Factions Thread - Winds of War: Blood and Steel - 1870 mod for Mount & Blade: Warband

Faction suggestions go here.

Is this thread for suggesting changes to existing factions, proposing entirely new factions or both? If the latter, may I suggest a Taiping-based faction in the east? Historically they (the 'Great Peaceful Kingdom of Heaven', as the Taipings called their state) were a rebellion powered mostly by peasants & the poor in southern China who were disillusioned by the weakness & corruption of the Qing, believed their leader was the younger brother of Jesus who had been divinely ordained to purge China of 'demons' & establish Heaven on Earth, allowed women to fight, and enacted a mix of both positive (ex. banning the practice of footbinding, land reform, attempts at gender equality like letting women attend their new imperial exams) and out-there (ex. segregating the sexes, forcibly converting people to the Taiping God Worshiper sect, killing all Manchus they could get their hands on, outlawing vices like opium use, polygamy & prostitution under penalty of death) reforms. They did pretty well for over a decade, using both traditional weapons & firearms to defeat larger gov't armies and only being brought down with significant foreign assistance to the Qing after 14 years of war, leaving 20+ million dead in their wake. A Taiping-like faction intent on replacing the incumbent Imperial Dynasty with their own Messianic bloodline of questionable sanity could contend with the Chengdao Empire from the get-go, mirroring the conflict between the traditionalists & modernist Imperialists in Nihonei.

Some images of Taiping forces for reference, if you're interested:

And a 12-minute battle sequence from the movie that I got the three lower pics from, The Warlords: Youtube.com

As well as another Taiping-centric movie, 1 hour in length. It's entirely in Chinese with no translation (not even English subtitles, unlike the other vid I linked), but you can get a good look at Taiping dress from the basic grunts upward to the generals, Hong Xiuquan's 'kings' (chief lieutenants), the 'Heavenly King' himself and even their female leaders (civilian and otherwise): Youtube.com

Edited by: gorjak

The main Rebel/Bandit faction we have for the Chengdao is sort of inspired by the Taiping.

Glad to hear that, and sorry about the month-late reply (got too busy RL to keep up with developments across the M&B modding scene) by the way. On the topic of faction suggestions - have you considered a Greek or other Balkan-based faction in the Sarranid/Rhodok border faction? Examples of 1870s-1880s Balkan uniforms that I've been able to scrounge up include:

Greek troop uniforms from 1870 to 1909 (naturally they didn't adopt the khakis until long after 1870, so you can probably ignore the guys in khaki uniforms):

Greek soldiers engaged in a skirmish with the Turks, this is technically from the 1897 war but if you compare it to the above image the Greeks still appear to be using their 1870s uniforms (at the time, their army lagged behind the Ottomans technologically):

Greek cavalry from the same war, still sporting vintage 1870-80 uniforms:

Mid-19th century Serbian infantry:

Serbian cavalryman, 1878:

Serbian wounded being evacuated in the Serbo-Turkish War of 1876-8:

Bulgarians fighting the Serbs under the direction of their Tsar, Alexander I of Battenberg:

Reenactors portraying Bulgarian 'opalchentsi', pro-Russian militia who fought against the Turks in the 1877-78 war:

Romanians storming a Turkish redoubt in support of Russia at the Siege of Plevna, 1877:

Romanian troops fighting in the winter of the 1877-8 war, clearly wearing shakos instead of their traditional hats:

Reenactors portraying late 19th century Romanian light and (clearly French-influenced) line infantry:

Have you guys considered adding a south African faction like the Zulu Empire? I think that would be cool, plus Africa was the main area that England was expanding into in this era.

We're considering a faction in the future post release that will basically be a composite of several african states and cultures, but for the time being what we've announced is what you will be getting.

Each faction comes it a huge amount of scene work.

NP, thanks for the reply. I just thought the idea of a Zulu nation would be cool, seeing as your mod is set in the (equivalent) time of events like the battle of Isandlwanda and Rorke's Drift. It's cool to hear that you are considering an African faction, I'm really looking forward to seeing this mod in action.

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• If your not for the whole Empire thing; go the path of waging war against the natives, build up your resources and rule with an iron fist over the shattered remnants of the Native populations tribes; Or, if your not the Voortrekking type, wage a war for Africa against the Republics, and crush them underfoot!
• The Uniforms for such a faction don't have to be glorious; but they can certainly be basic sort of odds and ends of different attire, slapped together and worn with a bandoleer of bullets, ready to repel any invaders; and look trashy while doing it!
• Think of the farmer; perhaps these lot have the benefit of extra towns, and thus; farms, to produce whatever a hungry Boer would need; but also a tasty target for any Empire in need of a ton of resources and trading, as a boon for Empire!
• Handy amount of cheap infantry to hire from local farms, after all; if your coin is good, the rifle is ready.

My suggestion for a faction would be an something along the lines of a Ethiopian Empire faction. As one of two African nations who managed to survive autonomously throughout the entire Scramble for Africa I think they'd be a unique faction which could bring a unique outlook to the table. Playing as the last bastion of autonomous African civilization could be a unique and fun challenge in my opinion. Especially considering Ethiopia is one of the most notable cases of indigenous Africans soundly defeating their would-be conquerors.

If I had to suggest one other African faction I would suggest one based off of the Ashanti Empire, a west African nation that managed to resist British conquest attempts until 1874 when it was forced to become a protectorate. This could be a faction that mixes both skill with firearms with strong melee soldiers. While they won't be the flashiest faction or the biggest , they should be effective .

My final suggestion for African factions would be an amalgam of the many western African Muslim states like the Sokoto Caliphate, Bornu Empire and Songhai empire. These empires while a bit primitive in comparison to their peers were still heavily organized and the Sokoto Caliphate survived until 1913 in Northern Nigeria. The main emphasis of these factions would be their mounted Musketeers, who would be equipped with Sumarid rifles , padded armor or chain mail (their heavy infantry could wear this sort of armor as well) and would use unique African style throwing weapons. They would be rich in resources from the start of the game ,but the drawback would be their relatively primitive technology.

Edited by: majprowls

Hey guys I got a few sugerencies about the Sonoran faction.

I have seen the models of the units and while you have made a good job recreating the uniforms, I fear they are out of time. The uniforms that are in the mod are from 1810-1840, when the mexican independence started and when the USA invaded Mexico, more or less. For the time when the French invaded the country in 1862, the uniforms where already kinda different.

Mexican Troops

Mexican Troops "Cinco de Mayo: La Batalla" reference.

Mexican and French troops fighting during the Battle of Puebla 1862.

Mexican recreation of the Battle of Puebla in 2012, complete event here: Youtube.com in Spanish though .

Photo of Mexican Republican Troops that fought against the Second Mexican Empire (a monarchy settled by the French Empire)

Porfirio Díaz, a very important general during the fighting against the French 1862-1867

A manikin of Díaz in his captain uniform

Ignacio Zaragoza, the general that commanded the defense of Puebla on 5/5/1862, recreation in the movie "Cinco de Mayo: La Batalla"

Painting and Uniform of General Ignacio de Zaragoza

The Catedral Metropolitana in Mexico City ocupied by French forces in 1863

French forces attacking Guadalupe's Fort during the Battle of Puebla in 1862.

I know you're not looking for a 100% historical accuarate mod, but this might be helpful.

My suggestion. Imperial Qing. Major power during the Victorian era, it had one of the most power navies in the world with over 70 navy ships, but couldn't defeat the Europeans due to interior corruptions. They fought against the British 3 times. First time Opium war. 2nd time the 2nd Opium War 3rd time, the Boxer rebellion. Fought against the French few times too. Especially the Vietnam campaign, where Qing actually defeated the French army couple of times in several battles despite having inferior weaponry. It also fought against the Taiping Rebellion and the campaign was considered as one of the most deadliest campaign in history. The number of casualties including both sides exceeded more than 20 million literally the half of the Great War. Qing fought against the Japanese as well during the 1st Sino-Japanese war where the Beiyang Fleet one of the strongest fleet during that era nearly defeated the Japanese flying squadron but lost due to corruption of the military.

Some pictures of the Imperial Qing Army

Imperial Army fighting the British in Peking 1860s

Imperial Army fighting the French during the Siege of Taku Fort

Despite Qing lost against the European powers, the Qing warriors' fighting spirit to protect China's 5000 years of history and culture shouldn't be ignored. Qing was an extremely powerful nation, sure it had problems with corruption, but every country during that era had some problems too. I think players should get the option to play as the Imperial Qing to have a chance to fend off the Imperialist and change history in a video game.

T

This is not a Faction of it's own but more an interesting story for the pretenders.

The 1870's was the rise of socialist ideas thought through all of Europe (of some sort). So maybe you could make some pretenders aiming for a socialist revolution. I'm more heading towards the commune of Paris as an historical example. Maybe you could even implement a new book in the game that will give +1 charisma and leadership after reading, (The Manifesto of Communists by Marc Karlson or something (based on the communist manifesto by Karl Marx).

But even then you could make a socialist city state as a faction.
Like you can see the culture of the Paris commune is indeed french. And because it was a three month revolution they did not have another uniform for their army. Maybe for the sake of diversity you could give them more red and black accents instead of red an blue? Maybe even just civilian styled clothing for the lower tiers.

Edited by: darthzeno