"Accurate Horse Archer Rules" Topic

Are there any Ancient/Medieval Rules that accurately reflect the power of Turkish, Steppe Tribes, or Mongol horse archery? After reading about the power of the composite bow and the volume of arrow fire produced by masses of horse archers, I have never encountered any rule sets that accurately portray the effects of this archery. Archery that often proved almost unbeatable. Any suggestions or thoughts?

Knowing Perris0707 outside of TMP I can say definitively that your characterization of him is incorrect and unfair.

Yes horse archer armies lost but they also won a lot of battles. In most rules they feel like a nuisance to the enemy. Clearly when used properly they were far more effective than games make them out to be. I believe that is the point Perris0707 is making.

Having thousands of arrows raining down from enemies most of your army can't touch has to be a morale killer and inflict real casualties too. We don't see that in most rules. The only set ive played where my Mongols did anything like the feats of the armies they're modelled after was Kings of War Historical. Which isn't a great set in many other respects.

Thanks for the clarification Scott! Notice that I did say "almost" unbeatable. First I am NOT a competition gamer, and the armies that I actually prefer are NON-horse archer armies for the record. I was just pointing out that most Ancient/Medieval Rules don't give much power to shooting, and I was wondering why. The Turks, Huns, Mongols, Avars, etc did quite a bit of successful campaigning and empire building using horse archer armies.

Anyway,

Brendan Moyle wrote a set called "Shattered Lances". Specific to the Crusades Era, they cover Mongols and Turks and deal with horse archery.

Brendan was a bit of an expert in the era, so they are supposed to be good. The mechanisms are more 7th edition than DBx.

A link in TMP

TMP link

A better link to Shattered Lances

link

PS: I don't play these, my favourite rules are DBMM. I think DBMM does a great job with horse archers, but it doesn't model the _mechanics_ of them, rather than the results. So they don't shoot because it's assumed all shooting is at short range, and close-combat includes short range shooting. But rules preference is a personal thing.

I think one of the problems faced by horse archer armies in wargaming is the table size. Use 6mm, set up in the middle of a 12' x 6' table and run rings around the enemy. Almost impossible to do in 28mm.

DBM and DBMM do a pretty good job. Horse archer armies are formidable, particularly Mongols with their fantastic command and control. I took a Parthian army to a comp and did very well with it.
This is in spite of horse archers not getting long range fire in the rules; historically they shot from very close range while galloping past, and the rules combat outcomes reflect this. Light horse mostly recoil or flee from combat; very hard to kill them.

Armati were ancient-medieval rules that gave much power to horse archers

So, is the effectiveness of horse archers related to the weapons, that is, arrows penetrating shields and armor, killing men, or is it related to tactics, galling troops with showers of arrows, demoralizing troops unable to respond and causing formations to break up making them easier to overrun?

Both. Arrows shot at very short ranges as was typical for horse archers will penetrate, and the constant attacks to which you cannot respond are demoralising

Warmaster Ancients initially allowed horse archers to shoot and evade when charged which made them powerful in using harassment techniques on the tabletop. The errata then limited them to either shoot or evade when charged. In DMM with off table flank marches would allow for the larger type enveloping maneuver, but of course you had to have luck with the die roll to actually have your flank march show up during the game. Soldiers of God/Soldiers of Rome allow for harassment techniques with the battle plan card of advance, loose, retire card. Many rules do have some evade mechanism to allow your horse archers to avoid charges and harass, but I have always found it difficult to win with horse archer armies due to the tabletop size limitations. There is only so much room to evade or to maneuver around a flank.