actually i was responding to urdok who said he chose to be insulted.
i understand what you are saying and i think its pretty cool. when i was planning on moving to chicago i was trying to think of a way to still field with my cav unit in atlantia while remaining a loyal knight of the midrealm. i came up with a few ideas that i thought might work but, of course, knew that those ideas would be at the will of my king. i was prepared to field against my own squires and the knights of my clan as well as their squires. they accepted that as well and understood that it was my duty as a knight. my squires, of course, would most likely have fielded with me as their fealty is to me. but all of this would have been discussed with my king and the king of atlantia.
none of this, however, required i get paid by anyone. that is my point. but hey, so long as there are folks out there with beer, bacon, cookies, what have you and are willing to hand them over i think thats cool (i mean we are talking about beer and bacon! cookies i could do without). again, i have no issue with mercs but its just not my cup of tea. as such i simply dont bother with them. if other people do then so be it. for example when i was told that angelssey was fighting with atlantia at pennsic this year i looked at my warlord/commanders and asked "and how did this come about?". the immediate response was "atlantia, of course, offered them nothing your majesty. they were aquired by others". that was fine by me, and still is. they fought well alongside us and i was happy to have them with us.
regards
logan
Jonathon More wrote:No worry, I'm not insulted at all, sorry it came across as that in any way. Your post didn't come across as insulting at all, I was just trying to respond and get some opinions into the mix.
just to be clear, I don't think my time and service is more valuable than anyone else's in this regard. I play the way I do because I don't want to fight in the same line all the time. I have friends that I have fought against and fought with in nearly every kingdom and that's way cool to me. I have brothers' in arms all across the country and up in the great white north too. I get excited about fighting for the mid because I lived there a long long time and there's a special place for the guys that put on armour for the first time when I did. The guys I was an uber-noob with that are now kings, dukes, and knights. The mid is my homeland and always will be special. I love fighting with the east because they have a certain earnest striving in the ranks. It's damn hard to spend an extra couple minutes in res point before running off into the woods yet again when you fight in the eastern armies. Now Eldemere is just damned fun. what a bunch of goofballs that really love to swing sticks. I'm just glad I've never been drunk enough to shake my ass around a fire pit like Roak. Calontir makes it tough not to move out there and serve the crown as a loyal kings' man. Those guys stand tall in any line. Antir? I've always had a ton of fun with antir, and I'll fight with his grace Amalric as soon as he looks in my direction. There is a certain duke from the West whose banner gets a center spot in the rafters every year. His big plan was 'let's go kick 'em in the ding-ding, try to keep up'. Damn was that man fast. glad I was wearing gamboised quises that year. There are others but this is getting long and I suspect a bit boring to everyone. I hope you can see why some of us play the free company game. I'm not going to tell you that everyone that falls into the merc category feels the same, I can only speak for myself. The reasons I fell in with the free companies is long and a bit ugly. ok, maybe not so long or ugly, but still not part of the subject at hand. Maybe I'm a bit bitter about it to this day.
Again, I'm not more valuable than the next guy, But I don't want to give the impression that I don't care who I fight for. It very much matters who I fight for but it's not pay I'm looking for, it's the experience. And maybe a new scroll to stick in the book and a cool banner to carry onto the field. That's about it. Although these days I find I'm getting tired of wandering from campaign to campaign.
Hope this helps clear up what I tried to post earlier.
Ok, now that I've re-read the whole thread I get the 'insult' part. duh. If I have to admit it, I agree with Nissan in that it can be considered 'largese' to send troops here and there. I'll also agree that if you're outnumbered, fight harder. Being outnumbered is how things are sometimes. Granted that it can make it no fun for either side if the imbalance is too great, but no one should assume that being seriously outnumbered isn't any fun.
