Knights of the Old World - Cataphract
Heavy cavalry was, for a very long time, the dominant force on the battlefield. Many of such units have reached legendary status, like the noble French knights, whose effectiveness tended to be heavily hampered by their extreme arrogance, or the Polish Winged Hussars and their renowned charge at the Battle of Vienna. Their era of dominance in warfare would be ended with the development of pike-and-shot warfare, obsoleting the unit while lighter mounted units endured for a bit longer. And while heavily armored cavalry has become a symbol of the medieval period, just like crossbows and the feudal system, it finds its roots in more ancient times. Before the knights, there were the Cataphracts, a unit that finds its roots in ancient Persia, and was kept by its successor nations all the way to the Eastern Roman Empire. Cataphracts were straightforward: a rider covered in the heaviest armor of their time, riding a horse protected by fish-scaled armor. Even their name doesn’t deal in subtlety...
