along their own base line. It was now getting late and the Byzantines conceaded the game as the light horse had no more options other then fighting the Heavy Knights on their own base line.

Overal the Late Crusader army is a tough nut to crack. we played 1000pts which almost filled the 6x4 foot table. 800pts might have been very different with more room for the LH to manouver. However the LH did get round the crusaders rear but were too weak to do any serious damage and their shooting was very poor. The crusader spearmen were in big enough units to absorb any shooting and the crossbows played and important role in causing casualties on the light horse and keeping the LH at a distance. The Crusaders had a couple of lucky breaks with the crossbows being charged by the byzantine H/C and fighting them off, one unit of H/C was routed the other breaking off and suffering casualties. Loses for the crusaders amounted to just a handful of bases, the Byzantines lost 3 units of H/C routed with with their LH about to fight combats with the crusader Knights.

The Crusader army might be small but it's very hard to damage. As long as the crossbows can protect the knights and reduce the shooting hits they take then it's going to be a hard army to beat.

Why did'nt the LH deploy on both flanks touching the table edge and charge up the table getting behind you and letting the H/C move on your front that way your knights can't face two ways and this way they'd get behind your foot and have a chance to gang up on your knights.

How many points were you playing?