Slitherine

Let's say you had to choose between these in an army (or you could choose a mix of them) what would you buy? Assume a fair number of BGs in total say 4-8 or so.

That is a terrible choice. Protected and average cavalry suffer badly from shooting. The average armoured will do slightly better in melee. But in an open competition I wouldn't want either, especially mixed. If I had to I would prbably go 2/3 armoured 1/3 protected for support and plug gaps

From experience using Foederate, I'd prefer average armoured over superior protected for shock cavalry. Facing the usual armoured cavalry or Roman foot, you won't win on 5s even rethrowing 1s, unless you can engineer massively outnumbering your opponent. I'd take them in 6s though, and use generals.

If you expect a lot of cataphracts, obviously superior is better.

For shooty cavalry, more of a six and two threes. Probably protected. I want to try and see if the Early Byzantine mix works though, armoured average shooters, superior armoured lancers.

For light spear, probably armoured again, but only as flank guards.

For an Open event, armored is better, IMHO. For a Theme, the choice depends on the opponents. On the whole, I think would almost always choose armored shock cav over protected, because you will mostly be running them two deep. Shooty cav is another matter.

Marc

Both have their places and their uses.

Protected really need to be used in 1 rank most of the time because of their vulnerability to shooting.

Superior protected drilled would be pretty handy IMO.