Camelry change

[Fabio]

Hello, I've downloaded the DBMM rules and reading them I've been surprised by this statement:
"Note: I recently realized that we have had camel effect the wrong way round. The only instance of mounted camel men wrecking mounted troops was against Lydian fast knights and Vegetius thinks them useless against cavalry, while the Tuareg often swept away foot, so that CF of 2 against mounted (with QK against knights and 3 against foot (would be 4 if dismounted as Bd, 2 if as Ps) fits better. Removing the recoil outcome produces roughly the right effect for Cm (I) against Vandals and Byzantines.."
What do you think about it?
There is somebody inclined to modify also the DBA camelry values?

[xeswop]

Phil might feel so inclined to modify the rules in 3.0 smile.gif

+4 vs foot and +2 vs mounted is not currently an available combination.
With such a change, those Bow and Camels armies would be a bit better.

Strange that Phil is just discoverinig this. For 50 years of wargaming, the dogma has been horses are not good against camels.

[Macbeth]

Originally posted by Bob.:
Strange that Phil is just discoverinig this. For 50 years of wargaming, the dogma has been horses are not good against camels. Ah but those of us who cut their teeth on the Pre DBx crop of wargames would remember that what camels did to horses was to disorder them which reduced their fighting efficiency rather than rank up the camels.

In WRG 6 & 7 - and now warrior the penalty for disorder (-1 combat factor) is such that a lightly armed camelrider would not consider trying to run down a heavily armed, armoured and moraled knight. My memory of WRG 5 is a little hazy. The penalty for disorder was much worse (combat casualties inflicted were halved) so the camels may have done okay against horsemen.

The additional effect here was that against foot, a camel was the exact equivalent of the comparable Cavalry type (HC = HCm, LC = LCm) so the camels as mounted still swept away loose order foot.

The change to DBx and its removal of morale and disorder has led to the need to feed the El and Cm effect on horses into the combat factors and results.

My limited reading on the subjects suggests that where camels were documented as being effective against horses was where they disordered them. In some cases the camels were not ridden (Moorish 'Camel Phalanx') but kept back within 'stink range'.

Cheers

[hammurabi70]

Originally posted by Macbeth:

My limited reading on the subjects suggests that where camels were documented as being effective against horses was where they disordered them. In some cases the camels were not ridden (Moorish 'Camel Phalanx') but kept back within 'stink range'.
Cheers Had they been really good I suspect the Romans would have made significant use of them. As I understand it they were mainly good for transport in arid areas. Being large they make easy targets and are awkward to fight from. I thought the old rules overvalued them but the new rules made them less valuable and therefore about right. Maybe my memory is wrong.

[Macbeth]

Originally posted by hammurabi70:
Had they been really good I suspect the Romans would have made significant use of them. Not to mention the Arab Conquest as it erupted from the land where camels were counted as wealth. If the Camel was a superweapon against other horsemen, why then did the Arabs adopt horses when fighting the primarily mounted Byzantines and Sassanids?

Cheers

[DBAse]

Not to mention the Arab Conquest as it erupted from the land where camels were counted as wealth. Not "were", still "is". I was recently in the Arabian peninsula with my girlfriend, and I was asked more than once how many camels I had to pay for my wife.

DBAse

[Fabio]

I agree that the camels have not been widely used in battle, even by the Arabs.

I don't know if this is for military or practical reason: from what I've read the camel was considered much more valuable than the horse, had more limitations in the areas where could be used effectively (a camel in the snow or a forest may have surely more difficulties), in short we can compare it with the chariot, too costly and not enough flexible.

In any case would you agree to change the statistics of camelry in this way:

+2 vs Mounted
+3 vs Foot

QK vs Knight

This is based grossly on the values given in DBMM which is after all "the word of Phil".

The Light Camelry remains unaltered.

[Chris Jones]

Is the example quoted of PB for the destruction of Lydian Kn(F) by camels the use against them by Cyrus of pack camels to render the powerful Lydian cavalry useless? Surely this is a case of the camels disordering the cavalry so that the riders dismounted rather than riding them down. It's hard to see how a case for a blanket Qk on Kn can be made from this one unusual circumstance? Certainly we never hear of the Crusaders or similar having trouble with ridden camels. So I don't see the QK as making any real sense. As for whether camels were better against foot or horse generally the truth appears to that ridden camels were never much good from the time of the Assyrians on and generally lost to most opponents so maybe +2 v Mtd and +3 vs Foot with no QK would be about right?

[APHooper]

My impression is that there have been a number of ethnic groups that developed the ability to shoot effectively on camelback, but that only a tiny minority of those have also figured out how to use the camel as a platform for shock and hand-to-hand attacks. Camels added profoundly to the operational mobility of Arabic armies, but most dismounted from their camels before beginning battle. It seems like this issue might be best addressed by changing most 3Cm to 2Cm, and at the very least, most 3Cm should be able to dismount and fight as 3Bw or 3Bd or 3Wb, whichever seems appropriate.

Or it might be simpler to just assume that 3Cm elements are really just horse-mounted cavalry adapted to operating in the desert, and supported by camels carrying the water and fodder they need to fight there. So the cumulative effect -- cavalry that ignores Dunes -- works out right anyway.

Andy Hooper
Seattle