Does horse armor do anything?

[Old_Scratch]

Does either plate or the eastern style of horse armor actually influence the combat or is it just for looks. Comparing the Cataphract to the Imperial knight or the English knight they look very similar. Both are 10 attack and 16 defense, are similarly priced, and have an AP secondary weapon. Other than the charge bonus, the big difference is that cataphracts have an armored mount. This doesn't seem to affect the armor value though as it's the same as the knights. I would take cataphracts and other eastern armored cavalry like royal mamlukes thinking that they would be better at prolonged hand to hand with infantry. They do have a weaker charge after all, but I can't seem to find any evidence that the horse armor does anything.

[roy34543]

There is a difference in mass value, while the armor is technically not in effect by anything the mass is relevent to the model usually.
Mass = more penetrative and longer lasting charge.

[ammo24]

the mount is just the look of the horse. The discipline, morale, armor, and attack stat affects mostly of how a unit lasts so to speak.

[ammo24]

The eastern units do have better discipline and training so that makes them better than the western style cavalry in that regard. If you look at most of the western christian cavalry you will see that most likely they are (low, trained) or (normal, trained) while the eastern cavalry (orthodox and muslim) are mostly (disciplined, trained) or (disciplined, highly_trained).

[Evolution]

It makes the horse look nice.

[Dark Highlander]

It makes the horse look nice.

...and if you listen very carefully it goes clank, clunkity, clank, when the horses are galloping.

(At least that's what the voices in my head are telling me... which makes a nice change.)


Actually if I recall (and occasionally I do, at least I recall I do) that's the only difference between the Hospitalier and Templar Knights - the Templars have cutesy horsey armour and therefore have more mass (i.e. they're the better Catholics).


... stealthily exits left - to kill again. (Well, duh!)

[Old_Scratch]

Thanks, that's rather dissapointing. So, it just seems that eastern cavalry gets hosed with the charge bonus without any significant tradeoff advantage. I did notice the mass difference when charging, but it'll never equal up to christian cavalry.

[Old Geezer]

The introduction in the export_descr_unit file states that the rider and horse are treated as a unit for combat purposes. So 'twould appear that the horses' appearances means naught.

[Nikodemus]

it does one thing, makes the knight look cool