I played that and tried to join the picts but was very confused. The map is upside down right?
Honestly, I'm not sure, I end up spinning the map around enough that I don't know true north in any mount and blade game map. However, I do know in Brytenwalda that the snowy end of the map equates to Scotland, which is the real world north. So if you get confused, just zoom out, and spin it around until the snow is at the top of your screen, then you'll have north.
I've been giving this mod a try the last few times I've played, but it's really unforgiving, starting out. There are few, if any "looter" type groups that are easy to tackle with just a few farmers. The only really successful battles I've had are ones clearing out bandits from a village, which was only barely successful, and one where I just happened to join another group already in battle and help them out, it was already pretty unfair though, so I didn't help much. I really like a lot of what they did here, I just have no idea how to advance from my humble beginnings without losing every single possession I own due to capture. I tend to quickly lose all of my cash as well to recruiting farmers and them having them killed.
EDIT: I forgot, I did chase a couple of small groups off on my own, from horseback. But I nearly died on each of those attempts as well. Soon after I was captured and my horse stolen, which was crippling, to say the least. And they always seem to steal your horse if you have one.