In the twilight years of the 15th

century, the name of the black guard

strikes fear in the hearts of the

northern European peasantry.

They are mercenary lands

armed to the teeth with pikes and

halbirds and they specialize in fighting

unruly peasants. A local duke originally

raised this ruthless and bloodthirsty

group to crack down on descent near the

North Sea coast. Effective though the

guard was. The Duke soon ran out of

funds to pay them. He dismissed the

mercenaries, but they refused to

disperse. For nine long years, the 4,000

strong black guard answered to no lord

but gold, leaving behind a trail of

smoke, ash, and whispers of terror

across.

Neither women nor children were spared.

At their helm stands Thomas Slence, a

hardened nobleman shaped by the brutal

campaigns of Archduke Maximleon I.

Now under the banner of King John of

Denmark, the mercenaries marched toward

Ditmarian, sworn to crush the defiant

free peasants whom the Danish king had

come to despise. Dit Marartian had

emerged as an independent free peasants

republic where neither foreign lords nor

petty nobles had any say in how they

lived their lives. Thanks to its bogggy

marshland, clan-based kinships, and a

healthy dose of luck, Dit Martian was

able to fight off foreign counts and

dukes that sought to dominate it.

Although similar free peasants republics

around them crumbled, Ditmarian

continued to thrive, partially thanks to

lucrative trade with their partners in

the Hanziatic League. The Peasants

Republic had the difficult task of

creating an effective defensive system

without putting too much power in the

hands of a would-be military elite. That

meant that the young [music] state

relied on local militias to defend its

land, while its leadership was shared by

48 regents [music] who hailed from

Ditmarians most influential families and

held office for life. When war loomed,

these regions gathered to debate

strategy and assigned overall command to

an individual or group as long as the

battle required. Dit Martian's existence

was an affront to the nobles and kings

around it. The independent republic of

free peasants [music] went directly

against the European feudal social

order. King John of Denmark, who ruled

over all Scandinavian kingdoms [music]

and the neighboring German lands, openly

coveted Ditmarian. He cited a long list

of provocations like the plunder of

nearby Idstead at the start of the

century and the burning down of a

customs house on [music] Helgoland as

his reason to subdue them once and for

all. In reality, the real reason for

Jon's invasion was a desire for fame,

enrichment, and expansion. To justify

his war, King Jon made a series of

outrageous demands that the Dit Marshers

logically refused. Not long after, an

imposing force [music] of 12,000

well-armed and well-trained men along

the Dit Marsher border. Foremost among

them stood [music] the Black Guard. Dit

Martian's Hanziatic allies did next to

nothing. Lubec only sent some token aid

and Hamburg did not even try to deny the

Black [music] Guard passage through its

territory. The Peasants Republic and its

6,000 farmer militia men stood alone.

On February 11th, 1500, the troops of

the Danish king crossed into the

Peasants Republic under severe frost,

slaughtering innocent peasants and

plundering whatever they could find. In

just 2 days, the gargantuan army entered

Meldor, the old state capital. Those who

did not flee were brutally massacred by

the Black Guard. The king ordered the

Danish national flag to be hung from the

church tower and took up residence in a

nearby monastery. In his eyes, he had

already won. He sent out messengers to

the regents and awaited their surrender.

None returned. On the 16th, he announced

his intention to march north to Haida,

the current capital, while the fields

were [music] still frozen.

The situation looked bleak for the dit

marshers. The southern part of the

republic was cut off and the dwindling

force of peasant mercenaries seemed

little able to offer meaningful

resistance. However, as the Danish king

planned to march north, the dit marshers

learned of his plans from a captured

scout. Between Melddorf and Haida lay

four miles or 6 and a half kilometers of

swamp where the elevated roadway created

a choke point. As the Danish army

concentrated on the road, they would be

squeezed into a narrow column on the

march north with no way to maneuver. A

Dutch immigrant named Vulabbran

suggested that the militia use this

terrain to ambush the Danish army just

south of the town of Hemingstat. The

Ditmar leadership promptly adopted his

plan and placed him in command without

descent. Hurriedly, Ishabbrand began

constructing his fortifications.

He worked through the night to erect an

earth wall to block the road into

Hemingstep. He dug a ditch before it and

deepened the canals nearby to protect

the fortifications. In this ditch,

Ishabbrand placed his best men and the

few artillery pieces he had at his

disposal. The remainder of his militia

guarded the nearby Slooh Gate and

Hillik. Although the Dit Marshers

continued to be heavily outnumbered and

outgun, Isha Brunt would force the Danes

to confront him on his terms.

In the early hours of February 17th,

King John ordered the army to march

north. Although Thomas Slence warned him

that the ground was starting to thaw,

the Danish king was adamant. With the

Black Guard forming the vanguard, the

long column set out north. As the army

slogged through the swamp, rain and snow

blowing in their faces, they were

completely oblivious to the defenses on

the road ahead. The roadway, surrounded

on both sides by icy water, was

pulverized into a wet slurry by the

thousands of feet and hooves that

crossed it. Although the Danish column

did not lack military power, its sheer

weight suffered in the morass. Many of

these supply wagons could hardly pass

the roadway. The column's size also

worked against it in the treacherous

Ditmar swamp. While the king and his

brother were still in Melddor, they

unexpectedly heard the distant sound of

gun. A few scouting cavalrymen, nearly

blinded by the darkness, fog, and rain

almost blundered into Ishabbron's

earthworks before they realized what it

was. Not long after, a volley of shots

tore through the scouts, and artillery

started pounding the black guard.

Immediately, Slence ordered his men to

take up a tightlyknit balance formation

on the right shoulder of the road and

wait for engineers to bridge the ditch.

The exposed engineers, however, were all

shot down as they approached the water.

Isabon's tactics had placed Slence in a

precarious position. His black guard was

exposed and closely huddled together. A

single shot from the Dip Marsher

artillery could decimate them.

Fortunately for Slence, it was still

dark. To preempt this crisis, the

experienced commander ordered the Royal

artillery forward. A few wellpositioned

shots could take the Dip Marsher guns

out of commission and destroy enough of

the earthworks to overcome it with a

wellpositioned frontal assault. But the

weather turned those plans into a

fantasy as constant lashes of wind and

rain kept dousing the wicks of the

cannons and ruined the gunpowder. Slints

immediately sent for fresh supplies.

Meanwhile, Isa realized it was only a

matter of time before the Danish guns

were operational again. His shots were

not damaging the guns. Desperate times

called for desperate measures, so the

Dip Marshers willingly threw themselves

onto the pikes of the guard to push the

cannons into the swamp. Chaotic fighting

ensued as the Dit Marshers tried to

reach the cannons while brawling with

the Black Guard. In the end, a

concentrated rush of the peasant militia

successfully overwhelmed the

mercenaries. Thanks to their light armor

and jumping sticks, they could

outmaneuver the bogged down soldiers.

They dumped the cannons into the ice

cold water and fled back into the redout

immediately after. As dawn broke, the

[music] Black Guard was in a perilous

position. They were trapped under the

smoke of the enemy guns without their

supporting artillery and with little to

no room for maneuver. Seeing no

alternative, Sense ordered his forces to

storm the Redown. Instead of forcing

them immediately into the dip marcher

cannons, he reasoned it would be better

to order his men onto the marshy ground

to the east where the militia's defenses

were weaker.

As the guards scrambled onto the

marshland, Isa quickly realized the

danger of the situation. If Slence's men

reached the high ground on his flanks,

they could incapacitate the Dit Martian

artillery or possibly even outflank the

entire defensive line. Should the

artillery be as much as interrupted, the

dip marshers could not hope to fend off

a frontal assault. So he made a daring

ploy, ordering his exhausted militia men

to remove their shoes, helmets, armor,

and shields, and to throw themselves

onto the fallanks. What ensued was

chaos. The black guard fallank crawled

forward with troops miring themselves

even further into the swamp thanks to

their heavy equipment. The rain turned

the ground into a thick sludge, while

the fog made it near impossible to see,

let alone coordinate. All the while,

both Ishabbrand ordered another wave of

half-naked militia men to jump off the

high ground onto the fallings.

Several thousands of militia men hurled

themselves onto the oncoming enemy once

again, using their mobility in the dense

terrain to their advantage. While the

two forces were brawling ferociously in

the cloying swamp, militia men at the

nearby dyke had opened the slle gate. In

a flash, ice cold seaater came rushing

onto the battlefield. The water came in

with such force that men were knocked

from their feet. Like many of his

officers, Thomas Lent died in the

fighting. According to legend, he was

thrown from his horse, caught in the

throat, trampled, and killed in a duel

with one of the militia men. Ishabbron's

final wave would ultimately break the

ranks of the Black Guard completely,

transforming the battlefield into a

devastating route. The Danish forces

fled in a blind panic. The men of the

Black Guard attempted to throw their

weapons down and escape the battlefield.

The dip marshers followed with the cry,

"No quarter." They took no prisoners and

killed every single soldier and militia

they could get their hands on. Units to

the rear, hearing the noise of combat,

and seeing the water rushing in from the

sea, hurriedly retreated as well.

The narrow, muddy road back to Melddor,

became a medieval traffic jam. All the

while, avenging peasant armies pressed

ever further and killed all who either

couldn't or wouldn't flee. Infantry and

cavalry collided with each other as each

scrambled back to Meldor. Cavalry men

who were forced off the road faced a

certain demise. Their horses were stuck

in the swamp and their armor was too

heavy to stand a chance against the

rising water. They were sitting ducks

when the half-naked dip marshers showed

up and slaughtered them. King Jon and

his brother narrowly escaped, but they

were the exception. At the cost of just

60 dip marshers, the Danes counted 4,000

men in losses, a third of the total

invasion force. Following the battle,

the Dip Marshers buried the bodies of

the commoners from J's army. The nobles

were not given the same privilege,

instead being left to rot in the

marshes. Aside from securing their

independence, the peasants republic

scored an enormous war booty consisting

of gold and silver table settings,

wagons of food, war material, thousands

of war and draft horses, a park of

artillery and powder, [music] and the

personal effects of the fallen. Among

the booty was the king's own Danish flag

which was hung in the church of Wolf

Ishabbrron's hometown in memory of the

victory. News of King John's defeat to

the Dip Marshers spread like wildfire

through Northern Europe. Lubec erupted

in celebration. Sweden erupted in an

anti-Danish revolt that lasted for over

a decade. King Jon swore revenge but

would not be able to launch another

invasion of the Peasants Republic. Many

of the farmers who fought in the battle

returned to their lives of old. Among

them was Vulfish who faded into

obscurity after the battle and died 6

years later. Although the battle of

Hemingstad was a resounding success for

the small republic, its independence

proved to be untenable. 60 years later,

King Frederick II of Denmark, Norway,

defeated the Dit Marchers in the aptly

named Last Feud, putting the free

peasant state to an end once and for

all.

In case you didn't know, we made a video

game called Master of Command. Just

recently, we even added a free DLC which

adds a brand new nation that comes with

three armies. Master of Command is a

real-time tactical game set in the 18th

century. You lead and customize your

army through increasingly challenging

battles. You can stop at settlements

along the way to restock and outfit your

men with unique items and upgrades. Once

they've got enough experience, you can

reform them into higher tier units.

Promote your lowly recruit all the way

up to a guard grenadier if he proves

himself in battle and customize his flag

to reflect his new status in your ranks.

Steam Workshop was also added last year

and since then there's been a lot of

great mods to try out as well. One of my

favorites adds in an American

Revolutionary War scenario. This other

one gives you maxed out resources in

case you want to mess around with

different strategies and just

experiment. The game is available now on

Steam and is updated regularly. Join our

Discord community, too, which is linked

below.