In the Great Pendragon Campaign year 487 has the adventure Naval Raids. It states ?Treat each landing as if it were a single battle round with a random number of combat rounds.?

First. A battle round is usually only on combat round, right?

Second. Why treat these river combats as battles? It seems that the melee events table is not germane to a series of small battle fought on a beach, then sailing on, then fighting another small battle. Would it not be better just to treat each debarkation as a skirmish?

I think that u have it right, and that a skirmish was probably what was supposed to have been implied.

Sorry for the thread necromancy, but we're playing this scenario in my next session and I have some questions:

1.) Why are knights (whose forté is the mounted charge) going on sea raids, in boats? Why wouldn't they just ride along the coast, destroying boats where they find them? Is the element of surprise the chief consideration?

2.) Accepting the premise on face value, would they take their horses and squires on the expedition? Don't laugh—William crossed the channel with horses in 1066. Is a similar, albeit much smaller, action the intent here?

3.) What is the intended way to resolve these: normal combat, the Skirmish rules, or a small scale engagement as described in BoB? Or is the answer "any of the above"?


Thanks,


T.

1.) Why are knights (whose forté is the mounted charge) going on sea raids, in boats? Why wouldn't they just ride along the coast, destroying boats where they find them? Is the element of surprise the chief consideration?
Yes, surprise
boats are MUCH faster than riding, and boats have less chance of escaping other boats than they do in escaping horses
Also, this is Uther stage, where knights are still new
they are not yet just an elite cavalry force
they are elites period

2.) Accepting the premise on face value, would they take their horses and squires on the expedition? Don't laugh—William crossed the channel with horses in 1066. Is a similar, albeit much smaller, action the intent here?
Depends on their objectives
If they are only going to burn ports and boats, no
if they are going to raid inland, probably so
Moving horses is difficult but done all the time.
Horses hang in a kind of sling so they don't stumble around in a rocking boat.
Horse transports are apparently standardized, because everyone seems to have 10 horses per ship.
The Byzantines began that, and historians think the unit of 10 knights per eschille comes from this fact
Horses need some time to get their land legs back after th8is
and if the trip was long, they also need time to eat and get up to strength

3.) What is the intended way to resolve these: normal combat, the Skirmish rules, or a small scale engagement as described in BoB? Or is the answer "any of the above"?
Any of the above


Thanks,


T.
[/quote]

Ah, thank you so much for replying to this.


Best,


T.

A couple of points that haven't been discussed.

All mentioned before is true. Surprise and discipline are the key elements here.
Horses make noise. An old trick is to have a female horse in heat nearby and any male who catches wind will make himself known. The rattle of arms and armor can be heard for a distance. The more knights, the more noise. And with horses, inland raids are more likely, retreat if things are going bad would be also bad (what, leave the horses???)
\
Silence is the key. It is possible to row quietly. No horses, no noise. Quicker disembaking.

Bob Schroeder

Thanks, Bob. I will add that color to our session next weekend!


T.

Here's a description of the Italian-built ships used for the Fourth Crusade c. 1204, as well as links to more thorough resources: http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.com/2010/05/landing-ship-horse.html

They apparently had a surprising resemblance to WWII landing craft.

Just a note that Mediterranean vessels were very different from Atlantic vessels
Medieval Britain used tubs, not shallow draft ships, for the most part

More info:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3104851 A discussion of the horse boats of William the Conqueror.
Salient points:
-They probably did not resemble the boats depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry, at least not closely; while horses can be coaxed in and out of such boats, and stand still enough for sailing, the arrangement is not suitable for voyages of any real length (such as across the Channel)
-Horse boats were custom-built, as opposed to just putting horses in already-existing boats. "Any notion that horses in large numbers can be embarked without special technology, transported across rough seas without solidly constructed stalls in ships with low freeboard, and disembarked ready for combat without landing ramps must be rejected."
-Indeed, no suitable models were available in northern Europe; while Vikings did sometimes carry horses by boat, the horses were smaller, almost certainly not deployed as part of an amphibious assault, and probably not in significant numbers, ever.
-"Between 1060 and 1064, the Normans used [Byzantine] horse transports commandeered in Italian ports, and they made no less than eight separate landings with mounted troops in Sicily." Also, what Greg Stafford said re: units of 10 men.
- ". . . In short, rather than assume that William's shipwrights developed new designs for the horse transports identified by Baudri, Guy, and Wace-an assumption for which there is neither direct nor circumstantial evidence-it seems more reasonable to accept the thrust of the available circumstantial evidence, however limited it may be, and suggest that the Normans' horses were transported across the English Channel in battle-ready condition on the night of September 27, 1066, in bottoms of Byzantine design or modified by Byzantine technology."

Tying in to Taliesin's second question, it would also make sense that the knights would leave their horses behind because of a lack of these very specialized sorts of ship.

Another interesting (at least to me) discussion on the topic of knight landing craft:

http://tenthmedieval.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/knight-landing-ships/

Enjoy!

T.

I have one more question regarding this scenario. Let's assume the knights don't take take their horses. Do they take their squires then? If not, is the squire left back at the manor, or at Hantonne? And does the knight bring any of his personal army with him on the raid?

I have one more question regarding this scenario. Let's assume the knights don't take take their horses. Do they take their squires then? If not, is the squire left back at the manor, or at Hantonne?


Squires are magical. They are always there, if they make the squire role. That's the way I run it. It has the benefit of that no time needs to be wasted in discussing (what I think are) unimportant details, like "Where are the squires?" or "Do we have horse feed for our squires horses?". Pendragon is a game of heroics and passions, lot logistics and details. If my PKs are in Faerie, or a dungeon or the bottom of the ocean, their squires are there. If the make the squire roll ...

I have one more question regarding this scenario. Let's assume the knights don't take take their horses. Do they take their squires then? If not, is the squire left back at the manor, or at Hantonne?

This really is at the level where the GM has to make the call
what do you want in your game?


And does the knight bring any of his personal army with him on the raid?

do you mean that family army from character generation?
No, then will never go with your player character
ever
for private business
but if it affects the family, they will show
very much unusual event

This really is at the level where the GM has to make the call what do you want in your game?



Ah, okay. I guess I'm just after the convention here.


do you mean that family army from character generation?
No, then will never go with your player character
ever
for private business
but if it affects the family, they will show
very much unusual event
[/quote]

Yeah, I asked a similar question in another thread. Trying to understand when it's "family business" and when it's not, maybe someone will pick it up over there...

Thanks!


M.