cavalry charges against pikes units

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
There is much that could be enhanced in the tac engine. I could probably write an essay on the matter.

I actually don't think it's so bad, aside from the inability to model flanking. The only other things that are grossly off are your troop type match ups -- which could be easily fixed.

Most obvious examples:
1) Pike/Spear vs. Cavalry (and flying?)
2) Elephants vs. Light Infantry
3) Missiles vs. Light Infantry
4) Light Cavalry vs. anything

1 & 2 could be addressed with Morningstar style attack/defense bonuses.

2 & 3 could be helped by allowing LI to spread out to 1 unit per "square".

4 is more complicated, and would take the addition of "shoot and avoid", and "shoot then attack" orders.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Wauthan:
Well I'm sure a cavalry charge would be called off if they see a forest of pikes before them. I'm no expert in medieval warfare but surely pikes were used more like a barrier rather then as a meleeweapon?

Exactly. Some time ago I suggested to remove the repel and instead subtract the sum of the differences between the length of the attacker's weapon and the length of the longest weapon of all the defenders in the attacked square. Thus a single pikeman would have little effect while 3 would inflict a rather severe penalty.

Now with this system, Hoburgs with pikes would be rather formidable.

[Jasper]

This "everyone should use only pikes" approach would give ridiculous results. Pythium legionaires attacking a unit of pike would get -12 to attack!

Pikes most certainly were melee weapons, and a "barrier" only in the sense that units that couldn't fight them didn't come close to them.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Jasper:
This "everyone should use only pikes" approach would give ridiculous results. Pythium legionaires attacking a unit of pike would get -12 to attack!

On the first contact, yes. I've no real problem with that idea, although the malus might be capped. That would perfectly reflect battles like Cynocephale. The Roman army won, but in the initial shock they were completely unable to use their swords and were pushed back for a while. And the legionaries still have their pila anyway.

BTW, I know at least a couple tabletop figs rules that use exactly the same system - huge attack reduction vs pikes on the first contact. So there's nothing new in my proposal.

Pikes most certainly were melee weapons, and a "barrier" only in the sense that units that couldn't fight them didn't come close to them.

Pikes were melee weapons, except unlike other weapons noone would use them outside deep and close formations.

[Zurai]

A pike is NOT a melee weapon. A pike *formation* is a melee formation, but individually a pike is about the weakest weapon that exists. The advantage of a pike square is that it's impossible to reach the first line of soldiers without THREE or more lines of soldiers being in range of you. When you only have one line, a pike is simple to beat - they're incredibly unwieldy and have no way to handle anything closer than 8 feet or so in front of you.

Pikes have value *only* in a formation, and only in a deep formation at that. A single pikeman has absolutely no strength to repel a cavalry charge, even with just one horseman bearing down on him.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Zurai:
A single pikeman has absolutely no strength to repel a cavalry charge, even with just one horseman bearing down on him.

I wouldn't quite say THAT. A single horseman colliding with a single pointy stick is in for a world of hurt. It'll be that much harder for a single pikeman to connect, but if he does, it's gonna hurt just as much.

Of course, you can model this by having all pikes in a square be able to make a repel attempt against anything that attacks the square...and combine that with my "extra damage for repelling a charger" bonus. A charging cavalryman will thus be looking at 3 sharp pointy stick attacks at once....with extra damage because he charged across the field into them.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Zurai:
they're incredibly unwieldy and have no way to handle anything closer than 8 feet or so in front of you.

Pikemen were routinely issued small axes (or shortswords) as secondary weapons.