Re: JoC/MWY Taxonomy of units
Greek roster is more or less done already (see here) and I'm not gonna change it unless someone can prove it's inaccurate
nikossaiz has spent too much time in it.
Russian mercenaries: I'm not so sure there were many actually. I mean "pure" Russian.
From the book 'Armies of Feudal Europe 1066 - 1300' by Ian Heath:
Throughout this era considerable use of Turkic auxiliaries, often referred to by the Russians as 'svoipoganye', "our own pagans", so as to distinguish them from the "wild" Turks of the steppes (though these too could be, and often were, employed in Russian's endemic civial wars). These nomads mercenaries are also often referred to as Kazzaks or Kazaks, plausibly the same name as was applied to the later Cossaks; it loosely tranlates as "nomades vagabonds" or "freebooters". It has also been suggested that the term derives ultimately from "Khazars".
Vladimir Monomach, Prince of Kiev 1113-25, was the 1st to hire large numbers of Turks since his grandfather St Vladimir's day (973-1015), employing them extensively against the Cumans (who were called 'polovtsy' by the Russians) in the late 11th century when he was Prince of Pereyaslavl. These seem to have mainly been Torks, Pechenegs and Berendei (Brodniki), many of whom were permanently settled in South Russia, particularly in Pereyaslavl and Chernigov. Following Vladimir's victories over the Cumans in the 1st quarter of the 1éth century most of the remaining Tork and Pecheneg tribes acknowledged the suzerainty of Kiev. The Pechenegs are sometimes referred to in 12th and 13th century Russians' sources as 'Kitbitki', literally 'heavy chariots', in reference to their charateristic wagons (see Armies of the Dark Ages). We also hear of Kaypichi, Kovuye and Turpeye tribesmen, who collectively became the 'Chernyeklobuki' (in turkish the Karakalpaks or 'Black Caps', first recorded in 1146), settled as frontier guards along the greater part of Kiev's eastern frontier. The character of such Turkic allies inevitably underwent gradual change as they became more settled, intermarried and were supplemented by Russians, until eventually many became absorbed into the indigenous Russian population. Such, at least, appears to have been the fate of the "Irregulars" introduced into Suzdal in the mid 12th century by Yuri Dolgoruki.
Some Cumans, though at first probably not many, were also allied to and settled in Russia, and it was the Cumans who supplied the bulk of Kiev's Turkic mercenaries at the time of the first Mongol attack in 1223, though these were "Wild" Turks rather than settled allies. The Cumans and the Karakalpaks alike were smashed along with the Russians in the Mongol invasions (though interestingly as late as 1325 there is record of a Cuman tribe called by the name of 'Black Caps'; the Pechenegs similarly made their last appearance in history in the 13th century as a minor Cuman horde).
The Cumans, in fact, were so heavily defeated in the invasion of 1223 that their control of the South Russian steppes was brought to an abrupt and bloody end; their demise as a major Central Asian power was underlined by a further - and final - defeat at the hands of the Mongols in 1239.
In addition to Turks, we also read of Hungarian, Polish and German troops employed by or allied to various principalities. From the mid 12th century some cities also began to employ Lithuanian tribesmen under their own boyars, usually in bands of 3-800 men at a time, though sometimes 2 or 3 boyars would join together and hire themselves out as a larger force of up to 2,000 men.
Under the patronage of Flinn, proud patron of Jadli, from the Heresy Vault of the Imperial House of Hader