Cavalry discussion

[kyussinchains]

So it seems we fall into two camps with this, those who feel cavalry are overpowered/undercosted and those who feel the situation is fine and it's more of a learning curve to figure out how to deal with cavalry

I'm opening a thread to specifically discuss cavalry, their potency, weaknesses and possible special/house rules to mitigate their effectiveness

please have at it, and be as constructive as possible in discussing other players experiences

[frogbear]

My experience; make sure you use terrain on the table. Simple as that really

[Getlord]

The truth is that's the TRUTH! If you want to reduce the power of cavalry just start using terrain. If your cavalry focused counterpart does not allow this then the problem is not in the rules.

This is really simple: in terrain heavy battlefield cavalry and monsters are pretty useless. In open field infantry is pretty useless.

The issue is tournament play - the organizers must inform beforehand that tables will contain much terrain and actually execute it. But it happens rarely and the discussion is starting again.


Another solution was suggested way back then by Rick Pristley. Please change only one thing: reduce armour save of cavalry by 1 point - just across all armies. Then you will see everything changing if you really struggle with accepting current rules. It is really very simple and elegant solution. But it hurts

[David Wasilewski]

Increase the cost of all cavalry by 20 points if it has an armour save of 4+ or better?

Dave

[Dave]

I'm in the "use more terrain" camp.

We usually have 6 hills, 6 forests and 6 other pieces of area terrain (village/fields) on a 6x4'.





However, I'll add that we don't play Cav/Chariot heavy in my group. While most cav is -/-, we tend to play as if it were -/2. Might be worth considering that first before points get involved.

[Aldhick]

Is that right that the game mechanics discourages you to play battles located on plains or in desert? In my eyes the terrain heavy solution is a way of trying to solve the "broken" rules avoiding any changes. But it doesn't change the fact, that the rules are  still "broken".

[Stormwind]

It strikes me that a gentlemen's agreement of a max of 3 of the generic 110 point cavalry per 1000 points might be necessary.

[Jurisch]

Hi,

I am a great fan of changing the support rule, which makes infantry stronger. Easy to change. Have done this in several test games with very good results and balanced games.

By the way I played Dwarves several years and under the current rule it is nearly impossible to fight in the open.

Cheers,
Jurisch

[David Wasilewski]

We probably play, on average, with more terrain than that picture illustrates.

We play with a lot of 'fields' which count as open ground but chargers do not get their extra attacks on troops standing in them (the rationale behind this is that crops and furrows would 'break up' charges). This special terrain rule was added so that infantry wouldn;t be mown down as easily by cav in the open.

We play the suport rule to make infantry stronger.

Despite all of the above the entire group agrees (6 veteran wargamers who own all the warmaster armies between us) that cavalry is too powerful for the points cost. The min/max idea seems to fudeg the issue as it involves taking away choices from players. Wouldn't a better idea be to re-point and make it a genuine decision, "Shall I take that brigade of knights or go for the two brigades of infantyy?" At the moment its a no-brainer, always plumb for the heavy cavalry.

Scenarios and special terrain set ups can help emasculate the power of cavalry too but at some point our group got bored of having to do this to make the game balanced.

Dave

[Stormwind]

Infantry support buff has been mentioned but not elaborated on.

Do you mean each infantry stand counts as +2 towards combat resolution instead of +1?

[Dave]

No, you count support before casualties.

@Dave - A points increase is going to take away options from the player too. On average how many cav units are you guys playing with in a 2k game? A 3k? If you're taking 6 units in a 2k the only thing 130 point cav is going to do is reduce them to 5 cav.

The other thing to consider is maybe the points aren't balanced for games above that. No point system is completely accurate, and a 6k game is going to have thee times the points discrepancy at 2k.

[David Wasilewski]

Fair enough, yes I haden't thought of that. We tend to play BIG multiplayer games e.g. 6-10K a side and sometimes bigger.

As to the number of cavalry being taken, it completely depends on the army type, the player and his collection.
Looking at one of my old, used army lists; If I was fielding 4K of my O+G army, I would probably field 12 units of Boar Boys, 6 units Goblin Chariots and 6 Wolf Riders.

My friend fielding his 4K Brettonian list would have a total of 20 units of Knights/Grail Knights (ouch). It seems harsh to him to say sorry mate, you can't field all those units you spent hours painting up?

I guess there will never be consensus so we'll just have to have group based house rules.

Dave

[empireaddict]

There seem to be 5 main options for ‘solving the cavalry problem’. 

1) Crank up the points cost to reflect their power on the table.  This is simple but would require all army lists to be amended.

2) Set maximums more strictly within the army lists.  Needs all lists to be amended and would leave some players with redundant minis.

3) Keep costs the same but change cavalry stats in some way.  For example, reducing all armour by one.  But this will also require wholesale amendment of the lists.

4) Change the game mechanics to help out the infantry.  The obvious one is counting support before removing casualties.  But if cavalry are allowed to easily ‘swarm’ round by pinning in front and then hitting the sides of infantry even if they’re not starting from a flanking position, then the support is usually negated.

5) Use more terrain.  But in the absence of a set terrain system, that means ‘he who sets the table’ may get an advantage.

After reflection, my suggestion is to count support before removing casualties.

And make two units the maximum size of a cavalry brigade.

Mounted troops ought to be harder to command than infantry and so if someone wants to take lots of cavalry; they will then need to spend a lot more on command to wield them effectively.

Any thoughts?  Anyone want to playtest?

[Lex]

the brigading option sounds worthwhile playtesting

[Aquahog]

Very interesting. My first thought was that this would clash wih the Skaven brigade rule. Only they don't have cavalry so it would fit right in.

On second thought, DE Cold Ones are still pretty nasty even if you only get two in on the charge. Besides, having more cavalry brigades will most likely only mean that your infantry gets less prioritised and left behind ironically leading to even more cavalry focused battles.