Why would a rider ever command any horse attack besides trampling?

Question

From Rolemaster Creatures and Treasures [1] we gather that Horses (and other draft animals) have several attacks, some for stationary, some for charge attacks.

According to the rules (p. 9):

Biting and trampling allow the rider to attack also, rearing does not.

When looking at the actual attack tables it seems however, that trampling is really just a lot stronger than any of the other attacks (in terms of damage and crits)...

• Am I missing something? Why would the attack that allows the rider to also attack, be the one that does most damage anyway?
• Why would a rider (given a successful riding maneuver to do so) ever tell his horse to use anything beside 'trample' as an attack?

[1] Creatures and Treasures # RM 1400

Answer 1

I had some time to dig through more RM books over the weekend and found the answer, it seems I wasn't careful enough in my study the first time around. (Although this might have to do with our translated German version of the rules also...)

• The Trample¹ attacks done by riding/draft animals cannot generally be freely 'chosen' as a mode of attack by the rider.
• However, Trample attacks happen in some special cases 'automatically', i.e. the horse will use this attack once certain conditions apply. Namely, these are:
  • For stationary attacks, if a Rearing² attack ends up doing a non-minor critical damage, the animal will attack using Trample in the next round.
  • For charging attacks, if a Ramming³ attack ends up doing a non-minor critical damage, the animal will immediately follow up with a Trample attack in the same round.

Thus, the conundrum of trample attacks is solved: while clearly being the objectively strongest attacks, they can't purposefully be 'triggered' by the rider and are more a matter of luck.

N.B. Horses also have a Biting⁴ attack, that can be chosen when the horse is attacking stationary. This biting attack is generally a bit weaker than the Rearing attack and doesn't give the chance of getting a strong Trample follow-up -- however, it allows the rider to attack as well, making for a neat little bit of tactical decision making on the side of the player.

¹ Table used: Trampling
² Table used: Crush/Fall
³ Table used: Ramming/Battering
⁴ Table used: Biting