Heavily armoured cavalry and the Byzantine Tagmata

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davidharvey1
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Heavily armoured cavalry and the Byzantine Tagmata

Post by davidharvey1 »

As far as I know, no cavalry are categorised as heavily armoured, yet the differentiation between a horseman in a simple corselet and one in full mail and lamellar is considerable. What is the reasoning behind there being no cavalry which can be upgraded to heavily armoured?

It does not seem to me to be right that any heavily armoured cavalry are automatically Kataphract, since operation as a Kataphract was about tactics and deployment as well as armour. Many medieval Asiatic horsemen wore almost complete armour but used Ghilam tactics; allowing them to be heavily armoured would not give them an advantage against knights in initial combat but would reflect their capacity to check knights if they managed to sustain a combat and reflect their superiority against less heavily armoured cavalry.

In the case of the Byzantine Tagmata where archaeologists such as Dawson have demonstrated the likely superiority of Byzantine armour against western at least until 1200 and where evidence suggests that units of Tagmata were almost as heavily armoured as the Kataphractoi, the option to deploy as heavily armoured would also make them more viable in the 5 rank formation (1 rank in FOG) which all the contemporary manuals demonstrate that they normally used but which is not viable in FOG.

Any thoughts please?

David
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Re: Heavily armoured cavalry and the Byzantine Tagmata

Post by expendablecinc »

davidharvey1 wrote:As far as I know, no cavalry are categorised as heavily armoured, yet the differentiation between a horseman in a simple corselet and one in full mail and lamellar is considerable. What is the reasoning behind there being no cavalry which can be upgraded to heavily armoured?

It does not seem to me to be right that any heavily armoured cavalry are automatically Kataphract, since operation as a Kataphract was about tactics and deployment as well as armour. Many medieval Asiatic horsemen wore almost complete armour but used Ghilam tactics; allowing them to be heavily armoured would not give them an advantage against knights in initial combat but would reflect their capacity to check knights if they managed to sustain a combat and reflect their superiority against less heavily armoured cavalry.

In the case of the Byzantine Tagmata where archaeologists such as Dawson have demonstrated the likely superiority of Byzantine armour against western at least until 1200 and where evidence suggests that units of Tagmata were almost as heavily armoured as the Kataphractoi, the option to deploy as heavily armoured would also make them more viable in the 5 rank formation (1 rank in FOG) which all the contemporary manuals demonstrate that they normally used but which is not viable in FOG.

Any thoughts please?

David
I think if they are as heavily armoured as cataphracts they would be slow enough to be classed as cataphracts. I think the question is more whether the most well equiped tagmatics shoudl be classed as cataphracts rather than cavalry.
ethan
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Re: Heavily armoured cavalry and the Byzantine Tagmata

Post by ethan »

expendablecinc wrote:I think if they are as heavily armoured as cataphracts they would be slow enough to be classed as cataphracts. I think the question is more whether the most well equiped tagmatics shoudl be classed as cataphracts rather than cavalry.
Possibly, although I then think the AP cost of cats is too high. I am not sure that Cats should be more costly than cavalry - the loss of maneuver balancing out the gain from heavy armor.
phlewis
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Post by phlewis »

Since heavy armoured knights aren't cataphracts due to limited speed then the Tagmatic Cavalry and the armoured and barded Bow Cavalry for example the Timurids shouldn't automatically be considered cataphracts. As was mentioned by the original poster cataphracts operate differently than cavalry or knights.

I suspect that the reason that cavalry doesn't get heavy armour is that the authors felt that it would adversely affect the interaction they were trying to model between knights, cavalry, and cataphracts.

Pat Lewis
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davidharvey1
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Post by davidharvey1 »

As Pat says Tagmatics, heavily armoured Ghilman etc are not Cataphract because of their recorded tactical use on the battlefield and this ought to be at the core of the simulation; they were also more heavily armoured than most armoured cavalry but not as heavily as cataphracts so somewhere in between.

I suspect that heavily armoured would in fact create the right interactions with both armoured cavalry whom both types normally defeated and knights, where, if the intial shock of impact can be survied, against whom, they have a chance in sustained melee.

David
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Post by ShrubMiK »

>they were also more heavily armoured than most armoured cavalry but not as heavily as cataphracts so somewhere in between.

Very true. And there, in a nutshell, is the problem: there are not an infinite number of categories of armour. If you make some cavalry (those that might have been EHC under a certain stable of older rules) "heavily armoured" in FoG then they get the major benefit of cataphracts without any of the disadvantages, which might be seen as a problem (ok, you could balance it by making them significantly more expensive.)

But now you have another issue to solve...by your line of argument, the increased armour of one type of horsemen over another must be recognised by a distinction in the rules. So if you are consistent, then shouldn't the same apply to cataphracts? But there is no category higher then "heavily armoured". Perhaps we need to invent a new one, or add special POAs just for cataphracts?

Ultimately, you have to accept that there are a limited number of categories and that each histroical troop type has to be placed in one bucket or the other...in some cases, players are allowed to choose which interpretation they prefer if it really is borderline or there is a lot of doubt.

I don't entirely disagree with you BTW, I too feel it is a little odd, and a shame, that significant amounts of horse armour are not reflected in the rules in any way. Sometimes (and this applies to Byzantines) it could possibly be rationalised as some or all of the difference between "average" and superior" troops. The difficulty with that is another bugbear I have about cavalry classification - "superior" status has been handed out too widely IMO.
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Post by hazelbark »

ShrubMiK wrote: But now you have another issue to solve...by your line of argument, the increased armour of one type of horsemen over another must be recognised by a distinction in the rules. So if you are consistent, then shouldn't the same apply to cataphracts? But there is no category higher then "heavily armoured". Perhaps we need to invent a new one, or add special POAs just for cataphracts?
Ahh the old WRG

HC heavy Cavalry
HAC Heavy Armoured Cav
EHAC Extra Heavy Armoured Cav
SHAC Super Heavy Armoured Cav

Then Medium and Light and foot and so forth.
batesmotel
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Post by batesmotel »

hazelbark wrote:
ShrubMiK wrote: But now you have another issue to solve...by your line of argument, the increased armour of one type of horsemen over another must be recognised by a distinction in the rules. So if you are consistent, then shouldn't the same apply to cataphracts? But there is no category higher then "heavily armoured". Perhaps we need to invent a new one, or add special POAs just for cataphracts?
Ahh the old WRG

HC heavy Cavalry
HAC Heavy Armoured Cav
EHAC Extra Heavy Armoured Cav
SHAC Super Heavy Armoured Cav

Then Medium and Light and foot and so forth.
WRG (from 5th ed on at least) had:

LC (LH in FoG)
MC (essentially unprotected in FoG and the lowest level of protected)
HC (protected with more than minimum armour and some armoured )
EHC (higher end armoured)
SHC (heavily armoured cataphracts)

In addition cavalry could be shielded or unshielded. My feeling is that the current FoG categories reflect the various levels of armour at least as well as the WRG categories did and that protected cavalry is generally a much more useful troop type than the old WRG MC was with or without shields. One problem may be that a number of lists give players the option to get protected or armoured cavalry and that decision tends to be a no brainer. Historically there probably should be more protected cavalry on the table than is normally seen in players' lists.

Chris
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pezhetairoi
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Post by pezhetairoi »

Like ShrubMik says,

I assumed minor differences like this are dealt with by BG quality.
The rather vague classification of quality "Superior" could refer to many things ... better morale, better training, better tactics, better formation, better equipment, better hairdos.
That's what I do with my Late Achaemenid Persians. The figures with the armoured horses are rated as superior, the ones without are rated average (you have the choice in that list) ... but they are all armoured cavalry.
I think that is what is suggested in the Thematic byzantine list. Tagmatic are superior, others are average or poor. So the the Tagmatic cavalry do hold an advantage over the comparable others.
Weather or not they hold an advantage over their opponents or medieval knights is a lot of other assumptions. Other troops may be granted superior quality for other reasons.
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