Return of the Spear Danes

[Diarmuid]

(I will mentionthis is my first AAR, and I hope I am doing it right. So kind with your comments. Enjoy. )

Rules: No cheats of course…. (or else it wouldn’t be fun). Difficulty level set to “Knight”. No reverting back to a previous save point if something bad happens! No mods except Chivalry TW 0.95.

“So, the Spear Danes in days gone by, and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness….” ~ Beowulf.

A cold north wind blew across the shores of the land of the English. The same wind that long ago had brought those high prowed ships from across the waves, bringing the mail clad war-bands of the Danes with fire and sword to Britain’s gentle fields. Yet after a time the fire was no longer in the fields, but in the hearths of homes, a good land these mail clad warriors of the north made for themselves, and it became known as Danelaw. Yet as with the all the works of mortals the winds of time swept over it and it became no more. The world turned, and other powers ruled over the lands the Danes had once made their own. Yet valour had not deserted those noble conquers , nor their weapon hands forgotten the weight of sword and axe and spear. Maybe the time has come once more for the mail clad war-bands to carry the shield wall to their enemies once more… maybe the time has come, for the return of the Spear Danes.


A Beginning:

The King's Speech in the Royal Hall

I will never forget that golden night in the hall, when I saw my lord the king cast of the doubt of old age as a sudden thaw in spring casts off the cold. Always will the image of him standing in the broad doorway of his royal hall be clear in my mind… and clear too the words that he spoke.

It had rained nearly all that day, and all the world seemed dreary, even my hound, Gunnlaf, seemed less enthusiastic than usual. That evening in the king’s hall was no different. His jarls were gathered on the mead benches, and though there was light enough, and song enough, and indeed ale enough, it all seemed to lack a certain glow and warmth.

I remember the king rising from his seat at the head of his mead bench and walking to the doors of his all… pushing them open wide and walking out to stand… gazing westward. The songs and laughing stopped, and all was silent as we watched our lord. When he turned around there was a light in his eyes, and old though he was, clearly we could all see he was still a mighty warrior. Then the king spoke.

“To long have we sat in half hearted contentment while our shields gather dust on the walls! To long have we allowed brigands to do as they will upon the borders of our lands! And to long as it been since a Dane ruled in Danelaw. The blood of our forefathers lies deep in Englands soil. The time has come, no longer will I sit and listen to the rain assail the roof of my hall, and listen to songs of great deeds of long ago. Nay, I shall give the harpers new tales to weave their songs with, or at the least make such an end as shall be remembered long after my bones are dust! And I say to you, my noble Jarls, follow me! The day has come for the return of our people to glory!”

So spoke king, Svend Estridsen. And we, his Jarls, answered. Rising from our places at the mead benches we draw our swords and let a roar that nearly brought the roof crashing down on top of us. And I, Arnbiörn, lesser Jarl of an upland settlement, drew my sword in answer to the kings call like all the rest, and chose my path.



That was more than a fortnight ago… and the errand riders the king sent out to signal the hosting have almost all come back, and even now the king tallies his forces and makes his planes. For within another fortnight we shall set sail for England.




Now the Fortnight has passed, and I have had time enough to sharpen my weapons and see that my own group of warriors have been properly fitted and are ready for the days ahead. I had watched as the king’s army took to the ships and set sail for England, many laughed and were good spirited, others I could tell, doubted they would come back alive. The ruthless Duke William of Normandy now sat on the throne of England, and our best advantage was a swift wind to give us the element of surprise.



The crossing of the sea went smoothly, and soon enough our boats ran upon English shores. Our warriors leapt down quickly weapons in hand, not knowing if there would be any enemy ready to greet us. Luck seemed to be in our favour, not a enemy warrior was in sight, and we quickly began our march towards the English capital to pay William an unexpected surprise.
The first villagers we encountered looked upon our passing with awe. We paid them little heed, however, for our intention was bent upon reaching London with all speed possible, and soon enough we were there. They had of course heard of our coming and had the castle held against us, but we guessed they had no more than the local garrison inside for we had given them little time to gather a force to oppose us, and there was no sight of any enemy outside the castle. Some of us went to work setting up camp, while the rest set about making the siege towers and ladders we would use to assault the castle. The moment of our first battle against the English was drawing near.




(Well thats it for now! Hope the first post passed muster! More to come soon.)

[thoscme]

wow, nice reading
and, very cool going for england straight away
good luck, i want more!

[BNS]

Awesome, you make a good narrator
( plus rep 4 u ! )
Looking forward to more

[Diarmuid]

The Battle of London


On the eve of battle the English sent us a messenger, asking us to cease the hostilities, saying that no good could come of this war, but we knew the message was sent out of fear. Our king laughed, and told the messenger to tell King William if could make so good an end as did the Saxon king at Hastings.





I remember laying in my tent that night, it was small but comfortable. I had a small cot covered over with skins, and the thick wool of my tent kept out the damp English weather. Beside my cot lay my weapons and armor, I reached down and picked up my sword and put my hand around its grip. It was a solid, reassuring feel, that did much to calm my nerves. As for my mind, it journeyed back across the sea on the wings of thought, to my wife and young son back in Denmark. For some reason or another, the thought of her hair sprang into my mind, that long flowing hair of her’s that was both dark and fair. Unlike many where I am from, my wife’s hair had both the brown of the earth, and the gold of the sun intertwined. And it always smelled of the sweetest herbs and wild flowers. Soon, in the embrace of such comforting thoughts I fell asleep.

The assault of London began at dawn, our men with scaling towers neared the walls and we saw no sign of enemy troops. Not till we gained the walls did we realise the few defenders there were had drawn inside the inner ring of the castle to make a last desperate defence there. Our plan was simple, we sent men take the gate house, through which our king and his knights would enter, while our foot soldiers would storm down from the walls.



When our king entered through the gates, William of Normandy charged from their defensive lines and the battle began in the outer courtyard. Soon we were able to bring up more men and surround the enemy King. Our lord, Svend Estridsen then met William of Normandy on the battle field, then were mighty blows exchanged!





Praise be to God, like Beowulf of old vanquishing Grendel, our king slew theirs.



Soon after that the battle was over, London was ours.



Even as we celebrated that night, we knew we had one but a single victory, and not a war. The English kind was dead, yet we were still in a hostel land and had not yet faced the full strength of our enemies. Yet now they would be leaderless and scattered. So as the saying goes, "After victory, tighten your helmet straps."

[Diarmuid]

Skirmish Outisde London

Of some note, there was a skirmish the next morning outside of London. Our king had gone out scouting with his son, and their knights to see if there was any sign of an enemy counter attack drawing near. They came upon a small force of English, and though it outnumbered their own company, the quality of the enemy troops were less, so they decided to attack.







The English force was completely destoryed... not a man of them survived, and not one of our brave warriors fell that day.

[Garnier]

The writing is superb. I recommend some work on the pictures though, and then it will be a great AAR.

Get FRAPS (google it) and have it save your screenshots somewhere. (make a folder in my pictures or something). Then during the game take screenshots with a hotkey.

After playing, go through your folder, open the good screenshots with MS Paint, and crop the interface out of them. Then throw on a nice border (black bars on the top and bottom will do). Then upload and post them.

Personally I don't like seeing the interface in every screenshot.

Great writing though!

[Diarmuid]

I am already using fraps to take these screenshots. I can try cutting out the interface on some of the shots... I sorta like having one at the beginning to show what my army is made of and all that... though I suppose I could give a breif account of the armies before major battles in writing...

[thoscme]

keep it up, i want more
i think you are very skilled in the art of writing, makes it feel like you really are reading a book with pic's and i like your pic's..!

[Diarmuid]

The Road To Canterbury


After only a brief rest our king told us our next move. This time we were heading south, so as not to leave any enemy behind us. Our scouts reported that enemy stronghold of Canterbury had a fierce garrison, with stout Saxon huscarls among their number. The attack would have to be planned out just so, for we still cannot afford many losses.

Some of the men are still tense, they fear that splitting our forces will put us in great danger, for there is still no sign of the main English war host. Yet our king knows that we must press our advantage quickly. As it is now, our treasury is beyond empty, we must press ahead and capture more wealth if we are to bring any more men from our homeland to join the fight.

The next morning a think mist lay over the camp, and the harbour, yet faintly we could make out that another ship had arrived. It was no English ship, but looked like one of our own make. We sent a party down who was the owner of the mysterious boat, when our men got there they saw a tall fair man standing at the prow. The tone of his voice was proud as he announced himself, and his deeds, the stoutness of his sword arm, the sharpness of his wit, and the list of foes he had left in ruin was long. He was Morten Dannemand, a mighty Jarl from Sweeden, who had heard of the brave adventure our king had undertaken, and he was here to join us under our kings banner.

We lead him up the hill to the former castle of William of Normandy and into the throne room where our king was awaiting. There Morten bowed and set his sword in our kings lap and asked to be taken into his service. A faint smile touched our king’s mouth before he spoke. ‘Rise Morten, I accept my service, you are now my jarl, and brother upon the field of battle. Rise, and join us in the fight. Tomorrow we march.’



As with the march to London we met no resistance and quickly we besieged the city and began building battering rams for the gate and walls. When dawn came our host surged forth, like a mighty tide baring down on a castle built of sand, ready to sweep it away. The walls and gates fell quickly, but then to our surprise the English attacked from the battered gate with their horsemen, the quickness of the attack took us by surprise and lost us a few men at the gate, but our king charged forth with his knights, hitting the enemy in the side and soon they were slain to the man. Then we pored through the gates, only to encounter a saxon shield wall. Then there was fierce fighting in deed! Three times we assailed that bastion of defence, and twice we were beaten back with losses, then with our king in the lead we attacked once more and broke the shield wall. The bodies were piled thick, friend and foe linked in the cold embrace of death, their life’s blood spilt upon the earth.



Once the shield wall broke the rest did not last long. Soon the morning’s bloody affair was over. The dead were piled thickly here and there and we began to pick out our own. The fighting had been fierce but we had not suffered as much as we had thought, I found a place to rest, set down my shield and took of my helm to free my neck of its weight for a while. Another stronghold of the English had fallen… surely they would meet us on the field before they would let more of their domain fall to our army. I wondered now, where our king would lead us next.

[removeduser_4563362]

Good screenshots, very good narration.

[Garnier]

Pictures are looking better!

A few more tips, for your improvement, I'm not critical of this AAR at all!

For non-graphic shots, or to remove parts of screenshots that people don't need to see, only have the part that's important shown. For example, with the adoption pic, I would do it this way:


Cause no one needs to see the part of the campaign map in the background.

For the border, always keep it consistent. Choose a certain width and stick to it in all pictures.

Don't resize the pictures to be smaller, instead crop out the less important parts and only show the good part close up. If the whole picture is important or good, keep it all zoomed in.

Personally, I think it's not a good idea to show things like this:


Instead, work it into the writing. For example, you could say "We took the stronghold with very little loss, while the entire garrison of some one-hundred men were put to the sword." (of course, this my style, always fit it to be consistent with your style, consistency is key!)
(You don't need to give exact numbers because in real life they probably wouldn't usually keep exact count.)

Oh and turn off green arrows in your preferences.

Good work!

[Diarmuid]

Thanks for the advice. I have turned arrows off in my preferences, as well as banners. Though... I am behind in my posting and I am afraid a few more will be with the arrows and banners. (Had a really productive first session!)

I think I will give the end battle results a go with writing, and continue trying to cut out as much interface as I can from the screenshots.

[Garnier]

Yeah thats all good.

If you have time, you could go back and redo the pictures from the earlier section. It would help a lot. Less is more, if more means less quality.

And its good you don't use thumbnails!

[Diarmuid]

Alright folks... sorry for not posting again yet. This weekend I am going to be away also, but after I get back I plan on doing some writing and getting several more posts done, as well as going back and working on some of the screen shots in previous posts.

TTFN

[DaVinci]

Now, as you cut the screens, it would be nice to see the years in the text, just to follow, when happens what ... or for example you make minimap extra screens from time to time with the year, but it is yours, so make it after your own wishes.

[bomberboy]

This AAR's story line is breath taking you've got a good writing style + rep.

[Diarmuid]

(Ok... sorry this next post has so few screenshots, after looking back over the ones I had there was basically only one that I could fix up nice enough to post. So I tired to make up for it in writing. The comming posts will have better screenshots. Before then though I'll also try to get around to cropping the already posted screenshots. Thanks for your consideration. Oh... and I will try to put in some of the year dates on my next edit)

By dawn of next morning word had arrived from the north. The English were trying to gather their scattered and leaderless forces into a war host that could better our own. Leaving as small a garrison in Canterbury as we could we began to march north. It seemed strange to me the spirit of the English people, for they resisted us as invaders little, maybe it was that their will had already been broken by William of Normandy. It was said that all the best blood of the Saxon’s had fallen at the battle of Hastings, maybe that was no lie. Provisions were scarce, but we were able to demand food enough from towns near enough to feed our bellies, all the towns were eager to avoid bloodshed.

We caught not a whiff of the enemy till we were insight of the castle of Nottingham. The English quickly scurried in the gates shutting them behind them, leaving villagers, wailing children, pleading women and all outside the gates for fear of our warriors. Of those left outside we did nothing ill to them past relieving them the care of a few goats. This was no raid to simply take what we could, we would conquer England in one glorious campaign, a deed that our forefathers tried but never accomplished. Wisely, our king had decided not to brutalize the people, rather we could come in like a strong wind from the north blowing away the tyranny of William. The Saxon king was long dead, and now so was the invader William, there would be none now willing or wanting to dispute our rule.

The assault of Nottingham began at dawn, and truly it was less of a battle than a slaughter. Only five of our own men fell, while closer to two hundred of the English were slain that day. It was a bloody business, but I was glad that so few of our own men fell, we would need every one in the coming days. For we had seen no sign of the English army our scouts had reported was gathering in the north. We could only assume that it had drawn away further northward towards York leaving the garrison at Nottingham to cover its retreat. As things stood now, we had more than half of England under Danish rule, only two strongholds of the enemy still stood against us, York in the north, and Winchester in the far south.

The next day there was heated debate at the king’s council table, some of the Jarls said that we should march straight north and crush the remaining English forces. Our king stood and listened to their councils… he seemed now more tired than he had in days and I worried that though he was a mighty man, the strain of the campaign was to much for a warrior of his years. Then slowly he shook his head and spoke. ‘We have not enough men to march rashly to York, it is my guess they sit behind the city walls with all the troops they can muster and are waiting for us to make such a mistake. They expect us to march northward, confident in our success and underestimating any resistance. Then they will set upon us when we expose ourselves, for they must assuredly out number us. At least half of our original army is busy garrisoning the lands we have already taken. Nay, we must leave a stout garrison here in Nottingham, and I will take a picked band of warriors on a speedy march south to destroy the English left in Winchester, once that is done we may turn all our attention northward without fear of being attacked from behind,’ the king fell silent, and looked from one to another of his advisers and with a little grumbling from the more hot headed ones they all consented to this plan.

The march south was difficult, it rained much of the way and the roads turned to mud beneath our feet. Fortunately we were by now a smaller war host, and needed not a long supply train or else the condition of the roads would have greatly reduced our speed. Speed was critical for our success. Most likely the English in Winchester thought we were still busy fighting in the North. The King had picked the best of his war host for he felt he could not long leave the north unattended. Yet there was another reason why the rain made my heart heavy, after a weeks worth of marching our king began to cough, not often, but enough to worry us.

Though as the days went by the King began to grow steadily worse. When we reached Winchester we tried to convince him not to fight personally in the battle, but alas, sick as our king was he was too stubborn and would have none of it. That day he was in the for front fighting as hard as he had done in the days of his youth.



It occurred to me, as I rested on my sword after just having taken a section of the wall, that our king probably felt that his life was almost at an end, and either he was seeking a warriors death on the battle field, or at the least, he would not let old age and sickness take him like a sickened tree in winter, rather he would put his very last strength in his sword stroke.



Soon the battle was one, just one more slaughter inflicted upon the English. Our dead were less than twenty, while this time more than two hundred of our foes lay dead. Now all but one of the enemy strongholds lay securely in our hands. But that task might be up to the kings son, the quiet Harald.

[Atterdag]

Very nice AAR!

Hope that you'll continue it!
Furthermore just post screenshots as you did in the first chapter. They're simple but really great!

[Diarmuid]

(Sorry for this post being so short and so long in coming. I have been really busy lately, and will probably be getting even more busy. However I'll try to post a bit more regularly soon.)

A New King

That winter, in the year of 1081, the day we had all dreaded at last came. Not long after our return to London, our king died. All the men were quiet that night, uncertainty weighing heavy on their minds. The future of kingdom now lay on the shoulders of the king’s son, Harald. The English were not yet vanquished, and our warriors had now been long away from home, they grew weary of marching and longed to return to their families or have them come and join them. I myself was among them, I longed to see my wife and son. It was not as if I had no liking for my place in the shield wall, nor shunned glory in battle, the honor to serve my lord and my shield brothers, yet only at home can a man rest his body and his mind, to long I had gone without a warm bed and welcoming arms.

Yet suddenly I was disturbed from such thoughts… the darkness rang with men’s voices and quickly I jumped up and grabbed my sword and looked out from my tent to see what the commotion was about. I saw a line of torches carried by our own men moving down the main path through the center of the camp. At the head of the procession was the king, gathering his jarls to him. Quickly I ran to towards them and joined in, not quite sure what the purpose was, yet wanting to be a part of it.

King Harald led us up onto a grassy knoll that over looked the camp, and by now many men had gathered around it in the torch light. King Harald stood still and silent, waiting for more men to rise form their resting places and join the gathering. At last when he deemed nearly everyone in the camp was raise he began to speak, or rather to call out loudly so that many there heard him. And never had we heard the quiet Harald speak so loudly. ‘Danes!’ he cried. ‘Warrior so of my father!’ he called out before drawing a blade from his side and holding it aloft. ‘This is my fathers sword! The hand that wields is of the same blood, in that blood lies the same purpose! England will be ours, glory will be ours, and honor! Follow me as you followed my father, let us bind us to one another, each and everyone one of us shield brother to the next!’ A mighty roar went up from the gathering of warriors, we now had faith in our new king, faith that he could lead us on the path of victory.
That night many songs were sang, sang in praise of our new king, sang in praise of our old king. This was one of them that I remember even now, though the night the bard chanted it above the sound of his harp has long since passed.

Great deeds, great praise,
All to our king,
May his glory never die,
Strong was that sword-wielding man,
A death dealing hand in the midst of battle,
Tall and broad his mighty shoulders,
On which rested his mighty shield
A leader of warriors,
A vanquisher of foes,
Yet just were his judgements,
For his people prospered,
Long shall he live in the memories of men,
Never shall his honor be stained,
Nor his glory lessened….

The next morning the order was given... our army would march north in a week to destory the last Norman stronghold remaining, York.

[thoscme]

amazing, i really like your style of writing!
keep it up