Just out of curiosity.
I know "stable rolls" remain to be done even if you use the Estate system (Book of Estate page 105).

A £50 estate holder has about 60 horses of various types (Estate page 32).
IS it rational to do 60 rolls?

I think not, and I feel that one can live in the illusion that the herd auto-replicate....unless you have special horses that are dear to your heart.
In that case I would roll for them.

What do you do?

We just roll for any special horses. We assume an average of one Charger every 2 years for Landed Knights is supplied from their own herd, and the Lord provides for HKs.

I think not, and I feel that one can live in the illusion that the herd auto-replicate....unless you have special horses that are dear to your heart.
In that case I would roll for them.

If you read the Winter Phase in KAP5.2, it explicitly says (emphasis mine):
"Your vassal knight owns a herd of horses that provides him with
replacement horses. Likewise, a household knight’s lord does the
same. This roll is needed only for a knight errant, or for special
horses, such as a large charger, or one that’s imported, is a solid
color, or is special in any other way to make it unusual or unique. "

In other words, you only roll for special horses anyway.

If you read the Winter Phase in KAP5.2, it explicitly says (emphasis mine):
"Your vassal knight owns a herd of horses that provides him with
replacement horses. Likewise, a household knight’s lord does the
same. This roll is needed only for a knight errant, or for special
horses, such as a large charger, or one that’s imported, is a solid
color, or is special in any other way to make it unusual or unique. "

In other words, you only roll for special horses anyway.


THANKS A LOT!!!
I never noticed that!

THANKS A LOT!!!
I never noticed that!

If there wouldn't be the horse replenishment for normal horses, then the manors & estates & baronies should make a lot more extra income to make up for the spare horses. As it is, it remains one of those handwaved approximations for simplicity: the Constabulary/Horse Herd (the normal one, not the investment extra herd) doesn't provide extra income, but at the same time, it automatically replaces the lost horses.

Speaking of the Horse Herd Investment... It probably should make more money. As it is, it costs £40 for £2.5 profit, which is pretty much the worst ROI that the Investments have. For example Vaccary is £15 for £2 income, and Vineyard is £12+£3 for a whopping £3, although it takes three years to start making that money, which means that by the 8th year you have caught up to Vaccary. This implies to me that the Horse Herd should be producing something close to £5 yearly, so double what it does now. Since I would allow its income to be 'hoarded' in horses-in-training and allow the 'purchase' of chargers at half price, this would result in a Charger every other year, which is what womble suggested. That being said, it seems a bit excessive to me...

Hmm. Going back to the constabulary herd, we can see that the one charger is responsible for half of the price. But if you already have a charger, why not use that as the stud? So the other way of going about this would be to LOWER the price of the Horse Herd investment to £20 and drop out the extra charger. Then £2.5 income makes sense, and would result in a new charger every four years or so, which seems a bit more reasonable to me. So if you feel like making the PKs more hesitant to risk their horses, then the above method could be used rather than grant automatic replacement.

I guess a lot depends on how much your GM's NPCs like to target the horse. In my current game, we've never faced horse-gutters, so the only losses of horses have been via aging or when unhorsed on the field and the little bugger ran off. IIRC, though, the only time that latter has happened, has been on occasions where we won and got some hosses as booty. Very lucky. The downside of not having to worry about replacement Chargers is that getting a Charger as loot is pretty much a non-event: you won't notice you needed it if you do, since you would have gotten a replacement out of the numinous Constabulary Herd, and it will eventually just Nag Out if you do roll for its aging (as 'special' because it's 'extra').

While it's probably a good 'average' game to not have to worry about your replacement mount, I wonder if there might be some spice in some more expanded version, which might even throw out a special horse occasionally (maybe once a generation), and which could be affected by the presence of better stock (extra Chargers/Coursers/[Luck table mounts]; Andalusians and Destriers, later).

I always thought that the charger was a bit of an odditty in the early phases of the GPC so on our game you can raplace a rouncy or sumpter with no problem, but coursers, palfreys and chargers are special trained and cannot be replaced from your own herd. So only rolls are needed for those specials.

I always thought that the charger was a bit of an odditty in the early phases of the GPC

Nope, the whole usual horses of a knight are replaced from the herd. The Winter Phase text is very clear on the minimum stable of a charger, 2 rouncies and a sumpter being replaced, to the point of saying just to skip Stable Rolls if there are no extra/special horses.

Now personally, I would downgrade the usual fighting horse in Uther's era to a Courser-size charger, which would be less expensive (like £10). True chargers would be the state of the art, available but mostly used by nobles rather than normal knights, and become more common only after the Boy King Period, with Camelot being established. Which is also when the nobility starts switching to Andalusians.

Then again, we added +1d6 to Lance Damage across the board, so the lance charge still hits very hard even in Uther Period.