Lost my ability to recruit legionnaires which made up the bulk of my army, what should I be using instead?

[Flazz]

Legionnaires used to make up the majority of my army since they're cheap and incredibly good at defending my archers. But I founded my new kingdom and conquered the empire, so now all the old villages recruit pendor troops instead of empire troops. The pendor infantry doesn't seem good at all, the man-at-arms lacks a shield so gets torn apart by enemy archers. Pendor bladesmen have a shield but they are very hard to train so I often have a ton of man-at-arms which get torn apart by enemy archers before I can level them up.

So what should I be using to fill the role the legionnaires once had? Kierguards could work I guess, but when I conquer ravenstern i'll lose out on those as well.

 

[lconracl]

Conquered villages has 30%? chance to give player recruits of the original faction. Simply wait a bit and maybe Empire men appear.

 

[Zoom Khaï]

Hello,
You can definitely use fierdsvain infantry which levels as fast as legios, except the last level that is even better than legios
You can try also D'shar infantry but they're slower to train than legios but so cool