The Menace of the Khan

Hey you may remember me from such tedious monologues as "a new level of harlaus incompetence". I'm writing about my pendor run as requested by like literally one guy, so hopefully he at least enjoys this.

So I install this shiny new mod and start a file, takes me a few tries before my start doesn't go to total shit but I eventually settle on starting in ravenstern. I recruit the peasants and train them into archers because I read that they're good. Kill mystmountains, get money, you know the drill.

I'm aspiring to be a raven stern vassal at this point and my renown is approaching the 150 mark so not long to go. Everything changes, however, when I see notorious dickhole lord alexis with a nice juicy prisoner stack getting his ass walloped by duke aeflwine of sarleon. Me with my like 20 guys scoot on in there on the sarleon side and I take that fat prisoner stack and get some sarleon men at arms, longbow men and even a couple of larian sentinels.

Unfortunately, though, King Greg is now pissed and is hunting me down, and the Ravenstern lords ask for like 20,000 denars to pardon me, which I obviously don't have at this point.

Just as I'm leaving ravenstern territory, cutting my losses and wanting to just join sarleon instead, I get pulled up on by like 10 knights of the dragon out of nowhere.

After the prisoner stack my party is 40ish, and I'm wondering wtf these guys are thinking challenging me when they're outnumbered 4 to 1. In battle, however, my only ravenstern horseman gets immediately skewered on one of their lances, and they then proceed to cut down my infantry and archers like tissue. At this point, Pendor being pendor, I feel like I'm swinging a wet noodle at these motherfuckers and they slap me down and take me prisoner. After a bit of meandering around I finally go free and successfully leave ravenstern territory.

I decide against joining sarleon as they're being gangbanged on all sides by literally everyone except the fierdsvain, so I instead head south and join the dshar, who are fighting only one war, a winning one against sarleon.

I get granted some shit village so far into the desert I can't even go to check on it without being ambushed by dshar bandits or singalians, but hey I finally am getting some rent now so that's cool. I set up enterprises in the Dshar cities, do some tasks for the lords, soon enough I'm ready to siege my first castle.

I head up to seven cross keep with about 80 pretty decent troops, high tier dshars and mercenaries. It was taken by the empire then retaken by sarleon only recently so has a pretty manageable garrison of about 200 troops, mostly low tier, no order Knights, maybe doable. Just as I besiege it, the entire Baccus empire marshalled force of over 1000 rolls up and sort of just awkwardly stands there while I besiege the castle. This works out great though as it scares off the sarleon lords that try to come and defend it.

The siege is close, and I win with only 12 guys remaining, getting pretty lucky at a few points and only managing to win due to the fact that there were like 30 recruits and 40 militia in the garrison. I ask to be granted the keep and the benevolent khan delivers. The dshar marshalled force then comes and scares off the sarleon counterattack.

I bolster my garrison, save money and eventually found a wind riders chapter, at this point we've taken the sarleon capital, Baccus have taken laria, and ravenstern have taken avendor, most castles have fallen, too. Sarleon is reduced to just marleons and a couple of castles.

The fierdsvain finally decide to get up off their asses and declare war on ravenstern, which pushes their advance into sarleon back as the norsemen send their army up towards senderfall and ravenstern have to scramble to defend.

The khan, meanwhile, declares war on the Baccus empire, and sarleon makes peace with everyone except the empire, giving them some breathing room. The war against the empire is seemingly over before it starts as the marshalled forces assemble and march towards each other, but the baccus force is blindsided by the dread legion, and it wipes out like half of the Baccus force right there. The remaining lords scatter and we take ethos, cez, and most Baccus castles for free.

Sarleon also seizes this opportunity and retakes laria along with most of their eastern castles. At this point the empire is reeling, with only Janos and literally one castle left, so they negotiate a hasty peace. I try to convince the khan (who I now have like +20 relation with) to grant me a city that I didn't take, but he won't do it.

The fierdsvain, meanwhile, have lost their war against ravenstern pretty badly, losing a few northern castles even though ravenstern was fighting a war on two fronts (they reinitiated a brief war with sarleon which was basically a stalemate because both nations were mainly occupied with the other war they had going on. They've since made peace).

After our crushing victory over the empire, the khan goes to war with the fierdsvain, and I'm kind of shocked at how hard we stomp them. We just roll them over, taking all their cities and most of their castles within a couple of weeks. The khan still won't grant me shit, however, as I didn't actually conquer anything myself. I try besieging Ansen lodge, but its garrison is like 500 and even with 150 troops including wind riders, I can't break through and have to retreat.

Before long, though, we've totally wiped out the fierdsvain, one faction down.

At this point I'm getting kind of concerned, though. The Dshar now occupy most of Baccus territory, all of their own, about a quarter of sarleon, and all of fierdsvain. This isn't a manifest destiny run, I eventually want to rebel against these guys, but they're growing so strong it's kind of hard to picture at this point how I'm ever going to beat them. During the short peace after we steamroll the fierdsvain, the sarleon-baccus war comes to an end with no more major developments occurring. I take the opportunity to recruit good companions from taverns like sir Roland, boadice and ansen, and beef up my garrison at seven cross keep.

Soon enough, we declare war on ravenstern, the only remaining faction that is at least reasonably strong, still holding all their original territory plus avendor and a few fierdsvain castles. We soon take all this from them, however, and start pushing up towards senderfall. I get a stroke of luck, however, when our Marshall runs into wolfbode the slayer and gets captured.

I manage to convince my boy Mansour bey to support me as the new marshal, and the khan grants me the title. I then develop a crafty plan. I declare a campaign and lead my army straight past sender fall and ravenstern, and instead besiege rane with all the might of the dshar army. The garrison is big, and is full of knights of the dragon. We take massive casualties but finally manage to take the city. I request that the khan grant it to me.

I then end the campaign and trundle on down to seven cross keep where I ferry my entire garrison over to rane and dump it in there. It takes me a couple of trips but I manage to transfer the entire garrison before the fief of rane is assigned.

The moment of truth comes, and the khan doesn't grant it to me. This is what I expected, however, as I'd asked the khan who he supported and he said another lord. I then told him I agreed with his choice. Of course, I didn't want him to grant it to me because now I can rebel, with a city garrison about 800 strong. Plus, thanks to its position, the dshar can't even get to me without wading straight through all of ravensterns territory first, so I'm pretty safe.

The dshar easily takes the empty seven cross keep from me, but I expected this and am fine with it, I lose my wind riders but I have knights of the dragon flowing in from rane now anyway. I also grant the surrounding villages as fiefs to Ansen, boadice and Roland, all nobles with good personalities.

Now, my plan seems to be going great, but it actually starts to backfire pretty hard. It starts off well with the dshar offering me a peace agreement after they take seven cross keep, but they then also make peace with ravenstern. Ravenstern then takes one look at my weak ass kingdom sitting in the middle of their territory, occupying their city, and declares war of me straight away.

Now, my ass is actually saved here by two things. Firstly, soon after Ravenstern declares war on me, sarleon declares war on them. Still, though, the ravenstern marshalled force rolls up to rane, about 2300 strong. Even with my garrison of 800 and my own army of 100ish, plus my three vassals with about 60 apiece, it's still seeking like I'm fucked.

This is when the hero emerges. There are so few acts of true heroism in mount and blade, but this is one of them.

Sir fucking Roland (lord Roland now) exits the gates of rane where we're all cowering, and goes full leroy Jenkins mode, charging headlong into King Gregory's 400-strong party. The other ravenstern lords then dog pile on top of him, of course, and he's now fighting a laughably one-sided battle. Against everyone except... The Marshal.

The ravenstern marshal is still standing outside rane besieging it, and I seize the opportunity. I take some troops out of the garrison and with boadices help (ansen is awol and I never forgave him, no fiefs for him after that first village), I trounce his 150 or so men, capture him and throw him in the dungeon of rane.

Roland is captured too but is a Martyr to the cause. With no marshal, the ravenstern army sort of just awkwardly disperses, and they can't regather to besiege me with a new marshal because sarleon is now knocking on the door of senderfall with close to 1000 men of their own.

With this space, I marshal my meagre two non-imprisoned vassals and start besieging the surrounding castles. Thankfully, the ravenstern lords are still too preoccupied with sarleon to do anything, and I take enough territory that a few unhappy baccus lords defect to my side.

The dshar then spanked the remaining Baccus into oblivion, I gradually pushed through ravenstern and conquered it. The dshar and I gangbanged sarleon and split it between us, then the final battle between the khan and I ensued. Though once friends, we hate each other by this point (-50 relation or so), and so it's a real grudge match. It takes time but all his lords hate him while mine are all like +40 relation at least. My feasts are bangers, the khan's are flops, that's just the way the cookie crumbles for him. It takes a while but we eventually push south through what was once fierdsvain land, and conquer the heartland of the dshar. They capitulate, i hold a massive feast in rane, and my kingdom stands unopposed in pendor.

Damn that was long. The end.

/u/fluffryr

Even if no one else reads this, hope you enjoy it

Submitted September 20, 2019 at 08:39PM by operationmeepo https://ift.tt/2Od6tIH