Brytenwalda Guide for Warband.
Defending a Village
Defending Winteringasham turned out to be our bloodiest battle and gloriest victory of the campaign so far.
• Background. Lilura Kingdom is at war with Pengwern Kingdom because we utterly vanquished Pengwern's ally, Lindisware Kingdom, through successful annexation of Linnuis town and Hyrne Ceaster castle.
My rival's Kingdom is yellow and mine is red. Winteringasham is the village in the top-right:
After fending off reprisal sieges conducted by Pengwern on both fiefs, we began garrisoning and rebuilding our strongholds as well as nerfing the taxrate and converting our mostly Pagan population to our faith, Christianity. Unfortunately, we weren't able to defend two of our five villages from the ruler of Pengwern, Ri Cynddylan map Cyndrwyn Glas [mugshot], who led a force of 900 men to burn them to the ground.
Enraged by this cowardly act, we caught up with the enemy in his neck of the woods, but nevertheless could do naught but bide our time, as we were outnumbered.
Thus, it was with a troubled brow that we trotted back (on donkies) to our court at Linnuis, garrisoned with a rabble of 400 men from six different British Isles cultures, gathered over our carefree Warlord years.
The ruler of Pengwern, however, wasn't done yet: the jerk still had two of our villages left to burn. We spotted his 830-strong force coming over the hills, from the west.
Knowing that we didn't have much time before he began raiding again, we all but emptied our garrison at Linnuis and then scrambled to recruit fresh troops from our three remaining villages. One of these villages, Winteringasham, was already a Loyal Christian one (we didn't need to build a monastery for conversion purposes):
While still quite poor, its Christians considered us honored guests, and so offered up no fewer than 67 Geburas Engles [pic] for conscription:
67!!
Note that forcible recruitment yielded no more.
So with an army of 473 our Heroic Company confronted the 830 led by Ri Cynddylan map Cyndrwyn Glas:
What followed, then, was a bloody six-phase battle (with multiple reinforcement waves per phase) staged within the village of Winteringasham:
Against this force:
Those Cadwr are the scariest because they are heavy infrantrymen. Thankfully, most of his force is light-medium.
Our force (Heroes not shown):
A ragtag force to be sure, but it got the job done. My heavy infantry Heroes (companions) did the heavy lifting, anyway. Onuist, my Pict-Hero, scored 60 kills with his My Wife greataxe! Due to the healing boost from my medic at the end of each phase (First Aid: 40% HP boost), most of my Heroes and Dena Pirates survived to phase four before I had to send in a larger force of squishies.
Of course, my medic was tucked away safely throughout the battle, giving a 36% chance that any mortally-struck squishy would be wounded rather than killed. Still, we lost 57 men and only three peasant allies survived the bloodbath. The reason we lost so many peasants is that we don't have control of villagers: they tend to charge before the reinforcement wave comes.
Of course, my medic was tucked away safely throughout the battle, giving a 36% chance that any mortally-struck squishy would be wounded rather than killed. Still, we lost 57 men and only three peasant allies survived the bloodbath. The reason we lost so many peasants is that we don't have control of villagers: they tend to charge before the reinforcement wave comes.
The coolest part of the battle was going toe-to-toe with Ri Cynddylan map Cyndrwyn Glas. I swung my greataxe at him like a baseball bat. What I don't like about Warband mechanics is that, in village battles, rival Lords get to auto-escape, and we don't get any loot. That's just bullshit. I could have made a mint out of looting a King's army and yielding a King's ransom.
Anyway, total Renown gain over the six-phase battle was 145, equating to a Company-size increase of 48:
So yeah, we held on and our best village still stands. We burn the corpses of the fallen:
Lesson learned: Be more proactive in garrisoning troops and patrolling villages. Also, watch Pengwern's mobilization like a hawk, as they have other armies which are several-hundred strong. While it's tempting to "take it to" Pengwern now, I think we need to consolidate what we have for the time being. We sort of rushed into the Kingdom phase a little prematurely, and it wouldn't take much bad luck for our Kingdom to be wiped out just like Lindisware was. To be specific, take this force for example:
We wiped out the 830 one on the right in Winteringasham, but if that Pengwern ruler brought along his 681 ally as well (or other Lords he has elsewhere), and besieged Linnuis with those combined armies, we'd have been put on our last legs, having only the lightly-garrisoned castle of Hyrne Ceaster left (and our incomeless lair).
In fact, only a few hours later, I was forced into field battles with a couple more armies of Pengwern that pushed up into my lands.
These bastards are relentless.
Faction Relations report:
• Cash-flow. During the Conqueror phase, cash-flow comes from tariffs, rents, looting after big battles with a wagon and selling captives to ransom brokers. Our large Company size means we can drag over 100 captives to ransom brokers thereby netting tens of thousands of scills each time. If a ransom broker is not in town and we don't have time to travel to another, we can imprison tons of enemies in our town dungeon and then sell them all off when the ransom broker arrives. Captured Lords can also yield many scills when a faction offers to buy them back. The amount offered depends on the Lord's standing within the faction (their Renown) as well as the wealth of the faction.
We can also engage in basic trade as well as Enterprises, but it is not in the scope of this write-up to cover such things.
Next up: Warpath!
We wiped out the 830 one on the right in Winteringasham, but if that Pengwern ruler brought along his 681 ally as well (or other Lords he has elsewhere), and besieged Linnuis with those combined armies, we'd have been put on our last legs, having only the lightly-garrisoned castle of Hyrne Ceaster left (and our incomeless lair).
In fact, only a few hours later, I was forced into field battles with a couple more armies of Pengwern that pushed up into my lands.
These bastards are relentless.
Faction Relations report:
• Cash-flow. During the Conqueror phase, cash-flow comes from tariffs, rents, looting after big battles with a wagon and selling captives to ransom brokers. Our large Company size means we can drag over 100 captives to ransom brokers thereby netting tens of thousands of scills each time. If a ransom broker is not in town and we don't have time to travel to another, we can imprison tons of enemies in our town dungeon and then sell them all off when the ransom broker arrives. Captured Lords can also yield many scills when a faction offers to buy them back. The amount offered depends on the Lord's standing within the faction (their Renown) as well as the wealth of the faction.
We can also engage in basic trade as well as Enterprises, but it is not in the scope of this write-up to cover such things.
Next up: Warpath!
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