Faction Units Guide - Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord
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- Опубліковано 1 лип 2024
- When starting Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, it can be confusing deciding which culture's military best aligns with your play style. In this video, we briefly look at all of the cultures in a 3-4 minute dive
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Hey, Great info here and great pointing out the temporarily messed up stats. Though I want to add that it seems like you didn't fully grasp the two main infantry lines concept for the factions. You mentioned that you noticed that there were noble lines but said they are difficult to access. However, they are far more accessible than the sub faction lines that you were calling "specialist lines." Once you join a faction and become well renown in it accessing the noble lines becomes quite easy, while the sub faction lines are very difficult to access at all times. The noble lines should be considered the most "elite" and they are kind of a reward for gaining renown and loyalty within a faction. Also you completely missed the noble line of Battania which has the Fian, probably the single unit Battania is most known for and easily the strongest archer unit in the game, and the reason Battania is know as the "hail of arrows" faction and not the glass cannon faction that you referred to it as.
I definitely glossed over that Fian line for sure. I pinned the comment of another gentleman who pointed that out. But you bring up a GREAT point about the accessibility of those noble lines. What I might do is take everyone's collective feedback and make a NEW sticky in a few hours. I'm sorry for the misinformation here. I do NOT want to spread the wrong info, so that's on me to do the due diligence a bit better. I think it's because I've had trouble accessing the noble lines, which makes me rule them out as a bit less unique. I guess the follow up argument could be made that if I wanted to make a hodge-podge force of a lot of different nations, getting access to ALL of their noble lines would be difficult.
Any tips on getting to the noble line quickly?
@@italianspartacus The game is still fairly new so still lots of unknowns across the board, I may be spreading misinformation myself by saying the sub factions are inaccessible, I may have just not found a reliable way to recruit them without taking them prisoner and converting them yet, and there may be ways we don't know about. As far as the noble lines. if you gain access to the 4th or 5th recruitment "slots" the nobles are very often in those at major towns and periodically they are in those slots at the villages as well. You can certainly not find enough to make your entire army out of them but should be able access enough to have a strong complementary unit of elites. There may also be other ways of recruiting them that I haven't discovered yet such as a common way to get them in m+b Warband mods was to recruit them from castle training yards, though I haven't experimented enough with the castles to see if that is an option.
Yes I do believe you are right accessing noble lines without dedicating yourself to a faction is far more difficult so the noble lines could be thought of as the specialist infantry that are your reward for fully investing in that faction and if you have a hodge-podge army then you don't get reliable access to the nobles of any faction. They aren't always the most notable infantry or what the faction is known for though. If you want access to the best archers reliably then investing in Battania is an obvious choice. Also if you want the best heavy cav then investing in Valandia is the obvious choice for the banner knights. however there are some odd ones like Sturgia where they are probably best known for their heavy infantry but their noble line is a cav unit so it seems like maybe there is not much incentive to invest in joining Sturgia since you can just go town to town and recruit their most useful units. Perhaps in that case its a matter of if you invest in Sturgia you will lack cav like you said and the nobles are intended to complement the already very strong fighting force of their heavy infantry.
Sorry for the info dump but last thing to note when looking at troops that can help is you might note the level and the "tier" rank of an infantry can often best be use to gauge its strength. all of the standard recruit lines cap out at "tier" 4 and level 26 usually. While only the noble lines can progress past tier 4 and rank up all the way to tier 6 and level 31. So they are objectively the strongest units in the game. There may be some exceptions to this though I haven't seen all the lines or studied them overly closely, but that seems to be the rule of thumb.
@@italianspartacus Out of curiosity I looked into the highborn frequency more. It looks like notables with the "powerful" or above power rating when you mouse over their portrait are the ones that can spawn nobles. so your fastest way to reliably get nobles it to get in the good graces of as many of the powerful rated notables as possible.
@@italianspartacus could this be done with the bandits. No playthrough has done much to show off the bandits and minor factions.
@@italianspartacus getting nobles is not hard if you know how, you don't need to be part of the faction to do it.
The only person you will get them from will be powerful landowners. Every village has a landowner and a headsman, and from the villages where the landowner has more than 200 influence he is powerful and you can recruit the noble line from him
"Aserai is the most challenging faction in terms of troops so you will need to get your tactics down if you want to be successful with them"
Me: walking with my mameluke army pressing F1 F3 \0/
Me in all Faction army
That's what I do with my Elite Cataphract doom stack F1, F3, profit. They do have a devastating charge but the hand to hand is drawn out a bit, but they get the job done
yeah doing that right now with my arab campaign
full mameluke cav... got 206 riders
and they just stomp over any army :D
I do the same with my Khans Guard armies
me in any army in the game because its what too easy
You missed the Battanian highborn youth line of archers which is the strongest part of their roster imo. The elite Battanian Fians do so much work in battles.
They definitely are the strongest part of the Battanians
Pinned your comment for the world to see! Thanks man, that was totally on accident! My bad
They can also be recruited from one of the bandit archers if i remember
Don't get mad.. I unpinned your comment and pinned someone who laid out how to get them. I wish I could pin more than one. I'm going to make a NEW Pin of all the feedback in a few hours so that I don't miss anything. I'm so sorry for glossing over that note dude
Don't get mad.. I unpinned your comment and pinned someone who laid out how to get them. I wish I could pin more than one. I'm going to make a NEW Pin of all the feedback in a few hours so that I don't miss anything. I'm so sorry for glossing over that note dude
The intro was wrong already. "Six major factions" - wrong. It has one major faction. Me. The rest is minor factions to be conquered.
This game for me is 1st time and I didnt knew anything about that. So I was just defeatiing everything to whom I met or chase or saw. Later I saw that the blue faction conquered them all before I even started the mission xD
I had 1million gold and 100k weight of item. with 550 units. Soon I declared war with blue faction AUTOMATICALLY ( I dont know why) and their 2000 units came to my castles and defeated me xD
@@aslof1069 sounds enjoyable, completely deserved for trying to absolutely cheat the shit out of your first playthrough of the game :^)
Iskandar, is that you?!
@@Benebazsi I didnt cheat mean, I just got addicted and played it for 60+ hours
Arzagos aproves
Faction timer
Vlandia : 1:39
Battania : 4:18
Empire 6:40
Sturgia 9:27
Khuzait 12:46
Aserai 16:30
Doing the lord's work.
Thank you
Watch out! We have a hero here.!
Thank u
"Javelins are harder to aim."
Dude, have you played this game? The AI doesn't miss.
By far the khuzaits are the worst to fight against in open field their horse archers will do circles around you and whittle your army into nothingness
Only a fool would meet the Khuzaits on a open field.
Kingtot the night king did and crush them.
10/10 historic pain in the ass
@@Kingtot ON AN OPEN FIELD NED!
Lol just shoot them with crossbows
“Yes... we shall conquer them with boars!” “Brilliant mi’lord they’d never expect it!”
insert random "putin riding a boar" meme
Vasile Mihai lol
Vasile Mihai :P
Here are my 2 cents on the matter of best troop/strategy:
Vlandians: Crossbows and knights. Good at siege warfare due to solid inf and crossbows that are decent at melee. I think their cav should be used as a finishing or denial tool. Finish off their morale with a charge after crossbows have done their job or deny specific threats such as horse archers, archers, enemy cav or "glass canon" troops.
Battanians: Fian archers and skirmishers. Play "Cant touch this" by MC Hammer. Let the fians empty their quivers while skirm and inf run around like crazy to distract and throw javelins. Fians also have insane athletic skill in case they need to reposition. Battanian battle often demands maneuvering a lot of times to make sure that your troops are not overwhelmed in melee. Pray that you dont get charged by lancers or circled by horse archers.
Empire: Sword and board is your unbreakable core. Form a shieldwall and everything else will be dedicated to make the shieldwall work wonders. Send cataphracts and horse archers to bully whatever is threatening to ruin your shieldwall. Great at siege due to sword and board inf + decent range options. If your horse archers and cav are free, break the shieldwall and charge along with all cav when the enemy has engaged the wall for a little time. The enemy will die like flies while running away.
Sturgians: SHIELDWALL! Did you know that sturgian babies are able to hold a shield the day they were born? This is why you always use a shieldwall with the sturgians. Order the wall at the bottom of a mountain or hill, place archers on hill = win against armies over twice your size. In siege these guys will do great. If you want them to do really great, then mix in some berserkers in with your infantry. remember that the berserkers and ulfhednar are weak to archers, to keep them safe behind the other guys shields. In field battle, the strategy is to let the enemy approach your shieldwall while being peppered by arrows. For a quick finish, charge in with some berserkers from a flank. The only problem at the end of a battle is to catch the runners, so a few fast cav are handy.
Khuzaits: Horse freaking archers. Get a ton of them, press F1 followed by F3 and you win EVERY field battle. Worst case scenario you have to manually pick routes for them to ride so that they dont get stuck or do something else stupid. The "follow me" command followed by you riding circles around you enemy until they are dead is also one of the easiest ways to do this. Sucky at siege combat, but what did you expect? At least they function as okey archers and the heavily armored ones can at least put up a fight in melee. Import some sturgian/empire troops for storming castles or have massive numbers.
Aserai: Mameluke supremacy. With enough mamelukes you can just put them on charge and win. The light cav troop that turns into mamelukes should be used to engage enemy cav in a way that it lets the mamelukes finish them with arrows. Even in siege the mamelukes are effective due to heavy armor and a shield. An army consisting of only mamelukes and Palace guards could actually be an effective army.
Absolutely excellent breakdown man
Almost feels like Aserai are missing a hole in their army...... An elephant sized hole. What else will provide that durable core of their maneuverable army?
he did not mentioned that they have very good archery units and in addition to the mamluke cav or infantry , their power is in speed and maneuverability so you need to use those points in your advantge by allways protecting your archers to let them do their work by protecting your flanks using cavalry and especially they have mix between archer cav and mele cav so it depend on your tactics and play style and its just information comparing with all the other units from other factions the Aserai are tehy only factions who their army is taken from a very early era liek from the 7nth or 8th centry while the others are all very modern
Just like the arabs in the crusades, they need superior tactics to win, their strength lies in maneuverability and skirmish capability.
@@ungobungo7986 Problem is I don't know how infantry's speed helps in Bannerlord. You can only defeat their infantry by getting into melee, and in melee speed has no advantage. I only see cavalry having speed to be an advantage, but if they're melee cavalry, they still need to get into melee to inflict damage, and in melee speed has no advantage. So even if they charge into the back of infantry, the enemy's heavier armoured, better armed cavalry will then charge into the back of them and kill them
@@chadhill455 skirmishing from behind troops or using your fast cav to attack pieces, e.g mismanaged archers or exposing flanks and then pulling out to aggro infantry and then skirmish them, as for the aserai infantry they are largely mediocre, but it's not like they will lose every fight they're engaged in.
bro they're fine I think they're a bit op their veteran infantry is no slouch plus their foot archers and fast ass cav they tear thick armies to shreds it's crazy
The lack of actual info on units in the encyclopedia really triggers me...
Can't be that hard to just list their equipment - That'S literally all I wish to know >.
that HAS to be added later, there's no way they're gonna leave that big of a gap in there. The entire encyclopedia, while already super useful, needs massive improvements.
I'm a complete sucker for games having just an absurd about of info on every aspect of the game built in, even if none of it is relevant to actually playing the game, so it hurts to have such incomplete reference material in the game right now.
consult the Warband wiki.... the units are largely the same.
they're all generic units: footman, archer, crossbowman, knight, heavy knight, spearman, pikeman, mounted archer, etc.
one civilization might have an extra tier in one branch for a specific specialization, like the mongol or arab tribes having superior horse archers that no european civ has.
but the other units are largely equal to one another.
I kinda like it, it's a nice change to actually have to look at what they are wearing.
So Imperial core with auxilliaries from other factions depending on what you need? Or am I an idiot?
Also, where have I heard that one before?
*roman chanting in the woods*
Yeah I use this in my gameplay. I have imperial infantry and archers with khuzait horse archers and shock cav mixed with imperial shock cav.
I also tried some vlandian knights but most armies have quite a lot of polearm infantry and that makes it really hard for the knights, so I prefer horse archers to harrass with some shock cav to finish of the enemy while my legioners and archers hold the line as much as possible.
You don't need other factions. Get a core of cataphracts and bucellarii. Send your bucellarii off at the start to harrass the enemy. Get your xbow's out double spaced with legionaries behind them in a shield wall. Command your cataphracts yourself and ride off to a flank. I never lose.
Kawaii Milliye high five here! We’re using the same tactic!!!
@Zwenk Wiel Vlandian knights are damn useless in mountain/hills and forest. You can't reliable couch and manuver in those.
18:25 thats because those arent specialist lines.
Those are minor faction units. They're basically just there to add visual diversity, so you know you're fighting a minor faction, instead of just copies of your own faction troops.
Fun fact, cataphracts are equipped with the best armor in the game.
You completely missed the battanian highborn skill tree with some exceptional archers
i knowww! :( i pinned the comment of someone pointing that out
Yea, didnt bother watching the rest of the video because of that. I have 100 champian fians. Full realistic settings on all, and i can solo armies of 300 with 0 losses. Pretty big thing to miss the literal most gamebreaking unit ever to be in the franchise. They run insanely fast for deploying and outright outrunning enemy infantry, and they are deadly accurate.
For me the easiest way to get at least some capable cav units is wiping out deserst bandit hideouts (there's LOTS in the deserts near the southern end to the map, at least 6 spots I found already) or fighting desert bandits and taking the "harami" prisoners. When you can recruit them you have a solid early on mail protected cav that costs only 7 gold per day
Jack of all trades, Master of none, Still better then a master of One. Guess that's why I love the Empire units :)
Jacks of all trades, masters of ton. You know you're op, when all your "send troops" are won.
The easy units ;)
The Vlandian sounds like the Rhodoks and the Swadians combined. Great crossbow and polearm infantry with excellent heavy cav
the Rhodoks are Swadians though
They're the ancestors of both. Southern Vlandians mixed with imperial culture and became the Rhodoks, northern Vlandians remained culturally closer to their origins and became the Swadians.
It's basically the Holy Roman Empire and the Lombards
No access to boars cracked me up so much, especially considering Turin's corrupted Vlandian play as a Boar clan
In my experience, melee units without shields are worthless, as armour does very little against archers. I tried taking some Elite Menavliatons to a bandit raid. They got melted by the first group of dirty bandits with basic longbows.
pesky archers deal pierce dmg and this dmg is by far broken as hell so they can only be beaten in a field by a good cavalry or in a camp by crossbowmen or better archer units.
ikr my 50 inf troop got decimated by 4 cav archers and 3 cavs, they couldn't even land a hit considering they are t4
I wouldnt say so, its about using them together, i put my battanian trained spearmen in a shieldwall in front of my veteran falxmen, when the enemy gets close I let the falxmen charge who first throw their throwing axes and those falxes... they deal some gnarly damage let me tell you
@@oscarmessely1193 They charge through the shieldwall people?
Don't forget that melee units without shields absolutely destroy infantry with shields. They are specialists. There is rock paper scissors going on. You can rely on them if your tactic is getting your cavalry to back ranks of an enemy and harassing their archers. Actually, in all open field simulations I ran shield infantry was worst in all scenarios. They really only shine in sieges
This is an interesting video, I like the structure of it and I think you did a good job of staying focused on the important elements so well done. Regarding the Khuzait I disagree with your assessment regarding their difficulty to play; they require less micromanagement than a few other factions because of their cavalry focus. A mistake players appear to make a lot is using the charge command in combat which drives all selected units into melee regardless of their unit type; a much better command is advance which causes selected units to engage but does not command them to melee meaning your archers (mounted or otherwise) will move into firing range and automatically attempt to kite opposing forces.
Considering the above, the Khuzait become insanely powerful, even playing on realistic because your mounted archers will run circles around enemy cavalry, peppering them with arrows and of course anything not mounted stands a snowballs chance in hell. In my Khuzait campaign I give the advance order to my mounted archers then focus my micro on my infantry and even when outnumbered two to one I can decimate opponents of any faction with losses that fall well and truly into the margin of acceptable or minimal.
I am not a master tactician, it's select all > F6.
I also disagree with the extent to which you focus on armour; whilst I do agree that armour is very important I do not believe it plays as much of a role in Bannerlord as it did in Warband and that is due to the capabilities of tactical play in Bannerlord. Yes Warband supported tactical play but it didn't have the depth it has in Bannerlord and much more important than armour overall in Bannerlord is morale. There are some nasty perks in the game such as cavalry causing ten percent more morale loss to enemy units or each kill with a crossbow lowering enemy morale by one etc. I have done some play testing with a few such mechanics and routing enemy forces is utterly devastating to the balance of power, severely diminishing the opponents odds of victory. I reckon that the impact of good tactics vastly outweighs the armour element in combat to such an extent that in most cases I hardly think armour is much of determining factor.
In smaller scale fights, armour is everything. If you're looking at up to say fifty against fifty type battles then armour is very important but in larger scale battles, one hundred per side or more I believe armour becomes a non issue for the reasons stated above. Smaller scale skirmishes you can even resolve on your own with a mount and a polearm.
I think the easiest faction to play, if you're limiting yourself to just one factions units and not planning on mixing troops from other factions in, is Vlandia followed closely by the Empire. By mid tier the Vlandian forces have some very solid staying power, they require no major micromanagement, their crossbows are devastating against armour and they have four above average in general type units which are their sergeants, their pike-men, their sharpshooters and their cavalry.
If you take Vlandia as your origin then an additional twenty percent experience to your forces after battles is nothing to turn your nose up at either; that's actually a substantial boon. Every five battles your troops effectively get the experience of a sixth battle... For free.
Since you need to build rep up with town npcs to recruit their more high end units (and many like Battanian highborn youth can be tough to find), another way to get them is by fighting high end bandit units and hideouts. Although there is some RNG as to what units a given bandit group has (they still are worth a lot of money to sell as prisoners), the strong bandit groups like Sea Raiders, Forest/Mountain Bandits always seem to carry units that when promoted become those rare recruit-able units.
Sea raiders promote into either Sturgian Ulfhednar or Druzhinnik Champions, desert bandit units become Khuzait Khan's Guard, Forest bandit archers become Battanian Fianns, mountain bandits become Vlandian Knights. Plus if you're a cosmetic person these bandit groups carry cool unique cosmetic loot like the wolf skin helmets and capes which are both good and awesome looking. Plus they sometimes have mounted units which can give you high end horses.
Every time I hear, they have zero horse archers, my respect for that faction increases.
High praise coming from Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingate Helsing :)
why?
@@luissn9905 cuz horse archers are cancer
It's been 2 hours I am looking for this vidéo. Thank you !
The way to fight khuzaits is to engage them wile they are raiding so you get a settlement map to fight on. The worst thing to happen to cav is to get stuck on terrain which happens a lot in settlements from all the buildings and small walls while being picked off by archers and crossbows.
Here’s a guide from my gameplay from seeing Battonia take over almost the whole map within 400 in game days. You can’t stop the green tide lol cus I sure can’t when they have multiple 600 man armies running around!
Killacam___ 82 interesting, in my play through the imperial factions have pretty much conquered the whole map, I wonder how that whole system works
Dan Baldwin well ESO actually responded back to me on another video, apparently the Wood workshops were bugged so they gave the Battanian lords essentially 100 k a day so they had millions to overpower the entire map! Just sucks for me I might have to start over because it’s unbalanced. I have 400k and have a child on the way too sucks lol.
@@danbaldwin3273 ah… in my case the Vladian destroyed the western empire and the battanians and the sturgians, the southe empire is being crushed by the aserai and half the north empire is in the hands of the khergit
For me the battanians conquered all the west and the northern empire conquered all of the east. The Aserai were left alone in the south. Sucks cause I was Vlandian and we got demolished. Got to tier 4 clan and lots of money plus renown. Guess im starting over :)
Yeah, the devs are looking into the steamrolling thing. Although, technically it would be the right thing to do. Get the enemy on the backfoot and then keep pushing
The imperial Menavliaton infantry does have polearms, a menaulion is just a big pike
I was looking for this menu the other night
I have my multicultural mercenary army composed of several factions.
Exactly what I do
From my experience with the game having more units is much more important than the quality of them. The new ai knows how to surround the enemy. Tier 2 and 3 units can give the highest tier a run for their money. I just wish it was easier to increase the limit of your army. I wish level progression went a bit faster, it's soooo slow right now
I don't know, first game, 46h played and I already have a 500 army
@@andredulac4456 is that your own party size or are you counting other lords that have joined you?
@@andrewgodly5739 when I create an army :p alone I am at 231 men
@@andredulac4456 I made it to 287 for my party size with a tier 4 clan and an independent kingdom. I only just recently discovered you can convince other clans to join your kingdom so soon I'll have a big army
I'm just glad we can have more than 100 men.
As an arabian, I laughed hard every time you said mama luke.
How is it correctly pronounced?
@OreX oh I see, thanks
@@felixthecat0371
Or you can say it like
Maam-luke, just like the name luke with heey maaam in front
Mam+luke=mamluke
@@VLADB07 couldnt have explained it better.
Deus Vult
Played 20 hours as Asari, their empire got stomped because they declared war on Battania, then Khurgi, then Vlandia, then Southern Empire, then Sturgia. Yeah...... But anyway. Left them, travelled the world by myself, and now the 1.0.4 patch notes mentioned _"oh btw fixed Asari's default unit roster"._ OH is THAT why i had zero cavalry available to me besides from converting desert bandit prisoners? That might explain why their faction died xD
I cant even imagine being able to recruit and raise mamlukes, the actual purpose of the faction strength xD
That will be amazing!
That had such a huge consequence because, due to those higher tier high armor units not even being used by the lords, this means that any battle loot you find, also DONT have those armor pieces spawn in the loot list (since those units werent in the battle).
This further results in AI lords NOT having that high armor loot to sell to cities, meaning the player and other AI lords also CANT buy those equipments, because nobody could loot them and nobody could use those units.
This lead to my 20 hour campaign 100% in Asari lands, only ever seeing the "Layered Robes" as the BEST armor available, at 17 or so armor points. For the entire game.. God it will be so nice that this is fixed.
And also _"reintroduced about 200 items to singleplayer"._ Oh is THAT why there were NO CHEST ARMORS AT ALL in all of Asari lands with higher than 17 armor? Even horse armor too, they had NOTHING besides Desert Cloth at 15 armor before the 1.0.4 patch. The second i left for the north, i tripled my total armor value on my character, because every other faction actually HAD stuff better than leather xD
Yep might be another "Asari faction fixed" situation with that change as well.
About to head back there now, and snivel on my knees to make up for the -20 relation penalty from leaving their service earlier..
Another amazing video with clear and concise guidance four the game. Subbed!
welcome to the family :)
I'm loving the Khuzait, they work quite well with hammer and anvil style fighting. I've been experimenting with mercenary crossbowmen instead of the Khuzait bowmen and it does seem to help. The real problem I've found is maneuvering your shock cav properly so it engages the enemy infantry or archers rather than chasing enemy cav around the map.
most enemies i have encountered only have max like 20 cav units so at the beginning of a battle i rush them myself and then a little later do my cav and horse archers come in to kill the rest of the 10 enemy cav. once that is done they decimate all the poor poor infantry with polearms and arrows
"Empire has no access to dedicated polearm infantry"
What? You literally just went over menavliatons...
Hahaha I know I'm sorry!! I don't know what I was smoking. I think I meant two handed.. Like a sword or axe 2h
@@italianspartacus the Menavlions (the polearm they use) has a massive blade at the end that can cut and stab.
thank you for making these guides man!
As a veteran m&b player, the khuzaits are prob the strongest faction right now in terms of troops.
OH man, 100% - especially if you go full cav, I hadn't really fully experienced how strong they are when i made this unfortunately
Thank you, this was very helpful. I love how Bannerlord has multiple troop trees for every faction.
Just makes me wonder how amazing the modding potential is going to be now.
I'm so excited for future mods! :) thank you for watching
Thanks for the video dude, you have done a very good job 👏🏼
I have an entire Vlandian cavarly army split into three detachments. Champions and Bannerknights in one group, knights in another, then gallants and Squires in another. My army is 130 strong of cavarly and I will only have 1-3 men die in any open field battle. They are OP as all hell. Counter armies don't stand a chance with superior commanding of your forces
yeah, I agree but only on very easy, because on realistic they die really quickly. On second thought everything is dying fast on realistic :D
@@piotrka.9259 Naw. I purposely death stacked my army to be full of Vigla Recruits during my Southern Empire run and within just 20 mins into the game on realistic damage, out of 45 Vigla Recruit I have, 25 became Imperial Cataphract and during battle, I'm often outnumbered by the Aserai 3to1 and yet they get spanked by the Cataphract by just parking my infantry at where I start, make my character running around their back lines while calling the Cataphract to follow me, press F3, rinse and repeat.
I did that to a battle where they had 300+ total men and I only had 60. 30 something Cataphracts and Elite ones with like 8 crossbowman and a weird mix of bandit infantry and yet the infantry and crossbowman did not die while my cav ran them down and only lost like 3 cavs during that stupid trick those Mongols used. Realistic damage needs to be bumped even higher tbh. May be I got used to it on Warband so I know how to anticipate it.
Add a 3rd group for mercenary cavs. IMO lord parties needs a buff, i only got 80 units with me all cavs but a mix of champions, bannerknights and mercenary cavs, and i can mow down 90 to 100+ enemy unit lords since most of their army roosters are recruits. Atm im making a challenge for my self to only use infantry and i dont use a horse.
I guess I'm only on easy not very easy lol. But now my army is 210+ and trying to train a lot of infantry and fresh Squires. Still killing it, thin them out with cav then hammer and anvil the rest for the infantry to get some xp and its been working so much better
@@justsayin2085 It's still possible. I'm playing Sturgians now and I'm playing it like how we used to play the Nords in Warband. On foot, with a 2 hander axe, bow and arrow and stand with my infantry, mowing down anyone coming towards us.
It works but not as well as normally if its a line & file fights on open grounds, you'll die quite a bit more men but still doable but if it's sieges or when those men sally out to attack my troops, they're all decimated.
Vlandian Heavy Calvary + Khuzait Horse Archers + a few Empire Swordsmen = fear the Horde.
Yaaaas, was waiting for this!
About the Khuzait infantry and archer lines... I believe the best use of them would be to have them hold a position while the shock cav and archer cav take care of the actual killing. With that said... I usually only go for cav until my army is quite large anyway lol... Feels pretty mighty to have that horde of cavs in battle!
With his name all I can picture is someone in an Italian accent saying
“It’s-a me Spartacus!”
And a churlish wink as I disappear into your sewage system
“My Lord! We outnumber them 5 to 1! This will be an easy victory!”
*sees boars*
*retreats*
Battle Commands Guide: ua-cam.com/video/eS7QI9CuHJ8/v-deo.html
Purchase link that I get 10% commission on: www.fanatical.com/en/game/mount-blade-ii-bannerlord?ref=italianspartacus
i really enjoyed this guide thank you
The Sturgian shock trooper are absolut monsters when flanking the enemie on the field, trust me. I always take a few of them and circle around the enemy and hit them from the sides, if you do that with the shock troops, it's a massacre
Great videos! You can actually speak english well. You don't try to sound like a ring announcer (can just see the wink and finger point); f, that's annoying. The info you cover and explain is exactly what's needed and done really well. Favourite UA-camr right now. Thank you.
The Aserai noble line is incredible. The fact that they carry javelins and lances makes them amazingly powerful offensively, but they do tend to die kind of easily.
Those Boar units you were referring to, as well as the poachers and other units like that, aren’t really anything to do with the major factions - they’re exclusively for the mercenary factions and you can only get them if you take them prisoner and recruit them that way
Thanks for info, I love fast cavalry heavy armies to keep up with me and my npcs
I'd say one aspect that might warrant highlighting is how you actually have prerequisites for unit upgrades in Bannerlord (at least for now).
You might be thinking to go after some nice heavy cavalry - only to discover that you need a warhorse for every single one you want to upgrade.
Yes, you need to GIVE THEM a warhorse (and specifically a warhorse - or whatever other horse they specifically desire) to upgrade to certain units.
If you do not have that particular type of horse available you can forget about upgrading that unit.
This really changes things up as access to some of these things might not be as easy. Plus not only do you need to get access to the right core units (meaning roaming specific areas) - but you also need access to additional things which can really complicate certain troop lines.
Yeah, this is an interesting extra hidden cost to upgrading units. For example, the khuzait have really nice cavalry, but after tier three all their units need warhorses, making a full khuzait army very expensive to raise compared to almost any other force in the game. Tons of AI lords get stuck with a ton of tier 3 cavalry be cause of this
back in warband 100 praven knights is all u needed to roll over everything and everyone.
In this current patch: Calvary is your bread butter, the more elite the better. High map speed, couch lance damage is a virtual instant morale break for most factions, and horse archers are almost invincible. It doesn’t matter how much godtier your infantry are if your enemy gets to dump arrows at them for free and reengage by running off the field.
Also the Bucellarii are good foot archers too thanks to the speed of their bows and double 30 pack they carry. The palatine guard are really only there because the Bucellarii are so dang expensive because you have to feed them a War Horse on top of the upgrade cost.
Could you do a video on how to organize your forces on the battlefield? I don’t understand how to create formations and use tactics; basically just follow me, move there and charge.
Yes that would be awesome
SO many people have asked for that that I'm spending a ton of time today right now trying to sink my hands into the combat system to make that guide today :D
When you're leading units, the F1, F2, etc keys give additional options, like 'hold fire'. Press the key for 'formations' and you can tell units to form a shieldwall, loose formation, wedge, etc.
After 30h, I still do just charge with everyone. This "tactic" gives me the least amount of losses (last battle I did was around me 240 vs 180 and I got 3 wounded). If I try to tinker with strategies and be more subtle, I get dozens of losses. Maybe I just suck
@@JulienFrey hmm I reckon it depends alot on which factions/units you are fighting. I have the same losses as you, although I form my army up before engaging. In many cases the enemy 60+man armies are routing before they hit my line due to my archers/cav. Could also be the balance of troops you have? perhaps you need more archers. If you have no sheildmen, perhaps charging is the best bet as you will take arrow fire whilst waiting for them to crash into your line.
you forgot to mention that to upgrade any cav unit you need to buy them a horse or a war horse which is even more expensive and further limits your ability to make large heavy cav forces.
Early game sure, but if you beat other armies you capture their horses. I think I got up to a 140 pure mongol cav army going right now
When you clear out Mountenbandits Hideouts you swim in Horses.
Villagers can also sell them to you for cheap. Look for the ones that are being attacked.
By chance my raiding party (up to 49) is mainly imperial units that I’ve improved through experience so they’re all pretty high tier, then a few random units from other factions. It works super well, imperial infantry is awesome
Nice to know that there’s differences between them. Tbh I thought all factions units were the same but just reskins nice to know that I should move out from the starting nation to fit my playstyle
I play whit sturgian infantry shieldwall and archers behind. 60% infantry to my shieldwall and 40% archers that most of the time killes over half of the enemies forces before they reach my shield wall. Works great. EDIT: I just took a city whit that army ~100 which destroyed 250 emperials defending the city Omar. Sturigian troops are amazing both in attack and defence in sieges. EDIT 2: Sturigian are in my opinion the best siege force in this game.
In sieges yes. But on the battlefield vlandian cavalry stomps them into the ground
Galador No the sturdian shocktroopers have spears... and the archers are suprisingly good at hitintills cav aswell
@@davidhemberg4910 still seine Cleaner through them. Afrer the First 1-2 charges their Formation is Borken and they can be picked one by one.
And don't underestimate the Horde Charge damage. Its Smalltalk but basically a areadamage. In nasses no Formation stand a Chance in this game.
I love the aserai just because u can run threw there land and get shitload of them. You follow that coast and u can easily get 300. Also there basic recruit is the tribesman in most areas so it's quick tier 2
Thanks for the quick guide. Though you didnt mention the Hastati line from the empire
Would be really cool to have them add a skill in the tactics skill tree that would give you a “tactical view”, so to speak, to use in game where you could zoom out and see the battlefield from a birds eye view and then be able to proceed and command like you’re playing total war. Cuz right now it is incredibly difficult to effectively and accurately command formations on the fly when your view makes it sometimes impossible to aim at the desired location to tell your troops to go there.
Also I really wished they had some kind of charge bonus. If your infantry are set in a shield wall or just standing in a line and you decide you want to make some kind of “counter charge against a line of infantry, you’re actually screwing yourself over because right now shield wall seems weirdly OP by the fact that enemy units melt like butter trying to attack them. Even if you want to charge at the back of infantry that are occupied on someone else, you don’t get any impact whatsoever. They just run up to them, and stop right at their face and just slowly and normally attack as normal. So if your charge a shock unit into a higher tier enemy’s rear, the only thing your flanking unit will do is die. It’s so dumb.
You should do a video on recruiting. Like what units and heros you can recruit from the prison tab.
Hey man. Great video. If I wanted a almost ONLY bow infantry to "blot out the sun" with arrows, what faction would I choose, and what skills should I focus in?
Battanian, Aserai both have decent options. Go heaviest infantry possible, focus on Athletics, Tactics, Bow
Note about the imperial roster: even though they don't have a lot of horse archers, both in game and in history mass foot archers were a counter to mass horse archers since horses add cost.
I know this had just come out when you made this video but I have been playing since release(early access), so couple things from my experience, not sure whether the same has happened for other people but this is what has happened to me.
1. Vlandia is by far the strongest or at least they are the easiest to use their only real weakness is lack of archers which have a faster rate of fire than cross bows makes them week to their only other missing unit type horse archers. But while the AI does attempt to skirmish you with their horse archers they don't seem to do it very and stop to fire all the time allowing you crossbows to be plenty good enough, though as a player against vlandia you can really hurt their cavalry and get them to waste ammo by using skirmish tactics.
2. while its not useless pretty much all un-shielded infantry besides maybe the empire late heavily armored stuff is at a huge risk from projectiles. Missile weapons of all kinds seem way more effective than in warband and the AI definitely uses them better though they tend to leave them unguarded as big battles drag on.
3. while no matter what the numbers say, the noble lines final unit are all very similar besides battania(which in my opinion is the best one). The are all heavy shock cavalry with a slight twist. Banner knights are probably the strongest all round, Elite Imperial Cataphracts have a longer lance and the best armor and damage resistant horse, Vanguard Faris and Druzhinik Champions both have throwing weapons with Druzhinik being better after the charge in melee and the Faris being the fastest heavy cavalry by a lot, and finally the Khan's guard has a bow and is very mobile.
4. Finally and you kind of did point this out part of this but to me the weakest faction is Sturgia, they seem to just have the most weaknesses. first the noble troops line or royal as you call it are not that hard to get, but beside battania they all either start out mounted or are at tier 2 this makes it very hard for stugia to get heavy cav. second while infantry focused they tend to have no armor until later tiers and some have no armor or shields making them extremely vulnerable to archers or any missile weapon. finally the normal troop line cavalry seem to be equipped to be a mounted skirmisher like the horse archers but it function like a melee cavalry. Now if you manually control them and use them like a jav cav from a total war game they can actually be quite effective but in big battles this hard to do and the AI will just have them throw some javelins then charge.
I have waited so fucking long for this game. And iam not disappointed
Good video, thanks man 👍 and you are so right with sturgia... I tried to lay siege to a castle with valandian infantry 😅 it was hell, i lost almost my entire army to their veteran units 😂
Reference the Khuzait Darkhan these dudes are beast. They have javelins, a spear, a shield, and a sword. The shield is a a medium round shield and they don't seem to have a lot of leg armor so i guess thats their weakness but so far they wreck in one to one combat. I havent been able to test them against a heavy cav charge yet but so far they are beast against infantry and light cav. Their biggest weakness is probably horse archers and crossbow but definitely don't underestimate them in infantry combat. Favorite unit i've found in the game so far that you can get as a starter unit for cheap without having any faction rep.
I use sturgian foot infantry for their shields with a few battanian spear units.?archers are imperial, vlandian and khergit. Then I have a flank of horse archers and I charge from behind the enemy with a heavy cavalry mix. Always destroys larger forces
You forgot the aserai vanguard line which are the heavy melee cav you missed in the faction, its the common noble line, and works wonders as an all rounder.
Khuzait players: Assume all enemy units have already contracted Corona virus. Social distancing mandatory.
the bugs are rather horrendous at the moment
Luckily the modding community already fixed a lot of it. There are already files that fix the wrong stats and enable disabled armors and even whole troop trees that are supposed to be available.
Typical shitty practice. They have definitely released it in such a sorry state and left it to the community to finish what should have been done years ago.
@@stoyanb.1668 Dude, the community has been begging for early access. The bugs will be fixed
@@stoyanb.1668 Do you know what Early Access means? It also released like a few days ago.
Most bugs happen with city quests so its avoidable :p there are daily patches and thats kind of a surprise in times like these ^^
horse archers are lacking from those factions because the cultures they are based on (Western european) didnt use horse archers.
It depends on how you see it. The Empire, if it's modelled after the Justinian code which is the Byzantine Empire and not the good ol' Roman.. Wait.
Both Roman Empire actually used horse archers. Early Roman Empire ones din't but when it got close to the 12th - 14th century, they actually did employ some horse archers into their fold like those from the eastern steppe like the Cossacks from Transylvania. When the Western Empire collapsed and it switched to the Byzantine Empire, horse archers were used even more because they need those units to combat the Mamlukes of the Sassannid Empire during Justinian's reign all the way to the Ottoman's rise in dominance.
@@MrLolx2u Empire has Bucelarii for horse archers
@@MrLolx2u yes i agree - but byzantine area is eastern European my focus was on western European based cultural factions
Yeah, Khuzait culture is based on Mongol-Turk and Asia cultures which used too many horse archers. But in other cultures, horse archers weren't popular.
@@romainvicta3076 But you have to remember that the Empire we seen now is mirrored after the Byzantine so.. Yea. That's why the Empire has horse archers too. Not extremely great ones but still, available.
Note on the Khuzait their infantry can go toe to toe with anything you throw at it all you need are archers and horse archers to support them
you can be outnumbered by over 300 or even 400 and still come out on top with few casualties if you have a decent number of horse archers and archers to support your infantry..... for example my army comp is around 120 infantry 70 archers and 65-70 horse archers with no melee cav and I hardly lost more than 10 or 15 guys
I just mixed Valadian Banner Knights with Empire Legions and Archers. Didn't have much trouble smashing faces in.
I gotta ask, how do you find the Sturgian Huskarl Swordsman? I was with for a little bit in my campaign but they got absolutely steamrolled by the Northern Empire, and I was never able to to find these Huskarls.
The full saying is "Jack of all trades, master of none, but still better than a master of one" Looking at you Khuzaits
My horse archers would like a word with you, friend.
Seriously though, the best thing to do is what we've always done in mountain blade: mix and match
@@smittywerbenjaegermanjense7376 The only thing that can beat Horse Archers is Horse Archers. Once you strip their skirmishers off, you can bludgeon them into submission with whatever doomstack you like, *but one must always consider Horse Archers.*
@@JoshSweetvale Nah, man. Good standard archers crunch horse archers. Better accuracy, higher rate of fire, and cheaper. A horde of horse archers can't put down a wall of Fians or Palatine Guard. They've got their counter. Horse archers are still pretty OP, but they do have their weaknesses.
Great video and most of all, great job with taking the feedback in the comments! Subscribed for more content, liking what you’ve got so far :)
Ok, big fan of Warband, and I just bought M&B 2 last night. The F1, F3 charge is working for my 20 man squad, but what is a good strategy vid for controlling larger scale armies? (Open field)
Advance is F4 I believe. It's better than charge because the archers won't go melee.
The Empire's dedicated polearm infantry is the Menavliaton. They're the polearm infantry of the Empire. They do pull their swords but that's only when its in sieges. If not on open battlefield, they always have their spears with them. And I'm not sure tho but I find Imperial Crossbowman more accurate than the Vlandian ones or at least tend to shoot further, faster, harder and tend to land more shots on their targets. I'm not sure it's just me or why its like this. I played as the Vlandians during my 1st gameplay and all my crossbowman was Imperial as the Vlandian ones din't work well for me as they kept on dying to those Aserai cavs as they can't shoot far for whatever apparent reason.
Khuzait seems to fit the hammer and anvil tactic, IF you decide to have any ground troops with them. I've had great success with just cavalry as the entire force, the horse archers run circles around, and the hard hitting lancers clean up what's left. Of course this could change in the future as more of the game is released, but for now, it's too much fun
The imperial infantryman is to bannerlord as the swadian militia were to warband. Low cost troops that were very armored compared to their contemporaries.
Edit: the khuzaits have lighter armor compared to everyone else.
How do you get specialist units like huskarls? I only know the "noble" units like young/squire/warrior son
Their from the minor factions within each faction, you're basically never going to have them.
If you mix cultures in your army do you suffer morale penalty like in the original?
No
I think it happens if the troops are fighting troops of their own culture
I think they eventually put back this on the game, I'm mean still early access
I'm new to the game, so i just pick every troop that i think looks cool and will be good. trying to get more horsemen.
Is there any specific reason that makes it better to pick a few classes and go with a huge army of those? or doesn't it really matter that much?
Also is it better to use horses or have a healthy mix of horsemen & footmen?
honestly build however you see fit, you really can't go wrong because you'll adapt to how that army plays since it's your preferred play style :) currently, horse archers are VERY strong, but i think anything really holds water hehe
@@italianspartacus Thanks for the info! :)
How about Bandits? I tend to recruit Forest Bandits to fill my Bow needs with Battanian.
Elephants would be interesting in this game, and an earlier time period, say 49 BC
Would it be possible to do a video on the non faction related units and the different bandit types
Running a khuzait cav army with an empire infantry line is acc so strong i haven’t really lost with it yet
Thanks!
I have had so many times where falxman will solo take a wall they are really good and will net you lots of kills in melee fights
Some things have changed, but one thing never changes; the Bretonnia/Butterlord/Vlandia Rule. "If knights aren't working, it's because you aren't using enough."
the best guide would be how to access the console command
Hahahaha
Using Batannian troops right now in my current game. The specialist Archer line is fucking insane. Fian Champions are disgustingly devastating with those longbows, and the rate of fire on those is just so dirty.
I think I'll wait til further clearances whether Battanian specialist archers are just wrongly equipped, wrongly distributed skill wise, or just wrong info on those numbers.
The strongest faction, the sad crashes, i still love this game and have hope.. Hope is the best.
So how does your ideal army look like, for 50, 100 or 200 strong groups?
Someone else mentioned it, but the menavliaton is a polearm, not a two hander. The empire lacks shock infantry (As you are using the term for two handed infantry). I actually found the menavliaton to not have a place compared to the legionnaire
Aren't Imperial Menavliatons the Empire's Polearm/anti cavalry unit too?