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Well, I am sorry to say but you can, sort of.

At least it was (8.5 but not sure if was also on 8.6) luck based. The lord companion would have to be captured in battle and afterwards be "convinced" in the prisoner dialog menu. The part i am sorry about is that i actually rather liked this detail, i recall gathering some 4 companions this way and despite the fact they had no story or extra dialog after becoming companions, they did have good stats and gave a sense of "epicness" simply by having them in the party.

That would be quite epic, but should probably only happen for certain characters who might do it in the story, or have varying degrees of difficult getting other lords on board. Some might require hefty bribes for example, or really high persuasion.

Updated my info above.

If this is 'any' ranger party i've killed about 10 by now. Also killed the castle black patrol.

Personally I thought the bug was caused by having positive relations with the nightswatch from handing over prisoners for gold, initially anyway, but you can just keep trying to engage them until relations drop.

Other bugs: You can keep asking mance for the quest so he extends his time

Reloaded a save before all this started and killing a ranger patrol still does nothing, so the joining is broken as far as I can see.