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In the meantime i figured out that Sturgia doesen't have a single kite shield in their cultural equipment.
I was trying to remedy this in a mod of mine using simple banner editing of their round shields, implementing rim decorations
BhgIw.jpg

A better solution would be retexturing the rims to have some generic decorations and leave the center unedited, so that the banner part then fits and the rims stay decorated no matter the banner.
 
In the meantime i figured out that Sturgia doesen't have a single kite shield in their cultural equipment.
I was trying to remedy this in a mod of mine using simple banner editing of their round shields, implementing rim decorations
BhgIw.jpg

A better solution would be retexturing the rims to have some generic decorations and leave the center unedited, so that the banner part then fits and the rims stay decorated no matter the banner.
Yeah, it's a serious flaw for the Kievan Rus' aesthetic for them not to have kite shields. Lovely shield decos by the way.
 
I really have no time to read the entire 46 pages of this thread, so I'll go to my point, if it serve any or not...

I came here after I saw some suggestion about vlandian being redone at the image of carolingians. I think this is a great idea. Yet, people had pointed out how difficult it is to render those since we lack a lot of material about carolingian armoury.

First thing of all, as a french military historian, I'll give a first warning about many misconception we do have nowadays in regards of terminology and armors from middle age, of ALL periods of it. Nowadays, most reenactors are using, knowing or not, the appreciation of medieval armament made by the professor F. Kelly, who in 1931, recusing his predecessor from the previous century, mr Meyrick, pretended that in early middle age, there was only one kind of mail, the one we now call in english "chainmail". This had lead to many misconceptions, even if it was good to correct Meyrick.
A more recent, but very unknown article wrote in 1962 by pr. FranƧois Buttin (which is available in pdf here for those who speak french: https://raco.cat/index.php/Memorias...itAbZx4WF8YtPUp-2FkltrQ7ILQQP22sCDj-5OKp6WVXI) aimed to rectify mr Kelly errors.
F. Buttin had crossed many sources, if not most of all, including iconography, archeology, epic songs, but also guilds rules, intendency purchase, sculptures in churches, etc... And made a great work on recovering the true meanings of words in medieval period.
From one example, the word "hauberk" we so frequently use to describe the mail tunic of a knight is incorrect in its current definition. Back then, the early medieval armor began with the "broigne", or "byrnie" in english, which, unlike what wikipedia etymology pretend, didn't came from an irish word, but from a german one, apparented to english "brown", but in older form, "brunn" which meant "polished" and "shinning". It covered all the torso, sometime also the shoulders, but usually did not covered neither the throat, nor the arms, nor the legs. Thus complementary parts of armors were added. Among those was the hauberk, which, as its etymology imply, covered the throat, neck and envelopped the head on a hood, its top crowned by the "coif", looking as a closed hood which covered the upper torso and shoulders. It is illustrated in the Song of Roland in many occasion, as knight are described wearing the brunie (byrnie) and dressing along the hauberk before battle (as it was an incomfortable piece).

Anyway, alongside this, the most important think that Buttin did was to clarify the many kind of mails that did existed in medieval era, unlike what Kelly, or recently Dan Howard, would claim. Profession rules, guilds and corporations charts along songs and intendency reports had let us known that there were many kind of mails, and that the one we called "chainmail" was not the most common, and not the most ancient in use since the V century. Already during the days of the late roman army, the abandonment of armor for most troop went along the increasingly cost of armament. The most common armor would not be the famous "lorica hamata", but instead the "squamata". In the Frankish lands, the franks adopted the word "brunie" to describe armor because, unlike a chainmail armor, a "scale armor" as we call it today could shine brightly if well polished, almost in white reflection (and thus explaining all the allusion epic songs made about the "white brightness of the mail").
A mail, unlike what the medieval latin autors of the XIII century through to translate, wasn't the etymological descendents of latin "macula", but of latin "malleum", which you still find in english in "malleable". The immediate parent of "mail" was the noun "maillet" (in english "mallet"), which was the hammer use by artesans to beat up the steal on an anvil. This operation in old french was called "mailler", nowadays we would say "hammering", and its product was the "maille" which gave the english "mail". It was a little piece of plain polished metal of either iron or steel (and chainmail back then couldn't be made of steel due to furnace temperature's problems unlike today). The mails on a set were all of the same shape and size, through many set of distinct mail could be use on different part of a same armor.
The most common category was the "nailed" mail, or "maille clavaine" in old french, which we would litt. translate by "clove mail" (english "clove" being a descendant of the same root latin "clavus"). It was a little piece of metal, round, square, triangular, leaf like, etc... nailed on a support, either fabric or leather. Of those "nailed mail" there were two kind: the "half nailed", this called because the nail was put at the "half" or better said today, in the middle of the mail; and the "double nailed" mail, where the nail(s) would be put on an extremity, imbricated alike scales (thus the imbrication made them "doubled"). It was the most resilient of all, despite the early risk of a weapon finding its way beneath a mail to unmail the armor (a problem that was partially resolved by making ranks of doubled mail alternated in different directions: most iconography we see are not chainmail, but double mail settled this way).
Another category was the "plaqued mail" (maille plaquƩe), which was a mail that was sewed with each others. Buttin point out that the so called "lamellar" (a term inexistant in middle age) armor we found at Visby is likely an armor of "plaqued mail" (the others are "plates", another term Buttin explain but which I won't discuss here).
The "tresliced mail" "maille treslis" was the actual term for what we call "chainmail" today. This term was quickly remplaced by "hauberk mail" as it became the favoured mail used for the hauberk, being more flexible than the others (but also less resilient due to the fact it was made up of iron only). It usually covered parts of the armor that needed flexibility, and were very rarely seen on torso armor.

Two example can be given to illustrate this:
A gisant of Gilbert Marshal (https://c8.alamy.com/compfr/ahdwwh/...e-marshall-1241-sculptee-medievale-ahdwwh.jpg): Here unlike what one might think, those are not chainmail, but double mail, of distinct dimensions for the torso and the members (smaller pieces for those). They form reversed alternated ranks horizontally, and the all armor must have thousands of mails, if not ten of thousands (as some reports of corporations precised...).
Here the gisan of a Catalan knight (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...e_Fontfroide-Gisant_de_Chevalier-20140608.jpg): It is clearly a "tresliced mail" or "chainmail" as we called it today. As you can see, the byrnie is marked off the hauberk, the hauberk being a little more proeminent on the upper torso, marking the man status of knight.

Having said all that, and recommanding strongly the reading of the article (which I couldn't find in english sorry), I now point out a thing: if someone want to reskin Vlandia to a more "appropriate" way for the supposed period of the events, in a more "carolingian" way, I strongly recommend to look at the works of Pierre Joubert, a former painter for children history books. I give some example were he made superb depiction of early medieval armors with the kind of mails I described (and also outfit of early franks), including a depiction of Hastings which is on my opinion one of the more accurate (he made some errors too in some occasion, but globally is depiction of early middle age is one of the most vivid I ever found):

I hope this can bring inspiration to any of you as at the end, the game don't try to reach historical accuracy, but in its own setting, on my opinion, it would feel more authentic to have vlandians with those kinds of armors...
 
Yeah, it's a serious flaw for the Kievan Rus' aesthetic for them not to have kite shields. Lovely shield decos by the way.
i think sturgia is "very early" rus
back then they used round shield and has viking influence
maybe i'm wrong
correct me if i do
 
Kievan Rus on the one hand was truly created by Nordic Rus so their tech and gear was used on the other hand majority - the Slavs had very ancient dealings (more than they would like) with steppe nomads who brought eastern (even from China from different eras) tech and gear so that was also strong and older influence then after being in touch with Byzantines their influence had big impact too so all those influences were not simply replacing one another but more like combining (not only for aesthetic but what wealth they had allowed in specific time) what in the end made such unique outcome. (also Frankish and Arabic war gear was known too)
 
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Which ones dissapeared? I just checked forums via my phone, i still see all the images in the OP and 2nd post, it might be the TWim site playing arround with the cache, has happened to me before...
 
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