Wondering about ideas on conscription.

[Badger]

Not really sure where it belonged, not necessarily Fantasy Hero but this is probably where it would most likely occur

 

So here goes:

 

I was thinking about conscription, the draft, training soldiers, etc. And how it could be applied in hero in terms of stats. (it was a boring day at work, ok). I was thinking it might be interesting to create as a power for a king (other ruler or whatever). Ideas I had that would seem appropriate would be a Summon (citizens to fight for the country) and Transform (basically untrained to trained approx. 2 months; time is a little iffy in any case).

 

 

I do realize it is more of a plot device rather than power. But it got my mind rolling and I was hoping for input.

[assault]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

My input: Put the rulebook down and back away slowly... Some things shouldn't be built with points.

 

If you are bored at work, and you wanted to work on this kind of thing, you would be much better off dealing with it in "real world" terms.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

conscription is one of the things you get with that "King" perk.

 

And don't count on conscripts being trained.... a lot of the time they were little more than arrow fodder.

[Curufea]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

There's this whole fealty thing - I'll let you grow crops on my land, in return you have to volunteer part of your family to my army.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

And bring along a farm impliment of your choice to use as your weapon.

 

A lot of polearms evolved out of farming impliments. Put a brush axe on a 7 foot pole and you just made an early billhook.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

*shrug* What they said. You could certainly entertain yourself by building it, but backing away slowly as assault said is probably the best thing; why would you build it as a power, anyway? Sorry, now my head is reeling.

 

Short story: Ruler. Ruler says "get an scythe and get in there!" You're better served building the peasant populace.

[austenandrews]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Yeah, if I had to build them, I'd use Followers rather than a Summon.

[Badger]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Yeah, you guys have a point. I just fiddled with the basics for fun earlier. And well let us just say it was very cheap for what it could do. In any case it was one of those What If?s that pop in my head now and again. And I also admit a weakness to be being too math oriented on occasion.

 

In any case, your info helped get me a better picture on a medieval army. (I knew they could be pretty poorly trained, but didnt know how badly.)

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Any trained soldier with armor could take on a small squad of unorganized peasants. A MOB? That's a whole nother matter entirely, as are organized peasants, but generally speaking, it's throwing neighbors at each other.

 

Although Markdoc is the reigning authority on this. If he sees the thread, he'll likely have some input.

[assault]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Any trained soldier with armor could take on a small squad of unorganized peasants. A MOB? That's a whole nother matter entirely' date=' as are [i']organized[/i] peasants, but generally speaking, it's throwing neighbors at each other.

 

Organised peasants were called the Swiss, and had a certain reputation.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

...

 

They put holes in cheese?

[Basil]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

...

 

They put holes in cheese?

And in knights.

 

Yeah, Followers is more like it. I'll leave it to you to do the lands and buildings as a Base.

 

BTW, fealty wasn't an agreement between the lord and the peasants, but between the lord and a higher-up lord; peasants---well, serfs---came with the land, just like the buildings, etc. A lord agreed to show up, with X number of fighters, when his overlord said, but only for such-and-such a length of time, and with other conditions; he also had to pay in money from time to time. The particulars of the fealty varied from place to place, and across time. It's a lot more complex than popularizing books make it out to be.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

And in knights.

 

Yeah, Followers is more like it. I'll leave it to you to do the lands and buildings as a Base.

 

BTW, fealty wasn't an agreement between the lord and the peasants, but between the lord and a higher-up lord; peasants---well, serfs---came with the land, just like the buildings, etc. A lord agreed to show up, with X number of fighters, when his overlord said, but only for such-and-such a length of time, and with other conditions; he also had to pay in money from time to time. The particulars of the fealty varied from place to place, and across time. It's a lot more complex than popularizing books make it out to be.

So break the rules a bit and make the pesants Followers attached to the Base write up, living on the "grounds" (demense) of the "base" (Castle)

 

granted it makes the followers dirt cheap, but, well... they're serfs.

[Basil]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

granted it makes the followers dirt cheap' date=' but, well... they're serfs.[/quote']...and thus have a great deal to do with dirt.

 

 

 

[mirage]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Any trained soldier with armor could take on a small squad of unorganized peasants. A MOB? That's a whole nother matter entirely' date=' as are [i']organized[/i] peasants, but generally speaking, it's throwing neighbors at each other.

 

Although Markdoc is the reigning authority on this. If he sees the thread, he'll likely have some input.

 

Unorganizeds peasants certainly.

 

But training follows conscription, and after a few weeks of training the behavior changes. Nobunaga united Japan in the late 1500s, using peasant levies armed with muskets. Muskets, crossbows, and pikes made short work of knights and their ilk. These weapons took a minimum amount of training to use, relative to bows, lances, and swords, yet proved quite effective when deployed in formation; like the Swiss as another poster mentioned.

[mirage]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

And don't count on conscripts being trained.... a lot of the time they were little more than arrow fodder.

 

Also remember, you had to pay for arrows in advance.

 

You paied peasants after the fact.

 

Thus by getting a certain number of peasants killed, you forced you opponent to use expensive resources such as arrows, and reduced your overhead such as food and wages.

[Markdoc]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Unorganizeds peasants certainly.

 

But training follows conscription, and after a few weeks of training the behavior changes. Nobunaga united Japan in the late 1500s, using peasant levies armed with muskets. Muskets, crossbows, and pikes made short work of knights and their ilk. These weapons took a minimum amount of training to use, relative to bows, lances, and swords, yet proved quite effective when deployed in formation; like the Swiss as another poster mentioned.

 

Not to pick a nit, but none of those guys were peasants. Nobunaga made his reputation by skilful use of muskets, which were originally a samurai weapon and by massed used of spearmen - principally ashigaru, who also were not peasnts (technically speaking they were Zamabushi - a semi-professional warrior class who also farmed). Musketeers, pikemen and even crossbowmen were usually professionals (a crossbow was an expensive piece of kit, back in the day) although city levies did use both pikes and crossbows, they also can't be classed as peasants. The swiss were not certainly not peasants - they were all freemen, and the swiss mercenary companies were composed largely of well-trained professional warriors - their front ranks often fighting in full plate harness. Swiss soldiers got plenty of training from the day they turned 12 and often earlier.

 

Real peasants - honest to god sons of the soil - were normally not conscripted to fight, but to carry stuff, cook dinner and dig holes. Without armour, without proper weapons and without training, if they got pressed into combat (ie: by someone behind them with a sword) their highest priority was getting away not striking a blow, which is why most armies didn't bother with them. The exceptions were just when you needed a lot of cheap, expendable bodies (cover against arrowfire, as somebody has alreday pointed out) although that sort of behaviour tended to be limited to particularly savage places like China and Poland. Conscription was only really common in sieges, where there were a lot of dirty, dangerous jobs to be done.

 

It's only common sense really - a mounted knight was considered worth 20 armed peasants in a fight and armed foot worth 5-7. Since all the actual fighting tended to be concentrated, a wall of knights or armed foot would go right through peasants without even slowing down much and everybody - including the peasants - knew this. So if you rounded up all the peasants, you had to ensure you to use plenty of soldiers to keep them in line, otherwise, they'd leave as soon as they had the opportunity.

 

cheers, Mark

[assault]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Not to pick a nit, but none of those guys were peasants.

...

The swiss were not certainly not peasants - they were all freemen, and the swiss mercenary companies were composed largely of well-trained professional warriors - their front ranks often fighting in full plate harness. Swiss soldiers got plenty of training from the day they turned 12 and often earlier.

 

Real peasants - honest to god sons of the soil - were normally not conscripted to fight, but to carry stuff, cook dinner and dig holes.

 

You seem to be confusing "peasant" with "serf". Many peasants were freemen.

 

Swiss armies were largely composed of free peasants. Even their mercenary bands were initially largely recruited from peasants, who only became career professionals over time.

 

And, incidentally, the pike wasn't originally the main Swiss weapon. They originally preferred polearms - which don't require the same amount of training and organisation.

 

While we are at it: English longbowmen were mostly peasants too, although some became professional soldiers, either in mercenary companies or in landowners' retinues.

[Markdoc]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

You seem to be confusing "peasant" with "serf". Many peasants were freemen.

 

Swiss armies were largely composed of free peasants. Even their mercenary bands were initially largely recruited from peasants, who only became career professionals over time.

 

And, incidentally, the pike wasn't originally the main Swiss weapon. They originally preferred polearms - which don't require the same amount of training and organisation.

 

While we are at it: English longbowmen were mostly peasants too, although some became professional soldiers, either in mercenary companies or in landowners' retinues.

 

Nope, well aware of the difference between peasants and serfs (though of course, the line in real life was fuzzy). But both of them owed some degree of service up the social tree (from quite a lot to practically everything). There are a few examples of fighting peasants - the Swedish Leidang, the English yeomanry spring to mind (though in fact the yeomanry we hear so much of was largely replaced by retinue archers after a few generations - they really only had about a century of glory) - but by and large the peasantry did not fight wilingly, well, or often. The Swiss are a good case in point. Call a Swiss of the medieval era a peasant and you were asking for a fist in the face (if not something pointier). They were largely freeholders. That means landowners in their own right and to the medieval mind that meant very much *not* a peasant.

 

But perhaps I'm being overly fussy over terms...

 

cheers, Mark

[assault]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

But perhaps I'm being overly fussy over terms...

 

Either way, we are basically arguing over terminology, yes.

 

There were certainly quite a lot of "just plain folks" who fought, often with considerable skill and success.

 

We could mention the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish, various Scandinavians (who you would know more about than me), and even people from some of the swampier bits of Germany. We could probably add various Basques and people from Eastern Europe too.

 

There were plenty of people dragged along who didn't want to fight, too, of course.

 

I've only considered examples from Europe here.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Either way, we are basically arguing over terminology, yes.

 

There were certainly quite a lot of "just plain folks" who fought, often with considerable skill and success.

 

We could mention the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish, various Scandinavians (who you would know more about than me), and even people from some of the swampier bits of Germany. We could probably add various Basques and people from Eastern Europe too.

 

There were plenty of people dragged along who didn't want to fight, too, of course.

 

I've only considered examples from Europe here.

 

This is quite true...

But something to consider here is that most of the groups you've mentioned are from areas with a strong "warrior culture" background. IN FH terms, they'd be the ones who get some fighting skills in their Cultural Package deals.

Example... The 9 Years War, late 16th-early 17th century English vs the Irish... what I call the Elizibethean Vietnam. After a fairly short time, the English conscripts were being sent to Ireland naked.... because at first they were trained and sent off with full infantry harness... and the majority deserted and sold off their gear and buggered off for home. So they stopped training them, and simply tried shipping them out. They deserted and ran home. So they started stripping their recruits naked and sending them over, so they couldn't run away. Fiinally they started recruiting/conscripting among the Irish who lived in the Pale. Who proved to be all around better troops... except that about half of the Irish concripts immediatedly headed for the hills as soon as they were trained and armed. O'Neil, O'Donnell and O'Sullivan actually made a point of sending their men off to be trained by the English, before they finally broke down and hired their own english Gunnery Masters to train the rest of their boys.

The quality of conscipts will be very dependent on a number of factors... the prevelance of arms among the lower classes being the big one, because if they have been allowed to be armed, they will be more accustomed to their use. This goes along with available technology... the Irish were known as superior snipers in the 16th century, because they had SCADS of money and thus had more firearms among their men. Whereas the English traditionally didn't have many decent gunners, because the monarchs were a bit paranoid about arming their pesants (and letting their lords maintain armies) and thus resulted in a lot of inexperienced recruits. The Scots weren't very good with guns, because they didn't have all that many, but were wicked evil heavy infantry. Welsh conscripts generally blew goats as infantrymen... but their archers were one of the only underclasses in england allowed to practice with weapons, and were justly feared throughout eurpoe. The Scots-English Border Reivers were light horse par excellance... because they lived in a demilitarized zone where they basically carried all their valuables on their backs, fought, theived and raided constantly... and invested a lot of their loot in guns, armor and horses. Expecting them to stand against a heavy cavalry charge was foolish... send them to flank the enemy and destroy their supply lines and you'd give your foe nightmares. Same goes for the Cossacks, but with more chopping off of ears. Various northern European countries started with militia systems because there were SO bloody many little priniplaities and kingdoms that you never knew when you were gonna be invaded. Eventually the citizen leveies got good enought that they started exporting them as mercenaries, thus keeping them well good and truely away from home (and anything breakable) while continually improving their abilities as soliders.

 

It all comes down to politics, in the end.

Do I trust having armed and/or trained pesants/freemen/yeomanry?

If you do, you have better armies, but less control over them.

If you prefer the control, you have to either hire forigen specialists or deal with a lot of your troops sucking donkey nards.

[Curufea]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

heh - I keep thinking "A little touch of Harry, in the night"...

 

Anyhow, a great equiliser for the peasants were the modified farm implements - polearms. With which they could pull knights off their horses. And it doesn't matter how good your armour is if you are outnumbered and pinned. Doesn't take long for a dagger to be shoved into an armpit.

[assault]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

Example... The 9 Years War' date=' late 16th-early 17th century English vs the Irish... what I call the Elizibethean Vietnam. [/quote']

 

In fairness, it should be pointed out that not long before this, Irish armies had heavily relied on professional troops - gallowglasses and bonnachts and all that. The standard free peasant troops seemed to have been mainly skirmishers, although effective ones. So this is not a particularly good example.

 

The Nine Years War is very interesting, by the way. It's a shame we lost.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

In fairness, it should be pointed out that not long before this, Irish armies had heavily relied on professional troops - gallowglasses and bonnachts and all that. The standard free peasant troops seemed to have been mainly skirmishers, although effective ones. So this is not a particularly good example.

 

The Nine Years War is very interesting, by the way. It's a shame we lost.

While the Irish armies all did have a solid core of professional troops, in their own raised bonnachts and their hired Scottish Gallowglaigh (who were considered pretty much the best heavy infantry money could buy... an English commander wrote that he considered the average Irishman to be twice the fighter of his average recruit, and the scots to be worth at least two Irishmen apiece) the cetharnach (wood kerns) raised as skirmishers from the rising out were considered to be about the worst skirmishers you'd ever have to face. The cultural ideal of cattle theiving was still a favorite pasttime among the irish and scots both, and resulted in even green 16 year olds having a fair bit of experience to start with. Early in his reign, Henry the 8th took an army to France to take Calais, and his 500 Irish Kern levies struck more terror into the French than his 10,000 man army did... because the Kerns would up and go wipe out a village 30 miles away from the main force in a single night.

 

And yeah... it is too bad. Especially as its kinda a case of us snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Trying to face the English on their own terms was the worst possible mistake that could've been made, and all the other classic celtic blunders decided to hop on the bad luck wagon and ride it till the end.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Wondering about ideas on conscription.

 

An anectode that shows the dangers of using poorly trained troops, tho its hard to tell if this fellow was a levy or not... from the aforementioned 9 Years War, at the Battle of Yellow Ford

 

"At this time, God allowed, and the Lord permitted, that one of the Queen's soldiers, who had exhausted all the powder he had about him, by the great number of shots he had discharged, should go to the nearest barrel of powder to quickly replenish his measure and his pouch; and a spark fell from his match into the powder in the barrel, which exploded aloft overhead into the air, as did every barrel nearest, and also a great gun which they had with them. A great number of the men who were around the powder were blown up in like manner. The surrounding hilly ground was enveloped in a dense, black, gloomy mass of smoke for a considerable part of the day afterwards. The part of the Queen's army which escaped from being slaughtered, or burned or destroyed, went back to Armagh, and were eagerly persued [by the Irish, who] continued to subdue, surround, slay, and slaughter them, by pairs, threes, scores, and thirties, until they passed inside the walls of Armagh."

 

-From "The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland", The Four Masters

 

About 5 dice of unluck?

 

eh, eh...

oops!

Oh bugger!

 

**BOOM**

 

I had a friend at faire who played an English arqusbusieer (well... actually it was a caliver, to be precise) who we called Sparky for his habit of occasionally blowing up. We decided this was the written evidence of his character's demise.