The Scottish Mercenary Halberdiers

[Col_Backsplash]

-= Regimental Bio =-

We're doing this to make a name for ourselves and support the amazing mod that is deluge, Being Halberdiers we are melee orientated, although we will be playing pikes and musketeers a little but staying the polish mercenary class. There is not much background to this regiment as it is not named after a real unit/regiment from the time, we chose this as our regiment however because of our love of scotland as well as we have a few scottish members. Also we chose halberdiers as the regiments main unit because it was my personal favorite weapon from the time but I made sure we were mercenarys to prevent any disputes over our unit type as it means it is more flexible as a unit type.

-= If You Want To Join us =-

Very happy to take on anyone that wants to join.
There are many ranks and medals to be awarded to those who achieve great things within the regiment.
You are expected to obey your superiors in game and carry the same respect out of game, we like to have a laugh but you must understand when, and when not to do so.
You will join as a recruit rank and your tags will be:
SMH_Rct_NAME
Would be nice if members had a roleplay name, Mine ingame will be Jock_MacFarlane
When you are promoted you will be told to change your tags accordingly

Please, Please, Please Post in this thread your name so I can add you to the roster. Thank you!

We have Ts3: 176.31.122.44:4301 Connect to it

-=Ranks & Roster=-

General - Gen - Jock Macfarlane
Colonel - Col -
Lieutenant Colonel - LtCol -
Major - Mjr -
Captain - Cpt -
1st Lieutenant - Lt - Benedict MacDonald
2nd Lieutenant - 2Lt -
Ensign - Ens -

Warrant Officer 1st Class - WO1 -
Warrant Officer 2nd Class - WO2 -

Colour Sergeant Major - CSM -
Sergeant Major - SM -
Colour Sergeant - CSgt - Yorker/Christopher Norris
Guardsman - Grd - Loxo/Shino hoshishima
Sergeant - Sgt -
Corporal - Cpl -
Lance Corporal - LCpl - Chopsticks
Mercenary - Merc - Random, Niall, Donahue, Ben frost
Recruit - Rct -

Total Members: IIIII IIII

-=News=-

24/3/2012 - General Jock Macfarlane commands the cossack team in the saturday event, was sadly beaten 3-1 but all of the rounds were very closely fought; both sides down to 15 - 10 men before the final kill. Great Match to Dabrowski! And thanks to those who participated as my bodyguards and the many loyal regiments that I commanded!

31/3/2012 - General Jock Macfarlane commands again in the event, this time he was in command of poland. We won 4-2! All 3 on the first map and 1 victory and 2 defeats on the second map. Thanks to all the co-oporation I got from the units in poland, even if I sent you to you deaths a few times xD.

 

[Bennie94v]

Good luck O'l Mate. Looking forward to you in action

 

[Sepp Dietrich]

Nice betrayal, I would say keep going and you will come far!

 

[Col_Backsplash]

What do you mean by betrayal? I cant see in what context I did.

 

[Aklis]

The ranks are in my mind utterly stupid. No offense meant, but bear in mind that not only do you call yourself The Scottish Mercenary Halberdiers, making military ranks somewhat moot in the first place. Furthermore, this many ranks would likely work in M&M, which is where I assume you have found them, due to the large number of players, but if you wish to fill every rank and have a somewhat realistic ratio, you would need a considerable amount of the player base. Lastly, many of the ranks feel very modern. I do not know if they existed in the mid-1600's, and I cannot find any sources either, but it would not surprise me if you're not really going for a historically correct clan anyhow.

I also found this: "You are expected to obey your superiors in and out of game" disgusting. Out of game? What, are you some kind of control freak?

I actually liked the idea up until I entered the topic, but I can see that this is nothing for me, sadly.

 

[Leifr Eiríksson]

Sirrah! Permission to go AFK Sirrah!

 

[Col_Backsplash]

The ranks are in my mind utterly stupid. No offense meant, but bear in mind that not only do you call yourself The Scottish Mercenary Halberdiers, making military ranks somewhat moot in the first place. Furthermore, this many ranks would likely work in M&M, which is where I assume you have found them, due to the large number of players, but if you wish to fill every rank and have a somewhat realistic ratio, you would need a considerable amount of the player base. Lastly, many of the ranks feel very modern. I do not know if they existed in the mid-1600's, and I cannot find any sources either, but it would not surprise me if you're not really going for a historically correct clan anyhow.

I also found this: "You are expected to obey your superiors in and out of game" disgusting. Out of game? What, are you some kind of control freak?

I actually liked the idea up until I entered the topic, but I can see that this is nothing for me, sadly.

The Ranks are as so is because yes I did get them from MM as I made this mainly for my regiment and another regiment that resides in our ts3 Therefore filling most of the ranks dispite not needing to fill them all. And I did try to adjust some of the ranks to fit deluge (For example guard; I do not yet know if this will be allowed but if the unit goes pikemen the guards would stand at the ends of the line trying to repel flanking ranged units) but I used basic-ish (Im proberbly completely wrong in saying basic but im not an expert nor to I portray myself as one) military ranks just because I thought It would be simpler and easyer to understand. If you want a roleplay reason then to why as their mercenarys and they have a rank system apart from being not real and all - this was not made to be that accurate by any stretch of the imagination. The Scottish mercenarys are a unit of mercenarys commaded by their rogue general in search of fame and wealth (William Wallace type thing but for those reasons and not in the defence and glory of scotland itself?) .

And the out of game is more to do with respect which is a considerable issue I have found, I should really re-word some if this as I did one bored morning but still you should always read things like this twice, the second time taking it less Literaly. But my point stands if you wont listen to a leader while they are trying to put an end to a petty argument over something like MW3 (Just and example), how will they behave in game? I doubt it would make a good impression to other clans and that is what I would like to become as a clan, respected and formidible. If you look at the news (Bottem of 1st post) I hope more like that will happen

But I am open to suggestions to how to improve. As long as the person is not completly up their own arse and thinks that he can run a clan better, nor the person suggest something completely ludicrous as a solution.
Thanks, Jock.

 

[Aklis]

Sirrah! Permission to go AFK Sirrah!

And the out of game is more to do with respect which is a considerable issue I have found, I should really re-word some if this as I did one bored morning but still you should always read things like this twice, the second time taking it less Literaly. But my point stands if you wont listen to a leader while they are trying to put an end to a petty argument over something like MW3 (Just and example), how will they behave in game? I doubt it would make a good impression to other clans and that is what I would like to become as a clan, respected and formidible. If you look at the news (Bottem of 1st post) I hope more like that will happen

Why should I respect someone more because he happens to be my clan leader? Why not treat everyone with equal respect (or disrespect?

 

[Col_Backsplash]

Sirrah! Permission to go AFK Sirrah!

And the out of game is more to do with respect which is a considerable issue I have found, I should really re-word some if this as I did one bored morning but still you should always read things like this twice, the second time taking it less Literaly. But my point stands if you wont listen to a leader while they are trying to put an end to a petty argument over something like MW3 (Just and example), how will they behave in game? I doubt it would make a good impression to other clans and that is what I would like to become as a clan, respected and formidible. If you look at the news (Bottem of 1st post) I hope more like that will happen

Why should I respect someone more because he happens to be my clan leader? Why not treat everyone with equal respect (or disrespect?

I dont find the problem of respect lies in people respecting eachother, more in them respecting superiors. If everyone gives a guy a nudge on the shoulder to behave so to speak, he will. But I find higher ranking members to be ignored when giving orders, more often than not.

 

[rapier17]

That comes down, primarily, to their skills as a leader. Not everyone is born to lead, not everyone learns how to cultivate their leadership skills. When given a good leader people will respect them & accept their authority, no matter how flimsy it may be, regarding direction, judgement or decisions involving them without a second thought. With online gaming groups your authority is basically zero unless people bestow authority on to you. Just because you have a tag next to your name doesn't mean people will automatically follow you willingly or accept decisions you make. A good leader doesn't need to think twice about getting peoples attention, soothing troubled waters or getting people to do something. They just come out with what they need done & the person who they are asking will do it automatically because they've subconciously accepted that person as their leader. If they haven't willingly made that decision then they will question the person in charge - whats the worst the person in charge can do to them? Kick them out? Fine, they'll just find another group with a leader they are willing to follow.

It's not all one way, however. If you do join a gaming group & don't have the courtesy to listen to those who have placed themselves in charge, then you are instantly inhibiting the group & its atmosphere.

One of the most common things I've seen in over a dozen years of online gaming, are the gaming groups people create purely for the intent of stroking their ego - the search for respect & adulation from their peers, as though being in charge of a group automatically bestows this. Often these sorts of groups fall into disrepair quite quickly, or just about survive with a handful of people whilst the person in charges original idea, of having a huge, massive, organised & structured group working like clockwork grinds to a halt & gathers dust.

To be honest the question to ask, if you find that people within the group are not listening to those persons who have been placed in positions with 'authority' over them, is what are those persons, in those 'officer' positions, doing wrong? Are they just not suited to leading? Is the group not quite right for them to be leading in? Is their personality just not gelling well with the idea of having 'authority'?

Just my observations on online leadership. I should probably write a book about it.

With regards to your ranking structure, to be honest I think it's too big & contains far too many ranks. Whilst I won't cite my own clan as a good example of a rank structure (ours is very simple because it suits us for it to be so), cutting out a good 2/3 of those ranks would be a great start. First of all I don't think, for a band of mercenaries, you need any of the ranks above Captain. Yes it sounds great to be able to say "I'm the Colonel of a Regiment" but in game terms how many members are you going to get? 15 or so? If you have 19 different ranks, thats more ranks than you have members (if we take the figure of 15 members for sake of argument). A group of 15 soldiers would be lead by a far more junior officer, such as a Captain or Lieutenant. I'd drop Warrant Officers (solely a Navy rank until about 1850) and most of the Serjeant ranks, as well as that of Second Lieutenant. For sake of history I'd also remove the rank of Lance-Corporal & Guardsman**.

To put it in short I'd personally change the rank structure to something more like the following;

Captain
Lieutenant
Ensign (flag bearer)
Quarter-Master
Serjeant
Corporal
Halberdier***
Recruit (optional)

That gives your members room to gain a rank or two as well as not having a structure so big as to be impractical, both in terms of appearances & for leadership matters - best to have 1-3 people in primary leadership roles than 8.

Of course, just my thoughts and you're more than free to accept or reject them as you will. If you wish, I can delete all of this if it is not of any help to you at all.

See you on the battlefield! *salute*

*Second Lieutenants only appeared with the Experimental Corps of Riflemen & the Rifle Regiments (60th & 95th) in place of the more common rank of Ensign, which was a  rank used to describe the most junior officer within a company of a Regiment of the Line or one of the junior officers assigned to carry the regiments colours into battle. An ensign would still fit in to such a clan as yours but there would ideally only be one & they'd carry your clan banner onto the field of battle!

**Lance Corporals appeared during the 1700s & the rank of Guardsman only appeared within Household Regiments, such as the Coldstream Guards, Irish Guards, Grenadier Guards etc - all of their private soldiers were referred to as Guardsmen instead of Privates.

***As you're primarily described as being Halberdiers, for sake of simplicity & ease, having the rank 'Halberdier' as a catch-all term for those at that sort of rank would make life easier. When I ran a Seaxon clan for the Vikingr mod I confused things terribly by having subdivisions of each rank where applicable - so for example instead of just having Coerls, or free-men, they were split into Coerl: Gebur, Coerl: Kotsetla, Coerl: Geneat.

 

[Col_Backsplash]

I see your point but after thinking about it, but does this rank structure more of a rewarding progression? With you example you will be able to gain two or so ranks before trusted and mature members take the higher positions. I think although not all that short, but I think this offers a bit more of a progression, a reward for those that do well and who are loyal to your clan but perhaps might not be suited to a leading role.

 

[rapier17]

Only thing I'd counter that thought with is that if there's lots of progression it might start to mean less & less. With fewer, more limited ranks you have greater competition for one of those limited places, which may allow those who are more suited to the role to really come through. There are other ways to reward 'veterans'; a special veteran rank beneath the officer ranks, such as your Guardsman rank, which long-term members may prove themselves worthy of, medals/armbands to display in signatures to show their veterancy (in the Lucky Dogs this is protrayed by a black 'armband').

Of course those are just my thoughts. I hope what you decide to go with works for you

 

[Col_Backsplash]

Thanks for your in put. I will take things into account but I may stick with what I know with a few adjustments.

 

[Aklis]

I see your point but after thinking about it, but does this rank structure more of a rewarding progression? With you example you will be able to gain two or so ranks before trusted and mature members take the higher positions. I think although not all that short, but I think this offers a bit more of a progression, a reward for those that do well and who are loyal to your clan but perhaps might not be suited to a leading role.

Oh dear, why would you want progression? Rapier won't bring his own clan up, but I will. Look at the ranks there. Pikeman. Two serjeants, a quarter-master and a captain. Simple enough. Everyone's happy, everyone gets to poke bad guys in the face with a pointy stick.

 

[Col_Backsplash]

It gives rewards to the players? Id like to grow big, but like 50+ big. So dont go "Oh dear", lead a clan of currently 15 active members and you wont go "Oh dear" when you see what this sort of insentive it offers to members.  A lil' Bit O' Psychology dude, a lil' bit.

 

[Tallie]

How can I join ?

 

[Bloodbeag]

I would like to join my steam is BloodBeag, if for some reason you dont speak english mostly forget it.

 

[max110797]

i would be verry happy if i could join your clan! where can i do so?

 

[Orchid]

Deluge revival banner sweep incoming, reply here if you're still active.

Thanks.