Raising an Army

There are two ways to raise an army.

Once you have your troops, go to Main HYW menu and choose "Household affairs." Pick your NPC with the best army stats. You can use the "Skill Information" option on the game menu to analyze your NPCs, or simply pick someone with good Leadership, Guile, Management, Stature, Endurance , Health etc. Minor traits like Command Supreme and Situational Awareness are a plus and Drunkenness, Stupidity and Sloth a minus. All this is covered in detail in the Skills section. There are several things to consider, such as effect on Army morale, Battle orders, but you will be sieging so maximize your Siege ability. Be sure to check your own stats, it is possible you are as good or better than any of your NPCs, in which case just leave yourself in charge (women can't lead armies tho, they MUST use an NPC commander. Once you have decided on say #3467 Odo de Crapaux then in "Household affairs" find #3467, choose the detailed menu for that character and select the option "Make NPC your army commander." You can remove him by selecting him again and can select another NPC later as circumstances dictate.

Note that an "army" exists when you have 100 or more troops under your command. If you have fewer than 100 men under your command when the seasonal update--run at 1 PM-- your "army" is disbanded. An "army" during this period was generally quite small. A thousand or so troops was considered a good sized force.