War of the Greenwood
Battania does not field armies in the rigid sense known to feudal realms. Its warbands are built from clan musters, kin retinues, and oath-bound champions who answer the call of their mormaer or the High King when the Greenwood is threatened. Muster horns are blown from hill-forts and ridge beacons lit at night. Warriors gather not in formal camps, but in forest clearings and stone rings where elders count heads and chiefs argue routes. Numbers swell and shrink as clans arrive or withhold support. This fluidity frustrates enemies who expect fixed strengths and predictable deployments.
Most Battanian warriors begin as peasants and volunteers drawn from woodland villages and hill farms. Few have formal training in formation warfare. Instead, skill is earned through hunting, raiding, clan feuds, and border skirmishes. A peasant who answers the call becomes a volunteer. Those who prove themselves in small clashes are recognized as clan warriors, wood runners, or bushwackers depending on whether they favor blade, speed, or bow. Highborn youths, drawn from clan families with long martial lineage, train early with the longbow and learn the customs of leadership alongside the arts of ambush and retreat.
As warriors survive campaigns, they rise through recognition rather than rank commission. Trained warriors, skirmishers, raiders, and freebooters are those who have learned to fight in loose coordination, strike supply lines, and withdraw without breaking. Highborn warriors emerge as leaders among archers and hill fighters, expected to set the example in daring and discipline. Advancement is visible on the body as much as in name: scars, favored weapons, and the trust of kin mark status more than insignia.
Veteran ranks reflect specialization sharpened by repeated war. Picked warriors form the hard core of infantry who can hold narrow passes or choke points. Scouts and mounted skirmishers operate on the fringes of forest and moorland, riding hardy hill-ponies suited to rough ground rather than charging horses bred for open field. Skirmishers and river raiders learn to move along streams and ravines, striking where patrols thin. Falxmen, wielding heavy hooked blades, are used to break shields and drag armored foes out of formation in close terrain. Veteran falxmen are feared in narrow passes where armor becomes a liability rather than protection.
At the highest levels of Battanian warcraft stand the oathsworn and the fian. Oathsworn are warriors bound by personal oath to a chieftain or mormaer, forming disciplined cores around which looser warbands cohere. They are not numerous, but they anchor retreats and hold ground when ambush gives way to open battle. The fian are the elite archers of Battania, trained from youth in the longbow and hardened by years of skirmish and border war. Their champions are living legends within the Greenwood, capable of breaking cavalry charges with disciplined volleys from concealment and turning narrow valleys into killing grounds.
Battanian warfare is built around terrain denial and attrition. They do not seek decisive battles on open plains unless forced. Instead, they cut supply lines, ambush foraging parties, harass march columns, and vanish into cover before heavy infantry or cavalry can bring weight to bear. They prefer to bleed an enemy until morale breaks or retreat becomes inevitable. When pressed into open battle, they attempt to draw opponents into broken ground where shields snag, horses stumble, and formations fracture.
Raiding is a culturally accepted mode of war within Battania, particularly between rival clans and against occupying forces. Cattle theft, night raids on outlying farms, and the capture of supplies are not viewed as crimes in wartime but as demonstrations of cunning and courage. However, prolonged feuding weakens the Greenwood, and High Kings have long attempted to channel these instincts outward against invaders rather than inward between clans. Success in this effort rises and falls with the personal authority of the reigning High King.
The Battanian approach to war prizes valor mixed with guile. A warrior who charges blindly into a shield wall is admired for bravery but mocked for wastefulness. The one who leads an enemy column into a ravine, strikes once, and disappears into fog is celebrated in song. Victory matters, but how it is achieved matters more. In the Greenwood Expanse, war is not about banners meeting banners. It is about making the land itself rise against those who march through it.