Medieval Kingdoms Total War: Crown of Aragon

[Visarion]

Warman222, are you planning to redo the faction? It would be great if you redo it with the quality you made the kingdom of Sicily.

Or at least this daction should have access to Sicilian units...

[eatme]

Gotta say first, the unit model art, wow they all look amazing, very nice. Yet again.

Have to agree on the comment for the odd choice of Aragon Noble names. For historical accuracy sake you could fix this up.
Simply put, Empuries and Luna lord names have to be there. You even have Empuries CoAs on the Catalan nobles unit shields already -)

I only have minor complaints about the naming and the choice of lords. The heraldry for the late Aragonese knights is well chosen, the Count of Urgell and the Baron of Montcada are spot on, but I miss these ones:

the Count of Empuries
the Count of Pallars
the Lord of Luna
the Lord of Alagón
the Viscount of Cardona

Of course, I'm aware that not everyone can be here, but the Lord of Gudal is quite the unknown to me. I can only find two mentions of any "Lord of Gudal" (one Assalit de Gudal) in Zurita's Annals of the Crown of Aragon and then in the Annals of the Kingdom of Valencia, which borrowed heavily on Zurita as a source. What am I missing?.

[Llywelyn ap Gruffud]

Awesome work. I can really tell a lot of effort went into this, and I'm grateful for the hours you put in.

I do have two minor questions pertaining to the Almogavars/Catalan Company. First of all, I don't quite understand why those two distinct units aren't split. As far as I know, Almogavars were a type of soldier in Catalonia, while the Catalan Great Company was a free company that fielded Almogavars, but not exclusively so. The Catalan Great Company also fielded mounted troops and more heavily armoured infantry if I recall correctly. And didn't they also hire a lot of Turcopoles when they fought for the Byzantines? I think it'd be less confusing if you just called them Almogavars.

My second question is about one specific type of armour these Almogavars are depicted with, namely the weird jerkin with the metal rings on it. Again, while I'm no expert, I have never seen armour like that, except in fantasy stories and games, where it's usually categorized as studded leather or ringmail or something weird like that. I think I also saw a video of LindyBeige (a YouTuber with an archeology degree, who produces lots of historical content) that derided armour types like that (ie studded leather and ringmail etc). I was wondering what your sources were for that particular type of armour, because it doesn't look practical at all. To me, those large rings look utterly useless. You could easily stab through them and because of the strange way in which they are attached to the leather (or padded fabric) of the jerkin, you could probably hew them straight off (they don't seem to interlink like mail). I can't say I'm a fan of that particular model. It just seems ahistorical to me. Though perhaps a look at your reference material might prove me wrong.

Again, I'm grateful for your work and I think you did an amazing job. Just offering my personal opinion, for what it's worth.

[Knight2708]

One thing that always confused me about this faction is why some of the Almogavar units such as the marines and crossbowmen are so heavily equipped. I was under the impression that Almogavars were lightly equipped border raiders and skirmishers who wore barely any armor and mostly used javelins, spears and short swords. So I am just wondering why these units are so heavily armored and using crossbows, handguns and polearms instead of their traditional armaments?

[Visarion]

I am sorry if bothering but I found this very nice depiction of the Battle of the Puig by Andreu Marcal de Sax and the units of the early era do not ressemble at all with the ones in his outstanding painting.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Sarcasm_pt]

C'mon man, it's easy enough to check. It's a 1400's painting of a battle in the 1200's.

[Sarcasm_pt]

One thing that always confused me about this faction is why some of the Almogavar units such as the marines and crossbowmen are so heavily equipped. I was under the impression that Almogavars were lightly equipped border raiders and skirmishers who wore barely any armor and mostly used javelins, spears and short swords. So I am just wondering why these units are so heavily armored and using crossbows, handguns and polearms instead of their traditional armaments?

Generically speaking they were what you described. However they do become a little more "regular" troops as the time goes by...for their use as marines, check how they were employed in war galleys during the Sicilian wars. Their use of heavy armor and polearms does sound a bit off to me too, as they were always noted as light, or at least "agile". As for the handguns I'd have to investigate a little more.

[francescus2]

The units of the generals or at least, of the king should have tiers, I mean the first tier of the 13th century the second of the 14th and the third of the 15th century

[Goreuncle]

C'mon man, it's easy enough to check. It's a 1400's painting of a battle in the 1200's.

Well, these frescos were painted in the late 13th century (commemorating the conquest of Mallorca, which had taken place that same century), the troops depicted in them still look cooler than many of the models seen in this preview thread.

For instance, look at Guillem II of Montcada, his horse was protected with mail and we can still see that his tunic was richly ornamented (despite the limited skills of the medieval author).
Compare that to the Lord of Montcada unit models from this preview... I say there's plenty of room for improvement, and it wouldn't be a sin to take a bit of artistic license, just to make the units look less lame.

As for the Count of Urgell unit (and pretty much the rest of cavalry units), I don't think the person working on the models cared much about how they looked. Applying the same pattern to the whole model (even if the pattern is historically accurate) is simply lame. (The horse caparisons in the preview are really ugly, guys)

I hope this was just a first draft, tbh.
I'd put mail around horses' necks (although not necessarily all of them), add detailed ornamentation to knight tunics, restrict heraldic elements to just the shield (or part of it) and certain parts of tunics/horse caparisons, etc.
That would look way cooler and wouldn't break historical accuracy.

Serjeant units (late) are quite cool, though, I'd try to go towards that direction with knights as well.

[McMoots]

Any updates on the separation of the 2nd and 3rd tiers?

[alex33]

Is there any specific reason why Aragonese Knights are called Hidalgos? I thought Hidalgos are non landowning Nobles. Wouldn't it be logical for them to also have Caballeros like Castille? Maybe you could do a sepperate unit of Hidalgos for the Iberian Kingdoms to represent the non landowning elite?

[You_Guess_Who]

Old roster, Hispanian factions are in a dear need of update and harmonization

[tomtucker]

Old roster, Hispanian factions are in a dear need of update and harmonization

And i don't want to bother you but will we have news about that update any date soon??

Thanks for your work¡¡

[You_Guess_Who]

And i don't want to bother you but will we have news about that update any date soon??

Thanks for your work¡¡

Sure. Won't be soon however