Steel Empire
The Death of a Duke

Over the past few months, Duke Wilmar of Austria was in the process of conquering Bavaria. However, despite his initial progress, he currently finds himself in a standoff with the Bavarian army, who had returned from their campaign in Northern Germany to reclaim the land where they had lost to Austria. Despite the gains that Austria initially had in this war, they now find themselves fighting to defend the land they had conquered.

The Bavarians had made a huge profit in Northern Germany, pursuing their claim to the vacant throne, but after realizing that the Austrians had stolen their Capital, the, they were forced to withdraw from their holdings and leave it to be reconquered by the House of Luxembourg and their allies. . Therefore, they were in a state of rage as they gazed across the battlefield to see the Austrian cowards who had attacked them as they pursued their ambitions.

The two dukes led their respective armies with Duke Wilmar von Habsburg controlling his personal army and his subordinates. Duke Dietger von Wittelsbach was in charge of the Bavarian army. Seeing how almost all of the Duke's two armies gathered for this event, this would be the single most important battle of the war in Southern Germany to decide who would rule supreme, Austria or Bavaria. The battle will finally take place outside the town of Passau in Eastern Bavaria. Duke Wilmar is currently discussing plans for an imminent major battle with his followers, who are the commanders of his army. 

"Count Otto, my old friend, I hope you lead the rearguard, making sure that our wings hold the line against any possible attack, especially from the Cavalry."

Seeing that he was not assigned to lead Vanguard, Otto frowned, but despite the objections, he agreed to Duke's orders and voiced his support.

"I will do as you command His Majesty."

Duke Wilmar, of course, was pleased with this result, because for the Duke's subsequent comments, it didn't surprise anyone.

"Count Walfried von Salzburg, you are assigned the lead of Vanguard!"

Walfried hit his chest as he saluted his subordinates while responding to his orders.

"You respect me, Your Majesty!"

With the two positions taken care of, Duke Wilmar turned to his overall strategy.

"While Walfried is advancing with Vanguard, I will lead the cavalry that we will divide into two units and surround the enemy lines where we will attack them from behind their wings. After the wings were destroyed, the Bavarians had to fall back and strengthen their ranks; the moment they did, the Vanguard would rush in and slash them before they managed to do so."

It was a fairly simple strategy and had worked many times before; therefore, none of the Lords present had any complaints about the tactics they would use to defeat the Bavarians. The last statement the Duke made was about his archer.

"The Archers will be placed on top of these two hills on both sides of the battlefield, where they will rain missiles on our enemies."

Unfortunately, however, it seems that the Bavarians had equipment as good as the Austrians; thus, the arrows were mostly deflected from the heavy enemy armored infantry. The fact that the Bavarians were so well equipped surprised the Austrians, given how the Austrian nobles had spent a lot of money on Berengar's weapons and armor to prepare for this war. Despite this fact, the Bavarians seemed well equipped, at least for the most part, which began to make the Austrian Rulers doubt Berengar's loyalty. 

Nevertheless, now was not the time to worry about such worries, and even though the arrow could not penetrate the brigandine or the plate, it was not, they easily slid into gaps in enemy armor when fired in thousands. There were still many injuries suffered by the Bavarian forces before they arrived in battle with the Austrian infantry. Still, it was strange that there was no sign of the Bavarian Archers or Crossbowmen being deployed to the battlefield, which made Count Otto anxious when he ordered the rear guards, watching the battle from afar. 

As the two feudal armies came into contact with each other, blood and death began to gush about the fertile grasslands that were the battlefield. Corpses were strewn across the field as soldiers in armor clashed against each other like huge tidal waves of metal. As the battle continued to rage, Duke Wilmar finally found a gap for his cavalry, and thus, he began his task; as in the battle plan, he was, heavily armored knights riding horses got into the unit and surrounded the vanguard of the enemy forces where they proceeded to attack their wings from behind. With their spears encased, and the strength of the horse's attacks, even high-quality steel plate armor could be damaged by such a powerful blow. 

Thus, the heavily armored Knights of Austria led by Duke Wilmar smashed into the enemy side, aiming their spears through their chests and ending their lives. The Bavarian wing quickly began to collapse, and his plan seemed to go perfectly. However, unlike Duke Wilmar had expected, as the enemy side collapsed, those people started moving and fled into the distance. Seeing this as an opportunity to win, Duke Wilmar attacked in front of his infantry and broke into the routing army.

However, this turns out to be a big mistake, as the enemy forces pull back the classic pretend. By the time the Knights of Austria arrived in front of their enemies, they were surrounded by thousands of crossbowmen and archers who fired huge shots from 360 degrees around the Austrian Knights. Although the bolts from the crossbow could not break through the toughness of the steel plate armor, they could enter into the gap between them, causing injuries to the encapsulated Knights and Nobleman, as well as their trusted horses.

Shortly thereafter, the entire contingent of Knights who had broken the Bavarian wing found themselves down as continuous volleying shots had severely injured their horses; many of them were injured or even killed in attacks by crossbowmen. After all, the plate armor at that time was not as advanced as the one Bernegar equipped with his cavalry. Many Knights wear letter aventails for throat protection, rather than gorgets or large bascinets, which are given some degree of throat protection of steel plates. Thus the arrow bolts from the heavy steel bows were able to penetrate through the mail aventail and into their throats. 

Duke Wilmar and his surviving Knights quickly recovered from the attack. However, they soon find themselves surrounded by enemy infantry, and they are far from their own troops. Thus, a ferocious struggle arose when the Austrian Knights fought to the death with the people on the arms of Bavaria, where the Bavarian Knights were located, Wilmar had no idea. Although the Austrian Knights were given greater protection and had better skills than the Bavarians in arms, they were outnumbered. They quickly found their ranks dwindling as they were besieged on all sides and severely beaten by Bavarian forces.

Duke Wilmar stood side by side with his Knights and Vassals, who had followed him to death as he fended off the approaching spear thrust and lunged into the soldier's face with his long sword, he pierced the man's skull and ended his life. However, before long he received an arrow bolt in the indentation of his elbow, which pierced through the gap under his steel plate and through the post and the gambeson protecting him. With a huge bolt piercing through his elbow, he no longer had the ability to wield his long sword with his dominant arm and thus was forced to use the weapon with one hand with his bare hands. 

Count Otto stared in horror at the sight of the Austrian Knights being quickly slashed by the enemy forces, yet there was nothing he could do. He was assigned to protect the rearguard, and he was too far away from Liege's position to provide any assistance. All he could do was watch as the Austrian Knight line slowly dwindled in a desperate struggle to wait for the Austrian Infantry to arrive to help them. 

However, just as the Austrian infantry were about to intervene, the Bavarian Cavalry invaded their loose and disorganized ranks, which was the result of panic, and began to halt their advance. Duke Dieter was at the top of his Cavalry line when they broke through the Austrian Vanguard as if they were cutting cream cheese. The last thing Duke Wilmar saw before he was cruelly beaten on the back of his helmet with the mighty Warhammer was the destruction his army had wrought by the Bavarian Army. He quickly fell to his knees from the impact, where he was once again struck by the Warhammer, ending his life. 

As for the fate of Count Walfried von Salzburg, he had either been killed in the Conflict or captured alive; to Count Otto, such a thing was not important at this time. Despite being the father-in-law of his daughter, Otto had no plans to stay behind and save the man. Therefore, he immediately ordered his troops to withdraw from the battlefield, because the Austrian army had lost. 

With this one battle, the Fate of Austria seemed to have been sealed, the Duke was dead, and his army was defeated. Some who survived and remained free of slavery were rearguard members who watched their troops dismembered. When all seemed lost, they fled the battle site and returned to their homes in Austria. After all, one had to defend the homeland from the massive Bavarian invasion of Austria that was about to follow.