Amidst the sprawling fields and rustic homesteads, Brond the Stalwart emerged as an unlikely leader of the Phalanx, a group of untrained but sturdy spearmen.

Born of humble origins, their calloused hands spoke of toil in the fields, their muscles honed by the demands of labour rather than the precision of combat.

Brond, a burly figure with a farmer's build, found himself thrust into the chaos of war by the whims of a distant and indifferent lord. The promised rewards for loyalty never materialized, and the other once-hopeful peasants - those that survived the skirmishes - soon realised that their aspirations for a better life were only ever met with disdain by the ruling elite.

Their training was as rudimentary as it was scarce. The lord's men, too preoccupied with their own ambitions, dismissed the peasants contemptuously.

Left to their own devices, the spearmen had no choice but to observe the techniques of seasoned warriors from the lines, their simple spears becoming both a tool of the land and an unrefined weapon of war.

As the battle drums echoed down into the valleys, Brond rallied his fellow spearmen, a motley crew bound by shared hardship. Their armour, a mismatched assortment of repurposed metal and makeshift padding, reflected a resourcefulness born out of necessity rather than choice. 

In the face of adversity, the Phalanx stood united, their spears raised toward an uncertain fate. Each stab and thrust was a testament to the resilience of those who had been overlooked, their untrained brute force compensating for the lack of finesse.

The lord's enlisted men, blind to the potential beneath the rough exterior of what once had been mere peasants, underestimated the Phalanx as they unwittingly cultivated a formidable force from the very fields they once tilled.