Re: Favourite Cavalry Units
Cavalry with true (couched) lances have a completely different use from those with spears. If you want to charge enemy skirmishers or missiles at the front of their army, then lance-armed cavalry are little use. They tend to be slower, and having to do a formed charge means they fail to inflict many casualties once the enemy retreat, as they tend to leave their missiles on skirmish mode. Spear armed cavalry are genearally much faster reacting, and will do a crushing charge against light troops even if they are running away from them.
Lance-armed cavalry are for charging the main enemy line head on, or from the flanks depending on how many you have. As long as they don't have pikes or shiltrons, that line will be anihilated.
The cavalry that are harder to categorise this way are the eastern European and Muslim cavalry that are armed with spears, despite clearly being heavy cavalry. They are generally somewhere in between the two western types, being able to effectively charge skirmishers but still causing significant damage to the enemy line with a frontal charge.
As for guys like Norse Worse Clerics, I think of them as mobile infantry. Their AP maces make them particularly good at taking out General's and the enemies heavy cavalry. They don't perform too well against infantry though, as do any cavalry who take out their close melee weapons after a charge.
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