Armoured Knights
Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2010 9:46 pm
Always have struck me as problematic. Even in the brief time period they exist (1050-1150AD) they don't seem very popular - even against historical opponents...
They tend to appear in either small numbers as mercenaries - in which case they often aren't worth the trouble of trying to coordinate them with cavalry, drilled troops, etc. Or they are in relatively monotype armies of armoured knights and undrilled foot - often not very good heavy foot (protected average spearmen).
I suspect this is primarily an AP issue, the advantage of going from armoured (20AP for superior) to heavily armoured (23AP for superior) is very substantial (less damage from shooting, a POA in melee versus just about everyone - basically all other historical mounted in particular).
My feel is that the heavily armoured knights have a cost that is reasonably well balanced, so armoured knights probably could go down a bit. Probably something in the 16-18AP range for undrilled 18-20 for drilled would make them attractive without being silly. At the lower AP a monotype Norman fielding really large numbers of Knights can make it to a decent BG count but the essential fragility of the armoured knights means you can still try and punch through them - or shoot them down with skirmishers.
They tend to appear in either small numbers as mercenaries - in which case they often aren't worth the trouble of trying to coordinate them with cavalry, drilled troops, etc. Or they are in relatively monotype armies of armoured knights and undrilled foot - often not very good heavy foot (protected average spearmen).
I suspect this is primarily an AP issue, the advantage of going from armoured (20AP for superior) to heavily armoured (23AP for superior) is very substantial (less damage from shooting, a POA in melee versus just about everyone - basically all other historical mounted in particular).
My feel is that the heavily armoured knights have a cost that is reasonably well balanced, so armoured knights probably could go down a bit. Probably something in the 16-18AP range for undrilled 18-20 for drilled would make them attractive without being silly. At the lower AP a monotype Norman fielding really large numbers of Knights can make it to a decent BG count but the essential fragility of the armoured knights means you can still try and punch through them - or shoot them down with skirmishers.