Irregular Cavalry (S)

[Phippsy]

I am trying to understand why Itregular Cav (S) are subject to the Irregular Clumsiness additional PIP cost when their irregular (O) brethren are not.

What is it about their fighting style that leads to that effect. Can understand why it applies to irreg Cav (I), but (S)?

[LawrenceG1]

Most of us have given up trying to understand that.

A possible theory is that the top echelon of nobles are not well-disposed to taking orders.

One point that may be relevant is some troops can be classified as "KnF or CvS " depending on whether you think they preferred to charge immediately, or stand-off and shoot. No-one objects to Irr KnF being clumsy.

One could reformulate the question to:
Irregular cavalry is clumsy with the exception of CvO. Why are CvO not clumsy?

A possible answer to that is CvO are more like a closer formation version of light horse, indeed, there are some troops that can be either LHS or CvO, albeit most of these are regular.

I suspect that clumsy cavalry would be less controversial if it was better accounted for in the points cost.

[Phippsy]

Lawrence thanks.

I have been running various 4 v 4 or 6 v 6 element tests of irregular Cv(S) charging into irreg Kn(O) to see how the combats pan out. In the 5 times tried the Kn come out on top after 3 bounds or so destroying nearly all the Cv with the loss of an odd Kn element.

Moral - keep the Cv away from Kn - unless feigned flight included.

[Fon Tok Nak]

Try Cv(S) against Kn(F) since, as Lawrence has noted, these are often alternatives for the same troops and are found in a lot of Book 3 armies, so often come up against each other.

If the Cv(S) go in and win the first combat, the next Kn(F) is overlapped, so is likely to lose, then gets -1 for F while the S gets +2 at the same time. However, if the Kn(F) get first hit, everything changes.

[Barritus]

Lawrence thanks.

I have been running various 4 v 4 or 6 v 6 element tests of irregular Cv(S) charging into irreg Kn(O) to see how the combats pan out. In the 5 times tried the Kn come out on top after 3 bounds or so destroying nearly all the Cv with the loss of an odd Kn element.

Moral - keep the Cv away from Kn - unless feigned flight included.

It's certainly a moral worth considering, but it's also worth considering the situation as a whole: DBMM's strength lies in its ability to re-create historical results from historical situations. Is a match-up of Irr Cv (S) vs Irr Kn (O) something which happened in reality? I can't immediately think of any (but happy to be corrected). On that basis it's hard to draw conclusions about whether the result is realistic.

Another thing to consider is that Irr Kn (O) cost 10AP while Irr Cv (S) cost 9AP. Maybe if you try a match-up again, but this time give the Cv a LH (F) reserve to help even up the points, and see how the results go.

Finally, the great Phil Barker himself has pointed out that there was probably a reason why the heavy troops in an army advanced behind a screen of light troops. Is there some way you can structure your army to provide an expendable and cheap screen to protect your Cv (S) until you're ready to commit them to your best advantage?

Otherwise, you might like to consider tactics which maximise the advantages of Cv (S) and minimise their disadvantages - maybe flanking terrain to force a frontal fight and then interspersing elephants to discombobulate enemy Kn.

[LawrenceG1]

It's certainly a moral worth considering, but it's also worth considering the situation as a whole: DBMM's strength lies in its ability to re-create historical results from historical situations. Is a match-up of Irr Cv (S) vs Irr Kn (O) something which happened in reality? I can't immediately think of any (but happy to be corrected). On that basis it's hard to draw conclusions about whether the result is realistic.

There might be a few cases as some of the middle-eastern (mostly Islamic) and steppe armies can have Irr CvS and Crusaders, Armenians and Eastern Europeans (possibly Byzantines too in the form of visiting Franks) have Irr KnO. Irr Kn(O) vs Reg Cv(S) is more common (probably also some examples in the chariot period).  I think our view of history gets somewhat distorted by playing the game as we tend to associate armies with the troop options we would pick on a points basis rather than those they actually used in historical battles.

In general DBMM is set up so knights beat cavalry in a straight fight, which I'm sure is based on historical results.  The cavalry have to use tricky tactics (not sure replacing some with elephants counts). With impetuous knights it is relatively easy to break them up and pick them off. Relative to regular knights. But Irr Cv(S) being clumsy makes it more difficult. Hence the Cv will want help from support troops and the knights will counter these with their support troops and lo! We have a tactical game.

[Orcoteuthis]

I think the real reason Irr Cv (S) are clumsy is that Phil's mental model for them is Sassanid Persian armoured cavalry, and these, at least acc'd Phil's take on the relevant battle narratives, favoured a frontal style of combat without much manoeuvre. That they drag various steppe types etc with them is a bit of collateral damage.

I seem to recall reading that Irr Cv (I) became clumsy because many are classed so on account of poor horsemanship.