love how they interpreted the "centaurs are better with bow and arrow" as "they have more skill in archery" rather than the obvious "they have both hands free"
They also don't have a torso-sized object right infront of their face. You could (relatively) accurately ride a horse and fire a bow if you clamp your legs onto the sides of a horse
Ok so do the humans HAVE to be on horses, or can there be bros in the back standing up firing arrows? The question says "humans on horses" but if it's a war you'd think humanity would do everything they could to win. Also what kind of humans? Cus some of the best horse archers in history come from the Central Asian Steppe, so if it's those guys vs Centaurs I think it's pretty even
@skeleton Have you ever read about Mongolian horse archers? Those bastards were insane. I highly doubt a centaur could beat them simply because they don't have to manage a horse. Also, archers most certainly had plenty of experience firing on the move. Humanity may have not been as advanced, but that doesn't mean they were idiots. If archers only ever fought from a standing position, they would be killed very quickly. If I remember correctly, archers could actually do "inhuman" things with their skill. Shooting multiple arrows into separate targets with all arrows fired at once. Extremely long-distance shots. Even curving the trajectory of the arrow to shoot behind walls, which is a far more specific use than it sounds. It's not even close to a right angle unless you specially make the arrows themselves, and I don't think this part has been recorded as used in a real battle.
@@TheCrateOfLemons Learning to hit a target while walking/running is easier than learning to shoot while riding a horse. Also...no. Historical archers did not shoot multiple arrows at once, or curve them around walls. They weren't magic, and they weren't Legolas. European longbow archers fired volleys from a mostly standing position, like you see people in the 1700s using muskets while lined up. Modern trick archers can do very impressive things, but they have much lower draw-weight bows, and fire arrows that might not make it through even the light cloth armor that the worst equipped soldiers would have.
Also, that centaurs are moving their own bodies rather than controlling a separate creature while trying to aim and shoot. It’s just a smaller mental load.
This video is the perfect encapsulation of how the Adventure Zone works. Starts dumb; gets fun; ends as a logical narrative with an engrossing plot twist. Powerful.
Trenches and people in the trees also will fuck with centaurs. Also I love that one minute Griffin’s like “whoa it’s racist assume they eat oats” and then later points out they’d only need to eat apples. Oof
Likely the most effective form of battle against centaurs would be hit and run tactics, skirmishes, trench warfare, and the usage of mining shafts/underground caves, as a centaur likely being over 8 feet tall, would be unable to use cramped 2-4 ft tall mine shaft and cave entrances that humans could easily bend over and crawl into. Secondly, as a centaur would theoretically be of the same proportions as a horse, but with a human torso in place of a horses head, attacks from behind would be crippling and likely fatal, without medical attention from another centaur, as their arms would not be able to reach past their rib cages. Thirdly using tactics similar to the Vietcong humans would easily be able to dig tunnels under centaur camps/cities and destroy them from the inside out. As well as the fact that simple traps, such as a mere hole in the ground, would permanently incapacitate a centaur, as they have no way of removing weight from an injured limb over long periods, which means they cannot recover from broken legs. And finally simple trenches such that were used in WW1 with the addition of ballistae and archers in place of machine guns, the centaurs would be virtually unable to wage full frontal assaults on human camps/outposts rendering melee combat pointless, and with humans being smaller and much more maneuverable than GIANT HORSE PEOPLE, humans could easily post themselves on mountaintops, treetops, and deep pike/spear filled trenches resulting in the centaurs being unable to attack any human camps, outposts, cities/towns, as well as rendering the speed and archery capabilities of the centaurs next to useless. Also, horses are sometimes very defensive, even as much so as dogs, and a horses kick, either with their front legs or with their powerful hind legs, are capable of dealing killing blows to all but the biggest or most agile of creatures including other horses/centaurs.
The trouble, I feel, with this is that it doesn't take into account the mobile nature of centaur populations combined with their enormous capacity for moving heavy weights very quickly. While your points about undermining centaur cities/camps is an excellent one, it also assumes that the centaurs have permanent settlements; the trouble with tunneling is that it's a slow process, and because of their horse bodies, centaurs don't have any immobile population; even infants would be able to move long distances with relative ease. Combine that with the fact that centaurs can haul any kind of siege artillery or other large scale weaponry that humans can haul using horses, likely at greater speeds and defensability due to the lack of needing to coordinate a separate animal, and I would still give the advantage to the centaurs. Even with trenches, there's nothing to say centaurs couldn't build their own catapults or trebuchets with which to launch casks of flammable oil or tar into the human fortifications, while they themselves are sufficiently mobile that traditional siege technology wouldn't functionally work against them; siege weapons only work on stationary populations. This is not to discredit your points! They're all very good. They just rely on centaur populations staying in one place, which I don't see why they would do
somewhat interesting trivia. the reason centaurs are good at bow and arrow. "Man on horse capable of firing bow, while horse is moving" was the absolute apex of military technology until the crossbow got invented. you could not beat Archer Who Can Gallop Away When You Run At Him. it was not possible. a guy whose title was Genghis Khan conquered most of the human race in his lifetime by virtue of discovering an army of cut-rate half-assed centowers can beat several times its weight in non-centaur military forces.
You have a good point, but I would submit this to your consideration: skilled mounted archers are able to turn around on their saddles and shoot backwards. Centowers would be incapable of that.
Vincent Laflamme oh yeah, definitely. but it's theorized that's the place legends of centaurs came from in the first place: Man Riding Horse Shooting Arrow as something that was CLEARLY supernatural and not just, y'know. man riding horse, shooting arrow.
@@xalrath Also, I'd think that centaurs would be much stronger and therefore more capable of wielding larger weapons. Their horsey hearts would be able to pump much more blood around their bodies, so what a big, powerlifting, bodybuilding frame looks like to us is probably pretty lean for centaurs. Plus, their human part is mounted on top of a core of horse body. If you've ever taken a martial arts lesson, pretty much the first thing they teach is to use your whole body when you move, not just your arms - so, even if the arms *weren't* any stronger than a normal human soldier's arms, the centaur would still have a steadier, solid base. I dunno, all of that might be BS, but I just have a strong feeling that centaurs would be way, way stronger than even the fittest human soldiers. And, if they're stronger, they can wield huge polearms, but also way more powerful bows, with far longer range than human bows. Even if the humans really dug in with pike squares, the centaurs could just snipe them off from a distance, knowing that the only weapons that could possibly reach them would be siege engines (and there's no reason to think that the Centaurs couldn't build siege of their own). And if the humans gave chase and went on the offensive, the centaurs would still win because they have the better mobility. The only way I see humans winning is if they have a defensive position with a height advantage, so that the centaurs won't out-range them, or if they've managed to trick the centaurs into crossing terrain that is very bad for hooves, but fine for human feet.
The Chinese had crossbows when Genghis was conquering them. The horse archer was the greatest warrior in the world pretty much up until the invention of the gun.
@@pianofish8572 Well, not really. Sure they were hard to kill, but they could not effectively hold ground on their own not effectively besiege a walled settlement. Siege technology was as much if not more of a reason for the success of Mongol conquest ad much as horse archery. Additionally, heavy infantry can very effectively take arrow fire, and foot archery allows more power and range than mounted archery.
the reason why I said centowers are better at bows and arrows is that they have full control over their lower halves, ergo more stability and control, ergo more precision. shooting from horse back is very difficult, I'd imagine, but for centowers, not so much.
@@heliveruscalion9124 They were just good archers, but in a specific context most archers don't train in. People keep talking about them as if they were magically skilled. Mongols cannot in any believable circumstance beat a centaur archer that is of equal training in archery. They have the same amount, if not even greater amount of training in the specific context they are shooting in, since they can't stop being centaurs, but in addition also has greater control over the horse portion of their bodies. The reason the Mongols were scary was because they could move fast while still firing. As grounded archers, they would be evenly matched with archers of equivalent training. Now imagine the mongols, but greater control over the horse part, meaning more complex formations, no horses bucking their riders, no horse head in the way. The horse part moves exactly in the way that fits best for archery, no inaccurate commands from the rider. On a surface fit for horses, they would be deadly.
you guys are ignoring the fact that centaurs only have one field of view. A horse running blind even over a relatively ideal flat surface is not going to be in a good position and will likely injure itself, and a centaur with a human head will have a single narrower field of view, making it harder to shoot and move simultaneously than for a mounted archer for whom the horse is on more of an autopilot.
on the other hand, horseback archers learn how to sort of ride out the uppy downy part of riding a horse, whereas you can't escape your own vibrations if it's your body.
3:15 Even if the horse doesn't directly fight, it could still be a wild card because there is a fucking horse running around like crazy because it is freaked out by all the fighting. That is still a ton of meat running around and kicking.
Guild of Free Action DnD war horses have spooked all the time. Napoleon couldn’t get the horses to charge the lines at Waterloo since they formed squares. It’s pretty easy historically.
Juice making solid, intelligent comments about war tactics coupled with the fact he keeps saying cEnTaUhOurs as he explains himself is just fucking incredible
If you want to see Bojack horseman on steroids go look up a equiceph from dungeons and dragons 3.0 edition. Or if you want to see to see Bojack horseman on crack go look up the Tikbalang from Pathfinder bestiary 4.
they kind of gloss over why centaurs would be better with a bow and arrow. they kind of just, think it's a lore thing, but in reality it makes sense from a physiological standpoint. think about it. if you're riding a horse, and trying to fire an arrow at the same time, you have to account for the horse's movements and your balance on the horse and everything. if you're a centaur, however, you only have to account for YOUR OWN movements, and you're, y'know, attached to the horse parts so it's easier to aim.
I know this is two years ago but I am disappointed no one mentioned how deadly horse kicks can be. Now imagine a human level intelligence purposefully using said kicks and being tactical about their hooves and kickin. Im team centaur.
think about this: an army of centaurs would only have to feed themselves, but an army of humans AND horses needs to feed both soldiers and horses, so centaurs would be able to have more supplies
Pomlithe if not more due to the fact that in battle they have to both have to feed movement and battle energy Where ever they went they would be tired from travel/ also horses are less durable than most animals you break their leg they’re done
Pomlithe that’s why the humans have the bonus they’re not worn out by travel (as they’re on horse back) And a centaur would be out if the game if it breaks a leg was the point I was trying to make
yeah but the centaur isn't carrying a human on his back. he's just carrying the extra weight of however much more a centaur's human part weighs vs a horse head. Also if your horse gets tired, and you walk, you have just left your horse behind.
I believe there was a case of a horse in WW2 that was delivered supplies between camps in the middle of a battlefield and continued to do so even after its rider was killed and it had been wounded. I dont know how much that pertains to a horse continuing to fight after the rider dies, but it's an interesting story nonetheless
something i've noticed with the mcelroy brothers is that they act like apples and sugar cubes are what horses eat most of the time, instead of pasture (grass and plants on the ground) and hay. i guess it might be part of their joke and i have only recently learned about horses, but yeah.
"The bond between man and horse is strong." - Someone somewhere **Horse gets hit with arrow** Horse: "A'ight, I'm just going to head up outta here. Fuck y'all, peace!"
Personally I would assume that the reason a centaur is great with bow and arrows is that they have a single solid body balanced on 4 horse legs as opposed to a man attempting keeping himself steady atop a horse whilst drawing his bow. A centaur has full control over his speed and how quickly he will reach the enemy so he knows how far to try and shoot the arrow while on the move
Humans would win, and for one simple reason: A centaur wouldn’t be able to siege a castle. Small doorways, stairs, and a lack of ladder climbing prowess would mean the centaurs wouldn’t be able to capture strongholds we made. Wait why do I even care?
What I love most about this bit is that even the suggestion that the question itself limited humans in what they can do was seen as a betrayal of humans, as if they decided what the question-asker wanted to know. Yeah, I'm sure giving the centaurs the advantage in this purely hypothetical exercise is gonna doom us all. "Hey, I think the question was specifically about humans limited to horses" "How dare you side with the centaurs?!"
“It takes a special kind of horse” *gets flashbacks of playing Skyrim when I was 12 when my horse kicked the shit out of a wolf to help distract it when I killed another one*
I mean, centaurs would be jacked as hell, if they have the same strength ratio from legs to arms that we have, they could fold a car like paper, horses are strong af. But a human could just climb a tree or enter a hole, they don't need to deal 100% of the time with the horse part
My husband asked "what if the human part of a centaur came off and it has to struggle to get oats while dead? " Should i trade my husband in for a new one?
One thing to consider about centaurs and archery is that, unlike a mounted soldier, a centaur doesn't have the horse head in the way and could thus effectively use a longbow, (rather than a bow short enough to move over the horse's head if you need to shoot something in front of you or on your other side) which would be a big advantage on its own. If you add in the extra stability with the horse part being a part of your body rather than a completely separate animal, the difference is pretty substantial.
No idea why I'm here three years later BUT: Centaurs would have made better archers in a fantasy setting. They've got a higher vantage point to ensure line of sight and accuracy, high mobility, quiver space for DAYS on that horse meat, and most importantly but least mentioned, they're taller. Even if a Centaur wasn't magically or mythically stronger than a man, being taller means more distance between arm and ground, so a Centaur could have wielded a truly massive longbow that wouldn't have been usable for a normal man unless he were somehow 9 feet tall. In short, hypothetical training, types of equipment and technology, and setting aside, from a purely from a mechanical perspective, the average centaur would almost certainly make a far better archer than the average man.
