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calliban
05-29-2012, 04:34 PM
One of my players want to know what should he do to charge again against an opponent he just charged in.

I ruled he should move away and prepare his horse, and that would take a full round. It would be a Horsemanship roll in order to move away faster than the enemy could hit (evasion) against the enemy's attack, with a reflective -5/+5 since he is moving during combat. This is my interpretation of KAP5.1 p120.

He argued then that his horse has movement 9. He should be able to charge (6yrd), move 3yrd away (a Charge with a reflexive -5/+5, or a 0/+5), and then move 3yrd disengaged in the next round, charge again (6yrd) (with a full +5 charge or another 0/+5 since he moved the same round he charged). Is it possible or just a misinterpretation of the rules?

Eothar
05-29-2012, 05:38 PM
Unless he stops for some reason, he should be able to charge past/through any opponent. He could then turn and charge again. It should take more than one round though to turn around. He has to bring the horse the a stop, turn it, and re-accelerate. At a minimum-charge-stop-turn-charge. So a charge every other round--at best--more likely with two rounds in between. In part he'd want to get far enough away from the opponent to turn and set up his charge again.



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krijger
05-29-2012, 07:51 PM
Normally unimportant, unless archers are shooting at you..

Cornelius
05-29-2012, 10:24 PM
Charging bonus is as I use it only useful with a spear. After charging the spear is usually broken or dropped. It would mean the person needs to rearm himself.

Also the opponent may follow and thus preventing him from charging again.

Morien
05-29-2012, 11:12 PM
This is how we play it, Your Campaign May Vary. (Note, I am assuming a skirmish situation on open plain, not a battle with thick formations of infantry.)

1. Charging means your horse is basically going at it full tilt. It's speed will take you past the foe; moreso if the foe was charging as well towards you, hence moving to the opposite direction. You will have to slow down, turn around and then accelerate again towards your target. This takes time, during which any enemy who was knocked down / unhorsed will have had time to get up again from the ground.

2. If the foe is on foot, he can't hope to catch your horse, so absent any other difficulty, you will be able to charge again in a couple of rounds. If he is on horseback, he might be able to catch you if he manages a 'tighter' turn: we deal with this as an opposed contest of Horsemanships: if both wish to charge, then it doesn't matter, but the winner can choose to close in faster, before there is time to charge, hence forcing the loser to draw his melee weapon to defend himself. (Yes, I do know that if you were to do this on a grid map, a knight with a lance who wins the horsemanship should be able to do a lance charge, and the other person can't, but then again, it should be the relative velocity that matters anyway if we are splitting hairs.)

3. Our skirmish fights usually go like this:
- First charge
- Both sides take stock what happened and the still mounted parties attack each other to protect their unhorsed companions. The people now on foot pick themselves up and pair off to duel.
- This continues until there are no more charges to be made and people have all started to duel/fight in melee. (On reflection, we probably should give the already dueling pairs a couple of rounds to every lance charge, given the time it takes to set up for a lance charge. So far we haven't.)
- Once an enemy is defeated, the knight can go and assist some other knight. On foot he might lose a couple of rounds, on horseback he usually manages to get there with one round's movement, arriving in time to fight on the second.

It works well enough for us, but then again, we are not using any grid map at all.