New Unit at the com: Armoured Swordsmen

**Furious Mental** · 03-31-2006, 18:50

Christ all mighty- so much argument over a unit description. The idea behind the unit is obviously to have a heavily armoured bloke with a sword. Personally I don't care if the text file says they are "dismounted knights" or "minor gentry" or "suits of armour animated by the magic of the wizard bloody Merlin".

[Edited by moderator for language]

**lancelot** · 03-31-2006, 18:57

I read somewhere once that a mounted knight was the medieval equivalent of a millionaire...this game is not representing (visually) the 2 or 3 squires or whatever the knightly helper-monkeys were called, that accompany each knight.

So I would consider the difference between gentry and knight as a notable distinction and hardly a moot point. To discount this would suggest that every man in the gentry had servants and what-not.

But Im no expert...

And that sword did look cack.

**Duke John** · 03-31-2006, 19:07

Sometimes I really wonder why artists lean so much on their artistical freedom. History is right there, they just need to go to a museum or open a book and appreciate the real thing. But no, they need to come up with their own designs, ignoring any reality check.

Worthless.

English men-at-arms had the problem of not having a large pool of good warhorses. They had to imported from other countries which of course raised the price. As a result the average quality of the warhorses of the English knights was less. If anything it would mean that mounted English Knights have worse stats.

**Watchman** · 03-31-2006, 19:46

All true men-at-arms, whether they were officially knights or not (after Early Middle Ages that was mostly a social title anyway), had a warhorse. Plus aty least one horse they rode outside the battle, the warhorse being only mounted for actual combat (that's where the figure of speech about "mounting your high horse", or getting off it, apparently comes from AFAIK). Then there was also a baggage horse, and men-at-arms of the period the man's gear points to were axpected to furnish a full "lance" (a squire or other lighter trooper plus two archers or crossbowmen plus at least one more guy, all mounted even if only on riding horses).

Men-at-arms were all-purpose troops who could fight equally on foot and on horseback; as the Hundred Years' War progressed, the former became increasingly the norm.

The fellow in the preview, however, apparently isn't a true MAA. He seems to be a representative of the higher end of a type of heavy infantry that did *not* fight in close-order blocks with spears, although such "light" infantry (the term used with considerable reservation here) almost invariably carried spears or polearms as their initial weapons and tended to leave out some or all leg armour in favor of mobility and agility.

I'll admit his sword looks more than a bit weird, though. It doesn't resemble a gladius so much as some early Iron Age designs I've seen in illustrations. Moreover, his body armour's odd; its appereance suggests coat-of-plates, commonly worn over mail before proper plate developed, but AFAIK those normally wrapped around the body. The sort of support strap system he has would look quite at home on the types of Napoleonic cuirassieurs who didn't get bac plates, or a late-medieval or Renaissance pikeman (who often didn't bother with the weight and expense of a back plate).

**Zenicetus** · 03-31-2006, 19:54

Hmmm.... the main thing I find reality-bending about this unit, is the idea that anyone could march very far on foot in that getup. Maybe we're supposed to imagine that they have squires that help carry the armor on foot, and the "gentry" straps it on, just before the battle?

**Watchman** · 03-31-2006, 20:22

That was the normal practice for heavier troops. Leg defenses in particular, as well as any "strapped on" top layers, were gladly carried on the baggae horses and such until needed.

**Gaulgath** · 03-31-2006, 22:30

Why is everyone already butchering the game? It hasn't even come out yet and your complaing that "OH NOES, TEH ARMOUR IS .000000001 OFF. TEH SUX!!!!" Does such a tiny little error matter in such a huge scale game? No. And you all forgot to cite your sources for this stupidity.

**Watchman** · 03-31-2006, 23:02

Goes under the heading "general education and literacy on the topic." Since much of it (or mine, anyway) is based on information amalgamated from numerous different sources - books, essays, museum visits, reasonably reliable WWW sites corroborated by other data - a "bibliography" would be distinctly pointless.

As is asking for one.

**Alexander the Pretty Good** · 03-31-2006, 23:10

They are suggesting its much more than ".000000001" off. They're saying the unit is unrealistic and unlikely from both a historic and common-sense point of view. This is generally a bad thing in a game that lifts so much from history.

What would cool is if a single knight led a group of squires and lesser mounted troops. I'm pretty sure that's how it was done, at least in parts. The Tuetonic Knights would have a full knight leading a bunch of poorer mounted soldiers in a unit called a banner, I think.