Klomster

Formaroth: Battle for the Throne

There, that should teach him to respect his elders.

Formaroth: Battle for the Throne

The room was a nice one. With nice stained elmwood furniture decorated with the odd red pillow and drape. Claus had shortly after his meeting with the rulers of the castle just decided to retreat in silence and try to find a room.

He had ordered some servant to just show him the room that had been prepared for him, while the servant was confused since no room had been prepared Claus had simply just feigned anger and the servant just guessed that he was supposed to have a room.
Luckily Grandin and Cathryn Tuania had lost interest in the mercenary captain when the truth of the battle had emerged, when they learned that Claus had acquired a room they reasoned that he after all deserved a room and some rest.

His room also had a rather broad bed with fresh bedding material, Claus in truth didn't even care that there was bedding material in it at all. The fact it was a bed that he could collapse in was more than enough for the weary captain and he had done so after barely dressing down to his gambeson, a few pieces of his armour still on, but none of the bigger more uncomfortable ones.
The expensive suit of armour, now scattered over the floor and the red carpet like the clothes of lovers preparing for a wild night.

He had slept for the better part of a day when he first awoke, only then did he dress down to his actual braies and tunic, got a servant to bring him a hefty meal before sending a verbal note for his men to take into inns in the town of Wellstone, the company would pay.
Following that he returned to bed, slept another full night before getting back to being a normal person.

His sleep filled with scenes from battles, elephants made from dark mist with glowing red eyes, charging towards him. Elves in armour and cloth fighting each other and his men. All within a burning fungi forest.
He didn't know, but he had gotten a fever after the march. Luckily for Claus he being a staunch individual he managed to fend it off rather easily.
He awoke with a wet rag on his forehead, snapping up into a seat and wildly panting and gaining his bearings, the rag flung onto his lap.
Claus didn't normally suffer from nightmares, but when he did they were grim and filled with monstrous beings and horrid battles mashed together with events from his past.

He located a glass of water nearby, which he gulped down most of before drenching his face and kneading his eyes.
-"I hate bad dreams." Claus spoke, to none in particular. He figured he was trying to pamper himself or something, it didn't work.
He got up and walked around the room, his armour was oiled and assembled on a stand. He admitted, he'd always want servants for himself. It made life so much simpler.
He picked up his helmet, it was visible the servants had a hard time trying to assemble the helmet, the visor had been bent and had a large dent in it with a slight gash from the spear throw it had suffered. It gave the whole helm a bit of a slackjaw feeling.

As he tilted the helmet and inspected it Claus noted his reflection in it again, the bruise had gotten a lot better. There was a proper mirror in the room which Claus used to inspect his face, as he grimaced and ran his fingers across his swollen cheek as he accidentally touched his largest scar he began to follow it instead, going up over the nose and towards his eye.

His fixated trance was violently interrupted when someone knocked on the door and slowly entered.

-"Oh, you are awake sir?" A servant carrying a tray with some simple cleaning utensils and a jug.
Claus didn't stare too long at him like an idiot, his face quickly adorned with the telltale smirk of his as he said.
-"No simple bruise will keep me down, after all i am a mighty mercenary captain!" The last part he put his right foot on top of a leg rest and made an obvious mocking of himself.
-"Oh, there is a letter for you sir." The servant informed as he took forth the sealed scroll and handed it over. Claus took it and motioned on his bruise as he read the letter, the servant began treating it while Claus read.

It was an important letter he could tell, the stamp the wax and the papers quality, just the fact that it was paper told this as well.
He read it letter by letter. Being of a more common background, he wasn't used to the fancy letters of lords with their swanky lines.
-"Patrick De Reimer ey?" Claus exclaimed with a smile.
-"News travel fast in Formaroth it seems, one could almost believe he was spying on me." Claus mockingly kept going, he stepped down from his pose and sat down in the red voluminous armchair.
-"Who am i kidding kid, of course he is spying on me. He's not stupid. Stupid rich people don't tend to stay rich for long, they either get poor or dead rather soon. Seeing he's still around means he's a clever one." Claus haphazardly schooled the servant who was busy wadding his forehead.
-"Of course sir." He said.
Claus realized what he was doing and made a humoured smirk before adding.
-"You however probably know this?" He was met with a nod.
-"Then i'd like to meet the lord and possibly his wife, i have a meeting to attend!" Claus stood up and proclaimed as he pointed towards the ceiling.
-"And whom might you be seeing? So i can inform my lord Tuania?" The servant professionally held back his frustration after being interrupted for the third time in a row.
-"Andrew... Manshrew." Claus added a dramatic pause while pointing, the notion was lost upon the servant whom happily bowed and left.

He had underestimated that pompous desert dweller during the meeting in Nyhem, his nice garb and pleasant attitude. Devious bastard Claus thought. He however didn't hold him in contempt, after all, he had bested him in an aspect of combat, that on its own merited respect. Claus contemplated his feelings about Andrew while dressing in some more proper clothes before leaving the room.

The hallways were nicely decorated, with tapestries and drapes and a nice long carpet in most of the corridors. A lot of black and white. The house crest with the white wolf could be seen here and there.
Claus was enjoying himself for a while, momentarily before being starkly reminded of reality when he spotted Orland Tuania.
Orland visibly jumped a bit when realising that Claus was closing in on him in the corridor, however Claus smiled and closed in with a nice gait which made Orland stay and listen.
-"Sir Orland, i have something i want to tell you." Claus told in a most kind and warm voice. Almost pleasant.
-"Oh, and what is that?" Orland was surprised and smiled nervously, as he watched Claus stop about half a metre away from him.
Claus just stood there, with a slight smile and looked at Orland... before he grimaced a violent scowl and with most of his might rammed his knee in between Orlands legs so he began to topple.
Claus however grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to face him, the scowl distorted and Claus grunted before head butting him so hard that Orland was instantly knocked out and Claus lost his bearings a short while.
-"That... was... so REFRESHING!!!" Claus roared out as Orland half consciously winced on the floor. A young boy, probably just past ten in fine clothes rushed to the fallen man and screamed out.
-"Brother!?" He fell to his knees next to the anguished young man on the floor.
Claus stopped, turned around and dug forth a silver coin which he tossed to the boy.
-"That should cover any medical expense, i am 'so sorry'" He mocked and walked off.

He needed to see his men, yesterday... but now would have to do.

Formaroth: Battle for the Throne

Holy shit that was a long post.

Loads of interesting content, but still.
Makes me feel i won't be able to keep up the standard... nah, i'll do fine.

I just keep imagining how a meeting between Lana and Claus would end up. Lana would be so confused and/or disgusted with Claus. :P

Now it seems the PM from our esteemed GM has arrived as well.
Yikes, i need to shower. And a friend is visiting...
I'll read it later, this RP can wait for a while. It waits much more on a regular basis.
I'm rambling again.

(P.S. Of course i read it right away. Far too curious to not to.)

Formaroth: Battle for the Throne

Some degree of polish is of course standard. And after all, wouldn't your army look unprofessional if they had rough steel armour?
I've got the feeling that Isabel would feel the troops looks far too unimpressive if they didn't at least have a satin polish.

We can't go around and look like filthy mercenaries now, can we?
It's the personal troops of the De Reimers we are talking about here. They need nice shiny armour, impressive capes, fancy swords, and probably some training as well...
:P

However you could have it that they are in unpolished gear as a thing, to look more intimidating.
Do note however, that steel keeps from rusting better, the more polished it is. Just a thing.
But regular maintenance with oil will also remedy rust. So the intimidating thing can easily be done.

However troops in shining plate is also intimidating.

On a sidenote, here's an example of satin polished armour, with latten decor.
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/00/4..
Satin polish doesn't take too much effort to get going, and the polishing students need to train anyway.

Also, an example of munitions grade armour. This one is kinda high end of them though, with arm guards.
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/d7/2..
Incidentally the same kind as the Steel Fist wears.
Here's another one.
myarmoury.com/talk/files/harquebusier_..
Note the rough surface of the cuirass.

Formaroth: Battle for the Throne

There is also plate armour and plate armour.

The armour i envision the steel fist wearing is often referred to as munitions plate.
It's a cuirass, often with tassets (the things hanging unto the legs) that is made in bulk. Either it's the training pieces of armour apprentices, or the actual thing a foundry produces.

One of the most expensive parts of armour is actually the polish, so if you want to show off, have the troops sport armour with a literal mirror polish.
Other nobles will be mad envious.
So seeing that the force is small (compared to other in world forces) and the family is very rich and on top of this see it worthwhile to spend on its army, i say that a large portion of the troops can have plate armour. If the family invest heavily in the army, it can give fitted field plate to basically everyone.

The usual way to get troops though in the middle ages was through the feudal system though, where landed knights where duty bound to show up with at least himself in a certain degree of wargear.
Knights being sensible, they wanted to live afterwards, so they often invested in plate armour. (I'm thinking of the 1400's ish here.)
Technology has advanced so much, that large steel plates are easier to make and the steel production is larger so it is not as expensive as before to have plate armour.
It was still expensive though.
Some landed knights however, had very wealthy land, or felt that they REALLY wanted to invest in troops, and elite troops at that.
They got hold of a few men-at-arms, basically people the knight found interesting for the task, they fund their gear and make sure they are trained. Then these men-at-arms, whom could be better at fighting than a knight, they are career soldiers after all, joined their lord in combat. Often they all had horses ass well.

Based on the info blurb on the perry miniatures men-at-arms boxed set (whom go for a very historical approach) about 4 men-at-arms to every knight in service at the time of 1400 ish. In french and english armies.

All of which wear plate armour.

Thing is, the De Reimer is the richest noble house in the setting, its army is comparably small but well trained.
When the investment has been made to have well trained troops, it only makes sense to go all the way and give them the best armour as well.

Sure, when it comes to plate armour, there is almost no upper limit to cost, but plate armour with a regular polish (satin, it looks almost white, but doesn't mirror well) will cost a bunch, luckily for the De Reimer, they have several bunches of money available.

So if you want them in plate, give them pate. Foot knights are a good indication. I use the war of the roses as an info source since it was a period in time where plate armour was common on the battlefield. In contemporary paintings the entire armies were depicted in plate.
While this is silly, there was a lot of plate armoured men in those wars.

I am rambling!

Btw, regarding the battle which Claus was in, there is a reason why i felt that as long as he got out quick, 5 enemy troops couldn't take him down. Claus wears high quality plate armour, and is literally a demigod of battle (ok, jokes aside, but he's darn good).
Plate armour is very good, against poorly trained troops with improper weapons it's OP as shit.
You need good wrestling skills, or armour piercing weapons to properly take down knights or men-at-arms, failing that you need to literally drown them in troops, throw the to the ground and stab them to death with knives.
All the while suffering horrendous losses.

Also, firearms didn't kill plate armour, economy and training time did.
Early firearms won't penetrate good plate armour unless it is weakened first. Unless we're talking about cannons, then this happens.


Rambling over, if you want i can keep rambling.

Formaroth: Battle for the Throne

Oh, now that i can see the link.

I agree, Tobias Blackwells armour is basically the most sexy armour worn today.

Another cool one is Ugo Serrano's armours.
ugoserrano.com/my-work/armour/repousse..

Or just some Greenwich armoury stuff if you are feeling particularly aristocratic and rich.

Formaroth: Battle for the Throne

Obviously Lycaon is not wearing "boob armor." I did mean that it was minor injury insofar in that it did not limit him in the future in any way, although it seems we've run into another problem. I'm not an expert on medieval warfare, so I was not aware of how powerful plate actually is.

@ZB1996

Don't worry, few know how powerful plate really is.

The best ways to counter plate (based on common equipment from the war of the roses, where foot knights were common) is with professional troops with anti-armour weapons.
The most common was knights and men-at-arms armed with pollaxes, a mix between dane axe and an halberd battle-axe.org/rpg/images/pollaxe.gif it is a powerful weapon.
With the rondel on the handle to protect the hand, reinforced hardwood handle and a specially designed striking head, this is an halberd on steroids.
A weapon for the elite troops.

The tips of the axe head have a higher chance to strike through plate, since it has an easier time to bite into plate. But it is the hammer side that is primarily used to fight plate armoured opponents.

However, plate armours primary weakness is its mobility, which surpases that of the human body (if it's well made).
It was common for men-at-arms to end up wrestling, since if you bend the arm of a plate armoured man it is about as easy to break it as if he didn't have the armour.
The joints have no extra protection from plate, the fact is that all the extra weight makes joints the biggest weak points.
And not the joints in the plate, the joints of the body.
Since the armour moves more than the body.

So pollaxes were often used with the end spike pointed towards the foe, one would engage with the spike to make the foe open their guard and then follow up with a hammer strike with the head.
Cross-checking and tumbling the foe using the pollaxe as a staff was also common, to throw the opponent to the ground where the ground can be used as an anvil as you speak.

Contrary to popular belief, you can easily get up from prone in plate armour. However you are still thrown prone and your opponent can take advantage of your predicament faster than you can get up.

Reason i nerd down so hard on this is i fight in SCA heavy fighting, and is an avid armour nerd.
Sorry if i'm annoying :P

Also, @Ellri the link you posted doesn't work.

The Stars Ablaze- A Warhammer 40k Reclamation Crusade

I was considering a mechanicum force, but reading through the regiment structure and size limitations, there is no mention on super heavy vehicles.
While i'm not planning on going all Ordo Sinister on this (titan legion with 12 imperator titans, only) i would like to have some sort of super heavy vehicles.
Either to transport the infantry with titan support, or forego the infantry all together and go for a super heavy force, needing other forces for close protection.

I am just in the idea stage, so i'd like a frame to build from so i don't go all "Herp di derp, i can has 5 warlord titans and 10 warhounds pl0x, lolz!?!! xoxoxo~~"
I'm not expecting many, so depending on if it's too few i might just scrap having titans all together, but considering i like the cuties, i'd like to at least consider having them.

Champions, Regiments and Wizards

I'm just waiting, for Footman i guess.

Formaroth: Battle for the Throne

Just to be a bit picky... On that sheet... We do wonder what a major injury is if a minor injury includes a direct hit by a battleaxe to the torso that cuts through the thickest plate on a suit of heavy plate armor...
Our understanding of physics dictates that such will lead to a rather crushed torso with some fairly inconvenient leakage...

@Ellri

Battleaxe to plate armour?
Sure, it will leave a mark. But if it is the main cuirass on the front, that is one of the best protected points on a plate armour. Therefore the axe will make less damage there.
Considering what weapons you actually want to use against plate armour, a battleaxe is hardly compared to any of those. (I'm assuming battleaxe refers to a two handed axe, like a dane axe)

To properly defeat plate, concussive weapons are the primary choice, so a mace or a warhammer is best. A battleaxe does strike with a very good amount of force but won't properly bite into the armour, so has a high chance of sliding off.
If it doesn't bite, the concussive force isn't properly applied, and the armoured one will stand, since you can't cut plate armour with a blade without sci-fi tech or magic.

However, halberds have been reported to cleave a steel helmet (worn by a lord mind you, so good quality) in twain, so a good strike with a pole-weapon can shred plate armour. But only if it properly bites into the plate and has a very hefty blow behind it.

In this case, it is obvious the character was wounded when the strike occurred, however the axe didn't properly bite into the suit, so it mostly dented the armour.
Broken ribs or bones and some small cuts. That's what i call a minor injury, at least in a badass character setting.