"Are your rules cavalry friendly?" Topic

Cavalry move twice as fast as infantry?
When cavalry charge a nut too hard to crack they bounce off with minimal losses?
When cavalry are unsuccessful vs infantry they retreat far enough so the infantry can't catch them.

These are signs of cavalry friendly rules for me. Yours?

Ron

Two of my three preferred rule systems don't really include cavalry. The third is to highly abstracted to really tell.

Mine usually have cavalry moving a little faster than infantry normally except when charging or fleeing.
Cavalry usually fail to make contact with spear armed infantry or burst through/pursue.

That's my take anyway!

Right now, the only game I have where cavalry feature heavily, is actually a bit TOO cavalry friendly.

Surely the question to ask is "do these rules reward players who use cavalry as historical commanders of the period did?" If, for example, a set of Napoleonic rules depicted cavalry, once the force of their charge is spent, loitering around to be shot down by infantry rather than withdrawing back to a rally point well out of musket range, then I would expect no player of those rules would use their cavalry in a historical manner.

My home-groan SYW rules are death to cavalry. Use them with finesse or cover the battlefield with dead horsemen.

"Home-groan" has gone directly into my file.
Thanks,ochoin!

Using your indicators, yes I use a cavalry friendly set of rules, however…

Plated Knights vs C grade Crossbow: knights will inflict 6 hits and receive 9 (4 from shooting as they approach). Chance of Knights breaking foot in that turn; about 1.4%. Chance of Knights (A Grade) breaking as a result of a morale test 16%. If the crossbow men were D grade, the change of the A grade, fully plate armoured Knights breaking in the first charge increases to 3.2%.
Knights, if they survive their morale test MUST then break off, spend a turn regrouping (another 4 hits), then may approach (another 4 hits) and attempt to charge; 58% chance they won't by then…

By your suggested measure, I use a cavalry friendly set of rules. Love the rules enough to mash those results about a bit. 😀😬😉

If those rules were cavalry friendly the crossbows at best would get off a hasty ineffective volley and would then be ridden down.

…then those knights would spend the rest of the game out of control, roaming at random in pursuit of the fleeing infantry until they ran into (or were run into by) a formed unit. Then it's all "run away! Run away!", Brave Sir Robin.

Shako 2 does all of that. They can also take serious casualties if they dice badly charging a square.

Most of my Home rules are cav. friendly--but cav. numbers are low.

Most of our rules (horse and musket) make the assumption that true melee rarely occurs. As Eumelus said, if you use them correctly you may reap good results, and use them foolishly and they are squandered. So sort of cavalry friendly?

A lot has to do with the era being played. In the gunpowder era, the cavalry was more effective against linear SYW tactics.
In napoleonics, cavalry in my rules, more effective against open order troops. They were terrible in bad terrain and suburban areas. In open fields, a lot had to do with orders. A contact and return order allowed a unit to keep cohesion. A charge and pursue order could engage and disrupt several units intheirpath. The problem is that at the end of the charge the regiment or brigade has lost effectiveness. They must find their way back to a rally point in their rear area, then reform. This often meant that low grade would never be available for more than one charge in a unit battle. A high quality unit may rally but it would take a couple of hours to become combat ready again.
In later eras colonials are different than ACW or Europe. Many recorded actions indicated that cavalry tended to be a one charge tactic during the day of a battle.

"In the gunpowder era, the cavalry was more effective against linear SYW tactics". Really?

"The French cavalry commander, Lieutenant General Fitzjames, launched his first attack on the British and Hanoverian foot, 11 squadrons of the regiments Royal Cravates and the Mestre de Camp under the Marquis de Castries. The charge was received with fire and dispersed. The second French charge was delivered by 22 squadrons of the regiments Royal Étranger, Bourgogne and Brigade du Roi. Again the charge was dispersed."

Doesn't sound like cavalry were too effective against linear infantry tactics in this case (Minden 1759)

In my rules Cavalry fall under the category of "Ornamental Gentlemen."

Cavalry versus linear infantry or infantry in square. A good topic for debate. Due to the flowing nature of cavalry, they are not always going to hit you on the front. I do lean toward the square of the Napoleonic era and the hollow Colonial square of the later 1800s as being more effective than the linear tactics of the 1700s. Though the rapid fire rifles of the later 1800s, put greater firepower in a linear unit.

So a good topic.

Well, none of the things in the OP are actually rules.

The first is either a stat or an effect. The second is n outcome of combat interactions. The third is a player decision.

That said, the first two (do you have those effects and outcomes often) could be indicators of the timbre of the rules.

For QILS, it depends on how you stat out your infantry, but I often work for and achieve the first two effects.

You are right, for designing the factor that is most overlooked tends to be the player decision. A balanced set of rules can seem very lopsided if one player is competent and the other a mess when it comes to good tactics.

Trying to use tactics not suited to the era of the rules is another common factor that occurs in play testing.

Even army lists can be skewed by a rules lawyer.

Best rules for Napoleonic cavalry tactics I've ever used were in "From Valmy to Waterloo". Never played anything else quite as good in the last 20 years and dozens of rules sets.

So how fast should the horsies go? Obviously dependant on the scale of the battle and stuff.

Speed is important because if the cavalry is victorious on a flank it may or may not have time to influence the infantry fight in the center.

If that's your definition of balanced those are the rules I want Rudy.