The Retinue in Manor Lords is a small unit size of professional troops that you get from the Manor building. They serve as full-time, professional troops, with the ability to upgrade into plate armor. With further development of the game, they’ll get experience, upgrades, and even more features still to come. But, for now, here’s a closer look at the basics of the retainer and what to expect.

View Full-size

The retinue out in the field.

How Retinues Work¶

Retinues in Manor Lords are a type of elite unit you can find in your army menu. When you build a manor, you’ll automatically get five retainers, forming the basis of your retinue unit type. Open up your army menu, and you should see the retainer among the list of troops and militias you have. From there, click on the retinue, then click the paintbrush icon called ‘Customize Retainers’.

When you’re on the customization screen, there’s a few things you can do here:

1. Hire more retainers for your retinue
2. Change the aesthetic of each retainer
3. Purchase plate armor for your retainers.

Firstly, you can buy more retainers for 50 Treasury Wealth each. Click on the hire Men-At-Arms button, on the left side of the screen. Each purchase adds one more dedicated soldier to your retinue, which comes with a mail armor piece, and is randomly selected to have a polearm, sidearm and shield or spear and shield. You can have 12 retainers in your retinue at any given time. There’s also a minstrel button, but that currently does not work at this stage of early access.

View Full-size

You can hire more retainers, customize their look, and even get plate for your retainers on the customization screen.

The other thing you can do is change the aesthetic of individual troops in your retinue. Feel free to change the color scheme of your units and decorate them as you wish. You should see color options on the right side of the screen for you to change to create a theme for your troops. It doesn’t do anything practical, just a nice a customization feature.

Lastly, you can also import your retainers plate armor each. On the very right side of the screen, you should see two armor icons. One is to import plate armor locally from the settlement the retainer is in. This costs you 9 treasury wealth to do so. If your settlement does not have plate armor, then you can import it from foreign markets for 18 treasury wealth. Note that doing this will import the armor immediately to your retainer, which is very handy for speed-gearing your troops in times of need. Remember that only retainers can wear plate armor, making these units the strongest of your tasks force for any combat needs on the frontline.

Now that you have your retainers, their armor and kit designed, feel free to rally them. Click on the retinue army force under the army menu, then click the flag icon. This is the rally button. Find an open area to rally your troops, and your retainer will make its way to that location and operate from there at your command. With your troop out on the field, you’re now ready to see the damage your well armed retinue can do!