Favourite heavy melee cav

[Flavius Merobaudes]

The title says it all.

What's your favorite heavy melee cavalry unit? (no HAs or light cav allowed)

My favorite are Milanese Broken lances. They can deliver a devastating charge and have good armour protection.
Well, that doesn't make them special.

What is more important than armour in my opinion is maneuverability and speed. And that's their huge advantage over other heavy cav. They have the same speed as mailed knights, but got more punch and toughness.

What are your favorites?
Some new or imaginative tactics would be appreciated as well!

[Milovan]

Serbian Knights, because they have a kickass charge and they're hard to get, but mostly because I'm Serbian too...
Otherwise the Tsar's Guard is pretty awesome as well.

[Agentdoom]

Gothic Knights. Ultra heavy charges delivering 21 +large mass attack into the flank of the enemy line, plus they have a 13str ap 2nd attack, so they can stay and fight.

[hisn00bness]

maybe his is as gooda place to ask as any :

what's the big deal about lancers?

they start off at 16 armour; noble and chivalric knights start off at 17 with an upgrade to 18.

noble and chivalric are each obtainable in earlier tiers; and they have the same charge factor as lancers.

So what compells people to get lancers?

[Flavius Merobaudes]

Lancers are not much better than any other knights. They were much better before 1.2, when the shield bug was still present.

4 points of the knights' defence value comes from their shields, which work against attacks from the front. But since in a cavalry melee most attacks come from the side/rear, they wouldn't benefit that much from their shields. Body armour is better because it works against hits from any direction.

Furthermore, you can upgrade the knights' armour, while the lancers are already maxed out - giving knights even more of an advantage.

I don't understand why many people go for lancers. In some custom battles they did really well, but it isn't represented in the unit stats. I suppose there could be more benefits to late units and advanced armour than we can know from the unit cards.

[Kobal2fr]

Lancers have armoured horses. Armoured horses have more mass than the regular kind. More mass means better charges.

Or at least, they should. But they don't in 1.2 (their mass is set to 2, same as mailed and barded horses, should be 2.5 or 3). It's one of the many little flaws corrected in LTC by the way

[John_Longarrow]

I've gotten addicted to Italian Merchant Cav. I'll be the first to admit that they are not the best troops in the field, but I can always bring along extra troops with the 250 florins per turn I'm NOT Paying on upkeep.

[Flavius Merobaudes]

Yes, and the question was: "What's your favorite?". Not the best. So Italian Cavalry Militia is quite a nice unit.

[rvg]

Byzantine General's Bodyguards. Charge, Armored Horse, 2 HPs, Regenerating == love.

[Bijo]

What's your favorite heavy melee cavalry unit?

General's Bodyguard.

[PrestigeX]

My favourite heavy cav unit would be Noble Knights - simply because they have a cool looking Horse Blanket lol

[zaher]

My favorite is Mongol Bodyguard with 10 stars command and 10 dread.

Many factors can be counted , if to be serious. Highly trained professional solders will always do better than untrained units with even higher attack value. They will charge better, withdraw from combat better, then charge again better... They will pursue routing units better and more... Thats what i like about lancers and gendarmes. Thats why i like demi lancers most of all cav, but they dont considering heavy cav. So, for me 1st place goes to lancers, 2d- to famiglia ducale and 3d - to gendarmes. All of them dont have shields. Why i like it? Shield isnt only protection , but also weight, that mean slower moving ( i imagine that , and even if i dont right - i will remain with this righteous imagination ). Also, shield is useful only in charges, but not in prolonged melee. Lancers get best armor with value 11 without any armourer requirement. Gendarmes too. Armoured horses give better protection for whole unit, including rider. Most of unarmoured cav units taking missile and other casualities only cause of unarmoured horses.
But if we speaking about melee cav - then every eastern armoured elite cav ( such as royal mamluks ), who use mace as secondary weapon will be better than any western cav with their swords.

[Thurak]

Hussars.

They are happy with a heavy chainmail (so you can build them everywhere without hesitation), Poland can recruit them in castles and cities (Hungary in cities only, iirc). They have the morale and secondary attack of other very good cavalary units while they cost less money than those and need less upkeep.
I don´t know if that´s correct, but I have the feeling they have a good speed compared to other heavy cav units.

[Philbert]

In my Danish campaigns I was really fond of the Norse War Clerics. You can train them from cities that have a level 3 church (abbey) which in practice means all cities.
They are steady in melee (though they have a girl's charge) and because they don't carry lances, they are very efficient at chopping down routing infantry. They don't waste any time constantly reforming and one swing of their maces makes the runner keel over.

What's more, if a Norse War Cleric casts an angry glance at an enemy he already has gained an experience point. I had loads of gold chevron clerics.

[Philbert]

Oh, and the fact that they look like Boba Fett helps of course...

[Tambarskjelve]

Templars. Any order knights, really, but Knight Templars are my favorite.
They stick to formation like no other, and never break.
Playing as the Poles, I developed a liking to the Hussars, fast, Furious and easily replacable :)

[Mete Han]

Qapikulu, they look really cool

[andrewt]

Christian Guards have the stats of order knights and the speed of mailed knights. I'm also partial to ones like Qapukulu that have good stats and an AP secondary weapon.

[John_Longarrow]

Too bad Norse Warclerics can't try heritics. Or convert. It would be very kewl if they would function both as a priest unit AND as heavy cav!

[unknown_user]

I'm so glad that the War Clerics were mentioned, as they're one of my absolute favorite units. :D

[Zim]

I'm really fond of the Russian Druzhina. They kind of like mounted huscarls with a better charge (especially in the mod I'm playing, which lowers the charge considerably for units lacking a spear/lance). Plus, they just look cool.

[Corka]

Why would you prefer Milanese Broken Lancers over Milanese Familia Ducale? Aren't Familia Ducale just an upped up version of Broken Lancers?

[Flavius Merobaudes]

As I have said, I prefer mobility to armour. And Broken Lances are faster and more maneuverable than Famiglia Ducale. They have a devastating charge and can hunt down fleeing enemies as well. You will take some more losses, but anything else would be unrealistic.

I'm not sure about the effects of horse armour except on the horses' speed. Anyone knows more about it and can post it in a systematic manner?

[BigTex]

As I have said, I prefer mobility to armour. And Broken Lances are faster and more maneuverable than Famiglia Ducale. They have a devastating charge and can hunt down fleeing enemies as well. You will take some more losses, but anything else would be unrealistic.

I'm not sure about the effects of horse armour except on the horses' speed. Anyone knows more about it and can post it in a systematic manner?

Horse armor adds to the total mass of the unit. It also detracts from the speed a bit. A higher mass cavalry unit allows it to charge longer after contact and to push in melee. More mass is always a good thing. The only problem is that CA has the same mass for all horses with barding and higher.

[Flavius Merobaudes]

On impact, is it only the mass of the mount that counts or is it the sum of mount and rider?

Rider 1
Pony 4
Heavy Horse 4.25
Barded/Mailed/Armoured Horse 6

Personally, I have only seen a slight difference between masses when launching a formed charge. A lances-down charge is enough per se in most cases.

Furthermore, a higher mass comes with more inertia. And that's the main reason why heavy cav are so effective in frontal assaults and so poor maneuvering. If you want to flank with knights, the battle is over before they are in position.

I found the most effective tactic in most cases is to use them like bulldozers: Knights to the front, stretched out as far as they can, direct charge, pull out and charge again if the enemy doesn't flee yet. In many cases, you can charge one unit and the adjoining halves of two other units with one knight unit. So when issuing orders, I attack every second unit. (Use against AI only!!!)

[Fußball]

Quite simply Gothic Knights. If I wanted speed or coward chasers I would buy light calvary.

Tschüß!
Erich

[Bernhard of Clairvaux]

Lancers have armoured horses. Armoured horses have more mass than the regular kind. More mass means better charges.

Or at least, they should. But they don't in 1.2 (their mass is set to 2, same as mailed and barded horses, should be 2.5 or 3). It's one of the many little flaws corrected in LTC by the way

Do you mean the formation number (the first one in unit.txt)?

Boc

[King Orko]

Tzars Guard is the best unit!