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 

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.