This unit is another early medieval spear/pike unit, designed to go betwixt spearman and pikeman.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/viking_pike_preview.gif

Cheers to vuldacon for doing the pallette work for me

Download Link (868 KB) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Viking_Spearman__zulu9812_2nd-Aug-2005.zip)

Although there is a certain "blue-jeans-effect" to it (civ colour, I presume?) it is looking very nice indeed, Zulu :goodjob:

Quite nice. :goodjob:

Although there is a certain "blue-jeans-effect" to it (civ colour, I presume?) it is looking very nice indeed, Zulu :goodjob:

Yep, that's the civ-colour

Very nice - and straight into Anno Domini it goes, just like your other units!

Nice one, Zulu. Another good unit!

People like you and me. Great.

Very nice one, Zulu. :goodjob: Thank you. It looks more like an offensive unit rather then defensive. Probably could be some substitution to swordsman with no iron required.

Very nice unit but I before requested a early medieval spearman is it possible to make a alternate shield for the unit with simply a brown color on it

But either way its going in my mod as a vking spearman
If you do make a alternative shield unit it would be a generic europoen spearman

I was waiting him for Steph's mod 2

Excellent Unit Zulu!...Exceptionally Well Done. :goodjob:

I was waiting for this guy as well. Like I said before, great unit, but the civ colored pants may look a little strange depending on the civ, and the brown beard blends into the brown shirt. Other than that, its another good one.

Your shields look just great. :)

Looks Great Zulu.

Another great and much needed unit.Thank you Zulu!

I was thinking you should make a unit of yourself Zulu...lol

Did the vikings use spears?

I was thinking you should make a unit of yourself Zulu...lol

Did the vikings use spears?
Short answer: NO, sorta
Occasionally Nordic peasants would make crude spears. But the Vikings never had spearmen units. They occasionally had warriors that carried spears, but even those were in a very small minority. And those were to be thrown, not fought with Greek style. More typically would be thrown axes followed by fighting hand to hand with axe and sword.
Their advantages were their better metallurgy, size, and mobility. None of those played into spearmen.

Thats not true. Bondir would have a spear as their main weapon, and Huscarls would carry them aswell as an axe or two and a sax. Vikings fought in a shield wall and used Hogshead formations to break enemy shieldwalls and a Spear is more use in both formations than an axe is.

Thats not true. Bondir would have a spear as their main weapon, and Huscarls would carry them aswell as an axe or two and a sax. Vikings fought in a shield wall and used Hogshead formations to break enemy shieldwalls and a Spear is more use in both formations than an axe is.
Bondir means farmer. Not viking.

The soldiers from Birka (the first Swedish city) used spears. That's not armed peasants, we're talking professional soldiers.

@zulu: Thanks mate!

Really? I always thought the vikings were raiders, but it sounds like they could have built an empire if they wanted to.

I really like this unit, I am going to use it under the name of Jomsviking after the mercenaries by that name and upgrade to Berserk.

It could maybe moonlight as Varangian Guard too.

But I have no idea about what the Varangian Guard looked like.

Here's a picture of the Varangian Guard.

Really? I always thought the vikings were raiders, but it sounds like they could have built an empire if they wanted to.
Canute did; he ruled modern Denmark, Norway and England, plus bits of modern Sweden and Germany.

It didn't last long, however; Viking Age Scandinavians did not have the organizational skills to keep large empires together.

Great unit! :goodjob:

WHOA!

Vikings used spears, OF COURSE they did! It was even one of the most common weapons due to the cheap price (less metal).

For Reference, see:

HEATH, Ian: The Vikings. Oxford 1985
NICOLLE, David: Medieval Warfare Source Book. London 1985
PRESTWICH, Michael: Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages. New Haven 1996
WISE, Terence: Saxon, Viking And Norman. Oxford 1979

... and a million other History Books.

Excavations have brought unnumbered spearheads to light, they all were used by vikings.

I will definately use this as the varangian guard! Thank you :D

Didn't the Varangian guard us axes? Those in that pic doesn't seem to have any?

Didn't the Varangian guard us axes? Those in that pic doesn't seem to have any?
Those in the image are probably reinactors (or possibly just actors). Since the image wasn't attributed, we can't be sure. They dress up in semi-realistic garb and have semi-authentic arms and so on. But naturally there were no cameras 1100 years ago, so it is only an approximation at best. The degree of authenticity varies greatly from so-so to just bad. A local group pretending to be danish vikings decided that their version of danes would have a herd of weiner dogs (dachshunds) lead their charge into battle. I some how managed to keep from falling over with laughter.
Vikings were opportunists. They used most weapons. The weapons they used varied depending on what they were trying to accomplish. In the case of the VG, these were swedish vikings living in what is now Russia. So their gear would have been a mish-mash of Swedish-Viking, Local(Russian/ukaranian) and whatever the found on their travels that struck them as cool.
Traditional viking weapons are: heavy sword, heavy axe, thrown (hand) axe. As I said previously they occasionally used other weapons such as spears, polearms (long axes) and so on. Spears, such as pictured, would have been a-typical of 90% of the vikings. Since spears and bows were predominately used by famers and others "non-viking" norse. Hunters, and so on. The norse were big on everyone in the village is a fighter, so there would have been (as has been mentioned) groups of farmers (bondir) with spears, hoes, pitchforks and other add-hoc weapons that the main (elite) fighting groups would distain.

@Ares: that cartoon killed me.

I love your taste in units, zulu. Thank-you very much indeed!

The Vikings would have been one of the toughest empires in the world if their governemtn structure could have evolved into something more than what was necessary for controlling small regions. Greatest warriors of their times. Best explorers too. IMHO.

EDIT: Oh yeah, almost forgot. Excellent unit ZUlu and I think it will go into the Mystara expansion to replace some current graphix or make a new unit.