Some historians believe, that the Byzantine cataphract was modeled after the Bulgarian, which was in turn modeled after the Sarmatian armored horsemen.
In Volga Bulgaria the evolution of heavy cavlry reached its peak in the unit I am presenting here - on the right you can see a dismounted Bolgar Cataphract reconstruction and on the left my own reconstruction for use in AOK mods and modded campaigns.
The unit is free to use as long as Dave3377 and I are credited. The horse is taken from his Cataphract Archer and the rest of the unit is my design.
Usefulness/Novelty: 5.0
Since the only genuine eastern European civilisation included in the vanilla version of AOC is the Byzantines, it's no wonder that scenario designers and modders have always felt the need for unit graphics such as this one. It's obvious that the author has done his research and as such his Bolgar Cataphract is very historically accurate, as can be seen from the reference image included. The uses for this unit are many, especially for people designing historical scenarios or mods set in Eastern Europe, but not limited to them. The file also includes an icon graphic, and that's always a good thing.
Quality/Instructions: 3.5
The graphics are of overall good quality and the rider's animation graphics match those of his mount exceptionally well given the fact that this is a copy-pasted unit. However there are a few problems with the attack animation. Apart from the slightly inaccurate anchor points, the unit's axe swing can barely be seen from most angles except the front one, and the motion that can be seen of it is not all that convincing as an animation. The overall quality of the rest of the graphics make up for this problem more or less. though it would be great if this issue were to be addressed.
Additional Comments:
Despite my criticism I consider this to be one of the better copy-pasted units I've seen, better even than some units that made it to The Forgotten expansion, so I definitely recommend it for designers looking to add a eastern-european flavor to their works.