Infantry/Artillery and Cavalry commanders

[arcole]

In the rules, commanders are classed and either Infantry/artillery or as cavalry commanders.  This suggests that cavalry cannot be commanded by  the former and infantry/artillery by the latter, although it is never explicitly stated.  That seems to hold true in that all the battles in the rule book, until you get to the battle for Worcester. The Battalia for this battle are show as having a complete mix of units.

My friends and I are considering restricting cavalry  commanders to have only cavalry and commanded shot in their battalia, and infantry/artillery commanders to only have other foot and artillery.  Does this seem reasonable?

[Charge The Guns]

I think that the different types of commanders were devised on the assumption that often commands were composed of primarily one troop type, and that some armies had less or more effective commanders for either foot or horse.  An example is the Ottomans where the infantry commander have a relatively poor 7 command, and the cavalry a better 8.  This should mean that the Ottomans have a more static role for their infantry in battle (as they often did) where as the cavalry were the main manoeuvre  part of the army.

I would suggest that you are guided by how your army was split up in to brigades / battalia historically, but accept that you can’t be too rigid.  For example, in the ECW, there are many occasions when the main central infantry command had a few cavalry units included.  Perhaps you could say that only the Army commander can do this in their command?

Hope this helps 🙂

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Charge The Guns.

[Dave Morris]

I think it would have to be dependent on the scenario; there are several instances in the ECW where a “wing” of an army contained both cavalry and infantry. If you want to restrict a Commander to one arm only, then you will need to add in some extra commanders, which might skew the game, as it would perhaps make one army a bit more likely to activate units than its opponent. At the end of the day, the rules are really a framework and can be adjusted to the preferences of the players; for example we don’t use the ratings in the rule book, preferring those suggested by Wargames Designs, which, in our view, better  reflect the organisation and troop types in the ECW.

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