It's my final Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord giveaway and ITS A BIG ONE! So here's your last chance to win, Enter here- gleam.io/TwO85/biggest-mount-and-blade-ii-bannerlord-giveaway
Charging with horse archers isn't even the most effective. You want to hold position until the enemy infantry get into melee range and then either charger or just run to the otherside of the map and hold position again
I'm just saying imagine if he attacked using all his horses and circled an entire army. Even 10000 horse archers would have been insane. Bet it would have felt like a mini earthquake.
Gameplay tip for horse archer forces: giving your HA a charge order isn’t what you wanna do because if they run out of ammo they’ll charge in and die. What you need to do is give a follow order and run lead your men in a circle around the enemy until you notice ammunition is low. Then, either coordinate a charge OR retreat fully and reengage the force with full ammo! Rinse and repeat until your enemies are defeated. I’ve taken on marked 6 times the size of mine with this strategy.
better yet just hit f1 and then f4 to advance your troops. archers will fall back when enemy comes closer and horse archers just run around shooting arrows until they run out.
The advance troop command is unreliable. To minimize casualties it’s best to just have the men follow you directly. You can refill ammo by retreating from battle. To do this either hold tab and click retreat while in battle or run outside of the battle limits for 10 seconds. You will be brought back to the prebattle screen and can reengage as many times as you’d like as long as you’re healthy.
Horse archers are significantly more effective if you split them into two groups. Delegate the first group to "sergeant's command." Then wait a few seconds, and do the same for the second group. Whatever they're circling will attempt to face them with their shields. If you've got two groups then you can't face both groups with shields so one group will be shooting their backs/sides.
@@imswanronson3558 no thats a horrible tactic as leaving manually takes time to get to the border and your troops will die before you reach the edge of the map. The better way is to Press tab and click the retreat button its actually the leave button as it doesnt cost any troops/. So press tab>click retreat> attack again.
Here is a tip. When you are in a field battle, hold your archers in one place and let them fire until the enemy starts to get close. this means that they dont get reduced accuracy from moving, but because they are mounted you can tell them to charge and run rings once the enemy gets within striking distance. Usually though, a force of ~80 mid to upper tier horse archers can have half their army routing before they get to you, and run rings around the other half
i-ts better late than never- arrows that they throw are made a line that tells the enemy that "if you pass these arrows we'll beat the shit out of you" its an old tactic that mongolians and turks used
Yeah, I raised an army of 123 khuzait horse archer and heavy horse archers and killed a 1240 strong aserai army. I charged, retreated, attacked again etc killing 400/round losing 33 men in total (23 were just wounded) Stunning victory. I was playing on easy difficulty but still, 123 vs 1240, and I lost 13 units and another 20 wounded. And they lost 1240 soldiers. They are too OP lol, guess thats why the mongols managed to conquer 22% of the world.
I use horse archers more static in the firs moments of the battle. Just hold the ground so their shots are much more accurate and devastating. After enemy closes the gap I usually order them to follow me to the righ flank and after thst give order to charge. I find it more effective against infantry focused armies with this tactic.
C H Crossbowmen don’t outshoot archers at the moment. Shield wall circle + archers should work but in same numbers horse archers tend to still win. Placing your cavalry at your left flank to engage them might also be a good choice.
Turks at that point, were better at metallurgy than nomads of antiquity and were very keen on lancers and various other types of cavalry too. But yeah, generally, you're right. Unlike Ottomans who tried to style themselves as Romans and tried to adapt their unit types a bit, Seljuks were mostly classic Turkic horse archery armies. But the height of nomad warriors were the Mongols.
on equal terms? Khan guards. The khan guards will run out of arrows quicker, then charge in. While the fians, with their heavy melee weapon built, their armor is mid-tier at best. Neither their weapon nor their armor will help them face a speed multiplier-boosted khuzait glaives. I actually simulated this once. In 10 trials, I think the fians only won... once. Standing archers in general rely on number of arrows released over a certain period of time. Fian shoots farther and have better arrows, but shoots slower. In most general cases, this is okay, but an army of khan guards can't really be classified as "general" kek. The master archers fared better. But ofc, they'll die quicker once it goes into melee.
I do believe, open field, the Fian champions would win, especially with few troupe involved. My reasoning is, while Khan's gards armor is slightly stronger, Fian champion got a really good ranger armor too, and their bow is really better in anyway (except the rate of fire which is slightly less, but still absurdly high for a bow this size). Also Fian Champion got god tier accuracy, unlike the Khan gard that sacrifice a bit of accuracy for being highly mobile on a horse back. So, range seems to be at the adventage of the Fians. and while a Gard should defeat a Fian in melee (especially considering the horse charge and weapon reach) I don't think Fian would allow the gards many chance to come this close. On larger battle, on advatage the Gards have over the Fian, is that they can more easely mess up the Fian's IA. In bannerlord, archer seems to prioritize shooting whoever is the closest to them. Which mean, Gards fire will be pretty effectiv on the still pretty dense "loose formation" of the Fians, while the fian have to target all over and arround them, and there fire will be far less effective, due to them "overkilling" a lot of targets. (Basically, they are so accurate, they will waste a lot of shots because of target acquisition, while the Gards, with their lower accuracy can just fore in the bunch and will almost certainly hit someone...) That s just my opinion though... But I may confess myself biased toward Battania...
taking castles with horse archers, you breech first wall and then instead of charging into the castle, you setup firing position on chokepoin. As enemy will start comming, you will kill them before they can hurt you (because they are mostly low tier infantry).
I'd assume so, from what ive played. My advice for crossbows would be to put them in your garrison(s). They're superior on walls. That's sadly it. Fians for lyfe.
Imagine you feel that ground starts shaking and the noises comes closer to you and the last thing you see is that thousands of mounted archers charge at your castle,village,place,kingdom,💀
It's not that hard to get Khan's Guard once your leadership is high enough to rank up bandit units that you've recruited from prisoners. They can be ranked up from the tier 1 and 2 steppe bandit units, so a few hideouts will get you quite a lot (use tournament arrows/bolts to wound them and get more prisoners).
Khan's Guard also makes for VERY STRONG melee units because they use the 2H Glaive, a shock AoE melee weapon. The swings can dmg multiple enemies at a time. You could definitely siege castles with them and win against everything.
Tactics note: It’s often better to sit in loose formation and let the enemy come to you. Their early cavalry charge can be dealt with easily, then the slower infantry blobs. If you’re at risk of being engaged, use the “Follow me” order and just circle right, run to a new elevated position and wait for the enemy to once again marshal forward to get you; all the while being slaughtered by accurate volleys of arrow fire. Rinse and repeat until the enemy breaks. I was able to destroy a 1,000 man army with a hundred horse archers that way.
I am in southern empire but in battle vs aserai I recruited their horse archers. Omg so powerful. Their range is incredible I always seem them shooting arrows at the enemy when I can't even see them and they will whittle down troops before my foot archers can attack them. But I'm playing on very easy mode. Most importantly all tier units have the same upkeep. Which makes 100% cavalry army super cheap and strong. In total war games cavalry have smaller troop sizes and cost significantly more. So they are much less powerful. Plus total war spearmen have shield walls. In Mount and blade the ai infantry are always scattering.
A large heavy horse archer with a core of decent spears and archers is one of the best counters I've seen against the empire's legions, they cant keep up with the horse acrchers and the regular archers hit from a distance with the spearmen coming in for clean up duty
Using advance over charge keeps the entire unit together to give you better spreads against enemy formations, a couple archers chasing a few isolated enemies is ineffective and wastes ammo
I am playing kuzhait in my campain and because i really like mongol way of warfare i go for full cav with like 60% horse archer and rest schok cav It work really well on open field i can crush army three to four time my size however when the battlefield is a forest it become really hard and i am not even trying in siege
While the circling mechanic is awesome in wide open areas against pure infantry what I find is best against mixed armies on wooded or uneven maps is to just use them like infantry archers in formation, but ones that can quickly run to the other side of the map and set up formation again. Just leave them in a formation until the enemy infantry gets close enough to hit and then run away and remake a formation. This keeps you kiting enemy cavalry around so you never have to fight them at the same time as infantry and risk some men dying. If you can't get the enemy to run into your formation just run up with your companions and take long range potshots at their army, or snipe their leader and eventually they will charge. If you run out of arrows just use the retreat button and reengage with full ammo. Rinse and repeat and you can kill 1000 unit armies with 100 and lose close to 0 units. Best units in the game in my opinion.
a simple charge is suboptimal in my opinion. if you really want to get maximum utility of them, take an advantageous position, wait while the enemy is getting close, but not too clos, while your horse archers are shooting them, then reposition them, take care not to run into the enemy, repeat until you win.
horse archers can do a lot of dispatching if you have them follow you and just hold them in position when they can get shots at a clump of them. Especially if the rest of your army is charging in, the advantage of horse archers over archers is you get shots from more effective angles that the archers can't reach, and the AI doesn't really take advantage of that at all. And khan's guard do great in sieges! I think this strat can actually be optimal on the campaign map, just don't plan on your horse archers being able to kill more than 3 men each with their limited ammo.
Instead of letting them charge in woods or when the terrain is against you, it's better to lead then to an advantage like a hill and then lead them to another spot as the enemy closes. Rinse and repeat.
I'm currently doing a khuzait play through and I just won a 14 versus 78 battle where I had just horse archers. I had 5 bucalareii and the other 9 were tribal nomads. I went up against all infantry, it was the minor faction leader who used oath keepers. They were mixed tier infantry but had about 10 maxed out oath keepers and I pulled it off only losing 1 horse archer.
I am now curious just how effective crossbowmen only army is - they often have good armor and they have shields for extra safe and effective melee. Specifically I'm interested in more "common" tier 5 ones like Imperial Sergant Crosbowmen and Vladian Sharpshooters, both of which is relatively easy to get.
My current army consists of 120 Legionaries, 120 Fian Champions, 60 Cataphracts and 60 Khans Guards. I've taken on multiple 800-1000 man armies with 0 losses, it's so broken but so much fun lmao
I've found the best way is to put the cav archers into column formation and have them follow you, then proceed to ride circles around the enemy force. Its worked amazingly for me so far and looks freaking awesome!
I want to mod Bannerlord to make the Khuzaits OP af (more so on the campaign map) to try and simulate a Genghis environment. think it would be stupid fun for a bit, try to hold out against the hordes of horse archers. maybe just remove every unit for them except horse archers lol, probably not though
I think it would be better to just park your archers in a loose line in front of the castle and just pick the walls clean from the ground. Seems like you lose most of them trying to climb the ladders.
that's the problem, during siege horse archers some how act like they are infantries and refuse to fire their arrows and instead choose to climb ladders and chop heads. Either that's a bug or it's a feature.
One trick is using a battering ram, ooen booth gates. Then keep your archers infront of the gates. The AI assumes you storm in so they send all troops to charge. Meaning they run off the walls through the narrow gate in yozr arrows
The khans are dope. My cavalry & horse archers really show their presence out in the field. I basically modeled my story after Atila. Started off as a mercenary for the empire then took over sturgia for myself. Now I'm debating on if i should take the khuzaits or ally them & take over the empiric territories they're at war with. Suggestions?
Imagine how crazy and pissed off people would get if the devs of this game REALLY implemented the Mongol tactics of sieging. According to history, mounted horse archers would never dismount and attack as infantry, instead what they would do is that they would wait out for the settlement to starve, or if they brought onagers they would just bombard and wait. Mongols were invulnerable towards starvation as their mounted horsemen could dispatch a few riders to obtain supplies. Soon as the defenders grew restless they would force to take them on on open ground that would lead them to their doom. If the Khuzaits were like this, all of the factions in Calradia would have to unite to face them.
I had an army of 80 Khan's Guard in campaign before switching to the beta. :D I did have them backed up by about 30 Heavy Horse Archers and about 50 Heavy Lancers. Army was able to fight at 2 to 1 odds with nearly no casualties.
Genghis khan had trouble with sieges until he got chinese engineers, but he was dominant on land battles just like displayed in this video, i can only imagine this is how they actually would do it!
Somewhere I saw a clip of WWI Russian Cossacks cavalry, watching 10000+ cavalry charging sabers drawn is just amazing. Now imagine those 10000 armed with composite bows as well... Makes me want to hide my gold and flee to the woods!
Low level horse archers are better used like normal archers because they have bad accuracy on the move. Form a line fire until the enemy is nearly upon you then retreat 150m and repeat. High level horse archers are effective in a charge because they have better accuracy and have armour to protect them from the enemy's archers/javelins.
Best tactic to play with HA. Build an army with 3/4 of horses archers and 1/4 horse man, at the begining line horse archers and wait for the enemy to charge on you, when they are near your troops scream EVERYONE! and then F6 let the sargents take the lead. If you only atack with archers the enemy shields will allways look at them, horse man will penetrate infantry and the enemy infantry will try to strike them and follow them giving theyre backs to your fantastic machineguns... this is the tactic i use, never had any HA out of ammo... carefull with terrain an near vilages.
What GPU and CPU you use it run quite smoothly in siege fight For me my GPU is Nvidia GTX 2070 super but when come to 500 + 500 siege it Lag af. But even it not 500 + 500 siege the normal siege still around ~50 fps. In max setting
I literally did a playthrough like this lol.. easiest shit ever. Make two groups: A small group with ur elite Horsearchers that alwas attack as early as possible. The big group is spread as widely as possible and they attack about 20 seconds later. The first group will spread the enemy around and make their formations break up.. the second group destroys everything. Easy win against anybody.
To be fair, the imperial army you took out if your Khan Guards had a lot of recruits and other low tiers units. If you had faced a similar number of Imperial Elite Cataphract or Battanian Fians, it might have been much closer. But I agree that horses archers are really powerful and hard to fight against.
Horse archer only is busted (Siege battles excluded). An Army of 1000 of the Northern Empire was sieging one of our castles, I figured I'd save and see how it goes. I had 103 Horse archers, the castle had about 100 random units, and I lost 5 units, the castle lost about 50. Poor bastards, they really shouldn't have lost a fight like that.
Yo this happened in real life that’s the awesome thing about bannerlord xD literally *Crassus* lol but yeah imagine being an infantry man and the horsemen have you pinned circling constantly shooting seemingly. Meanwhile they are cycling both; mounted archers/arrows and horses every couple hrs to keep enemy fatigued/pinned and keep the mobile armies advantageous vigor/energy and attrition advantage from the skirmish/es.
If one of my troops happens to block the ladder like in 10:36 he immediatly gets executed with a swift headshot. Would put a meme with crying Wesley Snipes with a gun but I am unable
They would have done a fair bit better in the siege if you had forced them to actually act as archers, order them to hold their ground at the base of the wall and just snipe defenders off the ramparts.
The Aserai horse archers seem to have better armor, and they have a shield. So they are stronger if you go for sieges. They do have less arrows, so they are not as good on plains due to less ammo. But I think the Aserai horse archers is a better all-around unit.
Yes they're more versatile, and can last better on foot due to their secondary weapons being tuned for melee situation. But things might be different once they allow horses on siege (like how it was on the promo vid.)
@@nabara6949 kek the shields are for when they run out of arrows. I'm just saying that melee is sort of underrated atm bcs of how everyone are so fazed with range troopers. but yeah Bucelarii have better armors. And relatively easier to train, too. While I do have a ton fck of stock of Khan's Guards, in usual gameplay I always mix Bucelarii, Heavy Horse Archers, and Khan's Guards in my mobile troops.
Some tips using horse archers: 1. Take comfort knowing that it's the most powerful unit type on any flat terrain, but remember they struggle in difficult terrain because the potato horseman AI can be permanently stuck on trees, rocks, enemies, and friendlies. 2. Horse archers can be used exactly like archers - have them stay still and they will have good accuracy and good angles from their horses. Khan's Guards have 280 in bow - they don't exactly match the Fian Champions but they are still pretty damn good. 3. Khan's Guards are somewhat poorly armored and their athletics is... 25... So they are not the most useful in some cases. Still gotta love them though, cool as all heck. 4. The Imperial Bucellari are the best-armored horse archers with 130 one-handed, 130 bow, 120 riding AND 130 athletics. These guys are so versatile and just plain op that they can contest the #1 most powerful horse archers in my opinion. They do have a huge downside of very poorly armored horses though.
Khan's Guard has 280 bow, therefore much more accurate and faster RoF than Bucellari. As for armor, they have the equivalent to heavy inf armor, not exactly weak. They also carry Glaives, so in melee they are deadly in groups due to the AoE nature of that 2H weapon. In fact, they are OP and the only balance is its difficult to obtain many of them in-game. One weakness for Bucellari are their horse being unarmored, KG has the same armored horse as lancers!
Yak losing KGs in Sieges break my heart... Their armor is the best armor of Khuzait but it’s still a little underwhelming when compared to imperial or vlandian armor. Bucellari have the same body armor as the Elite Cataphract, just hilarious. It’s nearly 1 million a piece for a player to buy, if one can find it on sale at all. They are more useful in sieges and slightly more expendable.
my main tactic for horse archers is the 'follow me' command and just circle around them a few times, retreat far away onto an elevated spot and then form a line and snipe the advancing units and if im severely out numbered ill just hit and retreat so i can restock on arrows and rinse and repeat
I believe an army of ALL Archers can beat anything. Khuzait heavy horse archers and khan's guard. 50 Imperial palatine archers. 40 Battanian Fian champions. 10 This army of 100 can kill almost anything, even much larger armies.
9:30 . They lose because you dont use cav correctly. Putting them on a wild charge and then not giving them orders breaks them up and over time they end up attacking in small numbers making it easier for them to get killed. You need to consistently pull them together and do whole unit charges.
F6 boys and girls, F6 that will delegete the task of the horse archest to the "sergeant" and they will automatically start skirmishing and harashing the enemy
Control your horse archers, leave the standing archers and infantries and cavalries to do whatever they want to do in the formation you setup them into. That's always the golden rule.
I am endlessly disappointed that they didn't have better battles from release.. it is almost copy and paste from warband. Maybe include ambush conditions where you start with the enemy on all sides and you're maybe in a camp or bad formation like Total war. Maybe if the enemy has only 1 man on horse he doesn't charge alone.. Maybe the enemy doesn't just charge every battle. these are all things that have no excuse for not being in the game already without having to add later on.. these are CORE things that absolutely 100% should have been in the game from the start and most likely will never be added without MODS. I love this game only for the fact that modders will soon fix it. But it is only warband with a new skin
My Ideal setup is like 70% horse archers and 30% regular cav. I set the horse archers spinning then i tempt the enemy with my cav so they turn to face me and get peppered with arrows.
For me, the Khuzait Khan's Guards are far more superior to the Fian Champions because of their mobility alone. With an army of 200 ( 80% Khan's gueard, 20% khuzait heavy horse archers) I managed to annihilate armies of 800+ men. Just retreat when ammo starts running low and repeat. When playing Khuzait I also love executing every single person that I capture and as soon as I reach clan level 4, within the first year or early second, I break off with my holding, beat a couple of armies, kill the most powerful vassals, leaving only the weakest alive, I start my Kingdom. Influence wt this point is between 1000-2000 so peacing out immediately is also an option but where's the fun in that. Siege a major settlement to lure the armies in a fight, capture them, roam around fighting mercenary armies of 40-120 units and capture any settlement I want unopposed. Dont even bother building towers and rams in sieges, just starve the settlement for a couple of days or a week, depending on size, before laying siege. Build trebuchets to destroy enemy equipment, charge in, position archers concetrated on a hill and when enough damage is done, place a smaller unit close to the ladders to lure even more defenders out, pepper them some more before again concetrating the men on the top of the wall, at this point more than half of the dedenders are dead so just charge. In the 4th year of my current playthrough, I took over 20 or so settlements with an army of 200, while taking at most 5-20 casualties in each battle/siege. The most fun playthrough I've ever done. Executed around 60 nobles and mercenaries, northern empire is just one person now, Southern empire is 2-3 nobles at around 20years of age, aserai are 5 nobles, one from each remaining clan. All my vassals are promoted Wanderers which is 100% broken as their relation to you can NOT get down no matter what. Stupid stupid fun...
It's hilarious how in Warband, the Khuzaits were weaker than wingless chickens against the Saranids, especially when you're the one leading the Mamluk Spam. But now it's like the tables have turned, and now it's the Khuzaits who are now the dominant force in Calradia Prequel: Bannerlord, and the Aserai are... pitifully weak. Such a shamfurl dispray! 🤣😭
"So what can you do?" "I'm an infantryman. I can hold the line against charges and have good defense stats." "Lame. And you?" "I'm a cavalryman! I have excellent movement speed and offense, and can break enemy lines and slaughter their ranged units!" "Lame. And you?" "I'm an archer. I can kill half an army before phasing out of reality and into a different dimension where I can kill the other half." "You're hired."
It's my final Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord giveaway and ITS A BIG ONE! So here's your last chance to win, Enter here- gleam.io/TwO85/biggest-mount-and-blade-ii-bannerlord-giveaway
These are awesome vids. I was highly interested in these kind of strategies. I'm glad to see someone testing them. And, testing them thoroughly. :D
@TheGoldenBandit Raid bandit camps or hire steppe recruits.
@TheGoldenBandit Kill steppe bandits, buy them, etc.
Charging with horse archers isn't even the most effective. You want to hold position until the enemy infantry get into melee range and then either charger or just run to the otherside of the map and hold position again
resonant watch this from 9:00 :
ua-cam.com/video/rn85RHrShrI/v-deo.html
2:23 "They can't get a single hit on me"
Gets immediatly hit in the face with a rock
The "ugh" kills me
I died when that happened XD
rock hurt, No matter how strong your armor are.
would of been more hilarious if it was a jav in the neck
It was a chest hit
Resonant: “500 horse archers is an unrealistic amount.”
Genghis Khan: Allow me to introduce myself.
Crassus peeing himself
@@NoahKaneisme That poor fool.
@Abu Troll al cockroachistan every soldier also had atleast 2 horses
@@NoahKaneisme lol yeah
I wonder how history would have changed if he didn't fuck up so royally in Parthia.
@@imswanronson3558
Lol, pun intended?
It's said that Genghis Khan had around 80,000-100,000 mounted horse archers whom each owned 3-4 horses.... Imagine that!
Their map movement speed and carry capacity must have been crazy.
@@GameLeaderR you win! Ahahah
@@GameLeaderR except the herd modifier
@stupid person except those men had wives, sons, fathers, mothers etc... so the herd penalty wouldn’t apply and they’d get footmen on horses buffs xD
I'm just saying imagine if he attacked using all his horses and circled an entire army. Even 10000 horse archers would have been insane. Bet it would have felt like a mini earthquake.
you should try an army of 500 looters, stones for days
koldaris YEEEEES he is gonna need alot of morale tho
500 looters build a giant wall of stones and retreat while you’re in awe of their engineering capabilities.
That's OP
I'll try it I'm a stoner
Gameplay tip for horse archer forces: giving your HA a charge order isn’t what you wanna do because if they run out of ammo they’ll charge in and die. What you need to do is give a follow order and run lead your men in a circle around the enemy until you notice ammunition is low. Then, either coordinate a charge OR retreat fully and reengage the force with full ammo! Rinse and repeat until your enemies are defeated. I’ve taken on marked 6 times the size of mine with this strategy.
THE HORDE
better yet just hit f1 and then f4 to advance your troops. archers will fall back when enemy comes closer and horse archers just run around shooting arrows until they run out.
How do you get ammo refill?
@@aznfattass Did you ever test it? stop spreading fake news it is so bad tactic to use advance in any case any troop
The advance troop command is unreliable. To minimize casualties it’s best to just have the men follow you directly.
You can refill ammo by retreating from battle. To do this either hold tab and click retreat while in battle or run outside of the battle limits for 10 seconds. You will be brought back to the prebattle screen and can reengage as many times as you’d like as long as you’re healthy.
Horse archers are significantly more effective if you split them into two groups.
Delegate the first group to "sergeant's command." Then wait a few seconds, and do the same for the second group.
Whatever they're circling will attempt to face them with their shields. If you've got two groups then you can't face both groups with shields so one group will be shooting their backs/sides.
"They can't get a single hit on me"
M E L E
**thousand hits**
*Last Words*
even if its not optimal in every scenario that view to a massive HA army running over the plains is worth it
The hit and run you can do with a full cav army is great not a single army can catch up with you
When the arrows get empty, you leave the battle and directly attack again.
You clever son of a bitch, I'm trying this now.
@@imswanronson3558 no thats a horrible tactic as leaving manually takes time to get to the border and your troops will die before you reach the edge of the map. The better way is to Press tab and click the retreat button its actually the leave button as it doesnt cost any troops/. So press tab>click retreat> attack again.
Kanav Kohli no penalty?
Wilfred De Lang I dont think so. I did it all the time with looters to farm my bow skill.
@@Kammerliteratur Probably you dont have a penalty when fighting a weaker enemy, so they dont want to fight you
Here is a tip. When you are in a field battle, hold your archers in one place and let them fire until the enemy starts to get close. this means that they dont get reduced accuracy from moving, but because they are mounted you can tell them to charge and run rings once the enemy gets within striking distance. Usually though, a force of ~80 mid to upper tier horse archers can have half their army routing before they get to you, and run rings around the other half
yeah, that moment when the enemies are fleeing and they turn their backs to your archers
4:49 I think they're checking if the enemy is in range like irl
big if true
@@semamet That's how committed to detail they are!
i-ts better late than never- arrows that they throw are made a line that tells the enemy that "if you pass these arrows we'll beat the shit out of you" its an old tactic that mongolians and turks used
That's also how ships used to measure how much compensation they'd need to hit their shots.
I used to do it ti check range in Total War.
Even the low level horse archers are really strong. You actually feel bad for the enemy as they dont stand a chance
Yeah, I raised an army of 123 khuzait horse archer and heavy horse archers and killed a 1240 strong aserai army.
I charged, retreated, attacked again etc killing 400/round losing 33 men in total (23 were just wounded)
Stunning victory.
I was playing on easy difficulty but still, 123 vs 1240, and I lost 13 units and another 20 wounded. And they lost 1240 soldiers.
They are too OP lol, guess thats why the mongols managed to conquer 22% of the world.
@@DennisHeikki Yeah, before Muskets, they are the best armies in medieval ages.
@@hoyinching9313 Genghis Khan 2 times bigger than Alexander and 4 times bigger than the Romans :(
@Abu Troll al cockroachistan This is why Horse Archers are dominating like over 4000s years. It just works.
I use horse archers more static in the firs moments of the battle. Just hold the ground so their shots are much more accurate and devastating. After enemy closes the gap I usually order them to follow me to the righ flank and after thst give order to charge. I find it more effective against infantry focused armies with this tactic.
How do you counter horse archers?
Do crossbow/foot archers effectively stop them?
C H foot archers can outshoot horse archers. Use shielded infantry to protect your archers and you shouldn’t have too much of a problem.
C H Crossbowmen don’t outshoot archers at the moment. Shield wall circle + archers should work but in same numbers horse archers tend to still win. Placing your cavalry at your left flank to engage them might also be a good choice.
an effective counter would be heavy cav at the left flank to charge them and silence
@@GewalfofWivia don't know how smart the ai is but circles can easily be pierced by cav
This is what Byzantine Empire experienced after Manzikert
Turks at that point, were better at metallurgy than nomads of antiquity and were very keen on lancers and various other types of cavalry too.
But yeah, generally, you're right. Unlike Ottomans who tried to style themselves as Romans and tried to adapt their unit types a bit, Seljuks were mostly classic Turkic horse archery armies. But the height of nomad warriors were the Mongols.
*Roman empire but yea cuz byz isn't a thing
Mazikert was Iranian fighting style not Mongol or Turkish and Seljuks are Iranians
@@alimoradi8454 Delusionalism......
@@alimoradi8454 Lol
So Khan's Guard vs Fian Champions, who would win?
@@JS-cf2li open field ofc
on equal terms? Khan guards. The khan guards will run out of arrows quicker, then charge in. While the fians, with their heavy melee weapon built, their armor is mid-tier at best. Neither their weapon nor their armor will help them face a speed multiplier-boosted khuzait glaives.
I actually simulated this once. In 10 trials, I think the fians only won... once. Standing archers in general rely on number of arrows released over a certain period of time. Fian shoots farther and have better arrows, but shoots slower. In most general cases, this is okay, but an army of khan guards can't really be classified as "general" kek.
The master archers fared better. But ofc, they'll die quicker once it goes into melee.
@@reveriesend4668 How did you simulated it?
I do believe, open field, the Fian champions would win, especially with few troupe involved.
My reasoning is, while Khan's gards armor is slightly stronger, Fian champion got a really good ranger armor too, and their bow is really better in anyway (except the rate of fire which is slightly less, but still absurdly high for a bow this size). Also Fian Champion got god tier accuracy, unlike the Khan gard that sacrifice a bit of accuracy for being highly mobile on a horse back.
So, range seems to be at the adventage of the Fians. and while a Gard should defeat a Fian in melee (especially considering the horse charge and weapon reach) I don't think Fian would allow the gards many chance to come this close.
On larger battle, on advatage the Gards have over the Fian, is that they can more easely mess up the Fian's IA. In bannerlord, archer seems to prioritize shooting whoever is the closest to them. Which mean, Gards fire will be pretty effectiv on the still pretty dense "loose formation" of the Fians, while the fian have to target all over and arround them, and there fire will be far less effective, due to them "overkilling" a lot of targets. (Basically, they are so accurate, they will waste a lot of shots because of target acquisition, while the Gards, with their lower accuracy can just fore in the bunch and will almost certainly hit someone...)
That s just my opinion though... But I may confess myself biased toward Battania...
@@TeteBruleeFR you need to test it not just have an opinion based on your belief
taking castles with horse archers, you breech first wall and then instead of charging into the castle, you setup firing position on chokepoin. As enemy will start comming, you will kill them before they can hurt you (because they are mostly low tier infantry).
Do crossbowmen next. I’ve tried using them and they just seem so inferior to archers, I’d like to know if my hunch is correct.
I'd assume so, from what ive played. My advice for crossbows would be to put them in your garrison(s). They're superior on walls. That's sadly it. Fians for lyfe.
crossbowmen are really slow and they dont have much better armor/fighting ability when it comes to melee
The main advantage of cossbowmen is their high tiers having shields, making them a hybrid ranged/infantry. That's the best use I've found out of them.
The vlandian ones are pretty good
Most of the crossbowmen are bugged and have higher bow skill than crossbow skill. Use the mod that fixes unit stats.
Imagine you feel that ground starts shaking and the noises comes closer to you and the last thing you see is that thousands of mounted archers charge at your castle,village,place,kingdom,💀
I wouldve went in the opposite direction😂😂😂😂😂
It's not that hard to get Khan's Guard once your leadership is high enough to rank up bandit units that you've recruited from prisoners. They can be ranked up from the tier 1 and 2 steppe bandit units, so a few hideouts will get you quite a lot (use tournament arrows/bolts to wound them and get more prisoners).
I'm doing a Khuzait horse archer playthrough at the moment and I swear I'm having some of the most fun I've ever had while gaming.
8:47 i see you, why did you try to kill that poor horse?
Khan's Guard also makes for VERY STRONG melee units because they use the 2H Glaive, a shock AoE melee weapon. The swings can dmg multiple enemies at a time. You could definitely siege castles with them and win against everything.
Tactics note: It’s often better to sit in loose formation and let the enemy come to you. Their early cavalry charge can be dealt with easily, then the slower infantry blobs. If you’re at risk of being engaged, use the “Follow me” order and just circle right, run to a new elevated position and wait for the enemy to once again marshal forward to get you; all the while being slaughtered by accurate volleys of arrow fire. Rinse and repeat until the enemy breaks.
I was able to destroy a 1,000 man army with a hundred horse archers that way.
"F1 + F3" Sun Tzu :D
I appreciate you starting with the basics! Really fun to see the progression. Keep it up man!
I am in southern empire but in battle vs aserai I recruited their horse archers. Omg so powerful. Their range is incredible I always seem them shooting arrows at the enemy when I can't even see them and they will whittle down troops before my foot archers can attack them. But I'm playing on very easy mode. Most importantly all tier units have the same upkeep. Which makes 100% cavalry army super cheap and strong. In total war games cavalry have smaller troop sizes and cost significantly more. So they are much less powerful. Plus total war spearmen have shield walls. In Mount and blade the ai infantry are always scattering.
A large heavy horse archer with a core of decent spears and archers is one of the best counters I've seen against the empire's legions, they cant keep up with the horse acrchers and the regular archers hit from a distance with the spearmen coming in for clean up duty
Genghis Khan at 13:30:
*IT'S ALMOST HARVESTING SEASON*
Using advance over charge keeps the entire unit together to give you better spreads against enemy formations, a couple archers chasing a few isolated enemies is ineffective and wastes ammo
13:35 This is what Turks' preys felt for hundreds of years on the battlefield.
I am playing kuzhait in my campain and because i really like mongol way of warfare i go for full cav with like 60% horse archer and rest schok cav
It work really well on open field i can crush army three to four time my size however when the battlefield is a forest it become really hard and i am not even trying in siege
Realistic and historic too!
If you get a forest map just retreat and click the attack button again until the game gives you the map you want
Turkic turkish and mongol khuzait Represent this nations
While the circling mechanic is awesome in wide open areas against pure infantry what I find is best against mixed armies on wooded or uneven maps is to just use them like infantry archers in formation, but ones that can quickly run to the other side of the map and set up formation again. Just leave them in a formation until the enemy infantry gets close enough to hit and then run away and remake a formation. This keeps you kiting enemy cavalry around so you never have to fight them at the same time as infantry and risk some men dying. If you can't get the enemy to run into your formation just run up with your companions and take long range potshots at their army, or snipe their leader and eventually they will charge. If you run out of arrows just use the retreat button and reengage with full ammo. Rinse and repeat and you can kill 1000 unit armies with 100 and lose close to 0 units. Best units in the game in my opinion.
a simple charge is suboptimal in my opinion. if you really want to get maximum utility of them, take an advantageous position, wait while the enemy is getting close, but not too clos, while your horse archers are shooting them, then reposition them, take care not to run into the enemy, repeat until you win.
horse archers can do a lot of dispatching if you have them follow you and just hold them in position when they can get shots at a clump of them. Especially if the rest of your army is charging in, the advantage of horse archers over archers is you get shots from more effective angles that the archers can't reach, and the AI doesn't really take advantage of that at all. And khan's guard do great in sieges! I think this strat can actually be optimal on the campaign map, just don't plan on your horse archers being able to kill more than 3 men each with their limited ammo.
Instead of letting them charge in woods or when the terrain is against you, it's better to lead then to an advantage like a hill and then lead them to another spot as the enemy closes. Rinse and repeat.
I'm currently doing a khuzait play through and I just won a 14 versus 78 battle where I had just horse archers. I had 5 bucalareii and the other 9 were tribal nomads. I went up against all infantry, it was the minor faction leader who used oath keepers. They were mixed tier infantry but had about 10 maxed out oath keepers and I pulled it off only losing 1 horse archer.
I am now curious just how effective crossbowmen only army is - they often have good armor and they have shields for extra safe and effective melee.
Specifically I'm interested in more "common" tier 5 ones like Imperial Sergant Crosbowmen and Vladian Sharpshooters, both of which is relatively easy to get.
Pillagius me too
My current army consists of 120 Legionaries, 120 Fian Champions, 60 Cataphracts and 60 Khans Guards. I've taken on multiple 800-1000 man armies with 0 losses, it's so broken but so much fun lmao
I've found the best way is to put the cav archers into column formation and have them follow you, then proceed to ride circles around the enemy force. Its worked amazingly for me so far and looks freaking awesome!
I want to mod Bannerlord to make the Khuzaits OP af (more so on the campaign map) to try and simulate a Genghis environment. think it would be stupid fun for a bit, try to hold out against the hordes of horse archers. maybe just remove every unit for them except horse archers lol, probably not though
I like what you did there with those infantry, the hit and run technique, used by the Parthians against Crassus in Carrhae
do 1000 farmers next
do you mean peasants or is there a actual class called farmers that i dont know of
13:13 what u came for
I think it would be better to just park your archers in a loose line in front of the castle and just pick the walls clean from the ground. Seems like you lose most of them trying to climb the ladders.
that's the problem, during siege horse archers some how act like they are infantries and refuse to fire their arrows and instead choose to climb ladders and chop heads. Either that's a bug or it's a feature.
One trick is using a battering ram, ooen booth gates. Then keep your archers infront of the gates.
The AI assumes you storm in so they send all troops to charge. Meaning they run off the walls through the narrow gate in yozr arrows
Love horse archers, but getting war horses is a pain. I wish there was a workshop that bred horses so you could invest. Needs to be a thing asap.
You can get it if you have a village as far as I'm aware.
@@subutaynoyan5372 don't you just get taxes from fiefs?
I got a lot of imperial chargers in empire's army loot. Any bandit that use horses also often bring some war horses with them
@@mcmarkmarkson7115 Well, that really depends on how prosperous your fief is
Fian champions versus these with even numbers see who is the best haha
10:33
Man on right ladder: Wait wait wait, why i'm going first??????!!!!
Acrophobia is a serious issue.
I actually did that once xD
be handy if the AI was smart enough to use the circle formation that helps negate horse archer as its the closest thing you can get to a Testudo
I love horse archers, not only because of the combat, but also chasing enemies and raiding.
13:16 The Huns have arrived and the Roman Empire left the chat.
I get that reference, but they are based on mongols tho.
Hun turks
@@bobbybob5231 Khuzaits and Khergits are based on a Turko Mongol Mix
@@UmayAltyn huns are mongols
The khans are dope. My cavalry & horse archers really show their presence out in the field. I basically modeled my story after Atila. Started off as a mercenary for the empire then took over sturgia for myself. Now I'm debating on if i should take the khuzaits or ally them & take over the empiric territories they're at war with. Suggestions?
dude just let the horse archers army follow you and go around a circle on the attackers this is how to win any battle
Imagine how crazy and pissed off people would get if the devs of this game REALLY implemented the Mongol tactics of sieging. According to history, mounted horse archers would never dismount and attack as infantry, instead what they would do is that they would wait out for the settlement to starve, or if they brought onagers they would just bombard and wait. Mongols were invulnerable towards starvation as their mounted horsemen could dispatch a few riders to obtain supplies. Soon as the defenders grew restless they would force to take them on on open ground that would lead them to their doom. If the Khuzaits were like this, all of the factions in Calradia would have to unite to face them.
I had an army of 80 Khan's Guard in campaign before switching to the beta. :D I did have them backed up by about 30 Heavy Horse Archers and about 50 Heavy Lancers. Army was able to fight at 2 to 1 odds with nearly no casualties.
Genghis khan had trouble with sieges until he got chinese engineers, but he was dominant on land battles just like displayed in this video, i can only imagine this is how they actually would do it!
I wish I had a computer I'd love to get this game
Somewhere I saw a clip of WWI Russian Cossacks cavalry, watching 10000+ cavalry charging sabers drawn is just amazing. Now imagine those 10000 armed with composite bows as well... Makes me want to hide my gold and flee to the woods!
Low level horse archers are better used like normal archers because they have bad accuracy on the move. Form a line fire until the enemy is nearly upon you then retreat 150m and repeat. High level horse archers are effective in a charge because they have better accuracy and have armour to protect them from the enemy's archers/javelins.
Best tactic to play with HA.
Build an army with 3/4 of horses archers and 1/4 horse man, at the begining line horse archers and wait for the enemy to charge on you, when they are near your troops scream EVERYONE! and then F6 let the sargents take the lead. If you only atack with archers the enemy shields will allways look at them, horse man will penetrate infantry and the enemy infantry will try to strike them and follow them giving theyre backs to your fantastic machineguns... this is the tactic i use, never had any HA out of ammo... carefull with terrain an near vilages.
13:12 -> Khan's Guards start here and last only the last 3 minutes...
What GPU and CPU you use it run quite smoothly in siege fight
For me my GPU is Nvidia GTX 2070 super but when come to 500 + 500 siege it Lag af. But even it not 500 + 500 siege the normal siege still around ~50 fps. In max setting
I literally did a playthrough like this lol.. easiest shit ever. Make two groups: A small group with ur elite Horsearchers that alwas attack as early as possible. The big group is spread as widely as possible and they attack about 20 seconds later. The first group will spread the enemy around and make their formations break up.. the second group destroys everything. Easy win against anybody.
To be fair, the imperial army you took out if your Khan Guards had a lot of recruits and other low tiers units. If you had faced a similar number of Imperial Elite Cataphract or Battanian Fians, it might have been much closer. But I agree that horses archers are really powerful and hard to fight against.
could you make a battle test between 500 Fiann champion vs 500 Khan 's guard? I'm sure your video will have a lot of views.
this isn't even a meme army, I use a horse archer army in my "atillia" let's play and it dominates!
Horse archer only is busted (Siege battles excluded).
An Army of 1000 of the Northern Empire was sieging one of our castles, I figured I'd save and see how it goes. I had 103 Horse archers, the castle had about 100 random units, and I lost 5 units, the castle lost about 50. Poor bastards, they really shouldn't have lost a fight like that.
Props to the AI Generals... I mean while you the General was doing a review on your own troops they didn't even try to kill you lol
Yo this happened in real life that’s the awesome thing about bannerlord xD literally *Crassus* lol but yeah imagine being an infantry man and the horsemen have you pinned circling constantly shooting seemingly.
Meanwhile they are cycling both; mounted archers/arrows and horses every couple hrs to keep enemy fatigued/pinned and keep the mobile armies advantageous vigor/energy and attrition advantage from the skirmish/es.
We are of the same house lol. Calradia fears the golden snake atop a black banner. Always my choice, or a golden lion.
Looking at the power meter, you way outclassed that army anyways. Can you find a comperably expencive army to fight?
There just isnt tho? Also the final battle is to see chaos, the first few are to see how good each unit it. The last battle is just fun
If one of my troops happens to block the ladder like in 10:36 he immediatly gets executed with a swift headshot. Would put a meme with crying Wesley Snipes with a gun but I am unable
They would have done a fair bit better in the siege if you had forced them to actually act as archers, order them to hold their ground at the base of the wall and just snipe defenders off the ramparts.
Amazing commentary! Very funny to watch! Well done.
I HAVE 315 HORSE ARCHERS IN MY ARMY!!!
The Aserai horse archers seem to have better armor, and they have a shield. So they are stronger if you go for sieges. They do have less arrows, so they are not as good on plains due to less ammo. But I think the Aserai horse archers is a better all-around unit.
Yes they're more versatile, and can last better on foot due to their secondary weapons being tuned for melee situation.
But things might be different once they allow horses on siege (like how it was on the promo vid.)
@@reveriesend4668
Horses will still be limited in sieges, still think the malmeluke will win that comparison.
@@evil001987 who knows? maybe? theoretically the aserai is better in sieges than khuzait, so...
Bucellarii is better in terms of armor and ammo. Besides, they can't use their shields while using bows
@@nabara6949 kek the shields are for when they run out of arrows. I'm just saying that melee is sort of underrated atm bcs of how everyone are so fazed with range troopers.
but yeah Bucelarii have better armors. And relatively easier to train, too. While I do have a ton fck of stock of Khan's Guards, in usual gameplay I always mix Bucelarii, Heavy Horse Archers, and Khan's Guards in my mobile troops.
Some tips using horse archers:
1. Take comfort knowing that it's the most powerful unit type on any flat terrain, but remember they struggle in difficult terrain because the potato horseman AI can be permanently stuck on trees, rocks, enemies, and friendlies.
2. Horse archers can be used exactly like archers - have them stay still and they will have good accuracy and good angles from their horses. Khan's Guards have 280 in bow - they don't exactly match the Fian Champions but they are still pretty damn good.
3. Khan's Guards are somewhat poorly armored and their athletics is... 25... So they are not the most useful in some cases. Still gotta love them though, cool as all heck.
4. The Imperial Bucellari are the best-armored horse archers with 130 one-handed, 130 bow, 120 riding AND 130 athletics. These guys are so versatile and just plain op that they can contest the #1 most powerful horse archers in my opinion. They do have a huge downside of very poorly armored horses though.
Khan's Guard has 280 bow, therefore much more accurate and faster RoF than Bucellari. As for armor, they have the equivalent to heavy inf armor, not exactly weak. They also carry Glaives, so in melee they are deadly in groups due to the AoE nature of that 2H weapon. In fact, they are OP and the only balance is its difficult to obtain many of them in-game. One weakness for Bucellari are their horse being unarmored, KG has the same armored horse as lancers!
Yak losing KGs in Sieges break my heart... Their armor is the best armor of Khuzait but it’s still a little underwhelming when compared to imperial or vlandian armor. Bucellari have the same body armor as the Elite Cataphract, just hilarious. It’s nearly 1 million a piece for a player to buy, if one can find it on sale at all. They are more useful in sieges and slightly more expendable.
Even if you can't siege you can still bully the hell out of lords on a map
really glad about the 'most replayed' feature
my main tactic for horse archers is the 'follow me' command and just circle around them a few times, retreat far away onto an elevated spot and then form a line and snipe the advancing units and if im severely out numbered ill just hit and retreat so i can restock on arrows and rinse and repeat
How about next try an all crossbow army?
I believe an army of ALL Archers can beat anything.
Khuzait heavy horse archers and khan's guard. 50
Imperial palatine archers. 40
Battanian Fian champions. 10
This army of 100 can kill almost anything, even much larger armies.
I noticed horse archers would hop on any nearby horse on the battlefield then joins the cantabrian circle again, really cool to watch.
Yeah AI is really nice, they pick up arrows and re-mount horses.
9:30 . They lose because you dont use cav correctly. Putting them on a wild charge and then not giving them orders breaks them up and over time they end up attacking in small numbers making it easier for them to get killed. You need to consistently pull them together and do whole unit charges.
Vlandian crossbows next please
Is that is Turk seljuk Empire 💪💪🇹🇷🇹🇷
F6 boys and girls, F6 that will delegete the task of the horse archest to the "sergeant" and they will automatically start skirmishing and harashing the enemy
We need some peasants the great hardworking people lets hervest
Temujin would be very proud.
Can we get 500 v 500 to see which doomstack is the strongest of its class
Vlandian Banner Knights
@@kaikart123 Oh i'd love to see that!
you should do 500 of the top crossbow troops. Those are probably better than bows in high numbers due to higher flying projectile speed and range.
Control your horse archers, leave the standing archers and infantries and cavalries to do whatever they want to do in the formation you setup them into. That's always the golden rule.
I am endlessly disappointed that they didn't have better battles from release.. it is almost copy and paste from warband. Maybe include ambush conditions where you start with the enemy on all sides and you're maybe in a camp or bad formation like Total war. Maybe if the enemy has only 1 man on horse he doesn't charge alone.. Maybe the enemy doesn't just charge every battle. these are all things that have no excuse for not being in the game already without having to add later on.. these are CORE things that absolutely 100% should have been in the game from the start and most likely will never be added without MODS. I love this game only for the fact that modders will soon fix it. But it is only warband with a new skin
Well at least those poor looters got a bit of shadow in the desert before they died
"They can't get a single hit"
*"URGH!*
😂 Oh, the irony!
Also...
*"ERROR: Text with id ui_hit_shield_on_back doesn't exist!"*
U wut m8?
press F6 and win. Dont order the charge...
agreed. although its helpful to lead the cav atleast to side charge through enemy ranks.
My Ideal setup is like 70% horse archers and 30% regular cav. I set the horse archers spinning then i tempt the enemy with my cav so they turn to face me and get peppered with arrows.
A dothraki horde! ON AN OEN FIELD, NED!
For me, the Khuzait Khan's Guards are far more superior to the Fian Champions because of their mobility alone.
With an army of 200 ( 80% Khan's gueard, 20% khuzait heavy horse archers) I managed to annihilate armies of 800+ men. Just retreat when ammo starts running low and repeat. When playing Khuzait I also love executing every single person that I capture and as soon as I reach clan level 4, within the first year or early second, I break off with my holding, beat a couple of armies, kill the most powerful vassals, leaving only the weakest alive, I start my Kingdom.
Influence wt this point is between 1000-2000 so peacing out immediately is also an option but where's the fun in that.
Siege a major settlement to lure the armies in a fight, capture them, roam around fighting mercenary armies of 40-120 units and capture any settlement I want unopposed.
Dont even bother building towers and rams in sieges, just starve the settlement for a couple of days or a week, depending on size, before laying siege. Build trebuchets to destroy enemy equipment, charge in, position archers concetrated on a hill and when enough damage is done, place a smaller unit close to the ladders to lure even more defenders out, pepper them some more before again concetrating the men on the top of the wall, at this point more than half of the dedenders are dead so just charge.
In the 4th year of my current playthrough, I took over 20 or so settlements with an army of 200, while taking at most 5-20 casualties in each battle/siege. The most fun playthrough I've ever done. Executed around 60 nobles and mercenaries, northern empire is just one person now, Southern empire is 2-3 nobles at around 20years of age, aserai are 5 nobles, one from each remaining clan.
All my vassals are promoted Wanderers which is 100% broken as their relation to you can NOT get down no matter what. Stupid stupid fun...
It's hilarious how in Warband, the Khuzaits were weaker than wingless chickens against the Saranids, especially when you're the one leading the Mamluk Spam. But now it's like the tables have turned, and now it's the Khuzaits who are now the dominant force in Calradia Prequel: Bannerlord, and the Aserai are... pitifully weak. Such a shamfurl dispray! 🤣😭
managed to get about 30 hastati as prisoners and recruit them later on
the triarii look sick and are pretty damn good infantry
"So what can you do?"
"I'm an infantryman. I can hold the line against charges and have good defense stats."
"Lame. And you?"
"I'm a cavalryman! I have excellent movement speed and offense, and can break enemy lines and slaughter their ranged units!"
"Lame. And you?"
"I'm an archer. I can kill half an army before phasing out of reality and into a different dimension where I can kill the other half."
"You're hired."