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The Elf's Helm is actually the helmet from Broa (Gotland, 8th century). The existence of the cheek pieces is discussed. It follows the tradition of the Norse 'spectacles' helmets of the Vendel Culture, that have a later example in the 'Viking' helm of Gjermundbu (Norway, 10th century). We decided to include this one as an "ancient heirloom" just to provide some variety to the weapons. In the game's period it would be a very old fashioned design, due the existence of the crest, the eyebrows and the decorative plates.

This is another interpretation of the Broa helmet, owned by Matt Bunker, from the British reenacment group Wulfheodenas:
https://es.pinterest.com/pin/463941199090991381

However, most of the helms of the Pinterest page you have linked are dated on the Vendel Culture, the period that predates the Viking era.

Cheers. 

Socratatus 说:

In fact, I propose that it would be more likely that a black man might be employed to fight in various scenarios:

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The Moors (from the Latin 'Mauri') were Berber/Amazigh people, Caucasians of Mediterranean type who lived in the Maghred. The Sanhaja, one of the Berber tribal confederations, were in contact with black populations when they spread out as far as the Senegal River and the Niger. But those 'Moors' lived far away from the Mediterranean coast. When the Vikings plundered Seville (Muslim Spain) in 844, and sacked Nekor (Morocco) in 858-859, it is not realistic to believe they found black people living there.

A common assumption tends to include Arabs, Berbers and Black peoples into the same catchall of 'colored people'. However, they were very different populations, although the Berbers (from the Arab 'Barbar', that actually means 'Barbarian') were Arabized and Islamized. The Arabs and Berbers are not black, although in the Muslim world an important slave trade existed from the Black Africa across the Sahara. Anyway, Ahmed ibn Fahdlan, the 10th-century Arab traveler that met the Volga Vikings and inspired the Michael Crichton's novel, was not black.

There were certainly some black slave warriors in the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt (the Sudani) and others in the Almohad Caliphate (the Imesebelen). However, their number was very small and using these black slaves in North Africa to justify the presence of blacks around the North Sea is not, in our opinion, a realistic approach.

Anyway, if you want to create some kind of exception for your character, it is possible to modify the skin color as it has been pointed out.

Hello! Sorry for the delay in the answer. This is a basic bibliography mainly focussed in the military matters, although there are many other subjects involved in the game's research.

General history:

- Philip Abels, Richard: Alfred the Great - War, Culture and Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England. Routledge.
- Pollard, Justin: Alfred the Great. John Murray General Publishing Division.
- Ryan Lavelle, Ryan: Alfred's Wars: Sources and Interpretations of Anglo-Saxon Warfare in the Viking Age. Boydell Press.
- Holman, Katherine: Historical dictionary of the Vikings.  Scarecrow Press.
- Roesdahl, Else: The Vikings.  Penguin Books.
- Marren, Peter: Battles of the Dark Ages. Pen & Sword Military.
- Graham-Campbell, James: The Viking World. Frances Lincoln Publishers.

Weapons and warfare:

- Siddorn, Kim: Viking Weapons and Warfare. Tempus Publishing.
- Chartrand, R; Durham, K; Harrison, M; Heath, I: The Vikings - Voyagers of Discovery and Plunder. Osprey Publishing.
- Peirce, Ian: Swords of the Viking Age. The Boydell Press.
- Pollington, Stephen: English Warrior from earliest times to 1066. Anglo-Saxon Books.
- Halsall. Guy: Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West 450-900. Routledge.

War horses:

- Hyland, Ann: The Medieval Warhorse From Byzantium to the Crusades. Grange Books.
- Davis, R.H.C.: The Medieval Warhorse - Origin, Development and Redevelopment. Thames & Hudson.

Ships:

- Shetelig, H.; Brogger, A.W.: The Viking Ships - Their Ancestry and Evolution. Dreyers Forlag.
- Crumlin-Pedersen, Ole: Skuldelev Ships 1 (Ships and Boats of the North). Viking Ship Museum/National Museum of Denmark.
- Crumlin-Pedersen, Ole: Viking-Age Ships and Shipbuilding in Hedeby/Haithabu and Schleswig: 2 (Ships and Boats of the North). Viking Ship Museum/National Museum of Denmark.
- Thirslund, S.; Thirslund, Soren: Viking Navigation. Viking Ship Museum/National Museum of Denmark.

Clothing:

- Ewing, Thor: Viking Clothing. Tempus Publishing.
- Owen-Crocker,  Gale R.: Dress in Anglo-Saxon England. Boydell Press.

kraggrim 说:

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It should be Firth of Clyde and Firth of Forth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firth

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Thanks for the feedback. We have corrected this error.

I have been re-enactor since 1996 and, sometimes, I have worn chain main ten hours per day in a filming of two weeks (the guy of the avatar is me). You obviously carry the weight of the hauberk with all the body, but the heaviest part of the gear is the shield, because you hold it just with an arm and the historical ones were heavier than the modern replicas. Actually, in the Antiquity the type of the warrior depended of the shield he carried (hoplite, peltasta, scutati, caetrati, etc) which determined if he was a heavy infantryman or a skirmisher. It wasn’t the lorica hamata the only difference between a principe and a velite.

The first time I tested the stamina in VC I had a similar impression than yours, but if you consider the circumstances of the game in a real context, sometimes you are forcing the character to charge 300 meters to the top of the hill with a full armor. In the megaHastings of 2006, I took part in the Norman left wing, we had to go up to the Abbey’s hill over and over again and I felt exhausted. I’m a kendo practitioner and I have trained with a bogu during two hours without stopping, and now I practice longsword in HEMA style, but even if you are well trained and you know how to breathe in the stress of a combat, your performance goes down after an important aerobic effort.

In Viking Conquest the stamina recovers each 3 seconds when the player is not attacking or running. I think this is realistic as, in an actual combat, the warriors probably fought in a conservative way and the shifts between lines existed during the whole battle. Therefore, I think this kind of stamina force the player to imitate the normal develop of a Medieval battle. Though this is just my opinion.

TulkasAstaldo 说:

You guys nailed the unique weapons in this pass. I'm loving seeing more hilt types. You clearly researched Peterson's and Geibig's typologies. Draguandil is an awesome blade for the shieldwall, I love the runes and the type H hilt. That it is a shorter sword with a classic Viking hilt makes sense finding it in this Viking influenced Ireland. Don't change it, please. Nad now serves a nice niche as a horseman's sword due to the extra reach over Bandit King, which is a nice all rounder. Nad also has a Saxon-style type L hilt, which makes sense considering where you find it. I'm wondering if maybe Bandit King would be better served with a type S hilt or similar; with a nice big lobed pommel somewhat like Laufi (no idea where to find this one). This is a bit later of a design, but you threw in many later hilt types elsewhere so it really wouldn't be that inconsistent. Its not a Dane axe or a Norman or Brazil-nut pommeled sword or anything.

The Ulfbehrts are likewise fantastic, but some variation in hilts may be nice; they're all type K Frankish-style hilts, which gets a bit boring. Mix up the hilts and handle materials. I'd like to see an Ulfbehrt on a type H hilt since they were so common.
The new long saexes are great, but I think the Elf's Saex would be better served by a nice big broken back blade. Its such a classic design for this period, a unique broken-back would be awesome. We've been missing a unique long saex until now, those knives never really did it for me.

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Thank you very much for your feedback and comments. As you say, Petersen’s type S is dated on the tenth century, and so it doesn't appear in the game. Sadly, we have a limited number of items and so we can’t include all the types of sword hilts. Anyway, we’ll consider the idea of changing the Elf’s seax blade for a broken back one…

The beserkers are semi-legendary creatures and therefore it’s very complicated to provide an ‘historical accurate’ portrait of them, because sometimes the sources contradicts among them. They are depicted in some embossed helmet plates from Torslunda, Vendel or Sutton Hoo, and also the sword scabbard from Gutenstein, all from the Vendel Era. Moreover, the berserkers and uflhednir are cited in some sagas and other textual sources, like Adam of Bremen’s, written centuries after the Viking Era. It’s reasonable to thing the berserks, whoever they were, existed in between.

Georges Dumezil and other scholars found many similarities between the berserkers and other groups of warriors among other Indo-European peoples, as the Celts, Slavs, Balts and Iranians. These groups of warriors are known as Männerbunde; they lived apart of the society and have some totemic symbolism related with predatory animals (wolf, bear) and associated with the cult of war-like deities, like Odin. These warriors fought naked and were able to get some kind of frenzy state related with a great strength and the (magical) immunity to the sharp weapons. It has been suggested this could be possible due some kind of drugs, like the amanita muscaria, and some historians has related it with the myth of the lycanthropy: people that can transform in bear of wolf as the origin of the werewolf and the Scandinavian hamramnr.

As Snorri wrote about Egil Skallagrimson’s grandfather: “But every day, as it drew towards evening, he would grow so ill-tempered that no-one could speak to him, and it wasn't long before he would go to bed. There was talk about his being a shape-changer, and people called him Kveld-Ulfr (night wolf)”.

In the sagas, sometimes the berserkers are the guards of a king or jarl, and others are outlaws that can challenge to a duel to wealthy farmers to get their possessions. This is described in the Egil’s Saga and we have used as inspiration for a game’s scene.

Therefore, for Viking Conquest we have assumed two types of berserkers, the 'savage ones', linked with the idea of the Männerbunde and the etymology of ‘bare-sark’, and the wealthy elite warrior described in the sagas, rather similar to the frenzy fighters of the chess from the Isle of Lewis (12th-century).

In the 9th century, the cataphracts still existed in the Byzantine Empire, but not in western Europe. It’s not only a matter of heavy armors but also of the availability of corpulent horses, and the breeds from Northern Europe were almost poneys. The Romans used Bactrian horses, which were quite tall, but the horse breeding seems to disappear with the fall of the Western Empire, according to the specialist like Ann Hyland. We do know that the Franks imported Arab stallions and mares from Muslim Spain for improve the corpulence of the war horses, and this was the origin of the destrier, but in Scandinavia and the British Isles these new mounts did not existed until the 11th century.

Yes, it’s not a Dane axe. The staffs of the Dane axes were at least 1.5 meters long and the iron head were bigger. As some players requested, with some 9th century iron heads we have created new axes with a longer staff that can be wielded with both hands. We have used as a reference the axe shafts from the fortress of Ostrów Lednicki Lake (Poland), built in the latter half of the 10th century. So these Slavic weapons have to be from this date onwards, and not from the 9th century, but there are very few archaeological examples of wooden axe staff from the high Middle Ages…

http://www.dzikibez.pl/uploads/images/artykuly/topory/2.jpg

There are not female berserkers or Sheena-valkyries in the reforged edition. This is just a joke.

Thank you for your help! We are currently working in the addon and we are in time to make this distinction between the Cruthin and the Gaelic peoples about the kingdom of Uladh. We'll study carefully these information.

All the best.

Thanks for your feedback, Nick, and excuse me for the delay in the answer.

We do know that the Uladh were Gaelic peoples, but we obviously fell into a mistake somewhere. Please, can you tell me where the Uladh are portrayed as Welsh in order to correct it? In the game, there a great amount of text.

Many thanks in advance.

I’m afraid this wide type of leaf-shaped spearhead is dated in the British Middle Iron Age (400-100 BC). The closest example I have found for the game’s historical period is the Solberg’s type III.3, but it’s not so massive. Therefore, I think that 9 centuries are too much time to include this weapon in VC.

Excuse me for the delay in the answer, but I have been abroad for a few days.

Caesar describes the Ariovistus’ army forming a ‘phalanx’, as the Germans usually did (consuetudine sua phalange facta), but there is not any mention about how ‘dense’ this phalanx was. I cited the Roman legion at Cannae and Adrianople just to illustrate the existence of that problem when the members of an infantrymen formation were too close, and I cited the Roman and Greek military treatises because there are not any others sources since the Antiquity until the 15th century that provides us precise information about the ideal space among the warriors.

One century later, Tacitus wrote several detailed descriptions of the Germanic phalanx. During the battle of Idistaviso (AD 15), where the German warriors were massed so densely that they could not handle their weapons, Germanicus advised his soldiers that the proper tactics for selecting the battle-ground were the woods “because the giant shields of the barbarians and their enormous lances could not be handled as well among tree trunks and bush as the pila, gladii, and the close fitting body armor” (Annals II, 14). Again, even in the early Germanic phalanx, the problems of a too dense formation existed. It is not only a matter of space to wield the weapons but also to permit the warriors to "pass through the lines" and replace exhausted mates of the first line.

However, the Roman legionaries, the Greek hoplites and the Germans in the first century AD did not fought in the same way that the peoples of Northern Europe in the 9th century. The warfare of the Germanic peoples evolved as their society did, and an important change in the Germanic warfare existed around the 7th-8th centuries: some missile weapons disappeared (like the ango and the francisca), some seax become longer and the sword grips stronger while the blade were better balanced and forged in crucible steel. It has been suggested that this changes in the weapons were related with an important evolution in the Germanic formations.

The period art, like the Gotlandic picture stones, is very problematic to determinate if the shields were overlapped in the shieldwall, because the realism of those representations is not very high and the warriors use to be depicted in a side-view (so the battle line could be a diagonal and this could explain the overlapping shields). In the Apocalypse of St. Sever (11th century) there is one of the rare examples of a frontal depiction of a shieldwall, in which we can see the warriors from the left in an open formation while the ones from the right are in a dense formation.
http://www.curiavitkov.cz/images/zivot/sikmandle.jpg

As I said in another thread, “the shieldwall could be more or less dense, according of the terrain and the military context.” Our opinion is the ‘regular’ shieldwall could be a quite open formation but, in some circunstances it could be more dense and with the shields overlapped (as Arrian wrote about the Roman soldiers). Maybe this another thicket formation could be possible in the next addon of VC.

reiksmarshal 说:

Yeyo on the spot again!

Again thanks for the response, if you add the Red hand of Ulster could you please make it a player option as well? Just put it on a yellow field (similar color scheme as the rad raven on yellow) For the kingdom of Uslter you could just put the Red hand on a white background. Oh and NO borders around the edge of the banner please!

To be honest I'm really having a difficulty finding a banner that is without flaws, they either don't match up on the shield right or the edge of the color field does not cover the entire shield.

You can see a white and a blue edge on this design, this happens on at least half of the shields and it looks kind of sloppy.

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I'm currently working in the shields. This problem will be resolved in the next patch. Thanks for the feedback!

In VC you will find the raven banner or hrafnsmerki as the Northumbrian flag, because this kingdom was ruled by the sons of Ragnar loðbrók at this time and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Annals of St. Neots and other sources related the hrafnsmerki with them.

In his Historia Brittonvm (9th Century) Nennius relates that the Britons used the Red Dragon as their symbol while fighting the Anglo-Saxons, some of whom used a White Dragon. For this reason, we have also included a 'period' Red Dragon as a symbol for a Welsh kingdom.

The Dragon of Wessex is also in game. According Geoffrey of Monmouth, the origin of this golden dragon standard is attributed to that of Uther Pendragon, the father of King Arthur. Although this a later source, we have included in the game and the golden dragon is inspired in the decoration of the Sutton Hoo shield.

These dragon banners are thought to be an evolution of the draco of the Late Roman army. This dragon standard is formed by a hollow head formed from metal and the wind passing through it would extend the cloth tube tail attached to the neck of the head. The 'tail' hung limp when the rider was at rest, but on the move it flew like a serpent and whistled in the wind. The Franks under Charlemagne may have adopted them and we have a miniature from the late 9th-c. Psalterium Aureum which shows a draco in a formation of heavy cavalry. We also see it the Bayeux tapestry's battle of Hastings, where it is carried by Harold Godwinson's retainer at the moment of his death. There are several draconis in VC.

As far as I know, the Saint Andrew’s cross first appears in the Kingdom of Scotland in 1180 during the reign of William I, although according to a legend began to be used by Óengus II in 832 AD after defeating the Angles in a battle. The legend states that in the battle white clouds formed the shape of an X in the sky. However, the X-shaped cross is a very common heraldic symbol in later times and this legend seem to be invented to give an ancient origin to the Scotish Flag.

The Red Hand of Ulster is however a good option for the kingdom of Uslter that we’ll consider. Thank you for your feedback.

The thirty six bows found in the Danish bogs of Nydam are from 170 to 185 centimeters length, and almost all made from yew wood in a D section. They are dated in the third century and almost identical to the Dark Age and medieval longbows and even the ones found in the Mary Rose, an English ship sunken in 1545 (their average length is 1.98 m). In the late Middle Ages, the longbow began to be massively used by the English and Welsh and maybe this is the main difference with the Viking Era, but the weapon seems to remain without changes.

However, there was a problem with the bows in VC. A customer pointed the bows were very thin and we realized there was a problem of scale in the 3D models,because the bows have to be between 150 and 200 centimeters, as this is the range of the archaeological finds. We have included this error in our list of corrections and improvements.

The military historians specialized in archery insist in the importance of the training in the use of a longbow with more than 80 pounds-force in order to get a good shooting rate. Since the 13th century, the kings of England encouraged the practice of archery and that is the reason why they could raise great units of longbowmen. During the Hundred Years' War these forces were decisive in great pitched battles like Crécy or Agincourt, deployed primarily on the flanks and sometimes to the front, to create a rain of arrows, but their effectiveness in sieges and skirmish seems to be not so great.

In my opinion, during the Viking Era archers were a small percentage of the infantrymen and this could be the reason of their secondary role, although the weapon itself was almost identical than the ones of the period when the longbow was dominant (1250–1450 AD).

As the Angles and Saxons emigrated from around Jutland, the A-S shared the Norse archery tradition (longbows), as proofs one archaeological find from the Isle of Wight. Writing in 1188, Gerald of Wales foreground the importance of the archery in Gwent, but he is talking about his times.  I think it is very hard to determinate the cultural diffusion of the archery in Britain around the 9th century.

reiksmarshal 说:

Helmets - There really needs to be a bit of a distinction here, why not add a Welsh helmet variation with a horse tail in the mix like Brytenwalda had. Maybe an elite one for Lords too.

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The helmet of the Angus McBidre's ilustration is the one from Deir el-Medineh. This Egyptian helmet, dated between the 3th and the 5th centuries, it’s a ‘hybrid’ of a spangenhelm and a ridge helm of Berkasovo type. I think it’s a too early design for the Viking Era and therefore we have stablished the Wollaston/Coppergate type as a ‘regular’ helmet for the Britons, as it seems to be depicted in the Pictish stone of Aberlemno, dated in the 9th century.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Pictish_Stone_at_Aberlemno_Church_Yard_-_Battle_Scene_Detail.jpg

Excuse me for the delay in the answer and happy new year!

Faketh 说:

So where are the 2 handed weapons in the game. The only one I have seen is maybe that club that the huge man at the troll bridge has and as much as using polearms is fun what kind of viking would I be if I didn't have my big 2 handed murder axe and they are my favorite type of weapon in any mount and blade game. So re they just like gloves in that there one type in the game or do I have to have one made at the dude who makes weapons if you have 600 renown?

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We are currently working of it. Our first priority was to fit the technical bugs and now we are going to expand the range of weapons, including some two handed axes (but not Dane axes).

The ‘splinted armour’ like the Valsgärde 8 find is quite ‘problematic’. These 21 plates of iron and leather straps are supposed to be the remains of a pair of gauntlets and greaves. Dated between 635 and 650 AD, they are not from the Viking Age. The Swedish king buried in this mound had an equestrian military equipment, and the presence of greaves is logical, as the rider's legs are more exposed. Some Byzantine military treaties ensure that these pieces of armor were typical of the heavy cavalry, and thus the Taktika of Leo VI mentions armbands (manikellia) as greaves (podopsella) made of iron or wood.

As there are documented similar protections among the Khazars between the ninth and tenth centuries, Peter Beatson considered that these pieces of armor influenced the panoply of the Byzantine and the Rus cavalry. However, their use by the ‘Western’ Vikings is questionable, since the cavalry was not widespread in the Nordic world and the Valsgärde 8 is a tomb from the Vendel Era.

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chrisandpeter/limb_defences/limb_defences.htm

Belthize 说:

Personally I don't think I'd like to hit a shield with a couched lance if I didn't have some stirrups to keep me from flying backwards.  The whole point of couching is to get the weight of the horse behind it which means stirrups. With a spear jab it's just arm strength.  Stirrups slowly migrated west from Hungary to the west coast of Europe around the 7th or 8th century and were used by Vikings in the mid to late 10th century and introduced to England in the very late 10th and early 11th century.  So close but not quite.

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The importance of the stirrups in the cavalry charges has been discussed. As you say, the Avars introduced it in Europe and the Strategikon (a 7th century military treatise) is the first Western source that cited it, but it seems to be related with the steppe peoples who travel long distances on horseback. The late Roman and Persian catafractarii and clibanarii were heavy cavalry that did not ride with stirrups. On the other hand, the cavalry charges between the 11th and 13th centuries were not frontal (I mean perpendicular to the enemy’s line). Hypotheses suggest that could be done with a certain angle that allowed to turn around and charge again.

http://www.talismancoins.com/catalog/Battle_of_Hastings_Knight.jpg

wildyracing 说:

Couched lance damage SHOULD kill (almost) any foe in a single hit. IMHO this is what made Warband so good and satisfying.

Organized lance usage from a horseback may have become popular and widespread in 11th century (a.k.a. medieval heavy cavalry charge), but it has been used in ancient times as well as in Alexander the Great's conquests.

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Spears were used in cavalry much before the Alexander’s hetairoi. The limitation in the frontal charges during the High Middle ages was a matter of horse breeds and the diffusion of chainmal and other types of armors. The descriptions of battles from the Dark Age in Northern Europe use to be the collision of two shieldwall, cavalry seems to play a secondary role and there is not any reference to frontal charges. The warhorses from the Sassanid cataphracts and the later European destriers were very corpulent and make it possible, but the original races from Northern Europe were almost poneys. Moreover, training a war horse for not be panic in the noisy confusion of battle was hard and expensive, not all the horses could be useful for a charge.

The textual evidences suggest for the Vikings, Celts and Anglo-Saxons was very difficult to raise an army with a significant number of horsemen with full armor. For a limited force of warriors over horses of around 145 cm tall, it has to be almost impossible to break a properly formed shieldwall.