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Yes!

9 (90%)

No!

0 (0%)

I really don't care!

1 (10%)

Total Members Voted: 10

[Beneviento]

Alright, I'm back! And it's update time.

The pay is past. We rewarded the company who found the camp. Promotion was the first mission. We promoted the 2 survivors to officers.
Double rations we already did as well.

As for the burial, it's just that. A burial or cremation or whatever the local ceremony is with the whole company in attendance. Just the surviving men showing respect for the men who died and honoring that sacrifice.


Were not giving more now the pay and promotions are examples of past actions to earn loyalty.
 Right now the suggestions are 2 days free time since the men are tired and need rest and to meet with the duke to hand over the prisoners and phrase and use it to bargain for a discound on shields and mail armor for the spearmen.

This plan is sensible. +1

We should return to town, do what Patrick suggested, and prepare for an extensive guerrilla campaign against the forest bandits.

An not pay unless they do something IMPORTANT!

I want to talk to him to discuss buying some shields for spearmen and better armor. We can probably get a discount through him if we hand over our prisoners in exchange and our spearmen are a little vulnerable right now with no shields and leather armor.

Besides we need to see him to hand over the prisoners either way and getting a few camp followers means our men can spend more time resting and less time setting up tents but the cooks are the main thing. Better quality food and better meals will boost morale and effectiveness.

But giving him the pass phrase is a good idea anyway because it gains us some favor which we can really use. He won't know the difference between our old men and new men anyway so no danger in that.

(( Yes I am still here. Sort of. ))

You and your men wake the next morning to find that amazingly, none of the bandits have tried to escape and all of their number are still waiting quietly by the fire. You quickly break camp and order that you will be returning to Dalhurst to rest and refit, as well as to get supplies for a more extended campaign against the bandits. Your men are glad of the promise of rest, and the march goes quickly with you reaching Dalhurst at about midday. Your men occupy the camp they had previously begun to fortify outside the walls and you along with a guard of ten men, none of the new ‘recruits’ among them, go to exchange the prisoners with the Duke, and meet with him on various matters.

The Duke greets you warmly, and is gladdened to find that you do seem to be making some effort to fight the bandits. Most small upstart mercenaries are nowhere near this diligent. However, when you mention shields and armor for your spearmen his bargaining face goes on and he becomes distinctly more neutral to you. You know that the man is having a hard time and needs every shilling, but his need to obtain said shilling is beginning to grate on you.  Luckily your bargaining skill is without peer today, and you manage to make him agree to a price of 1 crown per shield and 7 crowns per premade mailcoat or coat of plates. This results in a total price of 144 crowns in order to outfit your spearmen, which is steep for your limited cash but a very reasonable price for the goods you will be procuring, and you assume that your men will not be averse to paying for some out of their own loot. You do not take this offer yet, as the voices in your head make it known that they will be unhappy if you do this without their consent. The Duke agrees to pay head-money for prisoners and dead bandits at the rate of 5 shillings a head. This money is provided to you when you turn in the prisoners you have taken, and as you can provide evidence to having killed or taken 18 bandits you are given 9 crowns. However a fee per group destroyed is out of the question as are other concessions.

You leave the Duke’s palace feeling rather good about your negotiations. On the way back, you see several foodsellers, as it is time for the weekly market in town. Most of them have nothing you are looking for, but one is selling some kind of dried soup that he swears only needs boiling water to be both nourishing and delicious. You also see weaponsmiths and armorsmiths and remind yourself that your officers, along with yourself, need some kind of identifying marks such as swords though this will have a cost. Other merchants are selling other necessities you need, but as you have no budget to buy food with, you return to camp. Back in camp, you order the camp to be prepared for two days of rest, and decide that you need to make a decision about whether to take some teamsters and cooks into your service. This, along with decisions on armor and food, will need to be made in the next two days.
Needed:Yes or no for armor, budget for food, decision on followers(see poll)

Spoiler: Cedric Stoneye (click to show/hide)

Name: Cedric Stoneye
Age: 32, born Spring, Year 1213 (Currently Summer, Year 1245)
Possessions: Average Crossbow, Forester's hat, Average Clothes, Above Average Observer, Mail hauberk, 209.45 Crowns(currency)
Health: Good (Slight Leg Wound(Treated))
Skills: Good Crossbowman, Good Leader, Above Average Tactician, Fair Siege Engineer, Fair Conversationalist.

Spoiler: The Aldornian Foresters (click to show/hide)

5 officers (1 leader, 2 crossbow vinteners, 2 spear vinteners)

45 Crossbowmen (crossbows, hauberks/coats of plate, maces, forester hats, boots)
Good Crossbowmen
Good Scouts
Above Average Ambushers
Poor Laborers
2 wounded, 1 slight, 1 severe
Pay:44 crowns per month

20 green(1 battle) spearmen (jerkins, spears, maces, boots)(a few have coats of plate and bucklers)
Fair Spearmen
Fair Laborers
3 wounded, all slight
Pay: 90 shillings/9 crowns per month

Neither Tired nor Well-Rested
Supplies: Good (Travelling rations, Fruit)
Morale: Good(Recent Battle, Victory, some losses)

[3man75]

Yes to the Armour and make it clear to our men that we'd like to put them in armor but the company just dosen't have the money to outfit the company. If the want leather chest gaurds then they can buy it.


 Also why do we need to be identified? It's just asking for us to have bowmen/crossbowmen aim for us and our officers. Plus our guys know WHO we are..so -1

 Also IF we can buy some of that soup but make it clear if it's not the real deal will be back asking for a refund.

[Baffler]

I support buying the armor outright. We'll probably be doing a lot of fighting in the near-future and getting some better protection for our men is a must, especially if we're going to be going on a long campaign against people who'll try to get the drop on us. They're no good to us dead, after all. If we don't end up buying it, we should definitely ask the men if they want to buy the armor themselves, at least. there's no harm in it if they don't. On camp followers, they're a liability for now with the bandits sneaking around. Better to just make excursions like we've been doing for now. We do need to keep people happy though, and decent food is a good way to do that.

[Patrick Hunt]

(( How much can we sell the recovered caravan goods for and the spare weaponsfrom the bandits? ))

[Beneviento]

Whoops, sorry, forgot about that. I think somewhere from 25-30 crowns is reasonable, but feel free to say what you think it should be worth. It was a small caravan, and it seems like the bandits would carry about 1-2 crowns worth of things on themselves.

[Patrick Hunt]

(( That works. How much would a pack horse cost?))

Buy the arm or and shields, sell the goods, hire the camp helpers and buy the new supplies. Send the men for the 2 rest days and wander around to see if any new groups of mercenaries have turned up while we were out hunting that we could hire.

Especially light cavalry.

[Baffler]

Horses of any sort may not be especially wise in a forest, unless we plan to enlist our own patrols along the roads. Which isn't a bad idea, actually. Though it may do more to tip off the bandits that someone's trying to smoke them out than help us find where they operate.

[TalonisWolf]

  Could we set up stakeouts I along the road so we can figure out where they like to strike at? There is a chance of us seeing a pattern in their movements, which would allow us to ambush the ambush.

  But for the moment, Buy the armour & rations, and send some of our men who aren't bandits to seek intel at the local inns and taverns.

[Aseaheru]

Buy all the armor, taking half the cost for the chestpieces out of the troops pay for that week.
Buy a little bit of soup to test, if test goes well buy alot.

For markings, we can just paint the ranks on their armor/shields, couldent we?

Oh, and I have came back out of the woodwork.

[Comrade Shamrock]

Can I suggest that we try to contact local merchants and see if they'll help front costs for killing the bandits, probably won't work. Also maybe we could employ the men in the wagons plan from awhile back to snare the larger group, half the men being the visible guards and the rest hidden in the wagons. But this will leave the soldiers exposed to the ambush (arrows, bolts) that might not come, also it doesn't play to our strengths but I liked the plan. 

Feel free to take any of these ideas into consideration.

[3man75]

Buy all the armor, taking half the cost for the chestpieces out of the troops pay for that week.
Buy a little bit of soup to test, if test goes well buy alot.

For markings, we can just paint the ranks on their armor/shields, couldent we?

Oh, and I have came back out of the woodwork.

+1

[Funk]

Buy all the armor, taking half the cost for the chestpieces out of the troops pay for that week.
Buy a little bit of soup to test, if test goes well buy alot.

For markings, we can just paint the ranks on their armor/shields, couldent we?

Oh, and I have came back out of the woodwork.

+1

+1

[Beneviento]

For future reference, I'm going to link http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html, which I'm going to use to guide my prices, as I've noticed that there's a bit of a discrepancy between the armor cost and the wages of the men. While a crossbowman would take 7 months to buy a mailcoat in the game, it would only be about 3.5 months if this list is right (I'm using 1s per day as the figure for crossbowmen's wages). Thus, I'm lowering the price for the hauberks to 4 crowns per coat, giving a total cost of 90 crowns to outfit the men.

Buy all the armor, taking half the cost for the chestpieces out of the troops pay for that week.
Buy a little bit of soup to test, if test goes well buy alot.

For markings, we can just paint the ranks on their armor/shields, couldent we?

Oh, and I have came back out of the woodwork.

+1

+1

Your men agree to pay for part of their armor out of their own pockets, but the spearmen have nearly no capital, as new as they are to the mercenary life. The crossbowmen, to your happy surprise, decide to put together a sum to help out the spearmen out of their feeling of brotherhood for them. You manage to get 15 crowns out of the whole company, not much, but every shilling counts. You head to the Duke's keep at dawn the next morning to buy the equipment for your spearmen accompanied by a few crossbowmen. The Duke's armorer quickly handles the transaction (-75 crowns) and you take the armor and shields back to your camp where your spearmen, eyes gleaming with admiration, take their sets.

Later that day, you look around for the "portable soup" seller but he is nowhere to be found. Eh, it couldn't have been that good, right? Foodsellers recognize that you are working for the Duke, and make you pay less for your supplies in recognition, as they appreciate how much their lord cares about trade (-15 crowns). You try to find sutlers and other civilians willing to work for your band, and although only a few (8 workers) seem interested, they should be enough for now. You hire them and give each an initial payment of 3 shillings(-2.4 crowns).

After sending your guards back to camp, you head to a tavern in the early afternoon to find , and are greeted by 3 men in dirty robes speaking animatedly in front of it about some religion or other. One of them moves to bar your entrance.
"Don't you know taverns are among the hated things of Entos the Pure One?" He asks in a disgusted tone. "They are places of sin, and of the muddling of our minds. Entos wants us to always be calm pure and ready for the tests he sends us, and we can't do that drunk now can we my military friend?" You answer that drinking was not your main reason for coming to the tavern, but he only frowns at you.

This man is preventing you from the information-gathering you set out to do. Perhaps it would be better to simply wait for them to leave, but they've been rather rude to you, and it is your choice whether or not to stomach that.What will you do?

Spoiler: Cedric Stoneye (click to show/hide)

Name: Cedric Stoneye
Age: 32, born Spring, Year 1213 (Currently Summer, Year 1245)
Possessions: Average Crossbow, Forester's hat, Average Clothes, Above Average Observer, Mail hauberk, 117.05 Crowns(currency)
Health: Good (Slight Leg Wound(Treated))
Skills: Good Crossbowman, Good Leader, Above Average Tactician, Fair Siege Engineer, Fair Conversationalist.

Spoiler: The Aldornian Foresters (click to show/hide)

5 officers (1 leader, 2 crossbow vinteners, 2 spear vinteners)

45 Crossbowmen (crossbows, hauberks/coats of plate, maces, forester hats, boots)
Good Crossbowmen
Good Scouts
Above Average Ambushers
Poor Laborers
2 wounded, 1 slight, 1 severe
Pay:44 crowns per month

20 green(1 battle) spearmen (jerkins, spears, maces, boots)(a few have coats of plate and bucklers)
Fair Spearmen
Fair Laborers
3 wounded, all slight
Pay: 100 shillings/10 crowns per month

8 Civilian Followers
Pay: 32 Shillings per month

(Good Night's Sleep)Slightly Rested
Supplies: Excellent (Travelling rations, Fruit, Various food bought in town)
Morale: Good(Recent Battle, Victory, some losses, promise of rest, made to give up personal loot)

[3man75]

Just tell him we're mercenaries and that if he doesn't leave us alone...we'll show him the door.

[Patrick Hunt]

Find a doctor for our seriously wounded guy, try to recruit him once he treats our guy.

Find out how much pack horses cost.

Try the password we got from the bandit guy before we threaten him.