I’m reworking my Green Lady list in view of CoK; we have centaurs now. I think/hope they’ll make good chaff for my knights (having an equal width front). The question is whether the melee version (CS1/TC1, no nimble) or the ranged version (shortbows, steady aim, TC1, nimble) will do better.
Thinking about it, I doubt they’re gonna be shooting much, because that’d mean not moving at the double and thus slowing down the knights they’re a delivery system for. The question then becomes: what is more valuable in a chaff light cavalry troop: CS1 or nimble. And there I really don’t have a clue. Does anyone have some thoughts to share?
I don’t play Green lady but as herd player I always would stick with the melee version. Not only they are cheaper but they hit reliable and standr better thanks to their Def 4 vs Def 3 of the hunters.
With the hunters you will be lucky if you can inflict a point of damage in shooting and they aren’t a threat neither in melee.
And for the difference of points I would consider playing them in regiment size. for barely 51 points they can become a serious flank threat by themselves and still being cheap.
Alternatively if you want to have nimble at any cost you can always play a troop of melee centaurs with skirmisher’s boots
When I started building my Herd army, I knew I was going to have 2x Centaur troops and assumed I’d use the shooty ones, since they’re there to chaff, so nimble is excellent and light shooting is always nice. But the more time I spent with the two stat blocks, the more clear it was that fighty Centaurs are just flat better to me - at the very least because of De 4+ (and being cheaper) in a world where P1 shooting, and increasingly P0 shooting, is very common.
Having played a bunch of games now, I really love my Centaur troops, who get a lot more done than I even expected for 6 attaks. Grabbing flanks is real, and I’ve gotten a few rear charges with them late game, where 18 3+ CS1 seriously gets the lead out!
The list at the moment has three regiments of knights and a horde of flyers, though the last of those probably won’t use the centaurs for chaff anyway. No other shooting in the list at all - I ended up cutting it thinking it’s better to do one thing well rather than many things a little bit. Is shooting important to have if you’re building a list that revolves around hammer-and-anvil tactics?
The extra point of defense is really something to consider I hadn’t paid much mind up to now - thanks for that tip!
The cost of both centaur types is the same in Green Lady - odd that it’d be different in FoN.
I think I’m cautiously leaning towards the melee ones at the moment; it’d be nice to have something that can at least make it into combat and I really don’t think I trust D3 N11/13 to do that… Probably going to make troops with bows and lances both and counts-as them to see what works better
The other point to mention, if running the Brotherhood centaurs they do have the Vial of Sacred Water upgrade - so if you are building a list with that synergy (Champion of the Green Lady, Devoted’s radiance of life etc) its another plus point, over and above a d2 heal
That’s strange, I see mounted sergeants quite a few times, but mounted scouts virtually never. Might be a local thing, but both are pretty valueable. Objectively, cheap and fast chaff is very important. For Kingdoms of men, that’s the scouts/sergeants, for Basileans the gur panther.
Brotherhood can use either kind of centaurs, which for 105 points are comparable to the 100 points Kingdoms of men options. That said, Brotherhood of the green lady has more options, which I think are about as good or even better. The pegasus is @80 points very good. Movement 10, fly, nimble, on a 50*50 base AND very cheap.
In my Kingdoms of Men army, I use their equivalent (mage on pegasus) a lot.
Woodland critters are also very good with fly and pathfinder, but their disadvantage is that they only move 6. If I want my units to be in combat by turn 2, movement 6 is not enough, but if I want a combined arms approach, the pathfinder, fly and higher damage due to vicious might be preferable over the peg.
Yes, I also have two pegasi in the list, but I wanted some variation (and I have models for the centaurs now, whereas the pegasi will have to wait for a while).
I looked at woodland critters, but the M6 D2 combination put me off. Do people disagree?
@Sceleris: yeah, I noticed that and played around with it for a bit, but the Champion is VERY expensive and I didn’t really know what to cut. Gonna try it at some point, at any rate.
