In one line

Command a ragged free company in a painted low-fantasy realm, fight battles where every soldier has a name, a past and a record, and climb a league of fifty mercenary banners.

Description

The Bannered Lands have not known a year without war, and every war needs hired swords. You lead a free company at the bottom of the Heralds' rolls: eighteen soldiers, a hundred gold and a banner nobody has heard of. The realm's fifty companies are all after the same contracts.

Battles are turn-based. Squads act down a turn bar in the order their Sergeants' Leadership sets, and when it's one of yours the Sergeant asks for an order: Hold, Advance, Attack or Outflank. Every blow is rolled on tabletop d20 rules. Between battles you run the company: recruit, pay wages, buy kit, and fight your way up a five-tier league where the top two rise and the bottom two fall every year.

Features

• Sergeants' turns. Every squad acts in Leadership order and waits for your order.
• Attack or defend. Every contract makes you one or the other, on ground that matters: rivers, fords, woods, mud, palisades.
• Soldiers as people. Names, homes, life stories, hidden traits, epithets earned in blood, brothers-in-arms and nemeses.
• Wounds that last. The maimed carry their injuries; the dead go on the Roll of Honour.
• A living league. Fifty rival companies with banners, commanders and doctrines, promoted and relegated every year.
• Run the company. Wages and the Pay Review, the tavern and the levy, an armoury of some sixty items, winter in the Iron Truce.
• Endless campaign, with a legacy. Every company you lead joins the Hall of Banners. Ironman optional.

How it's made

Hired Banners is designed by one person and built with AI tools, openly. The code is written with Claude, Anthropic's AI coding assistant. The art was generated with Recraft and the sound and narration with ElevenLabs, then chosen, edited and composited by the developer. Nothing in the game is generated by AI while you play.

Images

Key art, logos and screenshots, free to use in coverage of the game.

Video

The trailer is coming. Devlogs are on YouTube.

Creators

You're welcome to stream and make videos of Hired Banners, and to monetise them. For early access to builds, write to contact@hiredbanners.com.