Wu-shan, Holmgard and Padmassa

[Sombre]

Holy crap. I just realised I'm going to HAVE to make zebra/gazelle/alpaca/camel cavalry now. Seriously.

Well I was planning on making some kind of machaka mixed with north africa thing in the future, so I guess it's all cool.

[DrPraetorious]

That is, in fact *exactly* what I had in mind.

I'd originally called those units "Cataphracts" rather than "Knights" but decided the terminology was too confusing. Whada ya think?

[Sombre]

Cataphracts would be fine. I think a lot of people would know the term, or instantly figure out what it meant. Or you could just use 'heavy cavalry' or 'shock cavalry' or something.

[DrPraetorious]

That's not the problem, but "lacking in cataphractly virtue" just doesn't quite cut it. There is an equivalent Persian concept but it applies to warriors in general. Part of it is that it isn't strictly Asyrrian, it's got all sorts of evil influences from other source material.

[Sombre]

Well you can change the description I'm sure. There are thousands of ways of suggesting that they're a cruel and ill disciplined lot. You could mention that they've grown spoiled and decadent what with all the slaves and young virgins (boys and girls) and would much rather die of sex-related diseases than a big sword through the face in the middle of a battle.

Maybe "The concept of virtue is as foreign to them as mercy"

Something like that.

[Sombre]

Attached is my take on the 'False knight' / cataphract / evil cowardly heavy cavalry / thingy.

The reason there are 4 pics (8 including attack sprites) is simple. I made a gold one, changed the shield and couldn't decide if it looked better or not, then quickly made 'silver/iron/steel' versions as well. I have no idea which would be best for your purposes, although that much iron or steel barding kinda wouldn't make sense in the early era, so I'd guess the gold/bronze one is better.

I really like 'em. I'm quite excited about a future matchup between evil cowardly persian-esque Padmassans and equally evil but suicidally brave spartan-esque Argans.

Let me know what you think. Any of you :]

And yes, I know they don't exactly fit a description you gave, other than being assyrian(ish).

[DrPraetorious]

They look good, and I do prefer the bronze version - both aesthetically and for historicity. I should probably fiddle with the units equipment somewhat. I prefer the better-defined shield (on the lower right.)

Should I have three versions for the three different types of armament? The lance is always the same, and independent heavy cavalary always use the same picture regardless of whether they have swords or maces or whatever as secondary armament.

[Endoperez]

You shouldn't look to indep cavalry but the nations that currently have multiple types of cavalry of similar types: Sauromatia and (LA) Tien Chi. The units can be told apart from each other.

[Sombre]

But those are substantially different. We're just talking subweapons here. I personally think there's no need for different graphics.

Further, I think there's no need for three identical lance cavalry units with the only difference being the subweapons.

[Endoperez]

I also think there's no need for three identical lance cavalry units with different set of weapons, but if our good Doctor decides to go with the idea, I'd suggest a slightly altered list. The indie knights/heavy cavalry use Broad Swords, Morning Stars and Hammers. Morning Stars are pretty much 1-handed flails as far as mechanics go. Ulm uses hammers, monkeys use maces. Only the most barbaric troops use clubs and/or maces instead of either more advanced or biggers weapons (quarterstaves, iron cudgels, great clubs etc).