Does Fire Emblem Adequately Represent Light Cavalry?

[Interdimensional Observer]

I've an inquiry about two things. Military history and FE's cavalry, and a purely gameplay-oriented examination of Light Cavalry (capitalized purely because this is the focus of this topic) in FE gameplay. 

Why make a topic about Light Cavalry? Because, I don't think it has been done before on SF. And I'm wondering the popular historical liking for "knights" in their heavy shiny armor has lead the Light Cavalry to go relatively unnoticed in the popular imagination. If Light Cavalry get no respect, I want to give them some.

 

First, the military history.

• I've been reading about the differences between Heavy Cavalry and Light Cavalry, although I would not consider myself yet an amateur military historian. Hence I'm asking here for more knowledge.
• Does Fire Emblem sufficiently portray the "Light Cavalry" of history? Clearly, the Great Knight class is Heavy Cavalry, probably Paladin too, but does Cavalier represent at least a medium cavalry, or is it a Heavy Cavalry as well? Are Jugdral's mono-Sword Free/Forrest Knight and mono-Lance Lance/Duke Knight classes possibly Light Cavalry?
• I know Horseman/Arch & Bow Knights/Nomad (Troopers)/Ranger exist, which I think are Light Cavalry. But I question if having the bows make them "too distinct" from a bow-less Light Cavalry, historically speaking. Are Keshigs -not literally- a world apart from Hungarian Hussars, to name both a bow-centric and a less bow-oriented historical Light Cavalry?

 

Secondly, the division of cavalry in FE from a gameplay perspective.

• Should there be a dedicated Light Cavalry class? 
• Could Paladin work as the melee Light Cavalry and a medium or Heavy Cavalry?
  • -That is to say, is all that is necessary to make the Paladin class work this way, is to make the characters themselves when put into the Paladin class, uniquely oriented towards Light or heavier?
    • If I make -lets take Lyn & Hector for two names that come to mind with totally different gameplay profiles for this hypothetical- Lyn a Paladin, she have get personal skills or something (not just Skl & Spd vs. Str & Def stats) that makes her Paladin much more a Light Cavalry. Whereas Hector through his personal stuff when placed in Paladin (again, not just stats) would end up much more a Heavy Cavalry.
• Should a Bow Knight (or same class by another name) class count as the Light Cavalry class? Or should Bow Knight be a second form of Light Cavalry, alongside a bow-less Light Cavalry?
  • Could you take what I just said of Paladin about characters being the determining factor, and apply it Bow Knight? Could you make a Bow Knight that won't be grossly "suboptimal" if you chose to cut or stab stuff (whichever of swords and lance it has this time) instead of pelting arrows from afar?
• What should be the relation of Light Cavalry to Cavalier?
  • Should there be a second unpromoted horse class that is Light Cavalry to Cavalier's Heavy Cavalry, that has maybe Bow Knight and a Promoted Bow-less Light Cavalry class? Assuming a two-class-tiers, two-choices-on-promotion system, like Sacred Stones and Awakening and Fates.
  • Is Cavalier capable of being branded a "medium cavalry"? And thus, can it, in a more Three-Houses styled class system, have three-four "spiritual successor promotions", in the form of Light Cavalry Promotion, Medium Cavalry Promotion (Paladin), Heavy Cavalry Promotion (Great Knight) and perhaps a separate Bow Knight?
• Does a Light Cavalry at all impede on the place of Flying Units?
  • A Pegasus Knight is more mobile than an FE Paladin, and it has lower defenses. Sure it has a Wind & Bows weakness a Light Cavalry wouldn't have, and the Light Cavalry could never fly. But would the difference be too small to be worth having?
  • As an aside, would having three weights of Cavalry open the door to a parallel situation of three weights of Fliers? Pegasus = Light, Wyvern = Heavy, Griffon? = Medium?

In this gameplay discussion, I have to consider what impression I've received as the role of Light Cavalry IRL. Light Cavalry were:

• Scouts- Using their great mobility to traverse terrain of all kinds, reconnoiter the battlefield and surrounding environments, and quickly flee before being killed/captured if spotted by the enemy.
  • Speaking of the mobility, would was it so much greater IRL, that Light Cavalry deserves a separate movement type from Paladin/Great Knight? Should they have smaller penalties, if any, moving through forests or over deserts? Obviously, they deserve at least 1 more point of Movement than a Paladin.
  • Oh, and about the act of scouting itself. Because of Fog of War and "Oh no, a Meteor tome and Horseslayer were right there!" permadeath, FE usually shows us the player the entire battlefield as plain as day instead. There isn't any scouting to be done in Fire Emblem.
• Raiders- Dash in and destroy or steal whatever you quickly can in the enemy's villages or military bases before they know what hit them. You can run away with the loot afterwards.
  • Barring 3-3 in RD, and some instances of terrain destruction on maps from 4-14 (minus 11 & 12), FE isn't really about damaging property.
  • And excluding treasure chests, FE isn't about pillaging, FE is too well-versed in prim and proper wartime etiquette. When you see an open village, you politely wait for the villagers to strike up a conversation of some kind, and then they hand you some information, and hopefully some gold, or a powerful weapon, or a rare item, maybe a fresh bag of usable flesh. And then they close their doors shut, because you tell them you saw Old Gloria with a lance through her liver on the road to the village, so no, she won't be coming today to ask for a cup of sugar for her very berry tarts, her weeping grandson will get that tomorrow. Maybe she shouldn't have left walked out of her house towards your open gates when theres a freakin' battle going on.
• Flankers- If Light Cavalry must be deployed in a conventional battle instead of the guerrilla tactics raiding encompasses, then you could use them just like other cavalry.
  • Although, you probably should mind their less heavy weapons and armor, and leave the bold charges into the center of the enemy's hardened lines to your Heavy Cavalry. Use the Light Cavalry's greater agility to hit the enemy's formations from the sides and behind where it isn't expected. Send them out to reap the souls of infantry fleeing for their lives when the battle is all but won, and you're just racking up some victory overkill bonus points.
  • FE doesn't really have encirclement, or the pursuit of the defeated not yet dead though. Maps tend to be linear, and not big or open enough for tactical encirclements without things taking too long to set up. It'd be easier to knock on the enemy earlier from a single direction.

 

Thank you if you read all of the above! I will kiss a chestnut-colored Thoroughbred in my dreams if you did.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Interdimensional Observer

[lenticular]

I wonder if it could work to have two different cavalry lines, one light and one heavy, and have the light cavalry be the only ones that got Canto. This would represent their extra mobility and make them better at skirmishing, hit and run tactics, and the likes. The problem here is that Canto is obviously really good so heavy cavalry would have to have some sort of equally compelling advantage otherwise nobody would ever want to choose them over the light cavalry. Maybe something along the lines of the Trample skill as default for heavy cavalry could work for that?

[Lightcosmo]

8 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Speaking of the mobility, would was it so much greater IRL, that Light Cavalry deserves a separate movement type from Paladin/Great Knight? Should they have smaller penalties, if any, moving through forests or over deserts? Obviously, they deserve at least 1 more point of Movement than a Paladin.

Sure, it's called Berwick Saga! Xd

They actually have a light cavalry movement type, with much lower penalties. 

[X-Naut]

If there's a light cavalry type then it's probably Paladin, who tend to have the highest or joint-highest movement of any class, although you could argue it as more of a middleweight class in some games where bow knights have better terrain costs. Echoes Gold Knight is a bit of an anomaly here, with better movement and terrain costs than Bow Knight. That said, Fire Emblem has flying mounts whereas historical armies did not. It's less a matter of light cavalry encroaching on fliers' niche and more that the latter make it hard to justify the former.

[Agro]

10 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

There isn't any scouting to be done in Fire Emblem

You could say that pegasi and wyverns fill these roles pretty well since, while there aren't any scouts, there's definitely times when you need a speedy unit to get ahead to reach a village, or shop, or hit that chest, etc.

[Armchair General]

In terms of combat, paladins and cavaliers kind of fill in the niche role of chasing down an routed army. But scouting is irrelevant in FE and flanking results in boxing someone in or forming an V or L as the enemy charges towards your lord's group.

 

[Shadow Mir]

54 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

In terms of combat, paladins and cavaliers kind of fill in the niche role of chasing down an routed army. But scouting is irrelevant in FE and flanking results in boxing someone in or forming an V or L as the enemy charges towards your lord's group.

Aside from the common scenario of intercepting thieves, is chasing down a fleeing unit even that common in these games? Because the only ones I can think of are Candace in Fates and Judith in 3H. A fleeing army is even rarer; 3H is literally the only game where this happens.

[Armchair General]

3 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Aside from the common scenario of intercepting thieves, is chasing down a fleeing unit even that common in these games? Because the only ones I can think of are Candace in Fates and Judith in 3H. A fleeing army is even rarer; 3H is literally the only game where this happens.

Nina's army in Fates, Saizo's son also flees, but that's more of an time limit than a cavalry match. Other than that, it goes to show that IntSys is missing out on the nature of war.

[Shadow Mir]

4 hours ago, Armchair General said:

Nina's army in Fates, Saizo's son also flees, but that's I'm more of an time limit than a cavalry match. Other than that, it goes to show that IntSys is missing out on the nature of war.

I forgot about Nina and friends, but that's more because in that chapter, I'm rushing to stop her and her chest looting buddies from escaping (also of note, like with Candace and Judith, her escaping means you lose).

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

10 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Aside from the common scenario of intercepting thieves, is chasing down a fleeing unit even that common in these games? Because the only ones I can think of are Candace in Fates and Judith in 3H. A fleeing army is even rarer; 3H is literally the only game where this happens.

Some recruitable enemies need to be chased down. Like Legault in FE7, or Rennac in FE8. Of course, each game requires a certain unit to intercept them, which a generic light cavalry unit couldn't exactly fulfill.

[Jotari]

Looking at what you expect from the gameplay section, I think the answer is yes. Paladin does accurately reflect light cavalry (and Great Knight represents heavy cavalry). They have the movement that makes them scouts and canto gives them the ability to act as raiders and the two combined give them as close as Fire Emblem can tactically get to flanking. Adding a new class would just be paladin, but weaker and with more move, when paladin is already exactly that to Great Knight. The other thing of note is reducing their terrian penalty, but as noted, fliers already effectively have that, and if we start ignoring terrain on mounted units then we get closer to the scale of "Why ever even deploy infantry?" Terrain should be the thing that naturally impedes mounted units to put them more on par with infantry. In real life people do ride horses in the desert, they're not nearly as good at it as camels, but there still better than traveling on foot, but Fire Emblem nerfs mounted units in a desert for gameplay reasons.