As I have confessed before, I am a lover of light horse. It is probably deeply rooted in my warped psyche - light horse give me the opportunity to play cat and mouse with my opponent. Or perhaps it is simply that I find charging helter skelter with impetuous knights too nerve wracking for my ageing frame, and trudging forward with massed spears too boring. Or perhaps, as Phil says, I am just a control freak. So, in the new dawn of DBM V 3.0, what changes are there to my favourite troop type?
The new grading factors have changed LH (S) from line-of-battle troops to what they should have been all along - superior to, but tactically similar to, other light horse. Under V 2.1, I found LH (O) very effective in large numbers in my Hamdanid army, but they mostly just rode about the battlefield looking like a threat, and did very little actual fighting - the Cv and Ax did that. It is difficult to explain, even to myself, just how they contributed to victory (my Hamdanids have come second in a competition and have never had worse than a 4:6 defeat), but somehow they did. Probably mainly by occupying the enemy's attention and being too large a threat to ignore entirely.
Under previous editions LH (F) have always been the poor relation, and hardly cost effective. Armies with large numbers of them, such as Parthians, were rarely seen at all in the competition circuit, and did badly when they appeared. Players whose army list had a choice of LH (S) or LH (F) would generally go for the LH (S). My sons and I certainly did so with our Hsiung Nu. I managed to win my first competition ever with these this year (2000), the last battle being a stand up fight against a Medieval French army with secure flanks. Although we broke up the enemy knights' formation with light horse suicide squads, we came within an ace of defeat before our LH (S) destroyed enough of the enemy knights to demoralise the French. This was under V 2.1. With the new grading factors increasing our LH (S)'s death rate, we would certainly have lost.
I was, however, impressed that in a battle between two Hsiung Nu armies at Godendag 2000, played under V 2.1, the army with masses of LH (F) beat the army with LH (S).
With the new grading factors reducing the detrimental effects of being (F) (the die-in-heaps factor), it seemed time to take another look at LH (F) armies. At 3AP cheaper than LH (S), 1 AP cheaper than LH (O), why pay the higher prices if your light horse are not going to be able to face the enemy frontally anyway? And with the added bonus of an extra 50p move, they looked better and better. I thought I should give them a try.
I am not sure that even under V 3.0 LH (F) will be very useful as a small force tacked on to an elite army. Firstly, they need to be in large enough numbers to overawe opposing LH (S) or (O). In equal numbers, these will still easily defeat them. Secondly, casualties suffered by LH (F) - and believe me they will suffer casualties unless they only ride away from the enemy - may rapidly bring an elite command close to its break point. Therefore an army which plans to fight with its LH (F) must both have large numbers of LH (F) and be itself large.
A quick trawl through the seriously LH (F) based armies in the army lists produced the following candidates. (Any army with less than 30 elements of LH (F) need not apply): Skythians, Armenians (qualify if they have Parthian allies), Parthians, Hsiung Nu, Han Chinese, Kushans, Hsien Pi, Khazars, Magyars, Pechenegs, Early Hungarians, Early Russians (with Cuman allies), Cumans, Komnenan Byzantines (with Cuman allies), Khwarizmians and Nikaian Byzantines (with Cuman allies). No doubt there are other nations who can reach the critical 30 elements with the help of allies, but the above was the list I contemplated.
Next I looked at the support troops. I am not foolish enough to think that I can win with an army entirely of light horse. As my son says, where are the good troops? As far as I am concerned a viable light horse army needs some heavy troops and some light infantry, preferably Ax. The first are needed so that you can meet at least some of the enemy troops head on. The second are needed (a) to winkle the enemy out of a defensive position if they choose to hide, and (b) to enable you to use rough/difficult terrain as redoubts for your light horse to manoeuvre around to avoid being rapidly crushed or driven off your rear table edge by enemy heavy troops.
Going through the above list, these requirements immediately disqualified the Pechenegs and Cumans as they have neither heavy troops nor light infantry in adequate numbers.
Skythians can have Black Sea Greek allies with up to 32 elements of Sp (O) hoplites as their heavy troops, as well as a plentiful supply of light infantry in the form of Ax (O) & Ps (O).
Armenians (with Parthian allies), Parthians (with Armenian allies), Hsiung Nu, Kushans and Hsien Pi (with Ti allies) can all have Kn (X) cataphracts as their heavy troops, and a reasonable quantity of Ax & Ps. All but the Kushans get some Ax (S) as well as (O). Kushans get elephants. Hsien Pi can have double-based Kn (I) instead of Kn (X) if they prefer.
Han Chinese have psiloi-supported Sp (O), Kn (O) chariots and Cv (O) as their heavy troops. For light infantry they have Bw (O) and the aforementioned Cv (O) can double as Ax (S) by dismounting. This is a very flexible combination.
Khazars, Magyars and Khwarizmians have Cv (S) and (O) as their heavy troops. For light infantry, Khazars have plenty of Ax (O) and Ps (O), but Magyars have fewer, and Khwarizmians have only Ps (O) & Hd (S).
Early Russians have both Cv (O) and Sp (O) as heavy troops, and have a few Ax (O) and Ps (O).
Early Hungarians, Komnenan Byzantines and Nikaian Byzantines have both Kn and Cv as heavy troops, but only the Hungarians have adequate light infantry. The Komnenans can also have mtd Bd (O) Varangian guards.
As far as I am concerned, I fancy the cataphract armies. Although irregular Kn (X) are far less manoeuvrable than Cv, they have several advantages over Cv as the heavy troops of a LH (F) army. Firstly, they can fairly easily defeat enemy Cv. Even Cv (S) are now more or less guaranteed to lose against Kn (X) on an equal front, and quickly enough to be decisive. Secondly, although they are probably foolish under V 3.0 to charge spears other than (I), they are a more serious threat to enemy foot than are Cv. At least the enemy will not dare to deploy his spears one rank deep across the whole table, and his auxilia and warbands had better watch out. Thirdly, although Kn (X) are still hopeless against enemy Kn (F), (O) or (S), so now are Cv (S).
Choosing between the cataphract armies, I found myself back to the Hsiung Nu, mainly because they get more Ax (S) and we already have figures for the cataphracts and infantry. I am replacing the horse archers, however, as the figures we presently have look too much like LH (S) Huns. Even more annoying, they are on ridiculously huge Essex horses which are too long to fit on their bases, so that you cannot deploy a second rank properly. I am painting a mixture of pointy-hatted Donnington horse archer figures, so that I can plausibly use them as Skythians, Kushans, Hsiung Nu or Cumans. My daughter says they look like gnomes. She probably means gnomads.
In my LH (F) Odyssey I have so far tried practice games using Skythians (with Greek allies), Parthians and Hsiung Nu against a variety of opposing armies, and been consistently victorious. We will see whether success continues into competition play next year.