PART 1 - Making Plate Barding for a King

Last Christmas I decided to buy myself a new game. I have always been a fan of simulations of all kinds. Flight sims, sub sims, tank sims, first person shooters of a wide variety, and of course, war games of every kind. One game I didn't have was a good first person medieval type of war game with castle siege.  So I set about researching and found this talewords games "mount and blade" series. I saw it had three installments, which told me that it must have decent gameplay or something to hold a fan base over a decade or more. As I pondered purchasing one of the installments, I saw they had a special runnning where I could get all three versions for ten bucks, and I pulled the trigger. I had to add it to my steam collection, and it updated all the files to the most current version in February 2019 and began playing in my spare time.

As I saw how the game mechanics worked and I began to gather wealth and stature, I really started seeing the magic and appeal of the game unfold, and it wasn't long before I was hooked. Soon I was marathoning and had pretty much all of Caladria bending under my might and falling to my claim as King. I was thoroughly enjoying myself. Then i noticed how as Kingly as I was becoming, and conquering all of the lands, my noble steed looked pretty much like everyone else's  steed.

It was hard to feel kingly when my kingly steed just wasn't anythign special. I simply had to rectify that situation. As I was about to become emperor, I certainly needed an appropriate steed in full plate or something grand to feed my narcissistic desire to be viewed as the King I was truly becoming. I dug around and soon found the graphic for the charger I was riding, and set about modifying it. After a few days, I was quite pleased with the outcome. I figured I could, through clever artistry, make that charger look like it had some full plate fit for a King. As I loaded the game to check it out. I was pretty happy with the initial result, as can be seen below.


The horse stretched out his neck, and the armor and neck fittings seemed to work perfectly...

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As I walked around the horse, examining my handiwork from the rear, everything still looked to be in good order.
Alas ! Finally an armoured mount fit for a king ! I jumped into the saddle and marveled at how well it looked.

Everything looked just as I had envisioned it...

The first person view was great ! The detailed work on the armor and saddle made me happy.

Finally ! I had a plate barding suitable for a king !

But then everything went horribly wrong!  My vision of feeling emperial and kingly as the others watched jealously at my great display of prestige was suddenly and tragically crushed underfoot ! As I took off riding in  my new stallion my happy face quickly turned upside down as I watched my masterpiece plate armor bend and twist ... like... like.. cloth ! I was mortified.
and prestige just went right out the window immediately.... I mean sure, I felt all kingly when I was just sitting there on my plate barded warhorse... like some kind of kingly poster boy...and I mean sure it LOOKED real as long as I just sat there on it..... but can you just imagine how all the men would snicker as my faux plate barding quickly revealed itself to be little more then clever embroidery ! Oh the shame ! Forget about the men... "I" Knew it. This simply could not stand !

Not one to suffer such indignity and failure lightly, and in the true spirit of every great creator/inventor, I quickly undertook a new effort to create a kingly plate barding for my worhorse. I would show those snickering lackeys who was truly fit to be their king... I mean emporer !

Thus ends chapter one, and chapter two begins ......

PART 2: continued from part 1...

Realizing the error of my first attempt to forge plate barding for my trusty steed. I quickly set about trying to find an example of some kind of kingly barding that I might use to replace the silly embroidery some idiot crafted for me initially and tried to pass of as full plate. it didn't take me long to find a perfect candidate ! Emporer Maximillian's own personal horse barding ! It was perfect. I could use it to lay over the cloth and chain ! My mind went to work , and my creative juices were flowing. A few days later, a new masterpiece emerged and it was even better then the previous attempt. I especially liked the way I had incorporated wings on the horses helmet to cleverly match the wings on my warlord helmet.

As I examined the work. The horse pawed the ground, and everything seemed in good order. I was pleased at what a fitting and kingly steed I would soon be riding.
I mounted up, and I was enthralled with how much of a king...er emporer I was now appearing to seem.
every angle seemed to be perfect...er.. wait...the back...something doesn't look quite right... notice..the back of the plate is cut off... ugh....the cloth again.... it bends there !
Look more close from an angle, and now you can see the whole piece as it should be...
It is Hercules wrestling with the lion that is at issue...
If you look closely hercules has the lion by the mouth and the lion beneath him... what happens is that the image flexes there when in motion, and so when you are riding, it looks like they are wrestling a bit LOL. DOH!
It is pretty minor however, and so I decided I could live with it, because frankly, it does look pretty bad arse if I do say so myself, and it totally fits my current theme of warhelm and black heraldric armor. Besides, it is definitely kingly looking, I mean lets get real here, it is based upon emporer maximillian's actual armor (with my own caveats and variances), so how could it NOT look kingly >? I mean seriously... look at my men simply gawking and admiring my kinglyness....


But that is when my narcissism kicked in. I realzed THIS will never do ! Since I had simply changed the default charger texture as it was in the game, that meant every other "want to be" king in Swadian barding was sporting my new masterpiece reserved for the king !

Obviously, if all the peasantry are dressed like a king, it hardly makes the king seem special. I was going to have to rectify this situation  immediately. Besides the lackies should know their place, and quit emulating the king like that.

As it turned out, I soon discovered I had to use a tool called Open BRF in order to use my new textures and create a new horse item. So being the experienced modding individual that I am, I quickly embarked upon the endeavor... and so the plot thickens and brings us to the third and final part of this series...

PART III - the final revelation


Now that I had the BRF editor, I quickly set about adding my new maximillian barding to the game. But that is when everything changed.....again !

As I set about adding the new textures to the BRF, I noticed something....

There was ALREADY a plate barded warhorse in the BRF file !!!!

Why hadn't I seen that before >? Was it so rare I simply never encountered  it before >? I never saw anyone riding it. Then I noticed the size of the HD graphic associated, and I realized.... "this must be a NEW model and texture, perhaps from the NEW version of Warband they have announced coming out ?" Perhaps it was an easter egg ? I don't know, but I quickly added the horse to the game, and checked it out... this is what it looked like...


Obviously, THIS was the horse I was looking for ! A TRUE kingly plate barded stallion ! As awesome as the maximillion barding was that I was getting ready to add, I simply had to make armor for this fine steed...and with the size of the graphic allotted to it, I could make it incredibly detailed ! I was excited, and quickly added the maximillian plate, and set about working on this new stallion... and after a bit of work... I caught the kings gaurd gawking at the the illustriously detailed and gold trimmed filigrie the expert armourer had tooled on the surface of the barding.

just look at that detailed chest piece !

the neck barding and underlayment was perfect...



the helmet a true masterpiece...

I am rather fond of the detailed red leather and metal tack harness. A skull atop a spear with a battle axe seemed appropriate details.


Every angle looks good...the side...

the front...
the rear....

It is time to mount up and test it out ...

NOW I am truly feeling and looking kingly !...




riding even looks kingly !....


and charging into battle  looks kingly too !....


but now I can see we have another more serious problem.... my horse has armor that looks better then the KINGS !!! This is outrageous !! We shall have to rectify this in short order

That's a great project you have. I also wish there can be more variety in the equipment that faction leaders use that separate even the elite troops with the vassals.

Thanks I am working on some plate armor options at the moment

Could you please use some spoilers for the screenshots even if it's hidding all the beauty? It's a lot to scroll ^^

[Bcw]Btm_Earendil said:

Could you please use some spoilers for the screenshots even if it's hidding all the beauty? It's a lot to scroll ^^

Click to expand...

Good idea Done !