Swedish Faction - Help with units

[matteg91]

Im working on a swedish faction for the Deus lo Vult-mod (nothing official, just a personal thing for the moment) and could use some suggestions and ideas as to what kind of units the swedes would use around 1180? At the moment im using a slightly altered danish army and it works alright but I would like to add atleast one or two unique units for the swedes and this is where i need some suggestions.

link to thread in deus lo vult section:
http://twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=100625

/matte

[The Bold Burgundian]

The Swedes don't need an army, they're NEUTRAL!

[hekk]

The Swedes don't need an army, they're NEUTRAL!

Nah, thats the Norwegians' solution.

But seriously, advice would be, to not make 'faction colors' to the units because their unhistorical... and look awful.

[Jimboes]

I can say 2 units:

*Frälseryttare = (directly translated) "Salvationknights". Pehaps "War clerics"?

*Dalkarlar = (directly translated) "Valleymen" or "Men of the vallyes". They favored the crossbow.

Other then that:
Sweden were during the medieval age influenced by the german citystates. Pehaps som insperation from "The Holy Roman Empire".

[Jackbob]

Actually, Sweden had very little influence from the continent at 1180. The major trading cities with big German populations of the 13th and 14th centuries, like Visby and Stockholm, had no singificance. In 1180, Sweden was a quite primitive farming country with few cities that had more than 2000 inhabitants (if any?).
Sweden was very decentrilized in every way, there were no fuedal system with serfs ruled by nobles and nobles ruled by kings, dukes and counts, like in western Europe. The farmers were just as free as the "nobles" (nobles in this case mean the most powerful farmers, a nobility like the one on the continent could not be found) and Sweden didn't even have a tax system.

The swedes more or less fought like vikings in 1180, the continental chivalry thing with knights on horses was introduced many decades later.

And Jimboes, salvation knights is a very misleading translation (even directly translated). Frälse in this case is freedom, not salvation. The swedish word has two meanings. Frälset was the later introduced nobility, the ones who were free from tax but were expected to fight for their liege. Knights.