Slitherine

I have some questions for any of the authors of Oath of Fealty. This is about seeking illumination.

It is around the thinking behind some of the classifications in some of the lists in Oath of Fealty for knights and dismounted knights . I am wanting to focus games on the narrow period of the just pre Angevin (the anarchy ) to the later years of Henry III but including France and Germany of that same time. So no longbows ( except maybe the Welsh if I do them), foot mostly pretty average stuff defensive spear and crossbow, mail armour, armies pretty similar so the emphasis is more on generalship or scenarios ( sieges for example) than scissors-paper-stone thinking .Some I know find little attraction in this type of period which they will see as bland perhaps.

Now some lists that cover that period in O-of-F make western European knights heavily armoured in some case exclusively so. What was the thinking there please? This is before even basic plate armour, such as knee and elbow protection and shaped helms for the most part . Was it simply that some, at least ,of the lists concerned ( eg Middle Plantagenet) partially extend into that later period ( tho' not 100 YW as that is Storm of Arrows) ) ? Or was it to give them some more reasonable chance/bonus against the many other armies they may encounter in FoG(AM) for which the classification armoured was plainly insufficient when compared say to ancient heavy cavalry ,or they might face cataphracts for example ?

The second issue concerns how dismounted knights are classified - there is offensive spear and there is heavy weapon in the lists but no sword. The former feels really strange to me, and maybe the use of the term is misleading, but they will not have fought in rank and file or in a shieldwall like Saxons and Vikings . I suppose if dismounted knights were in practice intermixed in battle with their spearman that might serve better than having the complication of mixed battle groups . And the heavy weapon is more appropriate again to the later medieval era, unless there is more evidence, than I have seen ,on the use of two handed weapons such as axes. Bills and halberds and edged bladed polearms again were later developments .

In planning games in this admittedly restricted era , and area, I am inclined to dispense with the heavily armoured and classify dismounted knights as swordsmen. But If you have any thoughts on that I would welcome them.

I didn't write these lists but I think I can shed light. The problem is they have two armour categories to play with and in the 1000-1500 period a great range of increasingly heavy armour. So in OOF you have hauberk dressed miltes as armoured knights, and plantagenet gents with full mail for legs and hands plus a big helm need to be heavier, so become heavily armoured. Of course, it's nowhere near as good as full plate but it's more an "in context it's the best" sort of thing.

Generally, dismounted knight get heavy weapon - I think to reflect the variety of side arms on offer, most of which had to contend with heavily armoured opponents. When they get the offensive spearmen capability instead, it's usually because the list writer feels there is evidence for them fighting dismounted in a block with lances; either due to loss of horses (1066 Normans?) or as a particular tactic

grahambriggs wrote:I didn't write these lists but I think I can shed light. The problem is they have two armour categories to play with and in the 1000-1500 period a great range of increasingly heavy armour. So in OOF you have hauberk dressed miltes as armoured knights, and plantagenet gents with full mail for legs and hands plus a big helm need to be heavier, so become heavily armoured. Of course, it's nowhere near as good as full plate but it's more an "in context it's the best" sort of thing.

Generally, dismounted knight get heavy weapon - I think to reflect the variety of side arms on offer, most of which had to contend with heavily armoured opponents. When they get the offensive spearmen capability instead, it's usually because the list writer feels there is evidence for them fighting dismounted in a block with lances; either due to loss of horses (1066 Normans?) or as a particular tactic

Sorry not to get back to say thanks for that , went off line for several weeks for various unconnected reasons and then got re-immersed into FoG(N) .

Not sure if I will bother to tinker with the weapons categories as they are just generic word definitions and titles producing numbers and within period these armies are pretty identically equipped and shaped when it comes to type of armour or what they do when dismounted so it doesn't signify when I think about it .

I don't plan to fight OAF armies out of book or even much out of region and sub period within book . What I think I will do ( indeed have already begun ) is significantly to re-address the set up, deployment and command control provisions in FOG(AM) for the Medieval period in Europe to be more in keeping with the era and give me a more convincing cultural feel and maybe some objectives .

Sometimes ancient and medieval rules are like ordering the "curry of the day" in a pub but you don't get to specify - lamb, beef chicken, fish, vegetable, Indian, Bengali, Malaysian Thai etc . You end up making your own and your own blend of garum masala. Works for my curries.