Combined Cavalry Units?

[Tubalkain]

As I'm playing SIFRP again, this time as a combat/warfare focussed character, a question came up in my mind about combined units.

A cavalry unit is 20 men plus horses while a regular unit (including the personal guard) is 100 men strong.

The main question is: If I combine a non-cavalry unit and a cavalry unit (I plan to create a Cavalry-Personal Guard), would the unit be 20 men or 100 men strong?
In addition: If I already had a personal guard (100 men strong), would it be possible to just "buy" trained war-horses for those guys and re-assign their experience points? If so, should I spend wealth (a Destrier is 1000 SS which equals ~5 GD, meaning 500 GD = 2,5 Wealth) to buy horses or do I need to spend power for the upgrade?
If spending power is the way to go, would the upgrade cost 5 Power (difference between Personal Guard and Cavalry-Personal Guard) or 25 Power (difference x5) as I'd basically create 5x20 Personal Guard-Cavalry-Men?

The later option seems logical, but it would cause the problem of Personal-Guard Cavalry being cheaper to field than actual cavalry as you'd only have to pay training cost once.
→ Veteran Personal Guard (5+6 = 11 Power) + 5x Cavalry (5x5 = 25 Power) = 36 Power for 5x Veteran PG-Cavalry.
→ 5x Veteran Cavalry (5x (5+5 = 10)) = 50 Power for 5x Veteran Cavalry.

I'm so confused.

[Zeroed]

Re: Combined Cavalry Units?

Personally, when I combine two unit types together which include a cavalry, the unit becomes a 20 men force with mounts.

And in my campaigns, when someone upgrade a "foot" unit to a "cavalry" unit, they pay the usual power cost and the unit goes down from 100 men to 20 men. You can explain it in a variety of ways... Either the 100 men take rotating shifts and/or only a handful of them were comfortable and competent enough to ride horses efficiently in battle in a coordinated and cohesive manner, etc.

So if you want your 100 personal guards to become 100 personal guards cavalry, you would have to invest enough power points to buy a total 5 combined units.

[Kajani]

Re: Combined Cavalry Units?

Personally I think in most cases the combining of units works not very good - and it is maybe better to create a new type of unit from the start (that is why for example we desinged light cav and mounted archers in our group). A cav-personal-guard might be better created as some type of more expensive cav to feature the benefits of personal guards like heavier armor, special high moral and the special rule that you could attach yourself without losing the ability to command.

If you want your personal cadre of cav, it may be better that you say you chose some of the best men from your personal guard (who could also ride) and form them into a new unit, while the old unit is strengthen by new recruits. That is the narrative approach.
The rules for units are always abstract a little bit.