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Post by Kell Lo'Tharan on Jan 28, 2017 11:36:15 GMT -5
"You should probably go and see to the men." Kevin said the moment Kell entered the room, not even allowing the half-Drokar time to speak before he began. "They've had no sort of guidance or leadership since the last count died, they've stuck to their old patrols and roles since but it'd probably be good to get some sort of grip over what small force we do have." That was a point, now that he thought about it he'd seen the fighting men here, there weren't many of them. The calculations from before said that a sizeable force was out of their reach with how things were right now but that didn't mean that the infantry they had currently couldn't be trained further.
Messages were sent out to the borders, men were recalled and all had orders to report to a clearing not far from Kevin's house for an inspection and training manoeuvres, all were quite surprised when the order came due to the silence they'd had since the last count's death. All came however, they were loyal men, and so long as the new count was looking after them in the same way as they'd seen so far by the raising of infrastructure, they were loyal.
"Kevin. One slight issue." Kell ventured, waiting inside the house with Kevin before they were to go out and begin running the troops through the devised drills. "The whole point of you being the count and not me was that my face wouldn't be out there and no one would get in trouble because I'm a Drokagr. If I go out there it's going to be quite difficult to maintain the secrecy of me being here." It was a bit worrisome that Kevin hadn't thought this through, if he were to go out and begin talking to the troops it was obvious they'd start wondering who he was.
"You doubt me? Really? Here put these on." From a rack to one side Kevin produced a set of armour, simple looking but seemingly functional. "The helm will cover your face and the rest will cover your skin, no one will recognise you in this. I've told the men they are to meet with a military advisor I've brought in from Innorsford to put them through their paces." Ok maybe Kevin had thought things through enough.
Once all was done and Kell was in the armour, although it was heavier than anything he'd worn before, he stepped outside along with Kevin. "This is the military advisor I spoke of before. I'll put my word behind his so do as he says, he'll do you no harm." Kevin shouted to the gathered men. It was quite simple for him to say this, these men had known him all their life, he'd lived here as long as any and was well thought of.
"I've been tasked with training you men, you might be good but things are getting tense out there so good wont cut it. I need you to be great." Kell shouted, lowering the pitch of his voice as much as he could and affecting a more gruff tone, maybe he was going a bit overboard but he didn't want them to even be able to recognise his voice by the end of this. Kell pointed to two sticks set at opposite sides of the clearing, "I want all of you to run from post to post 50 times, fastest pace you can manage, keep your kit on. Hopefully you'll not need to fight but if you do stamina is your greatest friend, being able to parry a few more blows or dodge a couple more times can save your life."
Rolling to get the guys to do what he'd like Charisma (15) Easy (15) Leadership I (unlearned) Militarism I (unlearned) Threshold: 30
faWrBr_4·····
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Post by Kell Lo'Tharan on Jan 28, 2017 12:10:04 GMT -5
The men ran, and then jogged, and then jogged slower and slower. It was a while before everyone had completed the allotted amount of lengths and Kell stood for all of it watching the men and making his judgements. He wasn't unpleased with the amount of stamina that they'd shown. It was commendable considering they were merely a minor county's guards and had probably never seen actual combat. Once all were finished they were assembled in front of Kell once again. He gave them some time, breaks were good, it meant that he wouldn't have anyone fainting on him or hating him for not giving them breaks. Even not including that they were only men, they had limits and they'd done quite a lot of running, it was good to give a break.
Once he judged they'd rested for an appropriate amount of time he spoke up "Now that was pretty good, we'll work more on your stamina till that feels like a breeze but for now get in some space and draw your sword." So saying Kell drew his own shortsword from his sash, it was slightly embarrassing to realise that most of the men here even had seemingly better swords than him, they all looked of a much higher quality than his old blade. He'd have to fix that at some point but for now once again it wasn't his primary concern. "As I said, a few extra swings of your sword can make all of the difference, so we are going to swing ours till we are all tired out. I'll call time and you men swing. Ready? 1, 2, 3" As he said each number Kell swung his blade down.
Rolling to get them to follow him Easy (15) Charisma (15) Leadership I (Unlearned) Militarism I (Unlearned) Threshold: 30 bo2xdbMe
They looked sceptical, very sceptical. The running had been one thing but expecting them to stand there and attack thin air, it wasn't very good. He should have got Kevin to make up some dummies for them to use or something just so they didn't feel quite so foolish. "Attacking air is a good start, helps you get the feel for your weapon, once you know your weapon and how it moves well enough then we can actually start hitting objects. Come on!" Kell shouted, beginning the counting once again.
Rolling to get them to follow him Easy (15) Charisma (15) Leadership I (Unlearned) Militarism I (Unlearned) Threshold: 30
It seemed like he'd need to use some other sort of encouragement, these men weren't motivated by simply becoming better at their jobs, most probably figured they'd never get into any sort of fight bigger than a disagreement between neighbours or the like. It was understandable of course, they'd never seen combat and probably never would, but they needed to be ready incase it should happen. "Any man that doesn't start swinging in the next few seconds, me and him are going to have a real problem." If appealing to them in a kindly manner wouldn't work maybe threats would, of course he had no intention of following them through but it was worth a try surely if it would get these people motivated.
Rolling to get them to follow him Easy (15) Charisma (15) Leadership I (Unlearned) Militarism I (Unlearned) Threshold: 30
Now they were just looking at him still. A few of them had begun and then stopped when they saw that the rest hadn't. It was embarrassing almost that these men wouldn't listen to him, they were his subjects even if they didn't know it. "Would you rather be killed by the first enemy that you came across? If you men are defeated then these lands are open to the invader. Cultists? Bandits? Demons? Would you leave your families to the whims of your invaders because you weren't strong enough to defend them. This may seem like nothing but even a little more training could be the difference between life and death, not just for you but for those you care about also."
Rolling to get them to follow him (again) Easy (15) Charisma (15) Leadership I (Unlearned) Militarism I (Unlearned) Threshold: 30
Now they were swinging along happily with him, it was good to see that these men held their families dear. He might not have the most polished and best men in all of Cruinthe but he had good men, and that was far more important to him that these men were determined to protect their families and friends.
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Post by Kell Lo'Tharan on Jan 31, 2017 20:15:10 GMT -5
They seemed to go well once again, none of them were anywhere clsoe to the perfect physical specimen and therefore the perfect infantryman for his forces, but none were slacking all to much either and what they lacked in skill and training they more than made up for in their dedication to the work now that it'd been made clear to them what could be on the line should they fail. Kell swung his sword along with the rest, it was more hard work than he was used to, especially in the heavy set of armour. It wasn't as if he could take the armour off however if he wanted to keep his identity secret as he'd been planning to do this whole time and intended to continue.
Once they'd finished it was time for a water break, the well behind Kevin's hut was very quickly surrounded by some incredibly sweaty and tired looking men causing quite a large amount of noise as they talked amongst themselves in the break they'd been given. Kell himself took a mug full from the bucket and sat himself a short distance away as he appraised the men, they all seemed like good honest men and it heartened him to see them so, it was good to see that they were willing to do their part for the land as well as anyone else was even if they were very rarely called upon.
Their water break may have lasted a fair bit longer than Kell had initially planned it to, this being in no small part due to the fact that Kell himself had been rather tired out by the last activity, as unused to physical exercise of this sort as he was. Still, they did resume after not too long, the next part of their training was an obstacle course. Built by the combined effort of Kell and Kevin earlier that morning it wasn't anything overly impressive but it would serve it's purpose, there were ropes dangling down that they'd have to climb, obstacles to jump over or crawl under and even pits to leap. It was only designed for today so the quality of it wasn't much of a problem, but Kell made a note to himself that in the future maybe they should invest in some proper training equipment, Kevin could even make it if that would be easier for them.
"Next task is a little bit of fun, each of you will take a go at this and we'll see who can complete it the fastest. Think of it as a race, because it is a race." Kell separated them out and formed the men into a line, readying them to go at his shout.
Rollling for the men to follow Kell Easy (15) Charisma (15) Leadership I (Unlearned) Militarism I (Unlearned) ry1|g1XW
They appeared sceptical to begin with, understandable enough really considering the course was made of roughly hewn branches and ropes, but after a few looks and a small demonstration of each obstacle from Kell the men were running round it in no time.·····
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Post by Kell Lo'Tharan on May 21, 2017 16:48:14 GMT -5
Maneuvers went fairly well the next day, he was beginning to focus a bit more on the archers, he'd foccussed on his regular infantrymen a lot already and so he felt it was only fair he spent some time on the rest also. For now that simply consisted of having set up a number of wooden and straw targets at varying distances from a line set in the dirt, some were partially hidden behind trees and some were clumped together at long distances and the like, he did need to see what he was working with when it came to his archers after all.
After letting them shoot a bit it was quite clear they definitely weren't the most proficient archers that there was, each man could fire at distance and hit an area sufficient for a large scale battle where men would be everywhere, but none were more proficient than that. It seemed unfortunately that within this lot he had no sharpshooters, although it was understandable considering that most of the men currently within his platoon of archers were former woodsmen at best and so had only ever shot animals at shorter range, and even then there weren't many who'd been able to do that. The majority were simply people who'd thought the bow better than the sword and it'd keep them alive longer, he'd given them all better equipment than they were used to and he was hoping that their current problems were mainly attributed to that.
Either way he would keep rotating out his archers making each step up to the line in groups of 20 and fire a full quiver before fetching their arrows and rotating out to the next squad. In this case practice would have to make perfect because he needed them to be firing as on target as they could be, even if it meant that from now on every day they each fired a couple of hundred arrows a day in order to improve their aim.
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Post by Kell Lo'Tharan on May 21, 2017 17:08:20 GMT -5
His archers still needed some more work he had decided, the infantry had received several times the amount of his attention and while they would be holding the front line in the battle they weren't necessarily the most important, the archers also filled a vital role on the battlefield. That and he himself preferred the bow to the sword, it was far more deadly in his opinion purely because of its ability to hit from afar.
For now he'd just set them once again to firing their arrows, the more proficient ones were giving tips to those who were barely hitting the targets, and Kell was chiming in where he could also. He wasn't a particularly fantastic archer himself but he definitely had the skill that he could stand in an archer platoon should the need arise, so he was able to help with little bits and pieces of the training, although the majority of it seemed to almost be run by the former woodsmen and hunters who'd been using their bows for years.
From the time they'd spent working the lands or plying their trade most of the men had the muscle needed, they could pull their bows back far enough fairly easily, although in Kell's mind they'd need to improve as in the future if he could get them using larger or higher draw weight bows then they could shoot further and with far more power. If he could get enough men with huge siege bows then he could outrange any enemy and decimate them before they even got close enough to hit his infantry, that was the dream but it would be a long time before that was a reality.
For now it was just lots of highly repetitive shooting, although now with a slight twist to liven things up a bit. Now he was calling out specific targets for the men rather than just letting them choose, hopefully pushing a few out of their comfort zones and making them shoot at targets they hadn't wanted to attempt before.
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Post by Azuloth on May 21, 2017 18:45:43 GMT -5
+2 Army stat points.
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