Re: Viking Age: Total War!

The Welsh did have a similar shortsword unit, so using the same wouldn't be bad, but the Irish ones did not use shields too often in this period, early medieval Irish armies used shields more extensively. These swordsman should be a very early unit, with very little armor, and if they have shields, rather poor ones, so little shield defense.

I've no problem with two Kern units, that sounds fine to me, but if you can get a modeller on board for the project, you could model it all into one unit. That would save space, by removing one unit, since you can only have 300 units total.

As for the bare legs remark, that is proper. You see, the leine, the shirt worn by Irish and Scots (and the Manx, too), comes only to the knee. So, the legs are generally bare. Only professional soldiers, in combat, wore trews (pants). On a statue, a leine looks like a kilt, it comes down about the same length, but kilts were not used until well into the late middle ages/early renaissance. In day-to-day wear, the average citizen, and even most of the arras, wore a leine, so their legs would be bare.

As for using the same Royal Guard, then go with Ridire. The Scots and Irish both used them, and the Welsh had an identical class of bodyguards, as did the pre-Nordic Manx and the pre-Saxon Corns. Ridire itself is the Saxon name that was used for all of them, they all had unique names though, but are commonly recognized as Ridire.

And remember, the Irish flag is blue, not green, with a yellow Irish harp, and the Scots had just adopted St. Andrew's Cross for their flag (white criss-cross on a blue field) around 890. The flag of Leinster, and Dublin, for that matter, for a while anyway, was identical to the Irish flag, except the field was green.

Good then, that battles with the Scandinavians will be long, historically accurate, that. Brian Boroime used to say, when campaigning against the vikings and their Leinstermen allies; "The problem with the Danes is that they don't want to leave, and will fight until they're all dead. Their problem is that we'll do the same." Gaels, Scottish and Irish, were fiercely nationalistic, even though real nationalism wouldn't be typified until the French revolution, but this was really similar, and generally very religious. It'll be fun to see them fight with the Nordic invaders (Danes, in Ireland, most people assume the invaders there were from Hordaland and such, but the truth is, they were mainly Danes, and sometimes a few Jutes, however, the Irish called ALL Nords Danes, except those from Hordaland and Iceland, who were called Garedhgolth, Infernal Goths).

On Welsh horse archers, I was a bit surprised, initially, too, as they were a type of skilled horse archer, not unlike the steppe people utilized, and likely comparable in their skill. But, they are a footnote in history, thus often overlooked, because they were overshadowed, easily, by the skill and science of Welsh longbows. However, they would give a unique dimension, I think, to a Welsh faction in the British isles. And while the Welsh would share some units with the Irish/Scots, be careful to not make them too similar, as the Welsh, being of Brythonic extraction, not Goedelic, were quite different in many aspects, including militarily. However, all did have lightly armored swordsman on a clan level, for raiding, that were sometimes employed to fight larger enemies. If possible, try and divide Wales into a north half (Morganwydd) and a south half (Gwynydd), so the Welsh have more than one province. They won't be big, but, then, many of the original provinces for Rome weren't huge (Palma). The cities could be at Dinas Powys or Caernoforn, and Dyfydd or Cardiff in the south.