Byz Cavalry

**Doug-Thompson** · 01-19-2006, 00:15

I can't remember where I saw the post that said the Eastern Empire Clibenari slices through things so well, there's no point to building cataphracts. The thread also asked why anyone should make scholate palatine.

The cataphract has a poor melee attack of 4 using the spear, once the charge is over. However, pressing alt+attack gives it a sword. Now it has a melee attack of 7.

The clibenari has a melee attack of 5 with an anti-armor bonus. Since using "tank" cavalry to kill unarmored opponents is like using an axe to kill kittens, the clibenari is still the better bet. It will be fighting the toughest armored opponents most of the time. If it gets into a melee fight with unarmored opponents, clibenari will kill them more slowly than sword-swinging cataphracts, but that doesn't matter when you have all the time in the world to kill them. Few unarmored units can do serious melee damage to a clibenari, so the clibenari can afford to kill at a leisurely pace.

If you are fighting clibenari, however, the best tactic might be to run some very cheap cannon fodder into them while another unit hurls javelins at it.

Attack + Charge bonus is 12 for the cataphract and 10 for the clibenari, but the clibenari's anti-armor bonus still makes it the heavy cavalry of choice.

So, the clibenari is the better unit, but the difference is not that great if you are willing to remember alt+attack when cataphracts are committed to melee. There is a slight difference in price, and a bigger difference (which I'll look up when I get home) in maintenance costs.

Now, as for the "also ran" scholate palatinae. It has a higher melee than either of the other units and a slightly higher charge, but it's defense is much weaker. They die quickly compared to the "tanks." This cancels out the SP's excellent morale advantage. They die bravely.

However, what SP don't do is tire as quickly. If you're one of those Eastern Empire players who really likes to do an end run and then flank, the SP might be for you. This begs the question, however, of why you'd prefer to do that than use the "tanks" to crush your enemies. The result is the same.

The SP's advantages as a hardy unit that doesn't tire easily makes it look like a good choice for desert operations, sweeping across North Africa and Middle East. Predictably, the "tanks" suffer badly in the heat. However, there's an option for desert climates — the camel. The dromedarii has a mediocre melee attack of 6, but the +2 advantage against horses and the added morale penalty of frighting horses makes it strong choice against cavlary.

Dromedarii morale is a mediocre 6, compared to the SP's outstanding 10.

If you use cavalry to fight cavalry, Dromedarii is the weapon of choice in the desert. If you use cavalry to flank attack infrantry in the desert, however, then SP could be the better choice. Dromedarii fight horses, and other camels. SP fight just about anything.

Finally, the SP is an outstanding — but very expensive — chaser of routers. It's fast, it's hardly, and it tolerates heat fairly well. No unit that's fleeing will survive long if caught by SP.

**Troy Lawton** · 01-19-2006, 01:18

Thanks Doug, very informative. I shall limit my production of cataphracts and SP (unless campaigning in the desert). I must admit I didn't know about the alt+attack thing either with cataphracts. Exellent work

Cheers

**Watchman** · 01-19-2006, 03:32

The ERE Catas look pretty similar to the Sassanid ones (more like carbon copies really). I only ever trained *those* because I wanted a bit of variety, and because the bow-toting Sas Clibanariis were a bit *excessively* good for most things...

But yeah, the mace clinches it. Kinda like the two top-of-the-line knights back in MTW - nice as the Lancers may be, they just can't beat the Gothic mace.

**Uesugi Kenshin** · 01-19-2006, 04:36

Well lancers were better for flanking while the Gothics were better at melee, they each had an important use. Sometimes I found the gothics to be too slow for the situation, and would have preferred to have been able to launch a quick charge.

Since the clibinari aren't any slower than Cataphracts though they are definately superior. I wish I had a use for those Cataphracts, perhaps I'll mod my game to give them a higher charge or melee or something along those lines....

**_Aetius_** · 01-19-2006, 13:02

Clibs and Tanks are ridiculously overpowered so I rarely use them, if they had been that deadly in reality people wouldnt of bothered having infantry.

I have trained only a few units of Clibs as the ERE to see what they were like and they are excellent but I like Sp's to, the problem with Sp's is that even when you charge from the rear you can lose sometimes upto 1/4 of the unit as the riders fly from the horse. Which is incredibly annoying as there is no reason why so many cavalryman should just die for no reason whatsoever.

Clibs tend to just pile through everything and are almost unstoppable, I have though routed units of Clibs by charging them from the rear with the swifter Sp's whilst some cannon fodder have held the enemy cavalry in place.

**Doug-Thompson** · 01-19-2006, 15:55

I checked out thoses cost figures and found that Clibs have a lower maintenance cost than Catas. The slightly higher purchase price for Clibs is quickly offset by maintenance savings. I forgot to write the exact figures down, though.

That pretty much settles things.

Also, just for fun, I charged a unit of Catas into a unit of Clibs a few times in custom battle and went to alt+attack after the charge, just to see what would happen. The Catas were massacred and the Clibs only suffered a couple of casualties each time.

**Watchman** · 01-19-2006, 17:34

Never even bothered testing that one - the superheavy cavalry rely almost exclusively on their sky-high armour rating for survival, and anything that halves it tends to start causing casualties right fast. I had to fight some Merc Sughdians in a rebel stack once, and found that out the hard way.

Far as I can tell the idea is that the Clibs are what you take along against enemies that wield a lot of well-arnoured troops, while the Catas are intented for steamrolling lighter opponents - just about any other cavalry short of other superheavies would probably be among the intented targets, as would many types of line infantry. Kinda overkill probably and likely redunant, but at least it's nice to have the choice and variety. I tend to wield the two types side-by-side on general principles, and because I think the Catas look neater. Both pretty much squash anything they're pitted against anyway so the practical difference isn't that great.