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Usually I run two units of 6 Vanilla Knights and a Muso for 146 for clipping enemy missile troops, skirmishers, warmachine crews and the like, but recently the Pistoliers/Outriders models have taken my fancy - Napoleonic light cavalry are pretty cool, IMO. However, I wanted to canvass opinion on their respective combat effectiveness before I started trimming all those mould lines...

So, I've got about 150 points to spend, let's take a look...

150 Points buys me 7 Pistoliers, an Outrider with a repeater pistol and a Musician. Cool, I like round numbers. With a 22" short range, these boys can pump out 12 S4 AP shots hitting on 5's, and 4 hitting on 4's. So I'lll likely hit with 6 of those shots, and wound with 4. Now the AP doesn't really help if I'm targeting missile troops, scouts or, well, warmachines, because I won't be shooting at them anyway. So I'll inflict 4 casualties - just enough to cause a panic test on even a big unit of archers or similar. 'Course, if I'm hitting dwarfs, the AP will be incredibly useful to negate that heavy armour.

Compared with the 6 Strength 5 attacks I would inflict with the KO's, of which 4 would hit, let's say (counting on my terrible luck) 3-4 of which wound, i get about the same result, for 4 points less, AND, those attacks will be effective against warmachines as well.

As for outriders, 140 points buys me 6 with a muso and outrider champ (for the BS). Now these guys have a 28" short range, but they can't move and fire. So I'd be looking at a slightly different tactic here, probably advancing them along a flank and then pouring the lead into the enemy. With 15 S4 AP shots hitting on 4's at short range, and another 3 hitting on 3's, we're looking at about 9 or 10 hits, for about 6 wounds.

So my questions are:

1. Are either light cavalry options better than my knights?
2. If so, which would you recommend? The maneuverability of the Pistoliers or the firepower of the outriders?

cheers,

cK

I run both. A unit of 5 pistoliers with a musician and another unit of 5 outriders (with barding because I like the older look). Two cheep units 97pts for pistoleers and 115pts for the outriders.

I like taking both of them so I don't need to make the choice and I keep them cheep, so they won't eat away at other priority units (like cannons).

Overall though, I get a better return on the pistoliers. Mainly because people avoid the outriders because they have that strike of fear like the volley gun. But in reality do little damage. Putting them on a flank against an inexperienced player could make him avoid that side and you can control the board better though.

So it's a damage trade off versus a psychological one in my opinion.

Off topic, but they are based on cavalry way earlier then the Napoleonic era. Empire is based off late medieval Holy Roman Empire, and pistoliers are based heavily on Reiter Cavalry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiter


As for the topic of Pistoliers or outriders; Pistoliers are an all around better choice. This is not just my opinion either - most empire players will favor Pistoliers over outriders due to the fact that Pistoliers will actually fulfill a unique and useful role as a fast, hit-and-run harassment unit, whilst the Outriders just sit there and shoot (and point for point do it worst then handgunners)

Do the maths. Run neither. Pistoliers have no decent shooting and no decent melee. Outriders cant even move and fire, which essentially makes the mount useless(just run more 5x2 handgunners instead), costs almost as much as 3 handgunners but have 1 wound.

Outriders vs Handgunners trade wounds for armor saves and speed (pregame move, and likely to get away when charged).
As Turalon said, they can scare an opponent, and that's worth bringing.

Pistoliers are pretty good at quite a few match ups. They love warriors of chaos, as they can dance around taking pot shots all game, same goes for high elves who don't take shooters (which seems to be a lot of them).

1 unit of knights, pistoliers and outriders is fun. Outriders park and shoot, pistoliers harass, and the knights provide the cover against smaller units that threaten you.
For 310 points, the trio does a pretty good job at holding up a flank.


-Matt

Outriders fire at BS2 most of the time. If your opponent is getting scared of them, he is not bothering to do simple maths. 10 outriders will kill a grand total of 5 t4 models a turn before saves, for a 200+ unit. I can just sit and ignore them the whole day, they die to any kind of shooting or magic and if they flee, they spend a minimum of 2 turns before they can shoot, and thats assuming they havent fled out of range/position in the meantime.

Pistoliers : Firing at BS 1 most of the time. You need 12 shots on average to wound a chaos warrior, before saves. Feel free to take potshots at chaos warriors all you want.

Well as I stated before, if you take these units keep them cheep! Any more than 100pts on either and you are eating into your better choices.

The main advantage of both units is that they distract your opponent. If they spend time shooting/magicing them, then thats saved attacks against your other units. Also, they can be used to prevent other units from attacking your war machines.

In all honesty though, you should not be counting on either unit to win you the game, that's what your cannons and 100+ state troops are for.

I've found that fast cav that marches 16" doesn't have a hard time staying out of charge arch and within 6" of their target.
With a champ, you're killing ~2 chaos warriors a round.

Outriders hit as often as an equal point value of handgunners.
You're just trading wounds for armor, speed and vanguard ( giving lanes of fire and 1st turn shooting).
If outriders can't kill enough, then you should never take handgunners either.

HawaiiMatt wrote: 1 unit of knights, pistoliers and outriders is fun. Outriders park and shoot, pistoliers harass, and the knights provide the cover against smaller units that threaten you.
For 310 points, the trio does a pretty good job at holding up a flank.

1. Thankyou for your honest appraisal of all 3 choices.

2. This was never about slagging outriders and buffing handgunners. I am looking at these units to make my army more flexible and LESS of a gunline!!!!

3. Off topic: that's why warhammer is awesome - I have interpreted my empire army completely differently - I draw my inspiration from English Civil War (new model army seems somewhat appropriate) and based my pistoliers on French cuirassiers!

cK

Yeah, your shooting fast cavalry needs to stay mobile and cheap. Needing to stand still and fire means you are going to loose them before they accomplish much.

What Vanguard gets you is short range on turn one, and free reform means you will be able to avoid close combat to continue shooting at short range. It also means you can get to warmachines and the like much, much faster. Then there's always the value of bait-and-flee tactics, not to mention herding fleeing units off the board.

They are not likely to earn their points back, true. What they are going to do is give the other guy something extra to worry about.

ColonelKlink wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote: 1 unit of knights, pistoliers and outriders is fun. Outriders park and shoot, pistoliers harass, and the knights provide the cover against smaller units that threaten you.
For 310 points, the trio does a pretty good job at holding up a flank.

1. Thankyou for your honest appraisal of all 3 choices.

2. This was never about slagging outriders and buffing handgunners. I am looking at these units to make my army more flexible and LESS of a gunline!!!!
cK

Maybe my description was too basic.

What I've found with facing outriders and pistoliers is that alone, they aren't worth much. Using outriders to vanguard slightly forward, just within max range, and pushing pistoliers quite a bit forward gives you 25 shots that hit on 5's. You need both to do enough shooting to matter. If you use all pistoliers, you lose out on firepower. If you use all outriders, they're too static and the enemy just makes a bee line for you. The combination works.
Adding a single cheap unit of knights to the pair lets you push forward and sweep away lesser threats. 2 units of fast cav/chaos hounds won't take out the shooters, because one unit gets shot up, and the 2nd the knights take out.
If you think about how each unit influences it's area on the table, you really get a feel for what they do together.
Think of the 24" long 90 degree arch that the outriders fire into.
Think of the 16" march, free reform and 6" shoot that the pistoliers pack more shooting into.
Then you've got a ~16" charge range from the knights. I've found that the great weapons cause me more problems, as the 2nd or 3rd round of combat means I'm still taking losses.
The idea is to keep both the knights and the pistoliers operating in that threat range of the outriders.

-Matt

Question wrote:Outriders fire at BS2 most of the time. If your opponent is getting scared of them, he is not bothering to do simple maths. 10 outriders will kill a grand total of 5 t4 models a turn before saves, for a 200+ unit. I can just sit and ignore them the whole day, they die to any kind of shooting or magic and if they flee, they spend a minimum of 2 turns before they can shoot, and thats assuming they havent fled out of range/position in the meantime.

Point for point they hit they're scoring as many hits per turn as handgunners...

Pistoliers : Firing at BS 1 most of the time. You need 12 shots on average to wound a chaos warrior, before saves. Feel free to take potshots at chaos warriors all you want.

If you can't get fast cavalry within close range of the target then you're doing something really terribly wrong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ColonelKlink wrote:1. Thankyou for your honest appraisal of all 3 choices.

2. This was never about slagging outriders and buffing handgunners. I am looking at these units to make my army more flexible and LESS of a gunline!!!!

The issue is that outriders perform the same role as handgunners. They sit still and fire downfield. Outriders are marginally cheaper per shot, have a slightly better save, take up less space than the equivalent in handgunners, but have 1/3 as many wounds and therefore are really vulnerable to counter fire.

Pistoliers have an entirely different role, they're there to get up in the face of the enemy, cause marchblock checks, and break up their lines. The kills they score are a nice bonus, but they're fundamentally there to be annoying to the enemy.