A.T.T.A.C.K.! Assaulting Thoughtfully: Tactical Advice for Charging with Knights.  

These articles are an attempt to give beginners and intermediate players some tools with which they can improve their playing skills, in the form of basic principles and maneuvers you can use with your cavalry.There is a ton of advice on the net about how to write army lists, and on which units to use against which opponents, but very little of it shows you how to do that, so I decided to make some diagrams. 

Some of it is more for competitive games, some of it is more general. If there are longer bits of theory, I will put the conclusions in big text so you can just skim over the text and still get the basic point.

Parental advisory: this next bit contains a bit of theory and even –gasp!- some numbers. Casual gamers (those who like to just charge anything and see what happens) are advised to go to the next article, which will have more pictures.

Step 1a: What kind of combats do I need stay out of?  

Well, this should be simple! A big knight unit should break anything it charges, the nice sales bloke at GW told me so!

He lied!

The boys can win the combat against almost anything, but actually breaking something is not as easy. Many units have good Ld, and Battle Standard Bearers are quite popular nowadays. That means you have to hit them hard before they break. Real hard! 

But I do hit them hard, I have strong units!

An example: a standard Skaven Clanrat block is 30 strong for 165 points inc musician and standard. A block of 8 KotR, full command with a basic paladin is about 300 points.  

This should be a pushover...

You roll 5 wounds, fairly average. the Combat Resolution is:

Skaven 3 ranks, standard, outnumber (US 24)= 5

Bret     2 ranks, standard,  5 wounds caused  = 8 

Ha! Won by 3, that'll teach them! Okay, now for the break test...

With the general nearby, the rats have a Ld of 10. This will allow them to test on a 7.  

Okay, that’s not spectacular but still a good chance of breaking.

The rats actually have a 58% chance of holding! And you were lucky the BSB wasn’t around... 

Oh no, they passed their break test! But I can still win this, can’t I?

Unfortunately, the chance of breaking them in subsequent turns is negligible, since only 3 of your models can attack, most of which is at S3 and won’t do much to them. And if an unlucky combat round doesn’t see you off, sooner or later one of the many other Skaven units will charge your flank and send you running.  

Well, I’m faster! I’ll just outrun them and try again

The risk of getting caught is very real, especially if there are 2 units pursuing. You also lose your banner and your blessing. Even worse, if you rally you can’t move, so you’ll be a sitting duck for the follow-up charge by the pursuers, who will probably be in charge range. And without a banner you stand even less chances of winning! 

Well, it’s only one unit lost. I have more.

Firstly, it is a hammer unit, which are essential to victory and of which you will only have a few.Secondly, let’s look at the balance on the table (assuming nothing else has been killed yet): 

If you destroyed the Skaven unit:                       

.......................Bret.........................Skaven

VP..................265..............................0

Models left......2000 pts....................1865 pts 

If they destroyed your unit:                       

.......................Bret.........................Skaven                 

 VP...................0.............................400

Models left......1700 pts....................2000 pts 

Whoah! A 465 point swing in models! And a 665 point swing in VP!!

Even worse, not only are you now 400 points behind in VP, your army is now 15% smaller than his, making it more difficult to still pull off a win. 

But maybe I had a unit in support! Or maybe my other hammer unit did break its target! Or...

That is correct, this was an isolated example, and we have made some assumptions. But it is a very typical situation, and even if circumstances are different the conclusion remains: