Art De La Guerre

[Three]

Is there any consensus as to the best choice for the Iranian Lancers as HC Impact or Cataphracts, or a mix of both?

Would the choice be different if being used in theme or in an Open competition?

[Luddite]

Consensus? I think that's unlikely...

Opinions, for sure!

Personally I prefer HC over Cats as the Cats have manoeuverability problems that the extra armour and higher cost doesn't make up for.


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http://luddite1811.blogspot.co.uk/

[Three]

One can live in hope re consensus

I trawled through this sub forum hoping it might have been discussed before, but found nothing. I then went through the French language sub forum on the army and found (via Google Translate) a couple of very interesting posts where the suggestion was using the Iranian Lancers as Cats and using them adjacent to the Pikes, if I got the sense right, as something like the old idea of infantry tanks, with the command deployed centrally, with a skirmish wing and an elephant/ death star wing. The pikes and Cats would then support the Elephant wing.

I accept the manoeuvrability concern, but the idea intrigued me and hoped to tease out some gems of wisdom, either in support of the idea or to deride it.

[fdunadan]

it mainly depend of the composition of the opponent's army:
Cataphracts are good vs infantery, fighting as Kn with impact so +1 vs HI or +2 vs MI and furious charge and armor advantage. They can break any line, with a little time.

Impact cavalry is better vs mounted, faster and more manoeuvrable than Cataphracts, but is worse vs infantry.

in open competition, you can meet all kind of opponents, and every single player has an opinion as who's the best... there is no consensus, except on the fact that there is no consensus...
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Audentes fortuna iuvat.

[Black Prince]

Cats are great against infantry especially swordsmen so always go with them but against mounted it is hard to decide because the Cats do not get impact v mount but their armour kicks in if they loose so you could consider it a even fight except against knights then you are going to loose but so should impact heavy cav. When fighting knights your pikes and elephants will stomp all over them with ease so the Bactrians are quite capable of taking out a medieval army. Currently I am using cavalry wing of 4 Cats supported by 2 light cav and a Greek horseman impact.

[Three]

That's helpful, thanks.

I've never used it before and the lists I've come up with don't have a comfortable "feel" to them so far.

[Black Prince]

My list is still a work in progress it has seen action in a few games while it works OK providing the pike and elephants hit their target. I am sure there is room for improvement.

Currently
The cav wing as previously described.

Then a 3 pike, 2 elephant, 2 LF bow and a Greek horsemen impact.

With a MF command to hold terrain and the flank.

I am currently trying to decide if I should change the MF command to a micro command of 4 Light cav and beef up the other commands.

[Three]

Always slightly surprised how different someone else's lists are from what I come up with

Of the several that I've done, none have the pikes and elephants in the same command, so essentially it is a pike/cats command, an elephant/death star command and a small cavalry skirmishing command.

Ok, time for more list building.

[Hazelbark]

I would go for a mix. Meaning one command with 3-4 Cats.
Cats in period can really bust a lot of foot.
Maneuver ability to get on flanks with the HC.
If you are pairing the Pike and Cats in same Corps. Then I might take only 2 Cats. Some later Roman lists do this. In this situation if you come up against say a Macedonian with more Pike. Your Cats next to your pike allow you a longer line and you dare him to attack. As His pike rushing your Cats is very risky.

In an open Cats versus late period knights are not optimal and often there you want the HC to be able to maunver because neither wins the slugging match against late period knights.

I would be leery of a pure MI command. Because if the board is open or has only one useful bit of rough and the enemy has lots of mounted what do you do with it? It makes your deployment either predictable or weak.

[Three]

I've gone with -

I - Brilliant
3 Pike
3 Cats Elite
1 Greek HC Impact
2 Bactrian LH

II - Brilliant
3 Bowmen
2 Elephants
2 Colonist LI Jav

II - Allied Saka - Ordinary
3 LH Bow
2 MC Bow

200 points, 21 units, Initiative of +3

I have played a game with it and lost (81-29), but as the score suggests, it could have gone either way as both were 1 CP loss away from breaking going into the last turn. Pretty sure I messed up the deployment, and also failed to inflict a single CP loss from the LMI bowmen in the Elephant corp prior to combat, but I have to say I never felt confident that I'd got the balance right during the game. I was especially unsure of the 2 LH in the 1st command, but they turned out to be quite useful, but even with a Brilliant general, once it got to contact ranges it just felt like it took too many pips to manoeuvre.

Thoughts on the list I played with ?

[Black Prince]

Admittedly with limited experience I would look replacing the bowmen with MF spear. The Bowmen should work well against mounted armies but if you are up against foot army Romans or similar the bowmen can get clean up quickly leaving your Elephants exposed. It is a gamble by the other player can his foot hold on long enough against the Elephants.

The greatest weakness of the Bactrians this the lack of more hvy foot. I saw in one of Tim's recent AARs that one of his opponents had a MF command sitting in the open and it got wiped out easily.

[Three]

The Bowmen died very quickly, but even if they'd been MI Spears they might have lasted a turn longer, but up against impetuous HI sword in the open it's still not a good match up. The Bowmen were taken to support the elephants v mounted, with the idea that the mounted has to react, forwards or backwards, as sitting still means getting shot. It was unfortunate that my opponent didn't have much in the way of mounted, but I think that occasionally you just have to live with a bad match up as the probabilities are that more often than not, your opponent will have some mounted.

[Hazelbark]

The problem with bow escorts of elephants is you can't attack.