Bandit raids and rival baron claims in Manor Lords present an existential threat to your fledgling medieval village. While hiring mercenary bands is possible if you hoard personal treasury funds, your primary defense will always be the peasant militia. Every able-bodied male peasant residing in your Burgage Plots can be called to arms, but sending unarmored farmers with wooden sticks into battle results in mass slaughter and an obliterated municipal workforce.
What this covers: Militia unit archetypes, blacksmith weapon manufacturing, armor tiers, morale dynamics, and battlefield defensive stances. Why it matters: Casualties suffered by militia units permanently remove adult male heads-of-household from your village economic production lines. Who should pick this: Rulers struggling to defend their first trade routes against bandit encampments and expansionist lords.
Militia Archetypes and Equipment Requirements
A full militia regiment consists of 36 men. To muster an effective force, your village storehouses must contain sufficient weapons and defensive gear.
| Unit Type | Weapon Requirement | Shield Requirement | Armor (auto-equipped by home Burgage level) | Tactical Specialty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spear Militia | 36x Spear | 36x Large Shield | Helmets (L1); + Gambesons (L2); + Mail Armor (L3) | Frontline holding anvil, cavalry repellent |
| Polearm Militia | 36x Polearm | None | Helmets (L1); + Gambesons (L2); + Mail Armor (L3) | Heavy armor piercing, flank shock troops |
| Footmen Militia | 36x Sidearm (Sword) | 36x Small Shield | Helmets (L1); + Gambesons (L2); + Mail Armor (L3) | Flexible melee brawlers, balanced defense |
| Archer Militia | 36x Warbow | None | Helmets (L1); + Gambesons (L2); + Mail Armor (L3) | Ranged suppression, hill skirmishing |
| Lord’s Retinue | Customizable Elite | None — no shield requirement | Customized with Treasury — Plate Armor & Full Mail | Indestructible personal vanguard, high morale |
Armor is never a muster requirement — it is optional, and soldiers fight without it if none is in stock. Militia equip whatever armor is available automatically, gated by their home Burgage Plot level: Level 1 plots equip helmets, Level 2 adds gambesons, and Level 3 adds mail armor.
| Burgage level | Upgrade cost | Militia armour unlocked |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | 2 Timber | Helmets |
| Level 2 | 2 Timber, 6 Planks | Helmets and Gambesons |
| Level 3 | 25 Regional Wealth, 3 Timber, 12 Planks, 4 Rooftiles | Helmets, Gambesons and Mail Armor |
| Level 4 | 50 Regional Wealth, 2 Timber, 10 Planks, 4 Rooftiles | No new armour tier — one extra living space |
Level 4, added in the 0.8.104 build, is an economy upgrade rather than a military one: it buys living space, not protection. Gambesons come from a Tailor’s Shop (2 Linen), while helmets, mail and plate need the Basic, Advanced and Master Armormaking developments respectively before an Armorer’s Shop can make them.
Mustering a Militia: Caps, Notifications and Who Gets Drafted
Recruiting happens in the Army tab: pick a unit type from the panel, then select Rally and plant the banner where the men should gather. A few rules decide how many of them actually arrive.
| Constraint | What it means | How to work around it |
|---|---|---|
| 36-men unit cap | A full unit is 36 soldiers, but a unit forms smaller if the settlement cannot equip that many | Build weapons before recruiting; several smaller units can cover the same ground |
| Militia unit cap | Militia cannot be recruited once the army already holds 6 units | Fill the army with militia first, then add Retinue and mercenaries |
| Recruits Missing | The levy needs more families than the settlement has | Add Burgage Plots to attract settlers, or muster fewer units |
| Equipment Missing | Fewer weapons or shields in storage than the unit needs | Mine and smith more, or import what is missing |
Who gets drafted matters as much as how many. Civilians are drafted randomly from the men who are not specialists — a resident working an advanced backyard extension is exempt from the levy. That cuts both ways: a village full of artisan workshops fields a smaller force, but the producers who keep iron and shields flowing stay at their benches instead of dying in a field. Every militia casualty is a family removed from the settlement’s workforce, so calling the levy is an economic decision as much as a military one.
Industry Chain: Arming Your People
To stop relying on expensive foreign weapons imports from the trading post, construct domestic artisan workshops attached to your Burgage Plots:
- Iron Ore to Bloomery: Mine regional iron deposits, then smelt raw ore into Iron Slabs at the Bloomery.
- Blacksmith Backyard Extension: Upgrade a Level 2 Burgage Plot with a Blacksmith workshop extension to craft Spears and Sidearms from Iron Slabs.
- Joiner Workshop: Upgrade another plot into a Joiner extension to convert cut Planks into Large Shields and Small Shields.
- Fletcher Workshop: Dedicate a plot to a Fletcher to produce Warbows directly from basic Planks.
| Workshop (Burgage extension) | Input | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Blacksmith’s Shop | 1 Iron Slab + 1 Plank | 2 Spears |
| Blacksmith’s Shop | 2 Iron Slabs | 1 Sidearm |
| Blacksmith’s Shop | 1 Iron Slab + 1 Plank | 1 Polearm |
| Joiner’s Shop | 2 Planks | 1 Large Shield |
| Bowyer’s Shop | 1 Plank | 1 Warbow |
| Bowyer’s Shop | 1 Plank + 1 Iron Part | 1 Crossbow |
| Tailor’s Shop | 2 Linen | 1 Gambesons |
| Armorer’s Shop | 2 Iron Slabs | 1 Helmet |
| Armorer’s Shop | 3 Iron Slabs | 1 Mail Armor |
| Armorer’s Shop | 6 Iron Slabs | 1 Plate Armor |
These are Tier 2 extensions, which means they turn every resident of that plot into an artisan — the family stops contributing labour to fields, mines and other workplaces and works exclusively in its backyard. That is the real price of a domestic arms industry: you trade general labour for a reliable supply of spears, shields and mail.
Battlefield Mechanics: Fatigue, Stances, and Morale
Combat in Manor Lords is heavily dictated by realistic physics. Never run your troops across the entire map to reach the enemy; doing so depletes their Fatigue bar, and fatigue has a negative impact on your army’s combat skills.
- Stand Ground Stance: Doubles the unit’s defense while halving the damage it deals — essential for holding a line until reinforcements arrive or finishing off a weaker enemy without heavy losses. The order that actually locks shields is the separate Shieldwall mode: exclusive to shield-wielding soldiers, it slows the unit significantly in exchange for a significant defense bonus.
- Push Forward Stance: Commands the unit to aggressively push into enemy lines to break their cohesion, trading defensive safety for offensive pressure.
- Give Ground Stance: Slowly falls back while maintaining formation. Excellent for baiting enemy lines into dangerous flanking pockets where your Polearms or Retinue can strike their flanks.
Three further orders are situational rather than general-purpose, and two of them cannot be given once blades are already out:
| March mode | Effect | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Balanced | No bonuses and no penalties | Default movement |
| Missile alert | Chance to dodge projectiles is doubled, but incoming melee damage is also doubled | Closing on an archer-only force, or feinting at a volley |
| Spread out | Faster and better at dodging ranged attacks, worse in melee; unavailable during combat | Crossing open ground under fire |
| Shoot at will | Ranged units only, unavailable during combat: less accurate at long range, more accurate up close | Pre-staging archers before a line closes |
| Shieldwall | Shield-wielding soldiers only, unavailable during combat: much slower, much better defended | Forming up before contact |
Fatigue is not the only physics in play. Slavic Magic’s own description of the battle system lists morale, flanking, fatigue, weather and equipment as the inputs that decide fights, and notes that a smaller force can beat a larger one if it is commanded well — which is the argument for positioning Spear Militia on the anvil, polearms on the flank and archers on the ridge instead of marching everyone into one line.
The Lord’s Retinue: Customization and Upgrades
Unlike the peasant militia who must return to their plows after peace is signed, the Retinue lives permanently inside your Manor manor-house garrison. Retinue soldiers do not pull labor away from farms, and their armor can be directly upgraded using personal Treasury funds. Upgrading your Retinue to full plate armor turns them into walking juggernauts capable of routing entire bandit bands alone.
The Retinue’s numbers follow a fixed ladder: five soldiers arrive with the first Manor, additional soldiers cost 50 Treasury each, the unit caps at 12, and every Garrison Tower added to the manor raises that ceiling by another 12. Treasury, not Regional Wealth, is the currency here — which is also what mercenary contracts are paid in.
Mercenaries: Stats, Companies and Monthly Cost
Mercenaries are the third recruitment source. Eight companies exist, three are offered at random each month, and each squad is paid in Treasury every month rather than equipped from your own workshops. They arrive ready to fight and vanish the moment they are disbanded, and a company can appear in a different region, which costs travel time before they reach the front.
| Mercenary unit | ATK | ARM | Shield | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brigand | 2 | 5 | 3 | Cheapest melee filler |
| Light Mercenary Infantry | 2 | 6 | 3 | General-purpose line |
| Light Mercenary Spearmen | 1 | 8 | 8 | Defensive spear block |
| Light Mercenary Archers | 4 | 3 | 0 | 60 m range |
| Heavy Mercenary Archers | 4 | 8 | 0 | 60 m range, armoured |
| Company | Units | Monthly cost (Treasury) |
|---|---|---|
| Local Thugs | Brigand x1 | 15 |
| Brigands For Hire | Brigand x2 | 30 |
| The Wayward Sons | Light Mercenary Archers x1, Heavy Mercenary Archers x1 | 45 |
| Battle Brothers | Light Mercenary Infantry x1, Light Mercenary Spearmen x1 | 50 |
| The Brotherhood of the Forest | Brigand x1, Light Mercenary Archers x1 | 60 |
| Flock of Crazy Geese | Light Mercenary Archers x1, Light Mercenary Infantry x1, Light Mercenary Spearmen x1 | 90 |
| Greencaps | Light Mercenary Archers x1, Light Mercenary Infantry x2 | 90 |
| The Ravenous Vultures | Light Mercenary Infantry x3 | 110 |
Mercenaries look stronger than militia on paper, and in the first weeks they usually are. The ordering flips once the workshops catch up: a fully armoured Militia Footman or Spear Militia outclasses hired infantry, and armoured Archer Militia matches a Heavy Mercenary Archer while costing nothing per month. The Retinue still tops both lists, which is why the standard advice is to fill the army with militia first and treat mercenaries as a bridge, not a foundation.
Buying Arms Instead of Smithing Them
Every militia weapon is also a trade good, so there is always a Regional Wealth price on skipping the production chain entirely. Importing costs Regional Wealth, exporting earns it, and major trades — the goods that take several production steps — require a purchased trade route before a free merchant will visit on a schedule. Global market supply swings both directions: flood the market with a good and it sells for less, and an undersupplied market makes imports dearer.
| Military good | Export | Import | Trade route |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spears | 2 | 12 | 20 |
| Sidearms | 6 | 16 | 60 |
| Polearms | 4 | 14 | 40 |
| Warbows | 2 | 12 | 20 |
| Crossbows | 5 | 15 | 50 |
| Small Shields | 2 | 12 | 20 |
| Large Shields | 3 | 13 | 30 |
| Helmets | 6 | 16 | 60 |
| Gambesons | 10 | 20 | 100 |
| Mail Armor | 8 | 18 | 80 |
| Plate Armor | 16 | 26 | 160 |
That spread is the argument for a domestic chain. A full 36-man spear unit is 18 Iron Slabs and 18 Planks through a Blacksmith’s extension; buying the same 36 Spears costs 432 Regional Wealth, before the trade route and the 2-per-unit export ceiling are considered. Import the gap during a crisis, then build the workshops to stop paying it every time a baron looks at your border.