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Thread: Paladins and Multiclassing
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03-23-2004, 04:00 AM #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.
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03-23-2004, 08:40 AM #22
----- 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
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03-23-2004, 09:00 AM #23
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
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03-23-2004, 10:20 AM #24
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
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03-23-2004, 11:00 AM #25
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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've talked to some of the people at Avalanche Press and they've given us tacit approval to create Cerilian horse types, as long as we reference their book. I'm not certain how much of the text we could freely use and I'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 $5 US currently).Duane Eggert
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03-23-2004, 12:40 PM #26
----- 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
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03-24-2004, 05:50 AM #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.
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03-24-2004, 05:50 AM #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.
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03-24-2004, 05:50 AM #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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