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  1. #21
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    Kenneth Gauck said:

    > I take the Plains States to be like the great steppe which

    > produced all the great pastoral peoples. So the cavalry tradition is

    > going to be more Mongol (or Turkish) than it would be Arabic.



    Whoooooo! Turco-Mongol Khinasi!



    I have been thinking if the mountainous and forested areas of the

    Peninsular are more suited to an Indian style of military, sans elephants.

    This needs some work though, I think (and more reading on the Moghuls and

    the Hindu principalities for me).



    > Going by the ratings of the units, Rjurik, Brecht and the

    > unit called "Khinasi Light Cavalry" is more like Anuirean Cavalry than it

    > is like Anuirean Knights. There are some specialized units, say the

    > Blackgate Stormlords who are knightly, but in general, only Anuireans

    > have heavy cavalry. If I wanted a unit of Basarji heavy cavalry, indeed

    > I would proceed as you have described and make them lightly armored

    > (Speed 3, Defence 3) compared to the Khinasi Light Cavalry (4-2) or

    > Anuirean Knights (2-4). They would be rare.



    Khinasi have something called (boringly) Medium Cavalry IIRC. I imagine

    this is some kind of sipahi-like soldier, who fights with sword, and bow,

    and in some cases lances/spears. Mainly armoured in mail, with the

    possibility of a cloth (or mail?) barded horse. I`ve decided to dispense

    with pretences and actually call them "sipahis" in my games.



    Anuirean cavalry (as distinct from knights) confuses me. I am not sure

    what role it performs? Is it just detached sergeants deployed seperately

    from the knights instead of as a second or third line? Are they mounted

    bowmen or crossbowmen in the German mode? Are they some kind of bizarre

    fantasy-game artifact? I personally see cavalry in Anuire as having a very

    limited role, the only country I expect deploys a lot of them would be

    Coeranys (possibly the borderlands of Dhoesone and Mhoried?), since a lot

    of the population is mounted and they have a militia tradition.



    Brecht cavalry almost certainly developed from the arrival of Anuirean

    cavalry and is likely an imitation. A few of them (the Stormlords of

    Blackgate) might be good imitiations, but most of them will not be. There

    is probably a major difficult in getting good quality horses in Brechtur

    too, most horse traders will be coming up from Khinasi and not from

    Anuire.



    --

    John Machin

    (trithemius@kallisti.net.nz)

    "Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All."

    - Athanasius Kircher, `The Great Art of Knowledge`.
    NOTE: Messages posted by Birthright-L are automatically inserted posts originating from the mailing list linked to the forum.

  2. #22
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    ----- Original Message -----

    From: "John Machin" <trithemius@KALLISTI.NET.NZ>

    Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 9:36 PM



    > Anuirean cavalry (as distinct from knights) confuses me. I am

    > not sure what role it performs? [...] Are they some kind of bizarre

    > fantasy-game artifact?



    I think they are like Spanish or Italian cavalry. Neither had gone over to

    the French knight on horseback, and saw cavalry, aka ginetes, as good for

    hovering around the flanks trying to get behind their opponents, picking off

    any stragglers, &c. They were also useful for pinning down enemy infantry.

    They were not shock and their charge rating should not reflect a charge, but

    the use of expendable weapons, like javelins.



    As you know there are national styles of fighting. English tended to have

    many more knights fight dismounted and the French. Spanish knights tended

    to skirmish following a charge and not ride away and charge again, like the

    French. Its fun to imagine some of this behind the warcards, or different

    units.



    Ginetes wore an aketon, carried some javelins and a sword, and used a

    shield. The horse was typically unarmored, though there might be some

    additional cloth covering to reduce the harm of incidental blows. When the

    Hundred Years War spilled over into Spain and the French and English

    intervened, one of the results was that the light cavalry quickly got

    heavier. When there are knights on horseback running about, unarmored

    cavalry isjust begging to be driven from the field.



    Whether a Khinasi paladin was a horsearcher or a fast shock horseman, I

    think he would he faster and less armored than an Anuirean who almost always

    would be knightly. We get that sterotype from somewhere, and the Anuirean

    culture as the Anglo-French chivalric society is the home of that sterotype,

    and I see no reason to fight that.



    What can be interesting is Brecht cavalry. Its got a real identity crisis,

    AFAIC. Are they mounted fencers? Heavy knights? Horse archers? Well

    given their own lack of a strong cavalry tradition, I think that Anuirean

    and Khinasi tradition would spill over and complicate things. So I would

    expect to see a whole variety of horse units, although horse units in

    general are significantly more rare in Brectur.



    > I personally see cavalry in Anuire as having a very limited role, the

    > only country I expect deploys a lot of them would be Coeranys



    I think the use of cavalry reflects the strong horse tradition in Anuire.



    Kenneth Gauck

    kgauck@mchsi.com

  3. #23
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    It is a bit disappointing that D&D gives us light and heavy horses and

    warhorses, but there isn`t so much to distinguish them. No setting I have

    seen has given proper interest to horses, and the one serious horse guide I

    have seen in the 3x era is full of color, but contains almost no mechanics.



    If I want to take the Anuirean paladin, or just the Anuirean knight

    seriously, it would be nice to have seperate write ups for destriers,

    palfreys, and coursers. Plus wouldn`t it be swell to have full blooded

    Turkish, Arabian, and Berber breeds written up as a fast type horse. While

    we`re at it, what about Asian horses?



    The medieval knight rode destriers because the additional mass of the horse

    (they were often twice the weight of other horses) could be conveyed into

    the lance during the charge. We have no sense of this in the charge rules

    or the horse rules.



    Some horse person (breeder, track addict, trainer, &c) who is a gamer needs

    to be found to make some sense of all this. While were at it make them an

    anthropologist too so they can break all of this down for

    non-medieval-European horses too. Was their an ideal chariot type horse?



    Kenneth Gauck

    kgauck@mchsi.com

  4. #24
    Site Moderator geeman's Avatar
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    At 02:44 AM 3/23/2004 -0600, Kenneth Gauck wrote:



    >While we`re at it, what about Asian horses?



    Here`s an interesting site on Asian (or Japanese, at least) horses with

    some interesting historical information in addition to stuff on the various

    breeds, their qualities, etc.



    http://www.imh.org/imh/bw/japan.html



    Gary

  5. #25
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    Has anybody checked out the book I referenced earlier, Noble Steeds by Avalanche Press?

    Kenneth, it has the types of details on different horses that you are referring to.

    I&#39;ve talked to some of the people at Avalanche Press and they&#39;ve given us tacit approval to create Cerilian horse types, as long as we reference their book. I&#39;m not certain how much of the text we could freely use and I&#39;m loath to use something that would require people to purchase yet another book to use. But for those who want more details and variations for mounts it is a very good book, and it is on sale (I think it is running around &#036;5 US currently).
    Duane Eggert

  6. #26
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    ----- Original Message -----

    From: "irdeggman" <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET>

    Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 5:00 AM





    > Has anybody checked out the book I referenced earlier, Noble

    Steeds
    by Avalanche Press?



    I haven`t been able to find it in stores, I`m just gonna have to go on-line.

    Much as I like to support the local retailer, if they can`t special order it

    on goods terms ....



    I don`t know how many people are really taht interested in horses. If it

    were more popular, we would probabaly have more products out there. As

    usual, I`ll consider myself a niche market and nay-say putting much horse

    material in the core BRCS.



    Kenneth Gauck

    kgauck@mchsi.com

  7. #27
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    Kenneth Gauck said:

    > I think they are like Spanish or Italian cavalry. Neither had gone over

    > to the French knight on horseback, and saw cavalry, aka ginetes, as good

    > for hovering around the flanks trying to get behind their opponents,

    > picking off any stragglers, &c. They were also useful for pinning down

    > enemy infantry. They were not shock and their charge rating should not

    > reflect a charge, but the use of expendable weapons, like javelins.



    Should it be pointed out that these troops likely developed in the face of

    Islamic cavalry? Other "neighbour-nations" also developed good lighter

    cavalry arms as well (Serb gusars, Hungarian hussars, szkeler, etc).

    Perhaps Anuirean cavalry developed after the Basarji war of independence?



    I`m inclined to treat genitors/jinetes as (in DBM terms) `Light Horse` and

    treat the Anuirean Cavalry of WarCard System fame as seperately deployed

    "varlets" in the Burgundian mode; in DBM these are classed as `Cavalry`,

    instead of being assumed to be included in elements (DBM for "unit") of

    `Knights`.



    > As you know there are national styles of fighting. English tended to have

    > many more knights fight dismounted and the French. Spanish knights tended

    > to skirmish following a charge and not ride away and charge again, like

    > the French. Its fun to imagine some of this behind the warcards, or

    > different units.



    I totally agree. That is why I use wargames rules. English knights are

    Regular Knights (Inferior), who dismount as Regular Blades (Ordinary);

    French chivalry are Irregular Knights (Superior); Spanish are Irregular

    (later Regular?) Knights (Fast).



    > Ginetes wore an aketon, carried some javelins and a sword, and used a

    > shield. The horse was typically unarmored, though there might be some

    > additional cloth covering to reduce the harm of incidental blows. When

    > the

    > Hundred Years War spilled over into Spain and the French and English

    > intervened, one of the results was that the light cavalry quickly got

    > heavier. When there are knights on horseback running about, unarmored

    > cavalry isjust begging to be driven from the field.



    If you are Western Europeans and like to use them in strange ways.



    > Whether a Khinasi paladin was a horsearcher or a fast shock horseman, I

    > think he would he faster and less armored than an Anuirean who almost

    > always would be knightly. We get that sterotype from somewhere, and the

    > Anuirean culture as the Anglo-French chivalric society is the home of that

    > sterotype, and I see no reason to fight that.



    Not getting any fighting from me on that one!



    > What can be interesting is Brecht cavalry. Its got a real identity

    > crisis, AFAIC. Are they mounted fencers? Heavy knights? Horse

    > archers? Well given their own lack of a strong cavalry tradition, I

    > think that Anuirean and Khinasi tradition would spill over and complicate

    > things. So I would expect to see a whole variety of horse units,

    > although horse units in general are significantly more rare in Brectur.



    In Rheulgard where there is a Khinasi style city state and actual plains

    to ride around on I would expect Khinasi style cavalry. For the rest I am

    imagining bad imitation Anuirean cavalry. It`s possible that lighter

    genitor types have been adopted, but I get the impression that for the

    Brecht manoevre means getting out to sea on a boat.



    > I think the use of cavalry reflects the strong horse tradition in Anuire.



    A heavy horse tradition maybe; and that is knights to my mind. Genitors,

    as I have said, don`t strike me as popular in the Heartlands of Anuire and

    would be confined to places like Coeranys, and possibly Dhoesone, since

    they are dealing with raiders mainly, not heavily armoured military

    horsemen. Coeranys is also noted as being a horsed population; even in a

    nation with a horseman tradition specific notation of this trend must

    count for something.



    P.S. Is anyone else noticing a topic drift? Or is that all my fault?



    --

    John Machin

    (trithemius@kallisti.net.nz)

    "Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All."

    - Athanasius Kircher, `The Great Art of Knowledge`.
    NOTE: Messages posted by Birthright-L are automatically inserted posts originating from the mailing list linked to the forum.

  8. #28
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    Kenneth Gauck said:

    > Was their an ideal chariot type horse?



    I`ll try and remember to poll the ancient and Chinese army players at the

    wargamers society meeting this week, if you like?



    --

    John Machin

    (trithemius@kallisti.net.nz)

    "Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All."

    - Athanasius Kircher, `The Great Art of Knowledge`.
    NOTE: Messages posted by Birthright-L are automatically inserted posts originating from the mailing list linked to the forum.

  9. #29
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    Kenneth Gauck said:

    > I`ll consider myself a niche market and nay-say putting much horse

    > material in the core BRCS.



    That *must* be "neigh-say" Kenneth. ;)



    --

    John Machin

    (trithemius@kallisti.net.nz)

    "Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All."

    - Athanasius Kircher, `The Great Art of Knowledge`.
    NOTE: Messages posted by Birthright-L are automatically inserted posts originating from the mailing list linked to the forum.

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