"Hold your horses!" Topic

Hold Your Horses

One of the stress points of doing the basic rules for CYNTHIA ANN'S WAR has been led horses. Until the rangers acquired the Colt revolvers, Texans almost always fought dismounted, and even after that most of their units were mounted infantry. They were generally inferior horsemen to the Comanche, and their muzzle loaders were ineffective while mounted. But the horses then often became the enemy's prime target.

The opposing sides' victory conditions were asymmetrical, and often allowed both sides to claim a "win." A Comanche raiding party that made off with a dozen horses and avoided any casualties was considered a success; Comanche measured their wealth by the size of their horse herds. The Texans, meanwhile, were glad to have driven the raiders away. (The stakes did get higher when, for example, the Comanche had taken captives whom the Texans were determined to recover.)

So we need rules for Indian attempts to stampede and capture Texan horses. The number of relevant factors can make the tactical situation quite complex: how far are the horses from the dismounted firing line? Are they in the open or in covering terrain like woods or a stream bed? Or just out of sight behind a ridge? How are they secured, e.g. by hobbles, or tethered? And most critically, are there men there with them? And are their holders mounted or dismounted?

It has now finally occurred to me that the COOL rating, used to test the men's morale and reaction, can be used also to see whether the Comanche succeed in causing a stampede. Horses don't have morale, exactly, but we are testing horses' reaction to threats. So I am going to assign (for playtesting) a COOL rating based on numbers of mounted horse holders. With dismounted being less vulnerable to enemy fire but also less effective? (How many horses ‘ ears can a man whisper in?)

Maximum effect (so a COOL of 2, the best) would be one mounted man holding the reins of one other horse. That might actually be a thing if a militia unit is half riflemen and half muskets or shotguns: dismount the rifles to fire, keep their horses close at hand held by the non-riflemen.

One holder to two other horses would be COOL 3, and one holder for three other horses, which is the US Cavalry's standard "fours", would be COOL 4. So when the Comanche attempt a stampede with shouts and waving blankets, the horses are held steady if the holders make their COOL.

If they fail COOL, or if the horses have no human holders, they will attempt to break free of any physical restraint and stampede.

I am assuming that dismounted holders are less effective, if only because they have one more horse to control. I assume they "automatically" control their own horse while on its back? But have we any data or anecdotes supporting that assumption? Should I require mounted horse holders to test their own RIDE skill? The goal is a fast and easy quick test as opposed to too granular a simulation.

Sounds good to me.

My research tells me that at Plum Creek the Texans stampeded the Comanche horses and snarled up the pack trains and were so able to recover a lot of loot. So it was not JUST one side.

Did they lead the horses off or did they stampede them?

While this is fiction, the core of it is herding animals under stress (a kinetic fight):

inlgames.com/ranchers.htm

The basic concept is you make an attack roll within 3" of a herd animal to make it go a direction, generally away from you +/- 10 degrees. We allowed players to pick, but you could certainly roll … the better the attack success, the closer to your desired direction. Since they are herds, when one goes, often others follow. Based on our numbers of livestock, we rolled a d6 and that many of the closest followed. You then rolled a "kicker" d6. If that roll equalled the first roll, the next candidate herd animal would run off 90 degrees away from the rest of the herd.

I forgot to mention that we put the die for a moving herd in front of it in the direction it is moving. Once a herd starts moving, they keep going in that direction. Player can (and will have to) change their direction with additional herding "attacks".

Ah, thanks, I will incorporate that. And it will work for hunters cutting out of the bison mass.

I think that I will want a rule for dogs causing and guiding stampedes. I don't know if it ever happened historically, but I have seen dogs run with horses from pasture to stables at horse feeding time -- not that horses needed much motivation.

My sense of that as regards the Comanche is that they had lots of dogs around pretty much constantly, and of course used dogs to pull travois alongside horses as in the Caitlin painting, so the mere presence of dogs barking and running would not trigger anything. check out the painting, which shows a tribe moving, a LONG line of horses and dogs with travois under the care of women, and the warriors moving in a separate line parallel but not mixed. In the foreground at least a dozen dogs are fighting and creating chaos, with women flailing away to break it up, and in the extreme right bottom corner three warriors are pointing and laughing.

link

I think that I will want a rule for dogs causing and guiding stampedes

We've done this. The ingoing assumption is they are trained herding dogs. It's basically a chain of the rule above, but we allow a figure to give an order "attack" to a dog within 6". Success means, take control of the dog, and have it try a herding "attack".

It makes control harder, (two successes) but gives you addiitonal range and flexibility. F'r'ex, you could keep one dog on either side of a herd. Or just you on one side and the dog on the other.

eto, we think a lot alike. Thanks for the link.

No problem.

We use that method sometimes for civilians caught in a combat zone. Key point – it's not in "the rules". Livestock, civillians, robots, etc. this type of movement is scenario specific, so the mechanism goes in specific scenarios, already tailored.

It contrasts with a more deliberate civilian movement tailored to a different scenario, thus a different civilian headspace:

link