Choose your warrior wisely LULZ
>Knight Hospitaller - Principality of Antioch
>Samurai - Kamakura Shogunate
>Varangian Guardsman - Eastern Roman Empire
>Steppe Warrior - Cumania
one will protect you the others will try to kill you
they can bring any gear they would have access to in 1200AD
Varangian guard ease i mean it's in the name
*easy
Cumanian since he is the only one that actually has a horse.
>Chose steppe warrior
>tell him to fight on foot
>steal his horse and run away
He's got a horse in the background
Hospitaller - Principality of Antioch
Guardsman - Eastern Roman Empire
Warrior - Cumania
wrecked by the Mongols
- Kamakura Shogunate
destroyed the Mongols
seems to me the steppe warrior would be the best solo fighter of the bunch
Retard
Steppe fighters were the best when in armies
Not as individual fighters
If you want an individual fighter, you need the varangian
Dude, Mongol and Turkic khans used men from Caucasus for their bodyguards for a reason.
Mongol rulers famously used Alans and others instead of their own keshigs
Probably for the same reason the Varangians were used: to not give the duty of bodyguard to potential political rivals. Those foreign guards probably had little affiliation with the native ruling classes and were mostly reliant on their employer.
>You think the royal guard walked around on foot while on campaign lol?
I qouted the wiki page with that exact statement. I am asking if the Varangians had a dedicated cavalry arm that fought mounted.
>though sometimes they did.
Examples?
Crusader is objectively the superior choice
they had access to the best weapons and horses in Europe + they were all noblemen who spent most of their life training + religious fanaticism for fantastic morale
Varangian.
Vikings were the ultimate weapon, deploy 1000 of these fucks and you can conquer an empire
The Knight would on average be the most well armed and trained.
What is the Samurai doing here, he'd get mogged by any one of those 1v1
The knight. Idk Ive been reading a lot of medieval history and there progression from frankish warband to God's warriors covered in gleaming plate is pretty cool
I could just ride away with the cuman - yes the knight and samurai also had horses but I think (totally unfounded) that the cuman horsemanship is more suited to endurance, thus allowing to pick and choose the time and circumstance of the engagement.
What really interests me: Did the Varangian Guard have a cavalry arm? It seems not.
From wiki:
>In some sources, such as Anna Komnene's The Alexiad, they are described as mounted; both Vikings and elite Anglo-Saxon warriors routinely used horses for strategic mobility even though they normally fought on foot.
Does anybody know more?
The Varangians absolutely all had horses, they just didnt fight as cavalry most often, though sometimes they did.
What? You think the royal guard walked around on foot while on campaign lol?
>but I think (totally unfounded) that the cuman horsemanship is more suited to endurance
You are correct, in that it is unfounded. The Cuman horses were smaller and less able to endure long rides. The Western European Destrier was by far the most durable horse in the world, they were faster, larger and had more stamina than other horses. The problem is that they are extremely expensive to maintain and train and the amount of men that used them was also very small. Compared to say a Turkmen army which on campaign was likely to have multiple steppe horses for every man, the Crusader armies had only 20% of men at most with cavalry and only the Knights or wealthy Squires able to afford a Destrier, even fewer multiple of them.
Interesting. Wouldn't that also mean that those Destriers needed more food to sustain themselves?
Naturally. They were quite larger horses.
I assume that all of these warriors would be on foot for the fight otherwise the Varangian would be at a distinct disadvantage as the other warriors were all cavalry. I'd then ask for the specific time period you're using for each soldier since that changes what equipment they have access to...
Considering the Byzantines were destroyed by Western Christians picking the Varangian would be a bad idea, Samurai were too lightly armored and contrary to popular belief whilst their swords were sharp the quality of their minerals were such that the swords were known for snapping, blunting and chipping easily.
A Cuman/Steppe warrior on foot would be out of his comfort zone and the Hospitaler has experience dealing with people who fight like him from his campaigns in the Crusades (he also has a moral obligation to defend Christians).