Prioritizing the 5th edition supplements

[Atgxtg]

8 hours ago, Morien said:

This is a mistake in reading how the Gift works. The Gift gives ONLY +1, in return for £(other modifiers). So if the knight has +20 modifier, the Gift needs to be £20 for him to get +1. That's it. You can't buy more than a +1 modifier via the Gift.

Oh, now that makes a lot more sense!

 

[Atgxtg]

8 hours ago, Morien said:

Yep. One of my players complains that fighting against two standard footmen is worse than facing an enemy knight, assuming that no one is mounted. Because of the need to split the skill and the likely result being is that they get hit without a shield, possibly twice. And just to rub it in, the Glory for two footmen is less than for one knight, too. I do see his point but keep on using masses of footmen anyway, since knights tend to be rare in garrisons, etc.

The standard tactic among my PKs is to put most of their skill on one footman and 1 point on the other. With the mounted bonuses they end up with 20+/6, and so should win (or at least will get their shield)_ against the first foe, with a good chance of critical or otherwise dropping him, and an outside chance of holding their own against the second. 

8 hours ago, Morien said:

However, in field battles, I generally pit them against other knights. This is another reason I dislike BoA tables somewhat. It is not just a question of how many knights you have on the battlefield in proportion to the infantry, but what are those knights doing? Most of the time, they should be countering the enemy knights, both for Glory (the common riffraff is beneath them) as well as to keep the enemy knights from outflanking/breaking their infantry line. This is one reason why I think the split in KAP 5.2 to Knightly opponents and infantry opponents works reasonably well; you can use the infantry when the PKs deliberately choose to go after infantry, but it makes more sense that they'd spend most of their time fighting knights, or that it is enemy knights who manage to engage them rather than the slow footmen.

Umm,  the evidence is sort of mixed.

Most stories and Arthurian lord has knights squaring off against each other for glory (and ransoms), but a lot of documented accounts generally have them cutting down the footmen, which was a lot safer.  I suspect the truth was somewhere in between. 

[Morien]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Oh, now that makes a lot more sense!

Happy to clarify it for you.

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Most stories and Arthurian lord has knights squaring off against each other for glory (and ransoms), but a lot of documented accounts generally have them cutting down the footmen, which was a lot safer.  I suspect the truth was somewhere in between. 

Documented accounts = historical accounts? Yes, no doubt that happened, especially if the losing side routed. Then knights do what the cavalry does, and rides down the routers. Battle of Lewes comes to mind, where Prince Edward (future King Edward I) broke the Londoners and chased after them with his wing, which ironically cost the royal army the victory as the rest of the barons' army was able to defeat the remaining royalists.

However, given that this is KAP, I would assume that if the two forces are about equal in size, a much higher priority would be placed on knight-on-knight combat, both for Glory and Honor as well as for pragmatic reasons. After all, once the knights leg it, the infantry is leaderless, demoralized, and easy to outflank. Whereas those nasty footmen might actually try to kill your horse from under you and then swarm you rather than worry about capture and ransom.

[Atgxtg]

46 minutes ago, Morien said:

Happy to clarify it for you.

Enitely my own fault, the tesxt is quite clear. I think I might have looked at earlier version by mistake.

46 minutes ago, Morien said:

Documented accounts = historical accounts? Yes, no doubt that happened, especially if the losing side routed. Then knights do what the cavalry does, and rides down the routers. Battle of Lewes comes to mind, where Prince Edward (future King Edward I) broke the Londoners and chased after them with his wing, which ironically cost the royal army the victory as the rest of the barons' army was able to defeat the remaining royalists

There were also times when charging the foot solider was more tactically sound. Getting at the enemy missile troops for example. The trick was usually getting the knights to do what they were supposed to do, as opposed to rushing in for glory and ransom. 

46 minutes ago, Morien said:

.However, given that this is KAP, I would assume that if the two forces are about equal in size, a much higher priority would be placed on knight-on-knight combat, both for Glory and Honor as well as for pragmatic reasons. After all, once the knights leg it, the infantry is leaderless, demoralized, and easy to outflank.

That's what the Knightly PR says. Again history indicates otherwise. Well disciplined footmen were a real problem. 

Knights would ofter prefer to fight knights if they though they could get glory and ransoms, but cutting down rabble was a lot easier and safer, provided the knight wasn't dumb enough to keep put long enough to get mobbed. 

But a lot of the  accounts are biased by the perception and beliefs of the time. For instance the French Knights at Agincourt believed that the reason why their ancestors lost at Crecy was because they were't chivalrous enough. Which was one of the reasons why they basically tired the same tactic that didn't work the first time. The idea that commoners could actually beat a group of knights, on the battlefield, under the right conditions, with surprise was simply unthinkable. 

 

46 minutes ago, Morien said:

Whereas those nasty footmen might actually try to kill your horse from under you and then swarm you rather than worry about capture and ransom.

Actually killing the horses and all that wasn't quite so easy or common, nor was killing knights. A clever commoner would drag you back to their lord for a reward, or even hold you ransom themselves. That's really how the armored foot soldiers and archers got started and made their money. Capture a knight and they are practically set for life. 

[Morien]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

There were also times when charging the foot solider was more tactically sound. Getting at the enemy missile troops for example. The trick was usually getting the knights to do what they were supposed to do, as opposed to rushing in for glory and ransom. 

Especially towards the later periods, with the professional longbowmen & crossbowmen. If you can catch them out of position and unprotected by stakes, then hells yes, you go in hard. (And hope it is not an ambush with a hidden ditch...)

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

That's what the Knightly PR says. Again history indicates otherwise. Well disciplined footmen were a real problem. 

Knights would ofter prefer to fight knights if they though they could get glory and ransoms, but cutting down rabble was a lot easier and safer, provided the knight wasn't dumb enough to keep put long enough to get mobbed.  

The infantry gets more disciplined and dangerous especially towards the later periods again. However, it is going to be one or the other. If you have well-disciplined, dangerous infantry that doesn't break on a cavalry charge, that tends to mean shieldwalls with spear, or pikes, bills or halberds, all of which are very bad news to charge into. Hence something you bring your own archers to soften up while you take care of their knights. Like at Battle of Falkirk.

If the infantry is rabble and easy to ride down, then they will rout/can be finished off once you have taken care of their knights.

In either case, it generally makes more sense to take care of the knights first. Exceptions happen, of course, especially in the real world. In Pendragon, though, it should be primarily about heroes attacking enemy heroes and doing deeds worthy of song, not competing how many terrified peasant levy they manage to butcher, IMHO.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Morien