five bucks
Knight at Arms
If you look at the current game state, in that video again, even with the weak armour in its current state, half of the 250 shock troops survive the run across the field to the 100 archers.Its the further away you are, but when you start getting closer and closer the odds get worse. And well, I'd be pretty damn sad if an arrow punched right through my mouth. So yeah it probably won't happen as much as you'd think, but I don't think anyone is going to be happy to run into volleys without a shield or visor. All in all, a bad time for your given early medieval warrior without their shield.
So, if TW doubles the average HTK of armour (including head armour- not only chest HTK would be buffed), and it were 100 shock troops against 100 archers, I think that would be close to an even fight despite the lack of shields. Or perhaps the archers will have a slight advantage, which I'm fine with.
It really takes the feeling of eliteness from them when every second village provides a greater number of them than normal troops.Yeah, too many damn noble troops around, its stupid. Never understood the complaints about not having enough of them. Now they're everywhere and they end up becoming mainstay troops as opposed to an elite reserve.
Could genuinely be a good idea if armour gets fixed and good troops are dying less often, so that replacing them when they do die isn't as easy.But to me that's not even enough. I want to go as far as to make Imperial Legionaries rare. If I had my way, the majority of the average player's army would be T3, and they will weep at the loss of even a single T5.
I said 2.4m, because that is the minimum length a kontarion was in order to be called a kontarion; the weapon ranged from 2.4 to 4m. "Shorter version", to me, means "on the smaller end of the range". So in essence, their spear/pike would be at least 2.4m, if not even a bit more. Otherwise I think it would just be called a spear.Reading your sources and they do mention that 'peltasts' did run around with shorter versions of 2.4m kontarion spears. Emphasis on shorter though, so I'm not seeing pikemen but rather your dime in a dozen javelineer. Longer spears than usual maybe, but not pikes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_army_(Komnenian_era)#Peltasts
True enough.Not the way I understood it. Phalanx guys can kill dudes, but that wasn't their job at all. Their job was to pin the enemy formation down and keep them in place for Alexander's cavalry, the real killers. Hence the 'hammer and anvil' expression. Pikes were the anvil, cavalry the hammer.
Thanks, I'm very glad we agree overall, and you have made my idea more appropriate to the current state of the game, and less reachy.I'll admit this much yes, unless the archers are uniquely capable of melee combat due to shields, skills or armour.
I'll be content with this much, so long as its not absolute (which tbf you don't want it to be). Again, shock/pikes will not have much fun going after archers, melee cav can absolutely get splattered if they get tied up in one place and hit by shock troops and etc etc. Good chart though otherwise.
The way I see it, hybrid troops would be classified as whatever their primary is (eg: Faris are ranged cavalry because their primary is their javelin, with a side of melee cavalry,) and they would have counter relationships with more troop types, but the counters would be even softer - smaller advantages and disadvantages.I suppose more troop types can be fitted in. Not too sure which. And it gets messier when you talk about hybrid troops too.
In the Faris' case, smaller advantages than most ranged cav - maybe even none- against pike infantry since they have fewer javs to throw before being forced to engage in melee against a pike wall; smaller disadvantage against ranged infantry as they can ride them down with their lances.