Mercian Knights on the Conquest Trail

Below is the attached pdf of my revised list

All there was , was pain, it was the alpha and the omega, but as all it knew was pain that was a concept it had yet to realise. It seemed it only knew pain, no memory  (again an unknown concept) of anything but pain or any future but pain existed. But as an eternity seemed to pass he ( somewhere that concept occurred to him , another concept,  he was a he as odd fragments of a reality seemed to return to him) where all through pain was still the center of his being, odd bits of other sensations began to enter his reality.  He seemed to be curled around the pain , his body, another new concept now to have other less painful aches around this pain. Light , yes that bright thing that flooded into his pain, seemed to be moving, as the sky ( new concepts all the time now) came into view. 

He felt hands on his body ( whoa how many concepts where there) as it was rolled over on to his back and a very concerned looking helmeted head appeared in his vision)

An even more concerned voice  ( the new concepts were at least now providing something other than pain) asked,

‘Sire are you alright? You let your guard down and I nearly skewered you with my Lance…………..You armour seems to have taken most of it but you did have a nasty fall from your horse,  I’m terribly sorry if I have hurt you but you must brace your sheild in a way that it deflects rather than it absorbs the blow of your opponent’s blow or this will happen everytime’

Thats all very well he thought, but can somebody or something get rid of the mind numbing pain in his stomach (most of his reality had come back to Sir Pentyn with an equal mind numbing crash with the same sort of force that he later realised was the point of a couched lance colliding with his stupidly unprotected armoured stomach) and the aches from all 4 of his limbs as he forced himself to sit up. He was kow able to semi focus on other things than his pain as he became aware of his surroundings,  things such as the practice field, his horse standing to one side with what looked like an embarrassed look on its face. A gaggle of men standing around him in various levels of armour including the heavily and very shiney armoured form of his friend and mentor Sir Gero’s Lupodoplolus.

Sir Gero’s Lupodoplolus known as the bannerman by all in Mercia was perhaps this realities truly brave men…..as in not that he was fearless, there more than enough of those idiots,  and he would like to fear less,  as in most things gave him the willies,  that he was able to function amazingly well because of his fears was the truly btave thing.  He had never meant to be a knight and warrior,  never wanted to be one or even cosidered it possible. He had been one of Sir Pentyns Grandfathers Stewards,  a servant who had expected his only future was to at some point raise to the rank of Butler, if fate hadn’t taken a hand.

Being a servant for the Degrasse family wasn’t an onerous position,  although they maybe on the whole military klutz’s they were canny businessmen and landholders,  particularly when it came to their workforce,  they never gave the impression that they they were better than their servants and hands and were generally found to be mucking in just about every job that needed to be done except polishing ( they never could really get the hang of that and is why they actually hires servants as in , ‘lets get in the professional’s’ polishers had a high standing in the DeGrasse houusehold), it wasthe fact that old Sir Mowin , reckoned they were only Lords because somewhere back in the past, one of his ancestors was a bigger murdering theiveing bastard than all the rest.

It was a fact that the only reason Sir Gero’s family was not only stiil alive and working for the family was Sif Mowin’s altruism.  He had spared all their lives when he had overun the baggage train of one of the varous skirmishs the Hundred Kingdoms had with the Southern Cities, stopping his men from slaughtering the various servants in the train , capturing them instead. Considered worthless and not worth ransoming they were only to happy to accept a postion with the old knight when the war ended.

Sir Geros had grown up as a boy on the  De Grasse estate, knowing he would enter service, and that is how it had stood till fate interceded.

Now is you ask Sir Geros about his many brave deeds , he will argue he is not brave but in his own word s ‘ Just a Jammy Git’. If one looks at the facts this isn’t entirely untrue.

He 1st appeared to be anything but a Servant on a wet misserable night some 15 years before, a 25 year old Sir Geros had been about to retire from his daily duties when the house was alarmed by the news of an approaching Nord Raiding party approaching the manor. Only a small number of Men at arms wsre available to defend the house as most had gone to the local muster called for an earlier raid and hadn’t returned.

When the Sgt at Arms asked for one of the household staff to ride off to fetch help as he couldn’t afford to lose one of the few able soldiers, he had found himself ‘volunteering’ as he was the only one with any ability in horse riding. So he was hoisted on an old Carthorse, decked in some ill fitting bits of armour and given the Sgts Sword ( Its still the one hanging from Sir Gero’ s belt).

Off he went with his still rudementary riding skills and a vague idea of where the mustered troops were to get help. He was only a couple of miles away when ahead on the road he spotted a band of nords , he turned to head back to find another band behind him, so almost in a blind panic, he spured his horse forward, took up what he thought was a martial pose and charged forward, closing his eyes as he came into contact. Blindly swinging his sword to thumps , clangs and the odd scream ( one of them he believes was his) his horse seemed to shudder, hit a couple of things and then pick up speed again. Opening his eyes he saw a a clear road and heard the whistle of arrows going past his head, not daring to look back he decided to put as much distance as he could from the Nords. By luck rather than good judgment he blundered into the camp and haltingly as his mouth wasn’t working to well raised the alarm. So the Manor was saved, the Nords routed , and in the aftermath a patrol had found the scene of Sir Gero’s skirmish,  to find 5 dead Nords, two crushed by a horse and 3 with various vicious sword wounds. So Sir Gero’s legend was born, it grew in the telling, but it wax sufficient for Sir Mowin to raise Geros from steward to Man at Arms.

Sir Geros trained hard as he didnt think his good fortune would last and became both a good horseman and an able soldier, and as before,  this is how it would have remained if his continuing luck hadnt put him in the wrong place at the right time. For in many of the early battles of his life he somehow found himself holding the bannor, when the bannorman had fallen and all around was chaos. Eventually Sir Pentyns father Sir Walter, had knighted him when after a rather costly engagement with the Spires had found Sir Geros again rallying the survivors of the charge, around his banner  to the comment ‘ Blimey Gero’s you have the banner again, you seem to like it so much I better you make you my Bannerman’.  It hadnt gone unnoticed by Sir Walter that the now Sir Geros was surrounded by fallen Spire drones. That was some 9 years before and Sir Geros is still Bannerman with all his limbs intact, an incredibly long period for a Bannerman in the DeGrasse service.

As is my want thst is my rather lengthy onto to my 1st figure for milestone 3    a mounted Standard bearer ,  I,’d like to say Sir Geros was my idea, but his history was Borrowed from the Horseclans set of Novels by Robert Adams.

As I decided he was a Knight with out retinue, I didnt give him a cloak, but as an ex servant he would be sticler for polished armour so brightened his up with GW Necro compound.

I also did the final 4 Men at Arms  although not in Milestone 3 force wanted to get them out of the way and have at least one half of the armies in the starter set done.

So here is my finished home made banner

The design is based on the old Knights Mercian banner design that we used to use for our old medieval participation games, here modified with the livery of the 3 main Knights.