Ranged cavalry are a genus of cavalry of differing power, speed and cost insofar as cavalry are concerned.
What is similar however is that they are ranged units, and so will always hurt you before you can hurt them. Especially moreso if you're a friggin' footslogger who's out of breath and armed with only a melee weapon.
Blind spots
According to experts of mounted martial arts, it is possible to turn one's body to a minimum of 80 degrees in either direction. Ergo, the following might be expected for most mounted ranged units:
- For cavalry archers, the field of fire is -135 deg to 45 deg, with a cavalry archer's torso rotated to -45 on default when not attacking. This means that cavalry archers are capable of attacking enemies pursuing them from the rear left, but not from the rear right.
- For javelin cavalry, the field of fire is -80 to 80 deg. Javelin cavalry are thus constrained to head-on charges into enemy formations to throw their weapons, and are best used for pursuit and for accompanying heavy cavalry.
- A chariot skirmisher will not have blind spots, but will be able to turn around in all directions to attack enemies.
This thus dictates that chariots, being the slow and lumbering units that they are, are best used against melee infantry, but not other ranged units.
All items (3)
