EBOT 2012 July

[gamegeek2]

Aye, that's part of the "saddest days in EBO history" :P

Are you freaking kidding me? Do you remember how lopsided the battles were between the otherwise rather comparable Brihentin and Hippeis Xystophoroi? How the Azad cataphract unit was made utterly unplayable except against barbarians by armor-piercing kopides? How in general cataphracts were considered rather useless before this change (if I recall correctly)?

AND it makes no sense for the thing to have AP.

[The Celtic Viking]

Are you freaking kidding me? Do you remember how lopsided the battles were between the otherwise rather comparable Brihentin and Hippeis Xystophoroi? How the Azad cataphract unit was made utterly unplayable except against barbarians by armor-piercing kopides? How in general cataphracts were considered rather useless before this change (if I recall correctly)?

AND it makes no sense for the thing to have AP.

Except for that last sentence, I wholeheartedly agree. I'd have preferred an attack/lethality loss, though; now they're just on the other side of the spectrum instead.

Edit: oh, and except for that point about cataphracts though. The scary cataphracts were more OP than anything else, so while they had that trait I'm glad the kopis was OP too. It gave non-cata factions a chance. In this case, a second wrong didn't exactly make a right, but it did lessen the impact of the first.

[Kival]

How the Azad cataphract unit was made utterly unplayable except against barbarians by armor-piercing kopides?

I disagree. Cataphracts were not useless, the Azad cataphract unit just was not good in melee (!) against armoured cavalry with kopides.

[Arjos]

What's wrong about keltic cavalry losing to armour piercing weaponry? Afaik the former was renowned for the trimarkisia (each "knight" supported by two mounted attendants), so basically numerical superiority and they performed pretty badly against germanic cavalry: I really don't see the "Brihentin should be the non plus ultra" point...

As for cataphracts, in what fantasy world did you pick that they were invulnerable in melee? They had weight in the charge and were basically missile proof, but when caught by more agile cavalry in melee, they got shredded...

AND it makes no sense for the thing to have AP.

In your preferential view sure, in reality no :D

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Are you freaking kidding me? Do you remember how lopsided the battles were between the otherwise rather comparable Brihentin and Hippeis Xystophoroi? How the Azad cataphract unit was made utterly unplayable except against barbarians by armor-piercing kopides? How in general cataphracts were considered rather useless before this change (if I recall correctly)?

AND it makes no sense for the thing to have AP.

I think you may be referring to Lonchophoroi because they are a more similar unit to Brihentin but I personally have no issue with Brihentin losing to Lonchophoroi or for that matter any upper tier Greek Cavalry. They were better against light cavalry if that was any consolation.

The Azad cataphract used to be the most popular of the cataphract units back when fear existed for these units. They were cheap and excellent chargers. All that heavy armor is a detriment in a close melee. Which brings me to your next point, cataphracts should be bad in melee, especially against cavalry with ap weapons. And cataphracts were never considered useless, in fact many of us refused to use them because they were so strong with the fear attribute.

And finally, while I'm not firmly against the kopis losing ap, I did actually prefer when the weapon had the ap quality. You used to tout that units like Hetairoi could beat cataphracts in melee, somewhat of a selling point for such an expensive unit. Well, they get ground to pieces by cataphracts now.