Cavalry pricing

[Princeps]

Hello,

I was designing an army when some values for cavalry units made an impression on me. I asked myself about it and, obtaining no response from myself, wanted to share them with you here .

I was particularly struck by the points difference – or lack thereof – between two profiles that I will call, for simplicity's sake, Xystophoroi and Frankish Knights, them being :

• Xystophoroi : Drilled Loose ; Superior ; Protected ; Charging Lancer ; Melee Expert = 194 points a base
• Frankish Knights : Formed Loose ; Average ; -/Farm ; Charging Lancer ; Devastating Chargers ; Melee Expert = 177 points a base

The first thing I went to was to evaluate the value of Drilled here, which I got by looking at the cost of Drilled "Frankish Knights", which are 189 points a base.

That being done, we are left with a meager difference of 5 points a base (194 – 189) for two profiles that appear similar to each other in combat (both are CL ; Superior on one hand, DC-FArm on the other) but are not really, for having same factors in combat require more conditions for the Frankish Knights than for the Xystophoroi :

• DC requires 2 ranks deep
• DC requires fighting on one's front
• FArm requires not fighting EL or 2HCC

Superior requires none of that, you always get it

Furthermore, there are other advantages to being Sup : less effective Skilled Shooting, KaB test in Green rather than Yellow.

I was thus wondering if 5 points were enough for such a difference.

Best,
Antoine

[lionheartrjc]

A points system is never going to be perfect.  A single example doesn't really demonstrate anything.

My suspicion is that Superior troops in general are slightly under priced.  However increasing the price of Superior troops would I suspect prove incredibly unpopular.

Richard

[SteveO]

A points system is never going to be perfect.  A single example doesn't really demonstrate anything.

My suspicion is that Superior troops in general are slightly under priced.  However increasing the price of Superior troops would I suspect prove incredibly unpopular.

I agree with your first premise Richard but as a generalisation would not agree that Superior troops are under priced. If they were we would see more elite (small) armies used in tournaments and make it to the podium. I would preemptively argue against the oft repeated comment that good players will win with whatever army they take by pointing out how infrequently they use elite armies. I even recall Simon writing that he deliberately developed the rules to favour quantity over quality (my words but that was the broad intent).

Cheers,

Steve

[nikgaukroger]

I'd broadly agree with Richard. A few points oddities occur and given the troop types in this case I'm not going to lose sleep over it.