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There have been a lot of debates about Down Strike in my game.

1. It says you have to be 1 yard above your opponent so does this mean a Troll could hit a grounded Windling or even a short Dwarf just standing next to them? I'm not sure if your whole body has to be 1 yard above the target or just the weapon.

2. in regards to the mounted Down Strike rule can a Windling riding a Kue Down Stirke? Can a mounted person Down Stirke another mounted character?
I only ask this because even sitting on a horse the average human would not be 1 yard above even a tall human and would probably be looking a Troll in the eye.

1) Well, you're thinking about heads, while you should be thinking about feet. It's about stable position.
The 1 yard is explained in the parentheses (higher ground) so that means your feet have to be higher...
(The whole thing is available as a skill, so it's mundane. If it simply applied because of body size, it would go into the racial rules.)
You'll have to make some sort of effort or pre-plan to get the bonus, simple body height doesn't figure in. Especially as there's no rules for body height and no way to "buy" it. You could simply declare you make a twelve-foot dwarf and start down striking trolls... ;D

2) See the feet thing above.
Mounted vs. mounted probably wouldn't work, unless the mounts were of very different size.
Windlings on a Kue could Down Strike... walking windlings probably.
Fun fact: windlings can always down strike as long as they can fly. They can just drop themselves onto someone from flight...
The intention of having mounted Down Strike is to allow Cavalrymen to forego Charging Attacks and give them an alternative for remaining in close combat. Imagine one human hacking away at another human from horseback. Whenever you think some other senario would achieve the same effect, it might well work.

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All in all, it's about whether or not you would assign an advantage to someone because of a position he took that required more than just being tall in and on itself. It's less about the yard exactly or the mount.

O.K. cool, thanks again Arma as always you are an ocean of widow and knowledge. I agree with pretty much everything you said and now i can come back to my players armed with your words.

That is an interesting change in down strike. Means some major changes in tactics for a warrior from previous editions where to use down strike you had to actually move down.

No longer needing to bounce up and down means reduced strain expenditure for warriors as gliding stride only costs strain to gain height (if windlings flying count as stable I am assuming a warrior using gliding stride is also.) however the character with both great leap and down strike probably wouldn’t be considered stable as he jumps into the air and falls on his opponent blade first (of cause this was a multi dispelling or human trick as no discipline actually gets both)

The greatest improvement I suspect is that we no longer have to listen to obsidemen with very deep voices making trying to make high pitch bird calls.

Ah, defiantly makes sense

With the new description of down strike can the sky raiders still use it while falling on unsuspecting lowlanders? The requirement for solid footing suggests you could not use it while falling.

That might depend on whether or not the beginning of the attack is considered when the SR leaps or when he actually gets in melee range of the target.