Realistic ? Cavalry (lance) charge?

[Sorenant]

Slightly unrelated, but I noticed lance damage needs to be reconsidered if using KYOS, as the damage dealt by a lance charge is calculated using the mount's ST, not thrust damage derived from it.
The book gives an example of ST 25 horse charging at Move 8 and dealing 2d+3 imp damage. The same horse would have ST 18 if converted to KYOS and the damage would be reduced to 1d+3 imp.
Not sure how I'd fix that, maybe use the thrust damage based on the mounts ST (ignoring weapon add) and +1 damage if mount is going faster than Move 7? That'd make the charge done by the horse above deal 2d+3 imp damage too. If going slower than Move 7 then it might not count as charge at all, and it's treated as normal attack with the weapon.

[Black Leviathan]

So realistically (As some folks have mentioned already)

For starers facing a unit of horses so that you can't just step away from the charge is terrifying. You're towered over by your enemy and the ground shakes and you can't hear your own men screaming over the pounding of the hooves. So lets resolve a fright check before we even start, +1 if you think veteran fighters would be less afraid of mounted troops, but not much better.

Your attacker is elevated over his opponent, easier to hit the juicy parts, harder to defend against.
He can wear a lot of armor and he's moving fast enough that he's a difficult target so he can likely afford an all-out attack for damage or to-hit. He'll definitely keep a defense available if he's charging into a line, those stop-thrust attacks at his speed could go through his plate mail like butter. His best option might be to just hold action during the charge until he's with attack range so that he can strike at reach before the defender can if he's holding his action.
He doesn't have move-and-attack penalties but he is attacking from horseback so I don't see your average chevalier trying anything fancy. He's just going to deliver a messy impaling blow with near 100% accuracy to the body or leg.

Your defender is again at a lower elevation, so he's defending at his -1, his Shield, broadsword, or axe will all parry a lance well enough. He can retreat from a charging horse unit just fine, he's dodging the tip of a lance, not a whole horse and he's going to want to use that retreat against the lance because it's more likely to end his life.
Next he's likely going to be trampled by a horse, likely along with others. The horse doesn't have any special odds of hitting him, which is more reason to put everything into defending against that lance. But he can only dodge that attack or he's knocked down and takes a lot of crushing wide-area damage.

If your defender had an attack held he can maybe injure the knight or his horse, but he's unlikely to be able to do much damage or cripple a big quadruped within a single turn. But I'd rule that even if your defender chops both of the horses front legs out from under him it's not going to change the inertia of an armored warhorse and he's still getting trampled as the horse goes down. If the defender attacks the mounted attacker before the trample he's attacking a target behind a horse. elevated, possibly wounded by that lance.

If your defender is so huge he can't be trampled by a mere horse he's still getting a really brutal slam from a HEAVY animal and he's probably going down either way.

If you're a great fighter you're going to make a cavalry charge costly but you're never going to have better odds in that fight.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by seycyrus

Anything else I am missing?

The Speed/Range table gives a -4 for Move 12 (25 mph). (It's relative speed that matters, not absolute speed of the target only. And that table isn't just for ranged attacks, though Basic does suggest ignoring the modifiers for melee attacks "on foot", since they're small in the case of close-and-slow combatants.
But these modifiers are always applicable at the GM's option.)

If the cavalryman is moving 7 or more relative to the target, he has a -1 attack and +1 damage (B397). Lances in particular have their own rule for damage, so the +1 probably doesn't apply to that case.

The cavalryman is three feet above the infantryman. (B398) See B402 for the effects of the height difference.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by seycyrus

Let's consider a solitary lancer (knight) and assume he is armed with a spear and that the lancer's spear is longer than his target's weapon. Let's assume his foe is an average guy.

We have the lancer moving forward for enough time that he is at maximum speed. He faces an individual foe, and let's say he hits (succeeds in attack roll) center of mass.

Now an average joe at light encumbrance has a dodge of 7. If he retreats that gives him +3, for an effective dodge of 10, which will enable him to get out of harms way 50% of the time.

Its not uncommon for a single man on foot to dodge or parry a lance, there are stories of long fights between a man on foot and one or more lancers. But in formation, he has nowhere to retreat to (all three Rear hexes are occupied), and if he does he just opened a gap to let horses in. And that low encumbrance means that he is probably vulnerable to projectiles.

Combat between individuals and combat between lines have a very different logic.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by exalted

One thing GURPS and most games really badly models is that your not just avoiding a lance, your also avoiding colliding with a horse

Sometimes. Sometimes not.

Horses will instinctively avoid collisions with things they can't easily jump over and/or which might hurt them.

Likewise, a man-at-arms on horseback has several good reasons to not use his mount as a battering ram:

a) Trained cavalry horses are expensive. (As in, equivalent of a luxury automobile expensive if you're converting gold livres or solidi to 21st century $ terms.)

b) A collision might make the horse fall, meaning that the rider goes down with it. (Being flat on your back in the middle of a battlefield is a bad place to be, even worse if you have a ton of panicking equine on top of you . . .)

c) The rider might have to actively control his mount to make it collide, and the chance that the horse might shy away from contact messes with the lancer's aim and possibly forces him into a situation where he must focus on keeping his seat rather than attacking.

A more likely scenario is that an infantryman gets slammed aside by a glancing collision with a horse, falls down, and then gets trampled by another horse in the same cavalry formation.

Originally Posted by exalted

You may dodge the lance just to get kicked or stomped on by a horse.

A horse at speed can't kick very effectively, especially not with its front legs. Trained kicking attacks and similar tricks were generally used in slower-moving melee combat with swords and similar weapons when the rider wanted to clear space around his mount - either to break out of situation where he might get swarmed by infantry or to force foes away from the horse.

[Plane]

Moving backward gives you more time to move aside just enough to avoid the attack, so it makes sense that you get a bonus compared to moving aside while not moving backward.

Presumably you're not moving PERFECTLY backward, because if someone was moving forward then you'd still be in their line of fire.

I'm not totally sure why you still get a +1 bonus when using a 'slip' to move forward while dodging though, since that should give you LESS time.

As for when you do neither (either a sideslip, or a drop) I assume you get the bonus because you're willing to do a big dramatic reaction that's so explosive it carries you sideways or downward, so you're moving faster.

Whereas with a normal non-retreating dodge, you're doing this measured "I just barely avoided it with extreme precision and didn't even have to change my hex or my posture, I'm awesome and smug" type thing which isn't using your reaction speed to its maximum effect.

[Tomsdad]

Even if I thought there wasn't enough room to retreat I'd probably allow a target in this situation to increase their dodge against an incoming lance charge by allowing them to drop to the floor as per the rules for ranged attacks.

I might well allow dropping to the floor against ride by melee attacks in general, and depending on what weapon* the mounted attacker had allow it against attacks from mounted attackers in general



*i.e a a chap with a reach 1-2 spear will have an easier time of stabbing his target from horse back evenn if they drop to the floor, than he would if he was swinging a reach 1 mace

[AlexanderHowl]

Dropping to the floor is not a really effective strategy against a charging horse (it is easy enough to dip the lance, or to target an individual behind you while their horse dances on your head). If that was their only action though, I would let it count as AOD (Increased Dodge) with Retreat, which gives +5 to Dodge at the cost of their attack. This probably happened a lot before the modern age and would help explain greater survival rates. AOD (Increased Dodge) plus Retreat would give a +5 to dodge, giving the average conscript a 13- to dodge for the turn (Basic Speed 5.00 + 3 - 1 [Light Encumbrance] + 2 [Medium Shield] - 1 [height difference] + 5 [Retreat with AOD]). Combined with a Lance skill 12 from the attack, this would mean that most conscripts would survive the initial charge.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Dropping to the floor is not a really effective strategy against a charging horse...

Depends on the horse. If it isn't 'war' trained it will actively avoid trampling you if it can*. Horses legs are fragile and they don't want any predators down there where they could be injured (a prone human could be aiming to injure a leg) and they don't like charging across broken ground (and a prone human is definitely a stability hazard).

Now, if it's war trained, then it's been trained to not avoid hitting or trampling humans, and it will know that the human is as soft, if not softer than it's hooves, and won't pose a threat to it's legs or stability (as it's been trained to stomp across things which haven't posed those dangers).


* If it's in the 'middle' of a charging or stampeding group, well... it's gonna trample ya. The first horse might try to hop you (and they are excellent at that) but the second and subsequent horses won't see you in time to avoid you.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Dropping to the floor is not a really effective strategy against a charging horse (it is easy enough to dip the lance,...

not if you are going full tilt into an enemy formation and you've set yourself for the impact, (remember if you stab at a prone target and miss in this context you might end up putting the tip of lance into the ground and that would be bad in the middle of a charge) but it also depends on how long your lance is.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

...or to target an individual behind you while their horse dances on your head).

well you don't dive under the horses hooves ;-) you dive to one side as they go past you, however yes the chap behind might get the business end of the lance!

Don't get me wrong being prone after a cavalry charge has contacted your infantry line isn't great, and yeah there's a risk of getting subsequently trampled but it's it preferable to having a lance transfix you.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

If that was their only action though, I would let it count as AOD (Increased Dodge) with Retreat, which gives +5 to Dodge at the cost of their attack. This probably happened a lot before the modern age and would help explain greater survival rates. AOD (Increased Dodge) plus Retreat would give a +5 to dodge, giving the average conscript a 13- to dodge for the turn (Basic Speed 5.00 + 3 - 1 [Light Encumbrance] + 2 [Medium Shield] - 1 [height difference] + 5 [Retreat with AOD]). Combined with a Lance skill 12 from the attack, this would mean that most conscripts would survive the initial charge.

Good point on the AoD, and I think you are probably right re the justification