Dogs of War Mercenary General race variety (WD Article)

SeanJeanquoi#3490

As it turns out, GamesWorkshop expanded the Dogs of War mercenary general (and captain) beyond the basic human one we got in their 5th edition Army Book. Here we see that you could take a variety of races as your general with varying traits, loadouts and mounts between the options:

Source: White Dwarf #234, pg 46-49

Bronzebeard

DoW could really be a cool mix of stuff! Hope they do something with it down the line. Wouldn't need that much effort in development either, just needs really good mechanics to be a hit!

Itharus#3127

DoW does not work as a faction.

It works as an army list.

So, great for MP or custom battles -- a non starter for campaign.




An army is not a nation. Not even Sparta, lol.

SerPus#7395

Itharus said:

DoW does not work as a faction.

It works just fine.

CaesarSahlertz

Itharus said:

DoW does not work as a faction.

It works as an army list.

So, great for MP or custom battles -- a non starter for campaign.




An army is not a nation. Not even Sparta, lol.

It works perfectly fine as a "horde" faction..

veresh1989

- Few high elves become mercenary generals, and those that do are often exiles, banished for dire misdeeds or forsaking their kindred with self-imposed exile.
- One or two elven mercenary generals had the misfortune to be shipwrecked and stranded in distant lands.
- Often people are unable to distinguish between high elf and dark elf mercenaries.
White Dwarf 234

It would be fun playing southern kingdoms to hire high elf generals

Commissar_G#7535

SerPus said:

Itharus said:

DoW does not work as a faction.

It works just fine.

He just refuses to accept they were removed as mercs for everybody.

I can't imagine holding onto a pre 2000's form of army list.

If DoW can't exist as a faction then Dwarfs can recruit monsters as cav as mercs. VC can recruit shooting etc.


It's an outdated, ridiculous form of Warhammer from before the attempted balancing of 6th edition.


It's like arguing all undead or chaos should be 1 race.

blindjonn

Itharus said:

DoW does not work as a faction.

It works as an army list.

So, great for MP or custom battles -- a non starter for campaign.

Eh, that's not very ambitious. Reworked Horde and Regiment of Renown mechanics, and a well thought out contract system could make Dogs of War the most unique and dynamic campaign in the game.

General_Hijalti#1213

Itharus said:

DoW does not work as a faction.

It works as an army list.

So, great for MP or custom battles -- a non starter for campaign.




An army is not a nation. Not even Sparta, lol.

Because Borgio wouldn't work as a lord with the Dow army list, oh wait yes he would.

urbanmech

Arthas_Menethil#3421

Itharus said:

DoW does not work as a faction.

It works as an army list.

So, great for MP or custom battles -- a non starter for campaign.




An army is not a nation. Not even Sparta, lol.

Nice of you to forget the point of Tilea.

Maelas

Itharus said:

DoW does not work as a faction.

I fail to see how Lucrezza, Borgio or Lupo don't work as factions, they are leaders of city-states, they conquer, they expand, it just happens they use mercenaries.

Yakinton#1016

Nice find, and yes Dog of war will work perfectly in the campaign. It is just the army list available to Tilea, Estalia, Border Princes, Marienburg, new world colonies and more I guess. Also as horde factions as well

#324448

It's definitely a cool lore source but I definitely feel like, if the Dogs of War/Southern Realms were to be implemented, the Mercenary Generals would just be humans. The whole vibe of "units from many different races coming together to form one army": feels much more Oldhammer/5th edition than the more modern take of "the armies of Tilea and its neighbors". I doubt Tilean Merchant Princes would be hiring very many Orcs or Dark Elves to do their bidding.

Red_Dox#2328

Giveaway412 said:

It's definitely a cool lore source but I definitely feel like, if the Dogs of War/Southern Realms were to be implemented, the Mercenary Generals would just be humans. The whole vibe of "units from many different races coming together to form one army": feels much more Oldhammer/5th edition than the more modern take of "the armies of Tilea and its neighbors". I doubt Tilean Merchant Princes would be hiring very many Orcs or Dark Elves to do their bidding.

Don't know. if you translate it over to TWW in form for TEB, we could have various Lords for our mercenary armystacks instead of just a bunch of humans. It really could spice up the gameyplay since I could build stacks around certain Lords. Especially if those Lords would buff certain units better then others. Like a Ogre Lord helping out Ogre Mercenaries better. I see potential with the idea here, but its hard to say if CA can make it work without knowing how Their DoW would look/play ingame.

For example the Souther Realm mod
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/1158737832/1489987634000558505/
has made good use of "just human Lords/Heroes". But even there I could see use for Ogre Mercenary Lord. Or a Dark Elf Sorceress leading some ragtag mercenaries.

------Red Dox

SeanJeanquoi#3490

@Itharus

They already showed us how the Dogs of War could work in 3 Kingdoms with the Bandits.

There's 2-3 possible routes they could take:

- They make the Southern Realms culture their own faction and make generic versions of some of the unique units like the Besiegers, but the roster would have holes in it which require Dogs of War units to supplement.


- Dogs of War could be rogue armies, similar to some of the ones with their namesakes already on the map. These armies would be horde factions that roam around doing work for other factions and stuff like the 3k Bandits.


- Dogs of war characters (Mengil Manhide, Asernil Dragenlord, Ulthar Stonehammer, Beorg Bearstruck), instead of being one eclectic mess, would be members of their parent factions (for example: Mengil would be a normal dark elf with limited access his parent factions roster) however, they have mechanics based around being mercenaries (like bandits in 3K) and they'd have access to the Dogs of War units.

I think they should do a mixture of all 3 to varying degrees.

I think Beorg Bearstruck should be a pure Norscan character (so little to no merc units) but should share the 3k mechanics (because he is a mercenary himself, but isn't a paymaster or merc general)

Ulthar Stonehammer could be a Rogue Army horde faction with a unique goal and access to mercs only from loreful sources (Kislev, Empire, Southern Realms, Dwarfs).

Southern Realms should indeed be expanded into their own cultural group separate from all the random RoR's, with their own generic units, however, their faction should have unique mechanics surrounding upkeep and leadership, as well as recruitment and they should be forced to rely on mercs to survive and plug holes in their roster.

Its going to be complicated, but it can be done.

Arthas_Menethil#3421

SeanJeanquoi said:

- They make the Southern Realms culture their own faction and make generic versions of some of the unique units like the Besiegers, but the roster would have holes in it which require Dogs of War units to supplement.



Southern Realms should indeed be expanded into their own cultural group separate from all the random RoR's, with their own generic units, however, their faction should have unique mechanics surrounding upkeep and leadership, as well as recruitment and they should be forced to rely on mercs to survive and plug holes in their roster.

The Southern Realms should not be split from the Dogs of War as Tilea is the homeland of the Dogs of War because that's what they are based on and that reflects alot of things about the Dogs of War.

"Southern Realms" is just CA grouping everything with Tilea it's a game term not a Warhammer one.

SeanJeanquoi#3490

@Arthas_Menethil

There is no "THE Dogs of War" there are simply Dogs of War, plural.

Tilea and Estalia are not the home of "THE" Dogs of War.

Some Dogs of War originate in Tilea and Estalia and are reflective of their local culture. Some do not (about half or more do not).

Most, however, are just mercenaries from every culture and creed, every area of the world who come and go from place to place, iin fact, many "Dogs of War" have their own agenda and only sell their services for coin (to everywhere btw, not just Tilea and Estalia) as subterfuge or out of necessity.

Scarloc's Archers, The Lost Kindred, Tichi Huichi's Raiders, Anakonda's Amazons and a fair few others aren't really mercenaries, nor do they have any particular affiliation with Tilea or Estalia themselves, they work for their own masters/peoples by selling their services.

Similarly, Ulthar Stonehammer is only a mercenary/only hires mercenary's because he has to, Karak Ungor was taken from him and he's been fighting a guerrilla war against the Night Goblins there ever since, hiring out mercs from the Dwarfs, Empire and Kislev.

Then we have things like Golgfag's Maneaters, Oglah Khan's Wolfboyz and Beorg Bearstruck and the Bearmen of Urslo who work for whoever, whenever, just because, they have no special attachment to Tilea or Estalia in particular, in fact most of their lore is of elsewhere and Golgfag and his men in particular are even a part of the Ogre Kingdoms Army Book.

"Southern Realms" is just an umbrella term to describe everything that isn't Bretonnia or the Empire. Tilea and Estalia however share a culture, heritage, religion, history, architecture and so on. They do have a culture and as I laid out in my post, they have a unique army roster.

Dogs of War is just the warhammer word for mercenary. Tilea and Estalia are just the two richest places in the WH world who are regularly in need of mercenaries. That's it.

Even if you were right (and you aren't) implementing them your way would be a disaster. Mindlessly mashing together all of these different cultures, lords, heroes and RoR's into a horrible dogs dinner of a roster with no cohesion, structure or balance. It would also lead to a net-loss in content, as only so much can be implemented.

So rather than developing upon these ideas and thoughtfully fleshing them out in a way that creates 3-4+ new factions/playstyles with the source material we have, instead you'd have a mismatched monstrosity that leaves out much of the potential and outright ignores many of the characters and avenues for expansion because there can only really be 4 LL's in a traditional Race pack.

Arthas_Menethil#3421

SeanJeanquoi said:

Arthas_Menethil

There is no "THE Dogs of War" there are simply Dogs of War, plural.

Tilea and Estalia are not the home of "THE" Dogs of War.

Some Dogs of War originate in Tilea and Estalia and are reflective of their local culture.

Most, however, are just mercenaries from every culture and creed, every area of the world who come and go from place to place (in fact, many "Dogs of War" have their own agenda and only sell their services for coin (to everywhere btw, not just Tilea and Estalia) as subterfuge or out of necessity.

Scarloc's Archers, The Lost Kindred, Tichi Huichi's Raiders, Anakonda's Amazons and a fair few others aren't really mercenaries, nor do they have any particular affiliation with Tilea or Estalia themselves, they work for their own masters/peoples by selling their services.

Similarly, Ulthar Stonehammer is only a mercenary/only hires mercenary's because he has to, Karak Ungor was taken from him and he's been fighting a guerrilla war against the Night Goblins there ever since, hiring out mercs from the Dwarfs, Empire and Kislev.

Then we have things like Golgfag's Maneaters, Oglah Khan's Wolfboyz and Beorg Bearstruck and the Bearmen of Urslo who work for whoever, whenever, just because, they have no special attachment to Tilea or Estalia in particular, in fact most of their lore is of elsewhere and Golgfag and his men in particular are even a part of the Ogre Kingdoms Army Book.

"Southern Realms" is just an umbrella term to describe everything that isn't Bretonnia or the Empire. Tilea and Estalia however share a culture, heritage, religion, history, architecture and so on. They do have a culture and as I laid out in my post, they have a unique army roster.

Dogs of War is just the warhammer word for mercenary. Tilea and Estalia are just the two richest places in the WH world who are regularly in need of mercenaries. That's it.

Even if you were right (and you aren't) implementing them your way would be a disaster. Mindlessly mashing together all of these different cultures, lords, heroes and RoR's into a horrible dogs dinner of a roster with no cohesion, structure or balance. It would also lead to a net-loss in content, as only so much can be implemented.

So rather than developing upon these ideas and thoughtfully fleshing them out in a way that creates 3-4+ new factions/playstyles with the source material we have, instead you'd have a mismatched monstrosity that leaves out much of the potential and outright ignores many of the characters and avenues for expansion because there can only really be 4 LL's in a traditional Race pack.

Tilea IS the home of the Dogs of War that's why all of their special characters are in Tilea if you actually checked the source of the army book.

The actual Dogs of War LLs.

Borgio the Besieger - Prince of Mirangliano

Leonardo Da Miragliano - Tilean inventor

Lucrezzia Belladonna - Tilean Wizard

Mydas the Mean - Origins obscure history has him start in Sartosa.

Lorenzo Lupo - Tilean from Luccini

Marco Colombo - Tilean explorer who "discovered" Lustria.

The whole Dogs of War Book is focused on Tilea.

Removing the actual Dogs of War characters for RoR and Captains is bad and would be like removing Reikland from the Empire race with all the characters from Reikland and making it its own race.

You're trying to make a division where it does not make sense because the Dogs of War is Warhammers Condottiero which is why Tilea is based on Italy because Tilea is the focus of the Dogs of War so Tilea can't be anything but the Dogs of War.

Edit:




"In this way the armies of Tilea developed as mercenary armies".
Southern Realms is 100% a Dogs of War placeholder for the old and new worlds either as NPCs or start positions.

SeanJeanquoi#3490

@Arthas_Menethil

As I said, those are not "THE" Dogs of War, they are Tilean and Estalian Merchant Princes/Princesses (Aside from Mydas the Mean), figures who are significant to the culture and history of Tilea and Estlalia.

In the Army Book, for the sake of cohesion, the faction was framed through Tilea specifically, because Tilea is a very lucrative place for it, but the actual faction/Dogs of War as a whole stretches far beyond that.

Borgio has a fiercely loyal army, a loyalty that goes beyond coin. Many of the Characters have entire cities or states of guards, warriors and such, the religious sects of Tilea and Estalia also have military might and dominion over what is and isn't allowed and what should be done, like in the instance of the crusades, where Tilea and Estalia were dedicated to a Holy War because the Templar order of Margritta said so.

This is one of those instances where the contrivances of the Tabletop game don't actually reflect the world or lore at all (like the Sisters of Twilight being exclusively mounted characters). You are attempting to justify it through Tabletop, whereas I'm going off the actual world and lore.

No one said we should remove the RoR's or Characters from anything, they'd simply be shared or moved around.

Also, Sub-factions are a thing. Many people, including myself want a Nuln, Ulric and Ostland Sub-faction for the Empire. This would technically remove x and y things from the homogenous "Empire" and place it in the hands of one particular group where it makes sense. Then you have Vampire Coast and Tomb Kings that exist in the game right now where the faction as a whole contains x and y lord, unit etc, but confederation is either prohibited or neigh-impossible (which makes sense for them), This is the exact same thing.

Just because Mengil is a DoW leader off on his own doesn't mean he's totally disconnected from/cant interact with Borgio or the others. Some Characters are Merchant Princes, some are Mercenary generals who typically work for said princes. Borgio and similar characters to him would rely on the recruitment of factions like mengil who's mechanics are based around working for Borgio and others (like the bandits from 3K).

SeanJeanquoi#3490

@Arthas_Menethil

P.S. Ostland is also a mercenary state, just like Tilea, Estalia, the Borderlands and so on.

The Empire is also full of mercenaries in and of itself, from freelances, to Bounty hunters, to Halberdiers (Landsknecht) and so on (the Knights Encarmine are an example of mostly Imperial Dogs of War).

Then there's the living pirates from Sartosa, Port Reaver and elsewhere who also act as mercs and are also hired regularly by Tilea, Estalia and elsewhere.

SeanJeanquoi#3490

@Arthas_Menethil

Yup, their basic troops are mostly mercs on paper, but that includes 70% of the locals.

Almost every basic unit of Pikemen, Dualists, etc are technically mercenaries, but that doesn't have anything to do with "Dogs of War" as a whole, it just means their traditional method of training, recruitment etc is different to other cultures (again on paper, functionally its hardly different from other factions with high upkeep or low leadership).

This does not mean Tilea and Estalia are the beginning and end of "The" dogs of war. You've brought that quote up before and yet you still don't get it.

Arthas_Menethil#3421

SeanJeanquoi said:

Arthas_Menethil

As I said, those are not "THE" Dogs of War, they are Tilean and Estalian Merchant Princes/Princesses (Aside from Mydas the Mean), figures who are significant to the culture and history of Tilea and Estlalia.

In the Army Book, for the sake of cohesion, the faction was framed through Tilea specifically, because Tilea is a very lucrative place for it, but the actual faction/Dogs of War as a whole stretches far beyond that.

Borgio has a fiercely loyal army, a loyalty that goes beyond coin. Many of the Characters have entire cities or states of guards, warriors and such, the religious sects of Tilea and Estalia also have military might and dominion over what is and isn't allowed and what should be done, like in the instance of the crusades, where Tilea and Estalia were dedicated to a Holy War because the Templar order of Margritta said so.

This is one of those instances where the contrivances of the Tabletop game don't actually reflect the world or lore at all (like the Sisters of Twilight being exclusively mounted characters). You are attempting to justify it through Tabletop, whereas I'm going off the actual world and lore.

No one said we should remove the RoR's or Characters from anything, they'd simply be shared or moved around.

Also, Sub-factions are a thing. Many people, including myself want a Nuln, Ulric and Ostland Sub-faction for the Empire. This would technically remove x and y things from the homogenous "Empire" and place it in the hands of one particular group where it makes sense. Then you have Vampire Coast and Tomb Kings that exist in the game right now where the faction as a whole contains x and y lord, unit etc, but confederation is either prohibited or neigh-impossible (which makes sense for them), This is the exact same thing.

Just because Mengil is a DoW leader off on his own doesn't mean he's totally disconnected from/cant interact with Borgio or the others. Some Characters are Merchant Princes, some are Mercenary generals who typically work for said princes. Borgio and similar characters to him would rely on the recruitment of factions like mengil who's mechanics are based around working for Borgio and others (like the bandits from 3K).

You're asking for separate races not subfactions.
They should not be separate races because The Dogs of War is primarily Tilean something you do argue for. Hells the Core units are from TEB if I recall the descriptions for the common units and not the RoR.


"I'm going off the actual world and lore."
No you are not because if you were you would notice just how much of it is Tilean instead of going full veresh and saying they should be separate races when the different playstyle would come under sub factions not different races.

Mengil is a Captain of a unit a RoR not a full blown character like Borgio.

Only you are asking for a Ostland subfaction and Nuln and Ulric subfactions can 100% share the units because Nuln and Middenheim contain landmarks that can 100% be used for those Units like how the Reiksguard is for Reikland (Franz and Volkmar get the Reiksfort while Gelt and Wulfhart do not as they have to get it through the Reiksguard landmark in Altdorf because the Reikland faction gets to build the Reiksfort for easy access to that unit).

Edit: The mercenary part of the Empire isn't Ostland it is Marienburg. The 4th or 6th edition has a Marienburg themed army list that uses Dogs of War.

Edit 2 electric boogaloo:

SeanJeanquoi#3490

@Arthas_Menethil

I said they should be implemented on a case by case basis which makes the most sense for x faction. I didn't say they should be completely separate and never share resources. If you read my posts, I explained in both (and just reiterated to you 2 minutes ago) how they'd have a relationship with one another and RoR's would be shared, but no Dog of War or Tileo-Estalian character would share every single unit, character, lord or hero across their factions.

Mengil would have more access to basic Dark Elves. Beorg would we a straight up Norscan, with the possibility of accessing some DoW units. Borgio and his ilk would have a core cultural roster with full access to every RoR and would be able to hire other factions/characters (like mengil and Beorg) to work with or for them.

You could even have it so confederation works like Vampire Coast, but you can purchase their allegiance with enough renown and coin.

"Only you are asking for a Ostland subfaction and Nuln and Ulric subfactions can 100% share the units because Nuln and Middenheim contain landmarks that can 100% be used for those Units"

See this is proof you're not listening or that you fundamentally don't understand what I'm talking about. I never said everything from Nuln should be exclusive to Nuln, nor did i say everything from Tilea and Estalia should be exclusive to them.

In some instances, certain factions should have unique easy, semi-exclusive access to certain units (like Yvresse and the Silverin Guard). These units should only be accessed by other factions through unique trade/military agreements, through controlling the Landmark and/or confederation. This is for the sake of balance as much as variety.

However, that's an argument in and of itself. Bottom Line: Never said they should be completely separate and never cross paths; in fact, no one in favour of fleshing out Tilea and Estalia wants that. We just want them to be more fleshed out individually so they can dynamically work off each other as they actually would in the lore (for the sake of variety, cohesion, consistency, and balance).

Itharus#3127

Commissar_G said:

SerPus said:

Itharus said:

DoW does not work as a faction.

It works just fine.

He just refuses to accept they were removed as mercs for everybody.

I can't imagine holding onto a pre 2000's form of army list.

If DoW can't exist as a faction then Dwarfs can recruit monsters as cav as mercs. VC can recruit shooting etc.


It's an outdated, ridiculous form of Warhammer from before the attempted balancing of 6th edition.


It's like arguing all undead or chaos should be 1 race.

Sigh.

No... it's that they are an ARMY.

Not a nation. Not even a proper horde.

They are ARMIES.

What you guys aren't accepting is that WHFB was not a game of factions but a game of armies. TWWH is a game of factions. You can't have individual armies masquerading as nations without just being utterly ludicrous.

Again, even if they were NOT available to everyone - they'd have to be incorporated into an actual faction, such as Tilea and the like. Think for just ONE DAMNED SECOND what actually goes into making a NATION. Even just a city state.

Pilthoid

I still say they’ll add dogs of war but as units you can recruit. Which is how it should be.

Arthas_Menethil#3421

Itharus said:

Commissar_G said:

SerPus said:

Itharus said:

DoW does not work as a faction.

It works just fine.

He just refuses to accept they were removed as mercs for everybody.

I can't imagine holding onto a pre 2000's form of army list.

If DoW can't exist as a faction then Dwarfs can recruit monsters as cav as mercs. VC can recruit shooting etc.


It's an outdated, ridiculous form of Warhammer from before the attempted balancing of 6th edition.


It's like arguing all undead or chaos should be 1 race.

Sigh.

No... it's that they are an ARMY.

Not a nation. Not even a proper horde.

They are ARMIES.

What you guys aren't accepting is that WHFB was not a game of factions but a game of armies. TWWH is a game of factions. You can't have individual armies masquerading as nations without just being utterly ludicrous.

Again, even if they were NOT available to everyone - they'd have to be incorporated into an actual faction, such as Tilea and the like. Think for just ONE DAMNED SECOND what actually goes into making a NATION. Even just a city state.

The "Southern Realms" is really the placeholder for the Dogs of War in the old and new world tbh. Tilea and the new World Colonies Banner (which is from a DoW unit) should be saying that enough.

#324448

Itharus said:

Commissar_G said:

SerPus said:

Itharus said:

DoW does not work as a faction.

It works just fine.

He just refuses to accept they were removed as mercs for everybody.

I can't imagine holding onto a pre 2000's form of army list.

If DoW can't exist as a faction then Dwarfs can recruit monsters as cav as mercs. VC can recruit shooting etc.


It's an outdated, ridiculous form of Warhammer from before the attempted balancing of 6th edition.


It's like arguing all undead or chaos should be 1 race.

Sigh.

No... it's that they are an ARMY.

Not a nation. Not even a proper horde.

They are ARMIES.

What you guys aren't accepting is that WHFB was not a game of factions but a game of armies. TWWH is a game of factions. You can't have individual armies masquerading as nations without just being utterly ludicrous.

Again, even if they were NOT available to everyone - they'd have to be incorporated into an actual faction, such as Tilea and the like. Think for just ONE DAMNED SECOND what actually goes into making a NATION. Even just a city state.

Pretty sure when people say they want "Dogs of War" added as a faction, they mean Tilea, Estalia, Border Princes, etc. There aren't many saying Dogs of War should be separate from those countries, unless they want pure hordes.

Commissar_G#7535

Red_Dox said:

Giveaway412 said:

It's definitely a cool lore source but I definitely feel like, if the Dogs of War/Southern Realms were to be implemented, the Mercenary Generals would just be humans. The whole vibe of "units from many different races coming together to form one army": feels much more Oldhammer/5th edition than the more modern take of "the armies of Tilea and its neighbors". I doubt Tilean Merchant Princes would be hiring very many Orcs or Dark Elves to do their bidding.

Don't know. if you translate it over to TWW in form for TEB, we could have various Lords for our mercenary armystacks instead of just a bunch of humans. It really could spice up the gameyplay since I could build stacks around certain Lords. Especially if those Lords would buff certain units better then others. Like a Ogre Lord helping out Ogre Mercenaries better. I see potential with the idea here, but its hard to say if CA can make it work without knowing how Their DoW would look/play ingame.

For example the Souther Realm mod
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/discussion/1158737832/1489987634000558505/
has made good use of "just human Lords/Heroes". But even there I could see use for Ogre Mercenary Lord. Or a Dark Elf Sorceress leading some ragtag mercenaries.

------Red Dox

If we're being completely honest. I don't believe the total unit mash works in an end times setting, or anything after 6th edition.

Having destruction units fight with order doesn't work as well in the current narrative or geopolitical place Warhammer fantasy sits in at 8th. You could argue it, but it's undeniably awkward.

What I'd rather see is DoW have their own version of Arkhan. Pick one of the characters, Mengil Manhide, for example, and have him be able to recruit all the destruction units, destruction merc captains etc etc.

SeanJeanquoi#3490

@Commissar_G

Which is precisely why I've been saying what I've been saying.

This is why CA need to add Tilea and Estalia as their own culture group and add characters like Mengil Manhide as part of their parent factions.

Then have all the mercenary units and mechanics work around those solid bases.