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  1. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by stv2brown1988 View Post
    didn't the knights in RL have people who were not as heaviliy armored whose job it was to watch their flanks?
    They certainly did have less-heavily-armored people who were used in part to watch the flanks, but the direction of causation was not quite what you're implying. One of the things D&D really badly glosses over is the economic dimension of warfare. From that (sadly missing) perspective, the reason for feudalism is that it was *enormously* expensive to outfit one guy in metal armor on a heavy warhorse. As a modern analogy, think of how many of your neighbors you would have to pool together to collect the four million dollars in surplus cash it would take to purchase a main battle tank, and then add to that how much it would take to pay the annual salaries of the necessary full-time professional crew and mechanics, spare parts, fuel (tanks get less than one mile per gallon), ammo, etc. In the same way, a medieval manor of a thousand people intensively farming two square miles is needed to support just one knight and the one to three medium cavalrymen in his retinue. They aren't armored as heavily as full knights because they can't afford to be. There is some variation in who dresses how, because Darien Avan can afford to equip a dozen squires in full plate, but many of his lowest vassal knights in mountainous provinces like Nentril and Vanilen can't afford full plate for themselves, much less the one squire they might be able to afford a light horse for. For most of history, governments did not provide equipment to their soldiers -- the soldiers brought their own equipment, and were then formed into units based on what they had brought. For example, in societies where infantry service is a social obligation, the skirmishers are the poor people and the heavy infantry are the rich, because only rich people could afford to supply their own metal armor and weapons. Therefore, a feudal Anuirean army, when formed of local noblemen, their enfeoffed knights and their squires, would end up with about twice as many "Cavalry" war cards as "Knight" ones just because of what the individual warriors could afford to wear -- they'd all prefer be in full plate as Knights if they could, but most of them can only afford enough armor to count as Cavalry. Given that as an input, the prudent general then picks scouting and flanking forces from among those who show up with lighter armor, because their equipment makes them better as it.

  2. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gman View Post
    If a unit still has cohesion then pity help the units that are in disorder. I think we have discussed this in several other threads? I imagine it would be a pretty hectic job with some gunho Lords wanting to charge off into the middle of another troop. And be riding the fastest horse.
    This is the single biggest problem in medieval generalship. Your knights are independent nobles all seeking personal glory and not wanting to be commanded by anybody, so keeping them from just charging pell-mell whenever and wherever they desire is really, really hard. Many medieval wargames contain some kind of loss-of-control rule, in which an army containing noble knights suddenly has them decide to all charge at once, regardless of what the general really wants. Sun Tzu's advice is excellent, but feudal European nobility was way too undisciplined to be able to abide by it. That's one of the reasons rulers began to turn to professional mercenary armies: mercs were much better than nobles at following orders.

    Birthright's lack of restrictions on how many knight units a realm can support is evidence Anuire is moving beyond feudalism into a more mercantile military setup; a variety of rules have been suggested to limit that by people who want a more early-feudal feel. My own preference is to use total number of province levels divided by four; for example, no matter how much money Medoere has lying around, I like to say that Suris Enlien can't field more than two units of knights until she adds at least three more province levels by Rule or Investiture. Another option commonly heard is each province can support no more knight units than its level minus three. Both these formulas (L/4 and L-3) are based on the observation that knights can only be mustered in a province of at least level 4.

  3. #43
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    I'll just add that because some kinds of fighting is more glorious than others (which tends to overlap with being present at the moment of decision) certain units are valued out of proportion to their usefulness. Scouting, for example, is terribly valuable because it allows you to know the strenth, disposition, direction of movement of you enemy which helps you choose a time and place for battle. But as valuable as scouting is, its a force multiplier, not a hammer. It doesn't win battles by itself, it only makes the hammer more effective. The heavy troops are present when the enemy line breaks and they begin a disorderly retreat that turns into a rout. Then the light troops are the ones that actually kill the enemy by cutting down the fleeing forces. The glory goes to the heavy troops that broke the enemy, because only heavy troops can do that. Even if they were assisted by scouting and pursuit of the light troops.

    Light troops by themselves without heavies just skirmish frequently and its an indecisive form of warfare.

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    Sorry Steve didn't read this thread for a while. Here's a description of how "organic" combat works.

    Pendragon uses contested rolls on a D 20.

    Skills usually range 1-20 but can go above.(which complicates things)

    If your dice 20 roll is under you skill you have succeeded in using it - however if your opponents roll is also under their skill but higher than yours they win.

    A critical is a roll equal to your skill level. A crit always beats a normal success or a failure. If both critical the higher critical (house rule) wins.

    You can use any system however - in D20 beating your opponents "tactical skill" by margins of 5 will give better results for each lot of 5. Below 15 could be regarded as a fail.(or natural 1)

    If two armies are about to engage those in charge have a roll vs roll. (situation modifiers can be used - fantastic scouting, subterfuge could have occured already)

    The highest roll wins. - If a critical vs a failure occurs then one side has been caught with their pants down.
    ("Organic" Gm description may be that your High lord commands a suprise forced march through the night and manages to catch the opponent at dawn still encamped and unprepared)

    Subgroups on the attack are then rewarded with a bonus on their rolls - just because they are placed in an advantageous position does not guarantee them anything.

    Roll vs roll (sub commander vs sub commander).
    Does the enemy sub commander manage to rally and face his troop or is he in complete disorder.

    Roll vs roll (members of the troop) with bonus or penalty.
    Smashing through a flank or into a shield wall - prepared or unprepared. caught by suprise or is everything even?

    Luck rolls for quality of the opponent. Poor/average/good/excellent/superlative/named/renouned.


    Footing, condition and facings of units is up to the commanders rolls.

    The roll assumes that his assessment of the battle area and conditions is made to use these conditions /situation to his or her best advantage - or that the opponent has managed to use these better - responded faster - wheeled his unit to face and respond - caught you on the down slope of the hill etc.

  5. #45
    Member Hrandal's Avatar
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    Its true that most warriors would have used better armour if they could, but wasn't always why a knight would have less well armoured cavalry accompanying them. Precisely because a mounted knight was so horrendously expensive to outfit and train, it was easy to justify the much smaller expense of a man in lighter armour to help protect that investment by guarding the knight's flank/rear.

    The Templars had local (non-christian) cavalry sergeants who rode alongside their heavy knights, and that was primarily a financial arrangement - in fact the sergeants were usually fighting against members of their own faith.

    In any case, I do notice that nobody (at least in this thread - and I don't often check out BR.net) has mentioned that even mounted knights did a lot of their fighting on foot. I believe that historically a lot of cavalry was about simply getting foot-soldiers to a better position quickly. Granted, the knight and his charger is the classic example, but BR also seems to be from the age where sieges were the norm, and cavalry charges have limited utility in that situation.

    In fact, that is one aspect of technology I think could be fascinating and easily used in a BR game - just figuring out different types of castle and what bonuses/restrictions each would give you. Perhaps "classical imperial" castles are better - maybe the skill to construct that style has largely been lost - or maybe they look lovely but modern siege tech can bring them down like a stack of cards. Dwarves build subterranean forts, where you don't have to worry about catapults, but you can be attacked from any angle by tunneling foes.
    "As soon as war is declared, it will be impossible to hold the poets back. Rhyme is still the most effective drum."

  6. #46
    Senior Member RaspK_FOG's Avatar
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    Actually, the whole cavalry thing is as convoluted as any historical issue: light cavalry would almost never dismount, but it would also never charge blindly either, since a light cavalry unit has a lot openings when charging; only its speed and maneuverability help it in such a tactic. Knights and other heavy cavalry, however, usually engaged in these three tactics: charging and trampling everything in their path, dismounting and fighting on foot, and various weird feints (e.g. seemingly charging at an opponent, withdrawing, luring said opponent into a trap, outflanking, and finally routing him).

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