Let me start but saying that this is not a criticism of the new rules for knights, but an attempt to adapt to them. I love playing horse archer armies. I enjoy the challenge of 'float like a butterfly, sting like a bee'.
2 weeks ago I took my Ayyubid Egyptians (Ghulams and skilled Turcomans)against Dan Martz Sr and hus medieval Portuguese. Dan ran a bunch of protected crossbow (run down like dogs by the Ghulams) and 4 units of average knights (-/Farm, lance, DC, ME). I figured my skilled Turcoman units would shoot them into cat food. Wrong.
The first step was a longish staring contest. I moved the Turcomen up on a march to just at 4 BW. Dan moved to just outside shooting range. As expected, Dan was too smart to charge from that range. During movement, I used every device I owned to induce Dan to advance his knights before the Turcomen moved, so I could then fall back to beyond 2 BW. Those who know Dan will be less than shocked to hear he declined to allow this and stayed away. This continued for several turns, until the Ghulams finished killing the Crossbowmen in an amazing display of die-rolling skill. Once the Ghulams were through I had to advance the Turcomen lest the victorious but weakened Ghulams get smashed in flank. The Turcomen were ordered forward into shooting range (after further attempt to try and stir some aggression from the Portuguese.
Dan responded by moving his knights to within long spitting range of my Turcomen. On the ensuing charge, the Turcomen shot well, but not well enough to stop the charge With the knights moving 5, even 3 hits were not enough since the change was free and Dan had a green to push through. On the other side, I RAN AWAY, shooting white dice. I still got caught with the play of a yellow. Back in those happy days when heavily armored knights moved 4 BW, both of my units escape.
How do I avoid this? Oh.I know, work the flanks- easy to say, not so easy to do against a wily opponent. I have trouble seeing how horse archers can do their job and shoot up knights with any chance at survival.
By the way, I adore the extra movement when playing my Medieval Germans.
Hi!
I don't have any horse army yet but from what I saw / read so far I believe that they would tend to mix fighting unit with shooting unit. The fighting unit remain while the shooty one runs skirmish.
This being said I wouldn't feel that excited to remain with short spear sup unit in front of charging lancer dc, especially now with a break off with opponent of equal speed...
I m eager to read the comments of other players
Cheers and happy new year eve to all.
I suspect shooty mounted armies will need to look to using troops like Turcomans in skirmish formation more than they have previously.
Whilst trying not to jump to conclusions I do think that despite the 2019 change to how close a general needs to be to prompt through fire, that it will still be too easy to do so.
If it turns out that the interaction doesn't work there is a good historical basis for making knights close formation to alter things 8)
We played the other day with the new rules and the reduction to 2BW for pushing through had no impact - you have to be a bit more careful with where you put the generals but if they stick with your best troops they will always be where you need them anyway.
What we found actually was that shooting power overall had reduced since most armies have lost at least some Cantabrian and skilled shooting is pretty rare now. My Alans lost 6 green dice!
In the situation above, your only chance was to run away and then reform, but you die if you roll a 1 or a 2, or a 1 if superior. Following that an M10 would have put you a little over 2BW away, from there you can run away safely or skirmish and die on a 1 or 2 again. Still, you're shooting him and he's doing nothing to you.
All I'm saying is that horse archers are now much less effective against knights than they were. I don't know enough to have a useful opinion about whether this is historically accurate.
Personally, the chance of shooting effectively (skirmishing) and living to fight another day has become unacceptably low. To me. YMMV. IMHO, trying to shoot up knights from horseback while not in Skirmish has reached a level of risk I am not willing to accept. Frankly, even in Skirmish it's pretty certain you will eventually get run down and slaughtered. I am hoping some kindly soul will point out a way of playing this matchup that does not involve suicidal bravery.
There is also the intrinsic value in a much cheaper cav shooter diverting the more expensive knights for X turns. In a trade off of cost this seems a decent deal. Even better if that shooter cav is only a SUG, so won't contribute to break and only gives up 1 point.
Quote from: Dru on January 08, 2019, 11:40:05 AM
There is also the intrinsic value in a much cheaper cav shooter diverting the more expensive knights for X turns. In a trade off of cost this seems a decent deal. Even better if that shooter cav is only a SUG, so won't contribute to break and only gives up 1 point.
Charging lancer have become much cheaper, bow armed cavalry less so, and lots of SUGs lost cantabrian so, relatively, horse archer armies are worse than they were.
Looking forward to riding down your horse archers at Cancon, Dru ;)
To defeat knights you need to get around their flanks. Don't expect to defeat knights by shooting at them frontally. This was how they were beaten historically.
Richard
A competent opponent will make it very, very difficult to get to the flanks of his knights. The knight vs horse archer matchup is no longer very competitive. I am not asking/suggesting/demanding anything be changed, but I sure won't be playing one of my beloved horse archer armies in any open events any time soon.
Lets look at what's actually changed, at least how I see it and what it means:
- significant reduction in units with cantabrian = less firepower for horse archer armies, but also somewhat less chance of being caught. Overall the firepower loss is a blow.
- reduction in knightly armour (ArmHrs) = most cavalry now are white to kill basic die, most things can now be shot.
- non-armoured horse faster = most knights now faster and significantly better because others can no longer break-off
- buff to skilled shooter vs superior = definite buff but situational, though directly effects cantabrian which is now less prevalent.
Overall I liked the rule changes but I didn't appreciate that cantabrian was going to be so heavily removed from the lists (it has been seriously stamped on!)
I think the removal of so much cantabrian has shifted the amount of damage horse archer heavy armies can do perhaps a little too much.
It was nice to have the cantabrian, but also risky as it DID tend to get you killed..
Quote from: stuuk on January 08, 2019, 10:15:01 PM
- non-armoured horse faster = most knights now faster and significantly better because others can no longer break-off
F4 move - Break Off any from Equal Speed Opponent; allowed to any but Tribal, needs Yellow (SuG/Skirm and Drilled) or Red (Formed) card and you get a KaB.
Quote from: lionheartrjc on January 08, 2019, 01:12:03 PM
To defeat knights you need to get around their flanks. Don't expect to defeat knights by shooting at them frontally. This was how they were beaten historically.
Richard
I'd agree with this, but there is a table edge, every man and his dog chooses river/coast or some other secure flank if they fight horse archers and terrain rules have been changed to favour the defender, all of which restrict the ability to get around the flanks, and lots of SUGs have lost cantabrian, which makes them less effective at shooting.
I'm pretty sure no-one wants a return to the FoG days of uncatchable horse archers, so it will be interesting how the balance between knights/lancers and horse archer armies works out this year.
Cheers,
Craig
Funny 'cause I didn't see many last year. I ran one and didn't do great.
Personally I didn't see horse archer armies cleaning up.
What I did see was lots of large, cheap, horde-style armies doing very well.
A horde of charging lancer-average is very tough to beat with horse archers, there's a lack of firepower to halt them.
Quote from: stuuk on January 09, 2019, 02:39:47 AM
Funny 'cause I didn't see many last year. I ran one and didn't do great.
Personally I didn't see horse archer armies cleaning up.
What I did see was lots of large, cheap, horde-style armies doing very well.
A horde of charging lancer-average is very tough to beat with horse archers, there's a lack of firepower to halt them.
Yes, I didn't see too many at the top of the table in the UK tournament scene. I can't really see that changing this year, although I'll be pretty happy to see that disproved.
MeG is not overly friendly to shooty armies - I think if you play it you have to accept that.
For the specific knights/shoot mounted match-up my gut feeling is that Si made the wrong choice when changing prompt through fire, however, we shall see how it goes as we get used to the changes (and as I have mentioned there is an easy plausibly historical fix anyway).
All that said last year I found mounted shooty armies pretty usable but you do have to put quite a lot of work in during the game - they're tricky. As I was 4th at Ribble and won Ray's small comp with basically mouted shooty armies I was happy enough.
What was your feeling on how prompting through fire should have gone Nik?
There is a lot of finesse needed to use a mobile shooty army, but none required to beat one, and a couple of bad die rolls on evades can scupper you.
In competition last year (before the new changes) my medieval Alan got rolled over by an arabian style average cavalry, long spear - move forward at top speed, charge everything. Rinse and repeat.
I don't see anything making that better for the Alans this year.
Quote from: stuuk on January 08, 2019, 10:15:01 PM
Lets look at what's actually changed, at least how I see it and what it means:
What also changed is Powerbow. It tip back the scale in favor of the charger and not the shooter
Quote from: stuuk on January 09, 2019, 09:30:22 AM
What was your feeling on how prompting through fire should have gone Nik?
Yellow card to remove 1 slow, red to remove 2.
I was in favour of binning it entirely, but your suggestion is better. Currently it's so easy it's almost a given.
I like the idea of the slowing and prompt through fire mechanisms, its just at the moment I don't think it really works that well. As you say it is just too easy to do that it isn't making enough impact on decision making.
Quote from: nikgaukroger on January 09, 2019, 10:23:33 AM
I like the idea of the slowing and prompt through fire mechanisms, its just at the moment I don't think it really works that well. As you say it is just too easy to do that it isn't making enough impact on decision making.
I like your previous post - yellow to remove 1 slow, red to remove 2 - better than changing knights to close. If they become close then the uneven ground terrain will come into play, which might have a pretty bad effect on knight armies.
It is also VERY powerful - the prompting means you know exactly how far you will go and know with certainty whether it's worth it or not.
Perhaps a simple change to enforcing the decision to prompt or not to before a shooting unit runs away would be sufficient? That way you have to gamble a little instead of knowing for sure you'll catch them.
I ran horse archers at Historicon last year and did OK with Sassanids and Timurids. They were not world beaters, but they were playable and lots of fun even in defeat.
A lot of this discussion haas centered around whether this years rule changes are 'correct'; an interesting discussion, but not the one I hoped for. I have not devised a plan to succeed with horse archers against knights with unarmored horses, but I hoped some more talented player than I would point one out. My focus is on playing well with the rules we have, not on changing the rules to suit my favorite armies.
The 'work the flanks' suggestion is obviously correct- all I need now are opponents dim enough to allow me to do this consistently. So far, they are scarce. It's not all that hard to protect knightly flanks with cheap infantry.
Condsider your terrain choices - depending on the opponent Rough Going can be your friend as well as the more obvious Magic Cavalry Terrain.
Quote from: nikgaukroger on January 09, 2019, 08:40:51 AM
MeG is not overly friendly to shooty armies - I think if you play it you have to accept that.
For the specific knights/shoot mounted match-up my gut feeling is that Si made the wrong choice when changing prompt through fire, however, we shall see how it goes as we get used to the changes (and as I have mentioned there is an easy plausibly historical fix anyway).
All that said last year I found mounted shooty armies pretty usable but you do have to put quite a lot of work in during the game - they're tricky. As I was 4th at Ribble and won Ray's small comp with basically mouted shooty armies I was happy enough.
My most important piece of thinking on this is that mobile shooty armies should be difficult to use well. In past rules - including my own FoG rules - they were easy to kill with and very safe. Hence them dominating FoG comps for years. So don't expect it to be easy, but enjoy the challenge.
I did a fair bit of testing of this interaction. So here are my insights...
1. Generally need to invade vs. aggressive armies. I find people defend too much. I chose invade 2/3 times at the ITC. With a shooty cav army it is vital to stop the Knights moving more than once in turn 1.
2. Make them work to catch you. If skirmish is risky run away. Angle you UGs to go away from the centre making the knight do more than run straight ahead. If you have skilled shooters even on black you cause trouble. You need to nibble some bases early.
3. Sometime take a hit and lost a TuG but let the damage they do weaken the enemy. And you can risk a break off to get away often. if you have a superior lancer UG in a shooty cav army trade some damage. The weakened Knights will be then rather fragile to fire.
4. Kill of the rest and deal with the Knights last.
5. Put something solid on your base edge where the knights are heading. Keep them honest.
Personally I think its about right now. Advantage knights if a simple head on vs fall back; advantage shooty can if used really well. What I was aiming for. Take the Shooty cav if up for the challenge; take the knights if you don't want as many puzzles! Enjoy.
Si
Just to revisit this after Campaign last weekend here is something I sent to Si as feedback.
Quote
As Campaign game me 3 Serbs to face I thought I'd just note down some feedback on how the knights vs shooty cavalry interaction appears to be working under the 2019 rules. As I played the same interactions at Campaign 12 months ago I have a useful benchmark.
Basically this is much better than it was. It is still quite tough for the shooty cavalry (and MeG is designed for them to be tricky to use well), however, they have more of a chance than they did 12 months ago. Having a few units of skilled shooters in the army is still a necessity – and there is nothing wrong with that.
I had wondered if the knights moving at 5BW may be an issue, and whilst, in a perfect world, I think 4.5BW would be the ideal, 5BW is not a game breaker.
So overall my view is the interaction is OK.
FWIW against the 3 Serbs I drew 6-6 against Cid in a cagey game where a couple of pieces of rough terrain got in his way, won 15-4 against Ian where 100%+ out scouting and a usefully placed terrain piece helped, and lost 2-15 against Alasdair where I made poor initial PBS choices (and, of course, Alasdair is a good player).
I do, however, wonder if knights are now a bit too cheap. They benefited from a lot of the points reductions in the 2019 army builder and I feel the outcome is they're a bit under-priced.
and
Quote
The one bit of the interaction I think could do with a review is that I think it is still too easy to push through fire. The reduction of how close the general has to be to 2 BW has made pretty much no difference in my experience.
I honestly struggled. My first 9 evades failed...
But then I did alright game 4 and 5.
They ain't easy to use and they ain't meant to be in MeG. Its a quite harsh learning curve - after a year of using them I'm happy against most armies now, but it really has taken that long.
I would suggest a general should only be able to prompt a unit he is with through fire. Would be a difficult thing to do from a distance.
Martin
Quote from: nikgaukroger on May 16, 2019, 07:15:20 PM
They ain't easy to use and they ain't meant to be in MeG. Its a quite harsh learning curve - after a year of using them I'm happy against most armies now, but it really has taken that long.
Just curious why horse archers are 'supposed to be' difficult to use? Historically, they were very effective over a long time. I am wondering why you felt they should be hard to use successfully.
From what I gather, they have overly dominated other systems at times and this is an err on the side of not having horse pewpew > all approach. If shooty cav utterly rules the roost, it would become a very boring game. I'd stop playing and look elsewhere to use my toys.
Perhaps (?) it needs a boost, but I'd be cautious.
One idea that springs to mind is that thinking in terms of Knights being move 5 is what should be evaluated. If that all remains the same, I'd look at making Skirmish cav move 7. They'd motor around the board, out manoeuvre, have a better chance of getting away from everything. Doesn't make their shooting any more effective, but does give them a ton more options and longevity. It does make it impossible for non-FoF foot to catch them, however. Otherwise, I'd look to evaluate if Knights should be move 5.
Quote from: martymagnificent on May 16, 2019, 10:21:19 PM
I would suggest a general should only be able to prompt a unit he is with through fire. Would be a difficult thing to do from a distance.
Martin
I think the solution is, as previously mentioned, make it a Yellow to push through 1 BW and a Red to push through 2 BW.
Quote from: AntiokosIII on May 17, 2019, 03:28:04 AM
Quote from: nikgaukroger on May 16, 2019, 07:15:20 PM
They ain't easy to use and they ain't meant to be in MeG. Its a quite harsh learning curve - after a year of using them I'm happy against most armies now, but it really has taken that long.
Just curious why horse archers are 'supposed to be' difficult to use? Historically, they were very effective over a long time. I am wondering why you felt they should be hard to use successfully.
Not my decision Si's 8)
But basically because under previous sets (FoG specifically and DBM) they have been far too easy to use and overly dominated - MeG is making their life harder as a balance/reaction.
Quote from: Dru on May 17, 2019, 05:24:15 AM
I'd look at making Skirmish cav move 7.
Unnecessary. Skirmisher cavalry moving 6 BW is fine.
It's fine if your suggested approach to prompting is accepted, otherwise I'd agree a 1UD bump would be good for skirmish cavalry.
Either way achieves the same thing - a bit more survivability against loose cavalry TUGs. I prefer the bump down for prompting.
QuoteI'd look to evaluate if Knights should be move 5
But what is a knight ? please define what "knight" means to you
Norma Knight ...but if you consider protected lancer, devastating charger ...it is nearly the same as a macedonian companion ...or should the term "knight" only apply to fully armoured knight even without armoured horses ?
Quote from: stuuk on May 17, 2019, 10:06:40 AM
It's fine if your suggested approach to prompting is accepted, otherwise I'd agree a 1UD bump would be good for skirmish cavalry.
Either way achieves the same thing - a bit more survivability against loose cavalry TUGs. I prefer the bump down for prompting.
Well put. That was my point.
Quote from: badhabum on May 17, 2019, 10:22:08 AM
QuoteI'd look to evaluate if Knights should be move 5
But what is a knight ? please define what "knight" means to you
Norma Knight ...but if you consider protected lancer, devastating charger ...it is nearly the same as a macedonian companion ...or should the term "knight" only apply to fully armoured knight even without armoured horses ?
I was typing quickly. "Knight" I was referring to "Other loose cav or camels" per the QRS that are move 5.
Either restricting prompting (yellow = 1; red = 2) or giving Cav SUGs a boost to move, would help mitigate the unnatural ability of these 5BW TUGs to capture the SUG cav. Restricting is better to also give shooty non-SUG cav & infantry a bump up too.
Personally I am in favour of the idea of Prompt through fire: yellow = 1; red = 2. Though shield cover needs to be considered. This reduced prompting will impact them most of all.
If testing indicated that this reduction in prompting is too severe, then my idea of bumped up movement for Cav SUGs is something to consider. It may be a crap idea.
It's a bit of an odd one - skirmishing SUGs are okay, but sometimes they get caught and killed and do zero damage.
I don't think there's any other unit in the game that's quite so finicky.
They can be really good, or really awful. Perhaps the oddity with them is that they are so swingy.
Quote from: stuuk on May 17, 2019, 10:06:40 AM
It's fine if your suggested approach to prompting is accepted, otherwise I'd agree a 1UD bump would be good for skirmish cavalry.
Either way achieves the same thing - a bit more survivability against loose cavalry TUGs. I prefer the bump down for prompting.
I'm happy with them at 6BW regardless.
If they went to 7BW I'd bet good money that people would immediately complain that they reached the table edge too quickly ...
IMHO, skirmishing SuG's were never all that problematic. The problem is with skirmishing Tug's. It is quite difficult to shoot lancers with a 5 MU move without getting run down. There's a 1/3 chance of getting caught even if you run away instead of skirmish. If toy Skirmish the chance is even higher. To have a chance you have to resort to gamey tricks like using 2 units at divergent angles, so that the charger has to wheel to follow. Frankly, I seriously doubt any Hun or Mongol worth his koumiss ever did this, and IMHO any rules set that forces you to resort to unhistorical methods to do well is covering up a flaw somewhere.
I can hear people telling me that if I love the rules otherwise (I do) and don't like the way the rules treat horse archers (I don't), play some other sort of army and quit whining. Fair enough. I am currently playing a very different sort of army, and enjoying myself rather a lot.
I do love my horse archers/steppe nomads, though, and if I can come up with a simple, fair, easy to play mechanism to make these armies play more in accordance with my view of their historical performance, I will. Don't hold your breath, I already know it's not easy.
I guess there's a longing for the good old days of horse archer armies in FOG, which I found too overpowered. Playing in a miniatures game, angles are part of the game and not a gimmick. A gimmick is a scythe chariot in WRG 7th. :) :)
I had an interesting game today . A mounted bow army vs some lancers .As I was facing an AlexMac army I expected more foot but the army was cavalry based . The fight ended in the mounted bow army defeat. The problem faced was pretty simple : the end of the world and white dice for the shooting . You may write about how difficult it is to master such an army, etc...but on the end, white dice are not damaging enough to kill the lancers, unless of course you get very lucky. Also once in melee, all the lancers are melee expert, the mounted bow are not . Also at one point there is no more room to run away or manoeuver and it is pretty difficult to end a game in the specified time frame. To do that you need a shock army or lots of skilled shooters. That's my analyses. I will use a mounted bow army in my next tournament so will be able to test more .
Quote from: AntiokosIII on May 17, 2019, 10:10:58 PM
IMHO, skirmishing SuG's were never all that problematic.
You may say that, but as I play Parthian and Medieval Alan I can tell you that a large number of SUGs do have some issues.
The most important being the ability to march right up to them, sit at <1UD and charge right away - it means you can double loose cavalry right upto them, which is a real pain for sk SUGs.
I am considering taking one of the above to skulls, but the biggest issue I have with them is whether they can finish a game in the time allowed
Quote from: badhabum on May 19, 2019, 07:49:49 PM
To do that you need a shock army or lots of skilled shooters.
With the latest list changes armies that had lots of SUGs (Parthians, Alans etc) lost half of their Cantabrian, so they lost their 'skilled' shooters.
Quote from: stuuk on May 19, 2019, 09:41:03 PM
Quote from: AntiokosIII on May 17, 2019, 10:10:58 PM
IMHO, skirmishing SuG's were never all that problematic.
You may say that, but as I play Parthian and Medieval Alan I can tell you that a large number of SUGs do have some issues.
The most important being the ability to march right up to them, sit at <1UD and charge right away - it means you can double loose cavalry right upto them, which is a real pain for sk SUGs.
I am considering taking one of the above to skulls, but the biggest issue I have with them is whether they can finish a game in the time allowed
I've said this before, but I think taking away half of the cantabrian made these lists weaker. Sure, when you get charged, a lot of the time you run away and don't get to use it, but I found it made a big difference when shooting up big infantry armies, and just in general having a chance to roll green dice can make a big impact.
I still don't understand why the cantabrian was taken away. I hear 'game balance' which implies that SUG heavy armies were dominating the game. I don't see this in the statistics for 2018. It also means you get the situation where an army with 0-24 bases gets all cantabrian, and 12-36 gets up to half from 6-18. How does this make sense? Parthians were hard to use before, now to get a win in 3 hours is really up against it. White dice just doesn't cut it.
The other issue I have is that shoot & charge or charge-only loose cavalry can double march up to 1BW, get a shot in on green dice, then the SUG will have to run away because it's probably been slowed by the green dice machine gun, so it replies on black, or if it's lost a base, black minus. Seems pretty rough on the SUG...
Quote from: nikgaukroger on May 17, 2019, 05:54:50 PM
Quote from: stuuk on May 17, 2019, 10:06:40 AM
It's fine if your suggested approach to prompting is accepted, otherwise I'd agree a 1UD bump would be good for skirmish cavalry.
Either way achieves the same thing - a bit more survivability against loose cavalry TUGs. I prefer the bump down for prompting.
I'm happy with them at 6BW regardless.
If they went to 7BW I'd bet good money that people would immediately complain that they reached the table edge too quickly ...
Yes, if they moved 7 I'd probably be even less likely to take them. They'd be off the board in no time.
I'll report back after running Huns at Skullrollers....
I have some plans .... but they may die horribly!!!
Si
That's why I will report after Monchaux ( 8-9 june )
going to play early byzantine at historicon Personally i like the way horse archers work are now.
Horse archers are great unless you have to fight lancers that move 5 BW. Then it hits the fan.
I have plan. Biggest problem I see is enough time in tournament setting to win. Not lancers Just my opinion. 8)
Quote from: Raiderd on May 21, 2019, 09:25:38 PM
I have plan. Biggest problem I see is enough time in tournament setting to win. Not lancers Just my opinion. 8)
Lancers, as Antiokos wrote, are part of the problem . Most lancers and other shock cavalry are melee expert or long spear which give them the edge in melee ( and impact ) . Now that is the problem of the end of the world , when you cannot retreat anymore or get caught when skirmishing or fleeing .
Time in tournament is indeed a problem if you have no skilled shooters ( one or two units can make the difference ) as white dice can hurt the ennemy but it will take time and time is short during a tournament .So as time is short you need at one point to go to melee but not all shooters are good at melee, except the huns, mongols and like ... So for a friendly game the rule seems OK but for tournaments there might be a problem .
But I will try at Monchaux and come back to you .
In two test games my Parthian still didn't have time to win in 3 hrs.
They can do some damage but it tends to be spread out, and a single bad roll for evasion nets the enemy a point for a dead SuG versus my needing to kill 3-4 bases on average (6-8 hits) to get two points.
Having to have half the lads on white makes their damage potential quite low. On the other hand, Cantabrian is almost a death sentence, but at least they get a chance to shine.
Mongols and the like who can scrap as well are a much better choice IMHO for competition. Unfortunately I bought a Parthian army!
Quote from: Raiderd on May 21, 2019, 06:33:18 PM
going to play early byzantine at historicon Personally i like the way horse archers work are now.
Yes I am very pleased that MeG has captured the character of the Byzantine methods.
Many of the armies well worth using now (perhaps the very late ones after Komnenan difficult, but then in decline)
Si
Quote from: Simon Meg-Meister on May 30, 2019, 08:28:40 AM
Many of the armies well worth using now (perhaps the very late ones after Komnenan difficult, but then in decline)
I wouldn't rule them out. This is the one I used at Campaign and I reckon could be OK outside a theme as well.
(https://i.imgur.com/1kUfZkh.jpg)
Not too shabby at all Nik 8)
Although beyond the Drilled Shoot & Charge era that gives it its special character.
Si
Outside period you must just pray not to face too many longbows :(