Sir Blains of Levcomagus...is a nobody!

[Luca Cherstich]

Reading Warlord p.116 I realized that Sir Blains's Levcomagus is only a £18.5 Manor!!

This means that Blains is just him + (maybe) a household knight!!

How could have such a lowly knight have aspired to marry Ellen (the daughter of a baron)??  I know that "Ulfius" is the answer...

 

Furthermore, how could have done the famous Allington Raid/Skirmish in the Core Rules, where he leads various knights vs Salisbury?

I got the feeling that when rules were originally written Silchester was a "unity", while now we get so many different barons with interests/holdings in Silchester (Ulfius, Thornbush, Wynchbank before he dies, the Senate of Silchester...).

So, I guess, Sir Blains either has many relatives/friends helping in his raids or some bigger lord (possibly Ulfius?) gives him more knights because he wants bad things for Salisbury.

Is this correct?

[Morien]

1 hour ago, Luca Cherstich said:

I got the feeling that when rules were originally written Silchester was a "unity", while now we get so many different barons with interests/holdings in Silchester (Ulfius, Thornbush, Wynchbank before he dies, the Senate of Silchester...).

Yeah, WARLORD changed a good many things, and not only did it scatter the holdings of the Greater Nobles, but it also changed their relative ranking rather drastically! Since Greg wanted to keep Salisbury a (mainly) unitary starting location, this meant that Roderick got to keep most of Salisbury. Indeed, if you compare his holdings in Salisbury and compare it with his Army in KAP 5.2, they match up reasonably well. However, he then got additional holdings elsewhere as well! So he went from 75 knights in KAP 5.2 to 157 knights in WARLORD. By contrast, Ulfius went from the powerful Duke of Silchester (if we go by KAP 4, 300 knights vs. Salisbury's 75) to just 124 knights. So from 4:1 advantage in knights to being actually the underdog in any direct military confrontation with Salisbury.

In KAP 5.2, it was easy to say that the Steward of Levcomagus had maybe 30 knights over whom he held control (not all necessarily his own vassals), which was well enough to give trouble to Salisbury, and if Salisbury actually upped the stakes to an all-out war, Silchester would step in and slap Salisbury down. Now, it becomes somewhat harder to explain. Not only that, most of Ulfius' lands are not even in Silchester, but scattered across Britain, with Silchester forming just a small part of his landholdings.

1 hour ago, Luca Cherstich said:

So, I guess, Sir Blains either has many relatives/friends helping in his raids or some bigger lord (possibly Ulfius?) gives him more knights because he wants bad things for Salisbury.

Well, KAP 4 had another explanation for the feud:

Levcomagus
This city is part of the fief of the Duke of Silchester. Its steward holds a fierce grudge against all men of Salisbury because the old earl, father of Robert, slew all of the steward’s brothers in combat. He keeps many knights guarding the roads to Salisbury to enforce his grudge against Salisbury.

You can see that not only was Levcomagus' relative importance much diminished (from a city to a manor, although I would hasten to add that 'city' didn't quite have a strict definition in KAP 4 unlike in WARLORD), but the feud was clearly backdated to 485 when Greg moved the starting date of the campaign. But this might give a hint that perhaps Blains is indeed supported by numerous knightly brothers, as well as spending coin to hire mercenaries now and again to raid Salisbury. Ulfius might very well give Blains the command of the garrison in Levcomagus, since Ulfius probably wants to keep some extra knights handy there in case Salisbury stages a counter-raid.

Still, I do agree that this setup makes much less sense than it did before WARLORD changed how the landholdings and power was distributed. It is not a problem in my own campaign, since I stuck with the territorial nobility of GPC & KAP 4.

[KungFuFenris]

Well. I can agree the WARLORD version of the tale is a bit weird. I think we need a word like "Territorial Nobility" to describe it.
Perhaps Baronial distribution.

Anyways. In my game, Blains is Ulfius' right-hand man and main intriguer/spy-guy. Blains also have several knightly brothers and having Blains marry Ellen would have effectively made Blains a Minor Baron, one that would act as a buff state between Silchester and Salisbury, but aligned with Ulfius.

It does beg to ask why the assumption that having scattered holdings seemed like a good idea? Because it makes everything a lot harder to work inside a game?
(However, it does explain why Logres takes several weeks, perhaps a month, to muster for war.)

[Luca Cherstich]

I guess that having scattered holdings (please, somebody correct me if I am wrong) is more respondent to historical medieval holdings-types.

But I'm ignorant about British feudalism, although I know that scattered holdings are typical of other other areas of Europe that I'm more familiar with.

The question remains: even if historical (and the "historicity" of KAP is an issue...)I feel that this scattered holdings models should be kept as long as it is not a hindrance for game play.

I personally like it (it gives me some sense of authenticity), however, sometimes it is odd to explain to players (questions like "Wasn't Ulfius the Baron of Silchester as Roderick is the Baron of Salisbury?").