This illustrates my process now of writing rules with the help of the AI. The final rule (last comment by me) is simple but now I am confident that it is grounded in some degree of reality. And the AI gently disabused me of a misconception I was entertaining.
Comanche "knights and squires"?
A medieval squire was expected to bring his knight a new horse or lance as needed in battle. Did Comanche (or other native) youths serve a similar role? It is easy to imagine a son or younger brother bringing up a remount and extra arrows or a lance from the reserve remuda, but do we have any contemporary accounts of such happening? Of course absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but any actual examples would be helpful if they exist.
GROK:
No formalized "squire" role like the medieval European one is documented for the Comanche (or most other Plains groups), but related support and apprenticeship practices existed. Warriors routinely managed multiple horses themselves, and younger males or captives handled herding, chores, and learning on campaigns rather than systematically ferrying remounts or spare weapons into the middle of a fight.
Horse use and remounts
Comanche warriors typically owned or brought several horses on campaigns. A common pattern was a dedicated war horse (often ridden only in battle and highly valued) plus trail/common mounts for travel and packing. Accounts note parties bringing at least three horses per warrior on longer rides so animals stayed fresh. Ethnographic notes (e.g., from Comanche informants) describe leading the best war horse until the actual engagement and reserving it for the fight. Fathers or uncles commonly gave or lent a young man two horses when he was ready to go to war—one for battle, one for the trail—with explicit instructions not to overuse the war horse.
When a mount was lost or exhausted, the practical response was usually to switch among one's own string (if nearby), fight on foot briefly, or be rescued by comrades. Rescuing a dismounted or wounded warrior (or recovering his body/equipment) was a high-status act that could count as coup. There are no clear contemporary accounts of a dedicated youth or attendant systematically running a fresh horse or extra lance/arrows up to a specific warrior mid-melee the way a European squire was expected to. Fights were often fluid, circling, hit-and-run, or sudden raids rather than prolonged set-piece battles requiring constant resupply lines.
Youth and apprentice roles
• Camp and campaign herding: Teenage boys routinely tended the large horse herds in camp. On the trail or during larger movements, younger males helped manage the remuda.
• Apprentices on war parties: Larger raiding parties often included "apprentice warriors" who served the full warriors, learned the trade, held horses (especially during night approaches or horse-stealing raids), and did chores. Women sometimes tended camps and gear on bigger expeditions. Captive accounts (e.g., involving boys like those described in works on Texas captives) note that younger boys rode along specifically to look after the horses and handle menial tasks as part of their training; boys over about twelve were expected to participate more actively.
• Captives in subordinate roles: Victor Tixier (traveling among the Osage in 1840 and reporting on Comanche practices) observed that young captive boys were often taken in by a brave "whom they serve in the quality of a squire or a slave." They gained more freedom as they matured and were absorbed. This is the closest linguistic parallel to the "squire" idea, but it describes general personal service and integration (common for captives) rather than a specialized battlefield logistics role.
• Training emphasis: Boys learned riding from infancy, archery and hunting early, and formal entry into warrior status around 15–16 after a vision quest and a successful buffalo hunt. Military societies and group drills prepared them; every male was expected to become a full warrior. Youth roles were transitional apprenticeship and support, not a permanent attendant class.
Herman Lehmann (a German-Texan captive who lived among Apaches then Comanches) and similar captive narratives describe starting at the bottom—holding horses on raids, herding, learning maneuvers (including shooting while concealed behind a galloping horse, charging/retreating, and rescuing fallen comrades)—before becoming active fighters. Uncles or relatives sometimes lent war equipment and horses to promising youths under strict conditions.
Broader Plains comparison and sources
Similar patterns appear among Cheyenne, Lakota, Kiowa, and other horse cultures: multiple mounts per warrior, boys herding, young men joining parties for experience and prestige, and captives in lower-status roles. Primary and near-contemporary sources include Tixier's observations, 19th-century traveler and military accounts (e.g., Marcy, Ruíz), ethnographic field notes (Hoebel, Lowie, etc.), and later synthesis in works such as Pekka Hämäläinen's The Comanche Empire and captive autobiographies. Military society studies (e.g., Meadows) focus more on adult warrior organizations, rituals, and status than on battlefield logistics attendants.
Bottom line: The practical need for remounts and spare arrows/lances existed, and a son, younger brother, or apprentice could and almost certainly sometimes did bring up a spare horse or equipment informally. But the structured, personal "squire brings the knight a fresh lance and remount in the press of battle" expectation is not attested in the sources. Comanche (and Plains) warfare prioritized individual skill, personal horses, coup-counting, and fluid mounted tactics over hierarchical battlefield support staff. The closest documented equivalents are campaign-level horse herding, apprentice service on raids, and captive "squire/slave" domestic/personal service.
ME:
So I should not have a rule for an adolescent bringing a fresh horse up to where the dehorsed warrior needs it, but it would make sense to assume a half-way meeting so the warrior in need of a remount does not have to trek all the way back to get his other horse; some youth is probably leading it at least within sight. and can meet in the middle?
GROK:
Yes — that is a reasonable practical assumption for most situations, especially larger parties or actions near a camp or staged herd, even though it is an inference rather than a documented formal procedure.
Warriors routinely brought multiple horses (often three or more on longer trips) and reserved their best mounts for combat. They commonly rode lesser animals to the vicinity of a fight and switched to the war horse when action began. Leaving the entire string miles back when combat was expected would have been impractical; spare mounts were typically staged close enough to be useful — near the edge of a fight, behind a rise, or with the party's remuda under some form of watch. Youths, apprentices, or younger relatives were the natural people to hold or lead those animals (they already did exactly that during night approaches and horse raids, and they herded the main herds in camp).
A dismounted warrior therefore usually did not have to walk all the way back to a distant remuda. The more typical picture is a halfway meeting: the warrior moves toward the staged horses (or signals), while the youth leading the spare mount advances partway to meet him. This fits the fluid, mobile character of Plains fighting and the known support roles of younger males without inventing a formal "squire delivers the remount into the press" system that the sources do not support.
Caveats remain:
• On small parties (a few men far from camp) the string was often managed by the warriors themselves, with less dedicated youth support.
• The exact distance and whether the youth actively advanced varied by circumstances.
• Contemporary accounts describe the logistics of multiple mounts, herd-watching by boys, and holding horses on raids, but not this specific meet-in-the-middle step in detail.
For modeling, writing, or reconstruction purposes, treating spare horses as kept within practical reach under the eye of a youth or apprentice — so that a dismounted man can recover a remount without a full retreat — is consistent with how Comanche and other Plains groups actually handled horses. It simply stays on the practical side of the evidence rather than creating a rigid institutional role.
Me:
So a small band of six has two horses each. No youths, so one of the six tends the extra mounts of the other five, quite near at hand? That is suddenly sounding like Texan horse-holding tactics? Except everyone stays mounted.
GROK:
Yes, for a small party of six with two horses each and no youths or apprentices, the practical solution is that the men themselves manage the spares, and they keep them quite near at hand. One man temporarily holding the extras of the others is possible in certain moments, but it is not the default arrangement the way it was for Texas Rangers.
On the move, each warrior normally led or herded his own spare horse. That was standard for small parties. Near a fight or during a pause, the spares were picketed, tied together, or loosely herded in a convenient spot close enough that a man could reach them quickly — behind a rise, in a draw, or just outside the immediate action. Ethnographic notes and raid accounts show men leaving one or more of the group with the horses as a precaution (especially the younger or less experienced member) while the others approached a camp or prepared to act. A brief, situational "one holds the remuda" arrangement is therefore plausible when the party expected to dismount, approach on foot, or needed the string tightly controlled.
It is not, however, the regular Ranger-style system in which one man held three or four horses so the others could fight dismounted with long guns and then remount fast. Plains warriors strongly preferred to stay mounted. Their usual pattern was fluid mounted combat, switching among their own horses as needed when the string was accessible, or fighting from horseback while the spares stayed nearby under minimal supervision. Full dismounting was less common and more situational (rough ground, a defensive stand, night work, or exhausted mounts).
So for your six-man party:
• Spares stay close and under the party's own control.
• Each man can usually reach his own second horse without a long walk.
• One of the six may hold or watch the whole string for a short time if the situation calls for it.
• Everyone still expects to remain mounted for the actual fighting whenever possible.
That is consistent with how small Plains parties handled multiple mounts. It borrows the same practical logic the Rangers used (don't leave remounts far away), but it does not copy their specific "horse-holder while the rest fight dismounted" tactic, because the combat preferences were different.
Me:
I can handle that abstractly by having a dehorsed warrior make a COOL roll and then a Riding role and assume that means success in remounting on his next action. That will be faster game play.
GROK:
Yes, that is a clean and reasonable abstraction for faster play.
Given what the sources support, a de-horsed warrior in a small party normally had a spare mount reasonably close at hand (led by himself, picketed nearby, or watched by another member of the group). Recovering it was a practical matter of nerve and horsemanship rather than a long trek or a dedicated support role. Requiring a COOL roll (to stay composed and move toward the horse under pressure) followed by a Riding roll (to reach it and get back on efficiently) captures that without needing extra characters or bookkeeping.
Success meaning "remounted and ready on your next action" is a good speed-of-play choice. It acknowledges the logistical advantage of multiple mounts while keeping the procedure simple and player-facing. If you later want a light failure gradient (e.g., partial success means the remount takes an extra action or the horse is further than expected), you can add it, but the two-roll version you described is already consistent with the practical reality of small-party horse management and will run smoothly at the table.
goes to sea with the Terrain Mat.
