Sword Sister

Sword Sister
Troop Information
Culture	Mercenaries
Wages	38-20 denars
Acquired from...	Camp Defender
Upgrades to...	N/A
Upgrade Cost	N/A
XP for Kill	204 xp
Ransom Value	170 denars

Sword Sisters are elite female mercenary cavalry. Despite slowly evolving from initially vulnerable and unarmed women, Sword Sisters are powerful fighters on par with Mercenary Cavalry.

Sword Sisters demand significantly lower wages compared to their male counterparts, therefore procuring them can be very worthwhile from a financial point of view. The most reliable way to acquire Sword Sisters is by upgrading Refugees and Peasant Women. These units are difficult to acquire as they can only be hired from a defeated party's prisoners or captured by attacking traveling villagers, so for most players, this troop line will be very rare.

Tactics

Sword Sisters ride fast Coursers and often pack Crossbows, so they excel against other light and medium cavalry or scattered archers. However, densely packed formations of infantry should best be countered with the heavier mounted units such as Vaegir and Swadian Knights or Mercenary Cavalry.

They wear Plate Armor, making them extremely durable, but strangely they sometimes appear without helmets - this results in occasional deaths from a single shot to the head. This drawback is most inconvenient when attacking castles and towns, where your Sword Sisters are especially vulnerable to archer fire from above. Also note that the Sisters ride unarmored horses, so they are unhorsed more often than other cavalry of similar levels. They also have low Ironflesh and Power Strike skills for an elite unit.

Sword Sisters should not be underestimated, because their heavy armor, fast horses, and sabres make them formidable combatants. They can be one of the most effective mounted units against light cavalry. However, if you only have a few Sword Sisters, their speedy mounts are a disadvantage as they will rush out in front of your slower forces and take the full force of the initial clash. If this is a problem, give your troops orders that will force them to stay together at least until you meet the enemy. Sword Sisters are vulnerable to large amounts of infantry which exploit their biggest weakness, the courser's weak armor and lack of hit points.

In castle sieges, their occasional random crossbow can be useful and their plate armor allows them enough defence to cut down most lightly-armored units with ease.

Once unhorsed, Sword Sisters perform reasonably well in fighting withdrawals, where they pull back to join any infantry holding position. Their shields permit them to weather enemy attacks and their fast blades give them a good chance at counter-attacking foes armed with slower weapons. If unhorsed on the wrong side of an enemy formation however, they will likely be overwhelmed and dispatched.

While very difficult to acquire, a full-sized army of Sword Sisters is extremely deadly and a lot cheaper to finance than one made of Swadian Knights. It is interesting to note that an army of all women will not cheer out loud after a victorious battle as there's no audio file recorded for them, resulting in a peculiar sudden calm as soon as the swords stop clashing and all the horses are brought to a halt.

Stats and equipment

Note: Troops have a set of default stats; at the beginning of a new game, these stats are randomly adjusted for each type of troop. The following is the default set for this troop as seen within the game code and may not reflect the specific stats you will see during actual gameplay. For more information, see troop stats.

Sword Sister - Default Stats and Equipment

Attributes Stat Points Level 22 Strength 7 Agility 5 Intelligence 4 Charisma 4 Health 44 Armor Head (Possible): Guard Helmet, Helmet with Neckguard Body Plate Armor, Coat of Plates (black) Hand Leather Gloves Foot Plate Boots Skills Skill Points Ironflesh 2 Power Strike 3 Power Throw ? Power Draw ? Weapon Master ? Shield 2 Athletics 3 Riding 5 Horse Archery ? Looting ? Trainer ? Tracking ? Tactics ? Path-finding ? Spotting ? Inventory Management 2 Wound Treatment ? Surgery ? First Aid ? Engineer ? Persuasion ? Prisoner Management 1 Leadership 1 Trade 2 Proficiencies Weapon Type Points One Handed Weapons 140 Two Handed Weapons 140 Polearms 140 Archery 140 Crossbows 140 Throwing 140 Weapons Melee Sword, Sabre Ranged (Possible): Crossbow, Bolts Shield Plate Covered Round Shield, Elite Cavalry Shield Mount Courser

Mercenary Troops
Sellswords						Sword Sisters
	Farmer	Townsman	Caravan Master			Peasant Woman	Refugee
	Watchman					Camp Follower
	Mercenary Crossbowman	Caravan Guard		Bandit		Camp Defender
		Mercenary Horseman	Mercenary Swordsman		Brigand	Huntress
		Mercenary Cavalry	Hired Blade			Sword Sister