Personal colours of William de Warenne
Knights Gallery
William de Warenne
Vincent de Caen
Member RostrumCount William de Warenne: CV_William_de_Warenne
Baron: CV_Adelard
Miles: CV_Barabas, CV_Lancelyn_Mayeux, CV_Adelaide, CV_Manfred, CV_Vincent_de_Caen
Vavassuer: CV_Louis_de_Chalons, CV_Alard_Stark
Background:Prior to the invasion of England, William the Bastard, soon to be known as the Conqueror, called upon his cousin William to join him in the invasion. William, whose seat was the town of Varenne, answered the call with his men and sailed forth with the Duke of Normandy to the shores of England.
Upon defeating the Saxons, de Warenne was granted the 'Rape', a sub-division of land, of Lewes and a large swathe of land in Suth Saexa, as well as holdings in other counties. He made Lewes his home and set about laying the foundations for both Lewes castle & the Lewes Priory. With the rebellion of 1088 de Warenne was granted the Eorldom of Surrey, but died later that year in Lewes from wounds sustained during the rebellion.
Cavalier de la VarenneCavalier de la Varenne, Horsemen of Varenne, will act as the personal body for William de Warenne. Focusing on fighting from horseback these hauberk clad, spear carrying warriors will answer their Lords call to battle, serving him to their best ability.
Ranking SystemA Vavassuer is the equivilant of a squire and 'senior' servant to a knight. The vavassuer would learn the arts of horse riding, lance tilting & sword play from their master and in return cleaned & maintained the knights weapons and armour as well as supervising the knights other servants.
A Vavassuer acts as the recruitment rank, for new players to get to grips with using the Norman cavalry in Vikingr, to learn horse riding drills & formations, combat whilst mounted and on foot. Once they are judged to be worthy of becoming a knight they shall join a Conroi as a Miles.
The Miles is a mounted warrior who is at the bottom of the Norman military elite. Skilled warriors, disciplined horsemen and loyal soldiers, the Miles forms the heavy armoured fist of the Norman army. Arrayed into Conroi's, often having trained as a group for years, the Miles is the hammer of a Norman commander.
The Miles will form the backbone of the Conrois, having been judged capable with both sword and spear and considered to be an able rider.
The senior Knights and of minor nobility, the Baron's form the elite of the Norman army. Clad in the finest mail hauberks and armed with strong steel swords, the Baron's are hardened warriors and soldiers, but are also wealthy landholders.
Each Baron will lead 10 Knights to form a Conroi. The Baron's will be chosen from the most able fighters who have good leadership skills. They will be responsible for each member of their Conroi.
Amongst the senior nobility of the Norman hierarchy is the Count, a wealthy individual who, through the fuedal system, is followed into battle by his Baron's and knights at his command. As rulers of large swathes of countryside their word is law amongst their lands and their household troops implement their will upon the battlefield.
The Count leads the Compagnie in battle, relying upon his Barons to lead their individual Conrois. In the case of the Cavalier de la Varenne, the Count is William de Warenne, a cousin to William the Conqueror.
The Compagnie is a military Company, a collection of units under the command of a central figure. In the Cavalier de la Varenne these units take the form of Conroi. Each Conroi will consist of between five and ten knights and their vavassuer.
In overall command of the Compagnie is William de Warenne, who ranks as a Count. As direct commander of the Compagnie his decisions form the battleplan for the Compagnie and any other units beneath his authority. Next down the chain are the Barons, each of whom lead a single Conroi each. They are responsible for the discipline of their knights & their vavassuers. It is up to the Baron to make sure that the Counts orders are fulfilled to the best of their ability.
UniformYet to be decided. This is a work in progress area.
TrainingTraining will consist of one evening each week on a day yet to be decided. It will take place upon the Fyrd of Lewes training server and will last for roughly one hour. Passwords are changed each week and will be distributed via TeamSpeak. For each session a schedule will be penned and posted in this thread in this section.
TeamSpeak is a requisite for training as it allows our trainers to relay instructions. Whilst training we do ask that you do not mess about by attacking/teamkilling each other or equip anything other than you are instructed to by the trainers. This is to make sure the training schedule is more easily adhered to as well as not wasting time when we could be fighting.
Training sessions last for an hour and activities are split into four sections;
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Mounted Melee Use of sword, mace and spear from horseback, both individually and as a group.
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Dismounted Melee Use of sword and mace on foot, with some attention paid to spears. Also use of shield to protect the body.
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Horsemanship Control of horse in differing terrain, both in and out of melee. Alternating speeds whilst charging and manouvering to evade arrows & throwing weapons
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Formations Moving and manouvering on horseback as a group, charging en masse for maximum shattering effect.
19:00 Setting up
Get everyone on TeamSpeak & go over Schedule as well as any news/updates. Warm up with some duelling.
19:10 5-minute Mounted Fighting Overview & Spear Work
Weapons, armour & horses! Which ones are better? Positives & negatives?
Aligning spears to targets. Using the dismounted Count as their target, each horseman rides up one after the other at full gallop and tries to hit the Counts shield with their spear whilst he moves around. Horsemen are to avoid hitting the Count with their horses! The idea is to use spears, not the mounts!
19:30 Horsemanship
On a thickly wooded map the horsemen must follow the Count as best they can, avoiding trees & bushes. The horsemen should do their best to follow the Count through the trees & bushes, keeping as close to him as possible without obstructing other horsemen. Should any horsemen drop behind from colliding with trees then they should rejoin the group as quickly as possible.
19:45 Formation
Basic formation work as a group. Moving from column into line and back into column. Will not be expecting it to be perfect first time, so we will work at it. Should we manage to perfect it during this session then the Count will be overwhelmed.
20:00 Winding Down
Finish off session
Our aims;
- To create a sub-Clan that may eventually become a Clan in its own right, either under the wing of the Fyrd of Lewes or as an independant Clan.
- Have a historically correct tag whilst playing Vikingr. This will be preceeded by the tag CV_ .
- A living, 'breathing' group of Norman horseman, competant on foot and on horseback.
- Have as much fun as possible with Vikingr.
RulesAs with the Fyrd of Lewes there are but three rules;
- Be courteous, polite, friendly & welcoming at all times whilst playing Vikingr & upon the M&B forums and any Vikingr related sites. I will be merciless if anyone performs any actions that will sully our good name.
- Have a historically correct tag whilst playing Vikingr. This will be preceeded by the tag CV_ .
- Do your best to crush your foes beneath your horses hooves, run them through with sword and lance. No retreat, no surrender, no complacency!
Any questions, or if you want to give me a hand working on this, do send a carrier pigeon my way... or just drop me a PM.
I think this 'sub-Clan' idea requires a little explanation. We at the Lewes Fyrd are now getting into the swing of things. We have two weekly training nights, we've made our presence known at the Stamford Bridge event, have had our first sort-of scrim, are present often on Einherjar and so on. During one training session Eirikur asked us kindly to 'pose' as Normans for screenshots and we performed a variety of formations & manouvres for him, which he was rather pleased with. I, for my part, was so impressed by the co-ordination & ability of the Fyrd members to follow commands and move as a cohesive group that I was struck by how much of an impact a co-ordinated group of horsemen, both in terms of gameplay & looks. To give you an idea of the kind of vision I had inside my head;
Imagine, please, that you're playing Vikingr as a Vikingr or Saxon or Rus and you're in a shield wall facing off against a Norman shield wall. From the Norman ranks a group of a dozen horsemen trot forward in formation and form a line in front of the Norman footmen. For a few moments they stand there, facing your shield wall, and in a moment of panic you realise no-one in the wall has a spear. The horsemen suddenly stir in to motion, walking their horses towards your shield wall. Behind them the Norman infantry start their advance in their wake. Your attention is drawn back to the horsemen as they break into a trot, moving as one. As the distance closes the horsemen break into a trot, and as the beasts thunder towards the shield wall a horn call rises, clear and distinct and screaming their challenges the Norman horseman lower their spears.
Now I personally would love to be standing in that shield wall at the time, I'd switch to first person view just to suffer the smashing impact of those horsemen on the line for the experience, but then I am odd. I also loved the 'mock' charges we made as the Lewes Fyrd during our 'screenshot' session with Eirikur and this got me thinking - are there any active Norman Clans? Well there were the Warriors of Normandy, who have disbanded as of this weekend, 10th April, and there is the Order d'Lyons of whom I had not seen many members in Vikingr. So with a hesitant hand I began to draw up the idea of a sub-Clan. I deliberated long & hard over it (well about an evening) before posting a proposal on the Einherjar forums. The idea seemed to have some merit and I intended to put it on a backburner until I discovered that Warriors of Normandy were disbanding. Thus I decided to thrust the idea to the 'fore.
To explain my intentions with this Clan is easy. I love Vikingr, it's the only reason I keep on playing Warband, and as such I want to see a lively, active community with plenty of Clans and as such I felt that if I could help that, by building a sub-Clan and working on it to the point that it no longer needs me, allowing someone else to take the reins, then I would be doing my own bit to help populate the Clans of Vikingr.
So that is why we have taken this step as a Clan to create a sub-Division of the Fyrd of Lewes. The Cavalier de la Varenne are tied into Lewes through their commander & background, so there are parallels there. Depending on the success of this sub-Clan it may pave the way for us to do other sub-Clans of the other factions, such as if they're introduced we might do one for the Gaels.
If you are interested in the sub-Clan, in playing as a Norman horseman, do apply & do get in contact with me. I hope that through this sub-Clan you will have as much fun playing together as we in the Lewes Fyrd do.
Leofwine aka. William de Warenne
If you wish to apply, please just respond to this thread and answer the following;
Forum Tag:
Proposed 'Period Name' in-game Tag:
TeamSpeak 3 & microphone?:
Steam Group PageSignatures
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