My current playthrough I'm using exclusively khan guard. At a army size of 500 now I'm pretty much unstoppable in open combat or defense with next to zero losses, even against armies of 1400. In seiges I do tend to lose quite a few troops so I have to call my banners but yea they broken
@@shawntame45 I do 25% kkg and 75% heavy horse arch. The guard is used to destroy enemy cav first and then horse archers can clean up infantry and bows.. Maybe I should only use guard too.
@@MrKYT-gb8gsit's only good if your controlling the battle. I have wiped several times and had to rebuild my army each time it's because I joined the khans army and I didn't get command over all my troops. Or he sent us into a grinder of a seige battle.
I really enjoy playing as a mercenary band with no faction allegiance where I focus on mercenary and bandit units. I would love for you to rank all non-faction units! Thanks as always for the detailed content.
The mercs have high salaries and mid tier at best gear, making them bad units. I recommend donating these to other lord's armies for influence and training recruits instead.
Battanian wilding beats any infantry if given the loose, then fallback command when enemies are close, then charge when run out of javs. I been testing 100vs100 with legios and as long as you have room to fall back they will win, its even better if you use a couple cav to charge the enemy as you fire javelins. Their only weakness is their lack of arm armor, so in a fight without javs they get dumpstered, with captain upgrades you can get them to 88% shield damage, 1 more jav per bag 65 more throwing and big damage increases, since they are classified as shield infantry they can fully benefit from one handed and infantry captain perks.
@@MetalthinkerYT Not really, they got 2 bags of ammo now, i use loose formation with a few spearmen sprinked in and support them with cav when needed. Only Aserai Veteran Infantry trashes them, everyone else dies under a hail of javs even high tier noble cavalry. They are insane on longer battles, since enemies usually fallback to reform and get shot in the back, they can one or two shot troops so if anyone is damaged it only takes one jav, they usually get the most kills.
@ItalianSpartacus Hey man is there any chance that we can have a convo on you discord? i have been running dozens of hours of tests on Bannerlord troops lately and i think you might find the data very helpful in your upcoming tier lists. I am still wrapping things up for cavalry and Horse archers but the rest is done
I would love to see a video about how you would balance some of the weaker T5 troops in the game, (like the horseman or Sturgian archer) It would be great to hear your opinion on that!
I kinda wanna see a change of the sturgian noble line of them not being calv. I would want them with the same armor but with an axe and shield, with throwing axes. I want walking tanks since they would be great to stick with my mamluke palace guards. They would also go pretty well with Britannia skirmishers too being able to skirmish and retreat and they act as a disengage to keep my skirmishers range. Could split the riding between their 1 handed and athletics and split pole arm with throwing and athletics and make them the cataphracts of the infantry.
instead of throwing weapons, may be have a war razor? make them have an 1 handed sword, 2 handed axe, shield, and war razor. with a war razor no cav can stand against it. basically making ita better version of the un-nerfed sturgian shock troop. or, it could have variations in sets with 1 replacing the axe with a stack of throwing weapons
I totally agree with you. TW should convert them into elite infantry line like huscarls with 260 one handed weapon skills and athletic with heavy armor. They should be best infantry like nords.
Thanks for all your videos. Never quite got into Bannerlord at launch, but since then, with your constant stream of Bannerlord content, it’s got me into it big time. Keep up the good work my man!
Besides the Cataphracts, Druzhinnik Champions are my favorite. Though their horse isn't the best, they're great heavy shock cavalry and are deadly during sieges. In most of my playthroughs there's a crap ton of siege battles in mid to late games so while I agree the path getting to the Druzhinnik Champion is difficult, the investment has always been worth it for me.
I tried them because I love their huge shields, but they almost never hit the couch lances because the lance is tiny. Couch lances are pretty useless in the first place because the cavalry units get in each other's way once you mass them up, but at least the longer lances have a bigger chance to hit the enemy before they block each other's path and lose momentum
I did two playthroughs, one with BannerKnights and the other with Cataphracts. I preferred the durability of the cataphract more than the killing prowess of the Bannerknights. Both are very good however. I also used the Faris in both playthroughs as well. I'm not sure if I was using them correctly, but I found them to be a bit underwhelming, as they weren't killing nearly as much as the Cataphract while dying just as much as the BannerKnight. At first, I integrated them into the main Cav formation, then I split them up into a Faris only formation. The Faris would Charge first, using their superior speed and Throwing as a distracting Skirmish while the main Cav formation would be seconds behind them as a true Shock Cav. Either way, I found them not as useful as I'd hoped, but I still LOVE using them. A tactic I want to try next is to use the Druz as a mobile infantry. What I'm thinking is trying to send a large group of them behind enemy lines, or at least to the Flank, then DISMOUNT them, Shield Wall, and Hold. With their superior armor and Shields, I bet they could tank ALOT of arrows while my main Infantry of Shield-less troops (like the Heroic Linebreaker) gets into range. Another way to think of the Druz is to think of them as the BEST/ONLY Tier 6 Infantry.
heavy lancer is criminally underrated. very solid non-elite unit, available in hordes and comes with significantly cheaper daily wage, making it far easier to field a mass of them in early game. also, looking at the units they are meant to work in tandem with the lancers function exceedingly well, keeping cav off the horse archers and running over enemy foot archer formations.
I prefer to Banner Knight to the Elite Cataphract primarily because I've found that the Banner knights fight better on foot. Not for sieges, I love to dismount my Cavalry in battle because they can deal a lot more consistent damage on foot. Such as dismounting them on top of the enemy archers. Or if I just need some very strong and sturdy infantry. I also don't like that the Cataphract has to put away his shield to use his lance.
Also I prefer the Banner Knight because they can use their lance and shield at the same time, the cataphract has to put away their shield to take out their lance
I tend to run cataphracts with a small group of banner knights. I like the ability to fight from horseback with sword and shield its nice against other calv but with the banners I also get a nice punch for infantry lines.
Very interesting video and I agree with the tier list. I'd appreciate a follow-up once the Vlandian noble tree (and maybe regular cavalry) get updated armor sets. I personally modded the second best shoulder armor for Vlandia onto the Banner Knights (as well as worse versions for Champions and Knights) and found that the difference is actually incredibly large. The cumulative armor for Vlandian Banner Knights is much more comparable to Cataphracts with the upgrade, and while they still have their Leg Armor weakness, I was very surprised to find that they die FAR less frequently than they used to. They really feel like a proper cavalry unit with the change.
Once you have the perks that gives xp for discarding armors and weapons you can recruit and upgrade your druzniks champions in a few clicks, in fact you can make full elite armies in a few minutes using this method.
I’ve done a cavalry only playthrough, so imo I loved the vanguard faris because of their javs, BUT the banner knight and the cataphract were also my favorites that I had in my army. To me the cataphract is the most useful out of all of them because the empire has the most land and the units were easier recruit. They utilization of the cataphract goes a long way being a solid shock cav but also a good siege unit. My only complaint was that they would charge the enemy without their lance so they would stick into melee a lot more often (in 1.7.2) I haven’t really done a cav only on the new beta. Bannerknight did the most damage on an open field since they can couch their lance and would devastate units head on, although in sieges they took more casualties for me. And the vanguard faris was in the middle ground, they did great in the open field because of their javs, and good in castle sieges because they would also get jav kills. So I would place In S tier cataphract first, vanguard faris second, and banner knight third. Remember friends women are temporary but the cavalry charge is eternal!
From what i can gether, the ideal mounted army is, Khans guard, elite cata, druzhinnik champion. The khans are your archers, the cata are your shield breakers and the druz are your shock/infantry troop.
At first I was slightly offended that you called the Druz Champs B tier, but you spoke your reasons well. I recruit my troops from my prisoners and I do prioritize these and elite cataphracts over everything else. Training them isn't something I really considered because I haven't done much of that. I grab a bunch of villa recruits (which are easy to find) at the beginning of a playthough and then recruit prisoners for the most part.
Thanks for making all these videos! Have you heard of the Bannerlord Warhammer mod, The Old Realms? As someone who loves TWW2 and M&B, it's pretty interesting. It really brings me back to playing Warband or even the original M&B's various, often amazing and sometimes comedically shoddy overhaul mods. There was even a warhammer overhaul mod for one of them back in the day. This mod is VERY early and unpolished but these overhauls were half the reason I love the series so much. Maybe I'm missing em, but I haven't seen many (or any, really) great overhauls for Bannerlord yet.... so It's exciting to see someone working on this WH overhaul. Again, quite unpolished but it's worth trying out and keeping an eye on.
One thing to consider is to look a bit more closely to armor than just looking at the total armor. Cavalry is a lot more likely to be hit in the legs than infantry so leg armor is. Also their skill levels are almost completely negligible, you won't notice a difference within 50 points of skill really. It boils down a lot more to equipment, which is why Khuzait Khans Guard will wreck any other unit on your list in 1v1 melee, just because of their glaives.
Tried vladian calvary only playthrough and came upon a retinue with only Archer so I thought it would be easy... My entire retinue of 70 calvary lost to shitty 80 archers
I definitely agree with the positioning of all the cavs, with the exception of the Vanguard Faris. In my playthrough its Javelins were just insanely devastating, which is why i would move it to A tier. Otherwise awesome video as always!
With my experience with Druzhniks is, that they are very durable at horse and on foot. They are universal units, except in my games they was killed more on horsa than foot.
Nice vid. Well explained and to the point. Definitively do more for infantry, archers and horse archers! However I dont agree with Battania Mounted Skirmisher. Maybe they are good (I decided to focus on them in my first Battania gameplay), but the fact that they are not cavalery till 5 tier is very troublesome. Veteran Skirmishers dies a lot. And now its almost impossible to pick them out from Oathsworn line and do separate unit for them to keep them save. No, they are part of your main infantry group that I often put in ahead of Fians in shield wall. And Veteran Skirmishers have two stacks so they throw a lot, and while they throw they lower shield, and while they lower shield they die. They die much more than Oathsworn so its very hard to level them up to tier 5 and if not, you are out of cavalery. Sure, you can Hold Fire for Shield Wall, but then Oathsworn suffers and lost part of thier utility. It was so hard to make big group of Mounted Skirmishers that I finally gave up. No I go with Sout - Horseman and well, they are not that good as other Cav on game, but charging back of these pesky Valandian Crossbow Rats does the job anyway, and I can much easier keep big number of cav
You know, one of the most fun parts about warband was taking the different strengths of the different races and putting them together in a single army that let all of them shine. It is significantly less fun when the empire has s tier units for all categories.
Nice list, these are always fun, think your way of assessment is great and mostly spot on. Only one point of disagreement and a minor one, but I do think banner knights are just more all around top tier than Cataphracts, whose durability is amazing, but their slight comparative pole-arm weakness and their good, but definitely lower, dismounted power does make the still very durable Banner knight probably come out on top for me. Also totally with you on the Battainian skirmish cav, great and definitely underrated, I'm going to say best non-noble line true cavalry in the game. .
@@sethparker3122 You would think that one would not slip through, but alas the era of auto-correct means these things are fairly common. In good news, context is king after all.
Glad to hear the Imperials have good horseman! I wanted to use them just for their appearance and the idea of having heavy Calvary sounded awesome. Glad they are good, I didn’t want to look else where lol Barttian Infantry backed by Imperial horses. With a couple legionaries because they look fing awesome
From what I saw it appeared that only the Imperial Elite Cataphract had a 2 handed polearm, I image that helps with damage as well. I was trying to keep an eye on the polearms the whole time.
@0:46 whilst I can see why you would do this, because it fits the game systems and UA-cam search algorithm better, I do think it's more helpful if you would include khan's guard into the cavalry list and and battanian fians in the infantry list. Reason being is that people don't care about the categories set by the game, they're looking for the best fix for their situation. So the person looking for your video, this video, isn't looking for it because it wants the best cav unit that the game classified as cav, it wants the best cav unit period, even if that's a khan's guard. Actually, that would even be better since khan's guard can fit more roles and be even more effective. Apply the same message to any other hybrid or cross category troops.
That's a pretty great take. I was doing it more to make it seem like there's more in one category.. But maybe I review them twice, once in each of their hybrid categories so they're represented. Like hey Khans guard is an A tier Cav and S tier horse archer. Use accordingly hahaha
@@italianspartacus if anything is an S tier Cav it's the khans guard. They can 1hko the elite cataphract and all lessor Cav. You can just let cav charge into them and they get slaughtered, or place them on top of the enemy cavs position, or hold fire + charge them and they just obliterate Cavalry, then anything else too. It's not nice or fair to be the best Cav and Best HA, but it's the truth. And if anyone wonders, yes Khans guards can just annihilate siege defenders off the walls. There's no catch here other then having to go the bad neighborhood to get them =)
@Wodane Fian champion is great hybird elite troop as well. They massacre infantry troops if infantry gets near them as khan's guard massacre other cavalry in close combat.
The battanian mounted skirmisher irks me because it's missing a polearm or a second stack of javelins. Also the Druzzhihkhinik should rank a lot higher on this list. Upgrading them from the infantry line really isn't difficult since if you're mass upgrading troops you're doing it on looters and bandits with minimal to no losses anyways, and beyond that point, the varyag and varyag veterans are very serviceable infantry in their own right. Druzzhzhzikns also perform a lot better than what you imply. They outperform banner knights due to better survivability by actually having leg armor, and they kill better than cataphracts since they have a couchable lance instead of a two handed non-couchable spear. The horse differences for these units are very negligible as heavy horse armor protects them from anything that isn't going to one or two shot them anyways. Also the sturgian warhorse is very close statwise to the kuzhait warhorse, so its odd you would praise the latter and bash the former. ANYWAYS IL STOP NERDING OUT NOW THANKS FOR THE VIDEO
@italianspartacus how bout a vid on how to crush elite cataphract, or those damn horse archers... Maybe a series on how to defeat certain combos with the various factions aka what are the hard counters for each faction...
My two elite cataphract is always my personal bodyguard that charge enemy lines with me, they get no out of bad situations all the time, rest of the cataphract can just set into cycle charge mode and charge enemy lines with no casualty whatsoever
The vlandians not getting shoulder armor until the banner knight and then getting pretty low tier shoulder armor when they do finally get it, means that they take a lot more casualties than the cataphracts do on their way up. The banner knights are ok once they do finally make it up there but I really hesistate to put the cataphracts and the bannerknights in the same tier. The Cataphracts and Druz Champs are by far the strongest cavs when fully trained and even the Druz champs don't really belong in the same tier due to the difference in horse armor.
I like banner knights more because of their couchable lance. A couched lance kills everything. And they're much faster than the elite cataphracts. Elite cataphracts have better bulk and can still do a lot of damage. It's up to preference, I'd say.
I haven’t played with Mongol or Arab, but Romans have good Bows and crossbows (a mix takes care of armored/light units), and the Greek crossbows are decent as well. Britain bowmen are good at long range and up close, but they struggle into heavily armored units I find… which is why you should mix with crossbowmen. I didn’t mention Denmark archers because they aren’t really worth mentioning. They’re bowmen.
sturgian nobles are my favorite troop type because they are the only tier 5 cavalry that can be upgraded using only basic mounts, well worth a pick early to mid game. They are also well worth spaming as alot of them will die before upgrading like he said, but they really snowball once you get them going. Also they are still solid infantry as they scale fast with upgrades like all noble troops. That said on paper they are a bit trash but in campaign they will start to carry the game.
Do an archer and crossbow tier list next, a couple of units got a 2nd quiver finally. Plus some other equipment changes I think it will make for an interesting video.
Everybody sleeps on the Druzhinniks - dismount them and they MURDER. When to leave them on their mounts and when to dismount them is part of the fun. (Also when did the cataphract get a couchable lance?)
This is very well timed as I just started a cav playthrough. I'm trying to get one of those tier 6 horses and go full charge damage to run everyone over. Also going large cav army and hope they do the same lol. Thanks!
Thank you for making these guides again? Im a relatively newcomer to bannerlord and Im loving it! But Im trying to learn how to focus my recruiting efforts. I want to know what the best units are so I know where I should go recruiting next. I would love it if you did infantry next, particularly non-shielded infantry. For me the legionary is the best in account of its armor and avilability but, I dont know which elite infantry (line breakers, mameluke guard, menavliaton) could be of more use, particularly in open field battle
In my opinion Bannerlord is very forgiving on troop choices the most a viable. Fire and Sword was much more punishing if you didn't use Swedish troops your ass was wooped very often. Play as you like and have as much fun as possible.
I feel like its quite a good picture. The druzhinik, aside from being super hard to get I must argue that they are incredibly good and usuay dont die as much as even the cataphract since they are reliable in sieges. My favorite unit is also the faris, oh man is it good. But it needs a bit more micro and the shield plainly suck so so bad. I mean the faris shield is even worse than the batanians cavalry targe wich says a lot.
It would be great, when its possible to change the mount/horse color. I play it on PS4/PS5 so there are no mods to change that. The color you start with, is the color for the entire game. Iam in love with this game since the first preview and horses are a very popular in the game. I hope that Taleworld bring a color option with the next Patch.
horsearcher or heavy infantry as next video and i disagree with cataphracts in a tier because their lance in not couchable wich is for me a no go for shockcav
Well, that sucks for me. I like Battania and Sturgia and like to mix up the units so I can have the best from the two factions in the various roles....but knowing the Druznik under performs by so much and the Battanian Mounted Skirmisher as well.....I think I am going to play my other concept, Azeri and Khuzait. (I like to play what I would consider similar factions, picking the best from both to create a more capable army. I dont' really play the kingdom stuff).
Khans Guards are archers but they arent push overs. They perform well in melee. I dont know the numbers off the top of my head and the battles take longer but I lose less guys.
They changed the cataphract lance, thats why the elite cataphract dont use it anymore. You can only brace with it now, and i dont know how that makes any sense.
I actually do consider the Faris to be S tier. Not better than the Cataphract or Banner Knight per se, but no other unit is BOTH heavy cav AND skirmish cav. Kinda like how the Khans Guard is heavy cav and cav archer at the same time. I think that versatility is really valuable, especially with cav which you're generally microing more than infantry or archers anyway. By similar reasoning, Sturgian Horse Raider > Battanian Mounted Skirmisher any day of the week. IDC what the stats say, the Mounted Skirm is not capable of charging with a lance because it doesn't have a lance. Both are primarily skirmish cav but with only 1 stack of javelins - once those are gone, the Horse Raider is the way better light cav unit because it actually has equipment.
i do agree on the Faris. their versatily should play a factor when ranking them even if the Killing potential is not quite the same as the Cata but i also think that there is no Cavalry unit that deserves an S tier in Bannerlord. On the other skirmishers their overall killing potential when they run out of javelins is really bad. your only option at that point would be to dismount them. And we need to keep in mind that the Sturgian Horse Raider has no Horse armor. that alone makes them one of the weakest lancers
That's why they get to deal with my khans guard and when they break to reform I crush them with my elites. They don't win fighting on horseback without the charge.
Cataphract lasts longer then banner knights in a siege. I usually have a bunch of both and banner knights drop dead so fast in a sieges. Like 3 to 1 . It's frustrating
Thx for the video bro. Could you make one with best workshops? Like type / city. I do like Salana brewry because of x3 grain. But my others are average. Also it says its lvl 1, you know how to get them higher lvl?
-Elite cataphracts don't have a couchable spear which means they'll always lose 1v1s against other cavalry -imperial chargers are very slow so they cant catch other cav/horse archers -they do have better armor than other cav but armor doesn't really matter in bannerlord. In my opinion they are pretty overrated and A tier.
@@kruesae22 not really. armor is now more effective against blunt weapons but that's it. i never saw anyone complaining about blunt damage, piercing damage is the main problem.
For those throwing, raider-style cav I have no idea how to actually use them to take advantage of their skills, since the battle command system is so damn unwieldy. So they’re junk to me only because I have no idea if they’d be utilized correctly. Better to just get those cataphracts and be done with it!
I think cavalry (as called cavalry by the game) is not good enough to spend warhorse upgrades on. It can be used defensively and for distraction, but for the investment of warhorses and t6 wage I want killers. Currently, cavalry fails to connect it's attack too often and then makes itself vulnerable again as it leaves to cycle charge. I do like the toughness of the cataphracts though, for something to be a small mobile SW or a distraction to open enemies to ranged attacks they're really good.
Imperial Charger is best war horse in the game. Because it's cheapest. And Cataphracts has one huge weakness. The lance that is not couchable and that require two hands, so no shield. So Fians and high tier crossbows mow them down when you slow them with thick infantry line. Shock cav is weak in Bannerlord, especially that AI uses it head on. Skirmishers are all much better.
I THINK I showed that the new Lance is couchable. I'm not at my computer to check, but it used to just be two handed, they got a new one. It might be BRACEABLE which doesn't help on horse back
one idea (an idiotic one, but one nonetheless): what about you do a tier with the best non crafted weapon for each type? wanna know where the menavletion stands
IMO the ease of recruiting and promoting is 90ish % of what makes a unit strong in this game, so Druzhinniks are arguably garbage, while banner knights and khuzait units are great because they become mounted very early (or start as mounted)
Sturgian Druzhnik are the best cav in bannerlord, often unrerrated (just like here) mostly because you grade them according to the stats, but they have the deadliest crouch lance in the game and they have superior leg armor counter to banner knight (which is the most important for cav units against infantry). Banner knights are maybe better on their own and they are quite versatile, but Druzhniks, when combined with different cav units, are devestating. Their charge is better than Banners and they are not easily knocked down, unfortunately when it comes to hand-on-hand combat they are not superior as Banner knights are. I think you should overthink this grading. Imperial Cataphrachts lance can't crouch, and that is a big blow in terms of strategy. You can only use them in hand-to hand combat or chasing enemies. Farris, Cataphracht and Druzhnik are the best units to combine. How I use them, I skirmish with Farris to open a flank, than I charge with combination of Druzhniks, Banner knights and other crouch lance units (mostly my companions), and when they come hand-to-hand I charge with non-crouch lance cavarly, when they engage I retreat the crouch cav and charge again. Most of 1:2 or even 1:3 battles are won easily like this. But don't disregard Druzniks! They often have more kills on charge than Banner knights, but you have to retreat them when they engage in hand-in-hand. This aspect of micro-manage is what people are missing in the game.
honestly... i think TW should either make different units for each empire nation or diferent culture bonus for each empire nation... because lets be honest, the avaiblity of empire units is too huge... i love it in a empire campaign but hate it on any other
I noticed you didn't include the Khan's Guard. They are relatively easy (or more so, more consistent) to recruit, and I would easily put them at the top of this list due to their multipurpose functionality (ranged and melee) and their incredibly high damage polearm (Glaive) that can one shot many units from a standstill...not counting movement damage bonuses. They lack armor and shields but have extreme damage effectively making them glass cannons, which is perfect for shock cavalry.
Am I the only one who often dismount cavalry even in field battle? Granted it is cause when playijng Vlandia i basically do not use infantry, but have like 3/5 Knights, 2/5 Crossbows.
You would be crazy to put up with Battanian Horsemen.Longest spear in the game of course,but they are UNCOUCHABLE(honestly who would want a long spear with low damage and uncouchable).Even worse,their one handed stuff is horrible and nothing could get him a win.I'd rather prefer Mercenary Cavalry over this,most horrible thing in the game.
Sparty first of all thank you for not making these dumb 100 vs 100 units videos for Bannerlord. Second of all, leveling up the units is not issue thanks to Steward skills (donation of armor and weapons), so an argument about any sort of hardship players may experience with leveling troops is not an argument at all. Because we can literally buy experience for our units. Noble-line recruitment. Each and every kingdom have castles, castles may have 2-3 villages. 2 of these villages probably will have 2 notables with Noble-line units. So it does not matter if you are Aserai or Sturgia, you will always have access to 12-18 Noble units from a single village. Elite Catas as S tier. These dudes are armed with Pikes... Which means they charge without their shields up. So, all these bolts, arrows, axes and javelins will damage them and kill them dead faster than any other cav unit in the game, Sparty. No amount of armor will save them. Moving to specifics. Why DCs are so beastly in melee (let say during siege battles)? Weapon lenght stat. For AI the smaller the lenght the better. AI can not judge or use the lenght of the weapon properly. Smaller lenght prevents AI from chamber blocks and glancing hits. Which means on average DCs will land more succesful hits than let say a Cata. Not because of their skill, but because of the lenght of the weapons they use. And it's very easy to check, as you know AI tends to break their cav into two groups. Just ride there and force a sword fight on a horse back with any number of the cav AI has. Most of the hits AI units would land on you will be glancing hits for little to no damage or hits with a chamber of the weapon that does small amount of damage. So alone, you can destroy half of the enemy cav without taking any significant damage if you stick close to them. So yeah, Banner knight is very powerful, mace variant especially. DC close second and then the rest of them. p.s. Druznik :P p.p.s. But in the case of cav on cav action, i completely agree with you, 100%. It's Catas, then Banner Knights, then the rest. But cav on cav actions only happens at the end the battle and hardly matters, unless you are using a mod that allows specific targeting for units.
no, the warhorse used to upgrade them doesn't actually get used by the troop. As a result, it's best to upgrade troops with the Imperial chargers bc they are the cheapest warhorses.
Khuzait Khans Guard #1, no doubt in my mind. Archery Versitility + pole arm = win win
My current playthrough I'm using exclusively khan guard. At a army size of 500 now I'm pretty much unstoppable in open combat or defense with next to zero losses, even against armies of 1400. In seiges I do tend to lose quite a few troops so I have to call my banners but yea they broken
@@shawntame45 I do 25% kkg and 75% heavy horse arch. The guard is used to destroy enemy cav first and then horse archers can clean up infantry and bows.. Maybe I should only use guard too.
@@MrKYT-gb8gsit's only good if your controlling the battle. I have wiped several times and had to rebuild my army each time it's because I joined the khans army and I didn't get command over all my troops. Or he sent us into a grinder of a seige battle.
Very Agreed 100%
Vs caraphracts? I don't think so
I really enjoy playing as a mercenary band with no faction allegiance where I focus on mercenary and bandit units. I would love for you to rank all non-faction units! Thanks as always for the detailed content.
Mercenaries are pretty trash,you would want some Lake Rat Wreckers to be better
The mercs have high salaries and mid tier at best gear, making them bad units. I recommend donating these to other lord's armies for influence and training recruits instead.
do it yourself bro
@@andrewpeli9019 I'm pretty sure this is meant to be a challenge anyway. Yes, it's not as optimal as training 300 khan's guards. So?
Battanian wilding beats any infantry if given the loose, then fallback command when enemies are close, then charge when run out of javs. I been testing 100vs100 with legios and as long as you have room to fall back they will win, its even better if you use a couple cav to charge the enemy as you fire javelins.
Their only weakness is their lack of arm armor, so in a fight without javs they get dumpstered, with captain upgrades you can get them to 88% shield damage, 1 more jav per bag 65 more throwing and big damage increases, since they are classified as shield infantry they can fully benefit from one handed and infantry captain perks.
On my battanian play through I loved the wildlings easy to make tons of them and they absolutely shredded.
@@MetalthinkerYT Not really, they got 2 bags of ammo now, i use loose formation with a few spearmen sprinked in and support them with cav when needed. Only Aserai Veteran Infantry trashes them, everyone else dies under a hail of javs even high tier noble cavalry.
They are insane on longer battles, since enemies usually fallback to reform and get shot in the back, they can one or two shot troops so if anyone is damaged it only takes one jav, they usually get the most kills.
Thanks for watching my bros! Go ahead and let me know what unit category you'd like me to cover next! I'm also considering ranking the Wanderers!!
Do militias of the various factions, it can really help to decide which is the easiest faction to play
Infantry
@ItalianSpartacus Hey man is there any chance that we can have a convo on you discord? i have been running dozens of hours of tests on Bannerlord troops lately and i think you might find the data very helpful in your upcoming tier lists. I am still wrapping things up for cavalry and Horse archers but the rest is done
I would love to see a video about how you would balance some of the weaker T5 troops in the game, (like the horseman or Sturgian archer) It would be great to hear your opinion on that!
Could you add for the other videos (ranged, infantry and há) the minor clans unique units (like the triari line) and bandits? As a comparisson?
I kinda wanna see a change of the sturgian noble line of them not being calv. I would want them with the same armor but with an axe and shield, with throwing axes. I want walking tanks since they would be great to stick with my mamluke palace guards. They would also go pretty well with Britannia skirmishers too being able to skirmish and retreat and they act as a disengage to keep my skirmishers range. Could split the riding between their 1 handed and athletics and split pole arm with throwing and athletics and make them the cataphracts of the infantry.
get the my little warband mod and you can do this!
instead of throwing weapons, may be have a war razor? make them have an 1 handed sword, 2 handed axe, shield, and war razor. with a war razor no cav can stand against it. basically making ita better version of the un-nerfed sturgian shock troop. or, it could have variations in sets with 1 replacing the axe with a stack of throwing weapons
I totally agree with you. TW should convert them into elite infantry line like huscarls with 260 one handed weapon skills and athletic with heavy armor. They should be best infantry like nords.
While this would be cool, Sturgia is based on the Kievan Russ peoples who relied heavily on horses.
Every non cav unit sucks, cavs are so broken in this game
Thanks for all your videos. Never quite got into Bannerlord at launch, but since then, with your constant stream of Bannerlord content, it’s got me into it big time. Keep up the good work my man!
Besides the Cataphracts, Druzhinnik Champions are my favorite. Though their horse isn't the best, they're great heavy shock cavalry and are deadly during sieges. In most of my playthroughs there's a crap ton of siege battles in mid to late games so while I agree the path getting to the Druzhinnik Champion is difficult, the investment has always been worth it for me.
I tried them because I love their huge shields, but they almost never hit the couch lances because the lance is tiny. Couch lances are pretty useless in the first place because the cavalry units get in each other's way once you mass them up, but at least the longer lances have a bigger chance to hit the enemy before they block each other's path and lose momentum
They're also surprisingly good infantry
Cheap war mount horses mean I don’t care if they die
I did two playthroughs, one with BannerKnights and the other with Cataphracts. I preferred the durability of the cataphract more than the killing prowess of the Bannerknights. Both are very good however.
I also used the Faris in both playthroughs as well. I'm not sure if I was using them correctly, but I found them to be a bit underwhelming, as they weren't killing nearly as much as the Cataphract while dying just as much as the BannerKnight. At first, I integrated them into the main Cav formation, then I split them up into a Faris only formation. The Faris would Charge first, using their superior speed and Throwing as a distracting Skirmish while the main Cav formation would be seconds behind them as a true Shock Cav. Either way, I found them not as useful as I'd hoped, but I still LOVE using them.
A tactic I want to try next is to use the Druz as a mobile infantry. What I'm thinking is trying to send a large group of them behind enemy lines, or at least to the Flank, then DISMOUNT them, Shield Wall, and Hold. With their superior armor and Shields, I bet they could tank ALOT of arrows while my main Infantry of Shield-less troops (like the Heroic Linebreaker) gets into range. Another way to think of the Druz is to think of them as the BEST/ONLY Tier 6 Infantry.
heavy lancer is criminally underrated. very solid non-elite unit, available in hordes and comes with significantly cheaper daily wage, making it far easier to field a mass of them in early game. also, looking at the units they are meant to work in tandem with the lancers function exceedingly well, keeping cav off the horse archers and running over enemy foot archer formations.
I prefer to Banner Knight to the Elite Cataphract primarily because I've found that the Banner knights fight better on foot. Not for sieges, I love to dismount my Cavalry in battle because they can deal a lot more consistent damage on foot. Such as dismounting them on top of the enemy archers. Or if I just need some very strong and sturdy infantry. I also don't like that the Cataphract has to put away his shield to use his lance.
Also I prefer the Banner Knight because they can use their lance and shield at the same time, the cataphract has to put away their shield to take out their lance
I tend to run cataphracts with a small group of banner knights. I like the ability to fight from horseback with sword and shield its nice against other calv but with the banners I also get a nice punch for infantry lines.
Very interesting video and I agree with the tier list. I'd appreciate a follow-up once the Vlandian noble tree (and maybe regular cavalry) get updated armor sets. I personally modded the second best shoulder armor for Vlandia onto the Banner Knights (as well as worse versions for Champions and Knights) and found that the difference is actually incredibly large. The cumulative armor for Vlandian Banner Knights is much more comparable to Cataphracts with the upgrade, and while they still have their Leg Armor weakness, I was very surprised to find that they die FAR less frequently than they used to. They really feel like a proper cavalry unit with the change.
Once you have the perks that gives xp for discarding armors and weapons you can recruit and upgrade your druzniks champions in a few clicks, in fact you can make full elite armies in a few minutes using this method.
I’ve done a cavalry only playthrough, so imo I loved the vanguard faris because of their javs, BUT the banner knight and the cataphract were also my favorites that I had in my army. To me the cataphract is the most useful out of all of them because the empire has the most land and the units were easier recruit. They utilization of the cataphract goes a long way being a solid shock cav but also a good siege unit. My only complaint was that they would charge the enemy without their lance so they would stick into melee a lot more often (in 1.7.2) I haven’t really done a cav only on the new beta. Bannerknight did the most damage on an open field since they can couch their lance and would devastate units head on, although in sieges they took more casualties for me. And the vanguard faris was in the middle ground, they did great in the open field because of their javs, and good in castle sieges because they would also get jav kills. So I would place In S tier cataphract first, vanguard faris second, and banner knight third. Remember friends women are temporary but the cavalry charge is eternal!
From what i can gether, the ideal mounted army is, Khans guard, elite cata, druzhinnik champion.
The khans are your archers, the cata are your shield breakers and the druz are your shock/infantry troop.
A tier list for heavy infantry sounds great!
imperial elite catapract armor is actually insane. I took me 6 hit to kill them. with one blow only deliver 30 damage
At first I was slightly offended that you called the Druz Champs B tier, but you spoke your reasons well. I recruit my troops from my prisoners and I do prioritize these and elite cataphracts over everything else. Training them isn't something I really considered because I haven't done much of that. I grab a bunch of villa recruits (which are easy to find) at the beginning of a playthough and then recruit prisoners for the most part.
Thanks for making all these videos!
Have you heard of the Bannerlord Warhammer mod, The Old Realms? As someone who loves TWW2 and M&B, it's pretty interesting. It really brings me back to playing Warband or even the original M&B's various, often amazing and sometimes comedically shoddy overhaul mods. There was even a warhammer overhaul mod for one of them back in the day.
This mod is VERY early and unpolished but these overhauls were half the reason I love the series so much. Maybe I'm missing em, but I haven't seen many (or any, really) great overhauls for Bannerlord yet.... so It's exciting to see someone working on this WH overhaul.
Again, quite unpolished but it's worth trying out and keeping an eye on.
Dude your vids are awesome for unit comparison, I've been watching all of them for my current playthrough. Amazing work.
One thing to consider is to look a bit more closely to armor than just looking at the total armor. Cavalry is a lot more likely to be hit in the legs than infantry so leg armor is.
Also their skill levels are almost completely negligible, you won't notice a difference within 50 points of skill really. It boils down a lot more to equipment, which is why Khuzait Khans Guard will wreck any other unit on your list in 1v1 melee, just because of their glaives.
Tried vladian calvary only playthrough and came upon a retinue with only Archer so I thought it would be easy... My entire retinue of 70 calvary lost to shitty 80 archers
Best minor faction troops (bandits, sea raiders etc.)
I definitely agree with the positioning of all the cavs, with the exception of the Vanguard Faris. In my playthrough its Javelins were just insanely devastating, which is why i would move it to A tier. Otherwise awesome video as always!
I love this content, I used this video to goto sleep last night and dreamt all about pointy horseys 🐎
With my experience with Druzhniks is, that they are very durable at horse and on foot. They are universal units, except in my games they was killed more on horsa than foot.
Nice vid. Well explained and to the point. Definitively do more for infantry, archers and horse archers! However I dont agree with Battania Mounted Skirmisher. Maybe they are good (I decided to focus on them in my first Battania gameplay), but the fact that they are not cavalery till 5 tier is very troublesome. Veteran Skirmishers dies a lot. And now its almost impossible to pick them out from Oathsworn line and do separate unit for them to keep them save. No, they are part of your main infantry group that I often put in ahead of Fians in shield wall. And Veteran Skirmishers have two stacks so they throw a lot, and while they throw they lower shield, and while they lower shield they die. They die much more than Oathsworn so its very hard to level them up to tier 5 and if not, you are out of cavalery. Sure, you can Hold Fire for Shield Wall, but then Oathsworn suffers and lost part of thier utility. It was so hard to make big group of Mounted Skirmishers that I finally gave up. No I go with Sout - Horseman and well, they are not that good as other Cav on game, but charging back of these pesky Valandian Crossbow Rats does the job anyway, and I can much easier keep big number of cav
You know, one of the most fun parts about warband was taking the different strengths of the different races and putting them together in a single army that let all of them shine. It is significantly less fun when the empire has s tier units for all categories.
You should talk about caravan guards and mercenary cavalry.
Nice list, these are always fun, think your way of assessment is great and mostly spot on. Only one point of disagreement and a minor one, but I do think banner knights are just more all around top tier than Cataphracts, whose durability is amazing, but their slight comparative pole-arm weakness and their good, but definitely lower, dismounted power does make the still very durable Banner knight probably come out on top for me. Also totally with you on the Battainian skirmish cav, great and definitely underrated, I'm going to say best non-noble line true cavalry in the game. .
I usually try to have a mix of Banner Knights and Cataphracts. I do like Banner Knights a lot in sieges.
Probably at typo, but FYI cataracts are an eye condition. Cataphracts are heavy cav
@@sethparker3122 You would think that one would not slip through, but alas the era of auto-correct means these things are fairly common. In good news, context is king after all.
Glad to hear the Imperials have good horseman! I wanted to use them just for their appearance and the idea of having heavy Calvary sounded awesome. Glad they are good, I didn’t want to look else where lol Barttian Infantry backed by Imperial horses. With a couple legionaries because they look fing awesome
From what I saw it appeared that only the Imperial Elite Cataphract had a 2 handed polearm, I image that helps with damage as well.
I was trying to keep an eye on the polearms the whole time.
Thanks for the update on these!
Keep up the great work sparty!!!
Can't wait to hear you talk about the khan's guard
@0:46 whilst I can see why you would do this, because it fits the game systems and UA-cam search algorithm better, I do think it's more helpful if you would include khan's guard into the cavalry list and and battanian fians in the infantry list.
Reason being is that people don't care about the categories set by the game, they're looking for the best fix for their situation.
So the person looking for your video, this video, isn't looking for it because it wants the best cav unit that the game classified as cav, it wants the best cav unit
period, even if that's a khan's guard. Actually, that would even be better since khan's guard can fit more roles and be even more effective.
Apply the same message to any other hybrid or cross category troops.
That's a pretty great take. I was doing it more to make it seem like there's more in one category.. But maybe I review them twice, once in each of their hybrid categories so they're represented. Like hey Khans guard is an A tier Cav and S tier horse archer. Use accordingly hahaha
@@italianspartacus if anything is an S tier Cav it's the khans guard. They can 1hko the elite cataphract and all lessor Cav. You can just let cav charge into them and they get slaughtered, or place them on top of the enemy cavs position, or hold fire + charge them and they just obliterate Cavalry, then anything else too. It's not nice or fair to be the best Cav and Best HA, but it's the truth. And if anyone wonders, yes Khans guards can just annihilate siege defenders off the walls. There's no catch here other then having to go the bad neighborhood to get them =)
@Wodane Fian champion is great hybird elite troop as well. They massacre infantry troops if infantry gets near them as khan's guard massacre other cavalry in close combat.
The battanian mounted skirmisher irks me because it's missing a polearm or a second stack of javelins.
Also the Druzzhihkhinik should rank a lot higher on this list. Upgrading them from the infantry line really isn't difficult since if you're mass upgrading troops you're doing it on looters and bandits with minimal to no losses anyways, and beyond that point, the varyag and varyag veterans are very serviceable infantry in their own right. Druzzhzhzikns also perform a lot better than what you imply. They outperform banner knights due to better survivability by actually having leg armor, and they kill better than cataphracts since they have a couchable lance instead of a two handed non-couchable spear. The horse differences for these units are very negligible as heavy horse armor protects them from anything that isn't going to one or two shot them anyways. Also the sturgian warhorse is very close statwise to the kuzhait warhorse, so its odd you would praise the latter and bash the former. ANYWAYS IL STOP NERDING OUT NOW THANKS FOR THE VIDEO
I actually use the wildlings over oathsworn when I run oathsworn. Cause I like mixed infantry lines with throwing weapons. To back up the archers
@italianspartacus how bout a vid on how to crush elite cataphract, or those damn horse archers... Maybe a series on how to defeat certain combos with the various factions aka what are the hard counters for each faction...
Great list. Next tier list should be the rank and file footman.
My two elite cataphract is always my personal bodyguard that charge enemy lines with me, they get no out of bad situations all the time, rest of the cataphract can just set into cycle charge mode and charge enemy lines with no casualty whatsoever
The vlandians not getting shoulder armor until the banner knight and then getting pretty low tier shoulder armor when they do finally get it, means that they take a lot more casualties than the cataphracts do on their way up. The banner knights are ok once they do finally make it up there but I really hesistate to put the cataphracts and the bannerknights in the same tier. The Cataphracts and Druz Champs are by far the strongest cavs when fully trained and even the Druz champs don't really belong in the same tier due to the difference in horse armor.
I like banner knights more because of their couchable lance. A couched lance kills everything. And they're much faster than the elite cataphracts. Elite cataphracts have better bulk and can still do a lot of damage. It's up to preference, I'd say.
Did you end up deciding against making archer and horse archer tier lists? Your infantry/calvary guides are both so good!
I haven’t played with Mongol or Arab, but Romans have good Bows and crossbows (a mix takes care of armored/light units), and the Greek crossbows are decent as well. Britain bowmen are good at long range and up close, but they struggle into heavily armored units I find… which is why you should mix with crossbowmen.
I didn’t mention Denmark archers because they aren’t really worth mentioning. They’re bowmen.
sturgian nobles are my favorite troop type because they are the only tier 5 cavalry that can be upgraded using only basic mounts, well worth a pick early to mid game. They are also well worth spaming as alot of them will die before upgrading like he said, but they really snowball once you get them going. Also they are still solid infantry as they scale fast with upgrades like all noble troops. That said on paper they are a bit trash but in campaign they will start to carry the game.
Btw they become super tier economical once you start upgrading them to cav
Do an archer and crossbow tier list next, a couple of units got a 2nd quiver finally. Plus some other equipment changes I think it will make for an interesting video.
Everybody sleeps on the Druzhinniks - dismount them and they MURDER. When to leave them on their mounts and when to dismount them is part of the fun. (Also when did the cataphract get a couchable lance?)
This is very well timed as I just started a cav playthrough. I'm trying to get one of those tier 6 horses and go full charge damage to run everyone over. Also going large cav army and hope they do the same lol. Thanks!
A small tip：imperial heavy horseman save a war horse in upgrading than other cavalries.
Well done in depth video. Thank you IS! Vote archers next.
Thank you for making these guides again? Im a relatively newcomer to bannerlord and Im loving it! But Im trying to learn how to focus my recruiting efforts. I want to know what the best units are so I know where I should go recruiting next.
I would love it if you did infantry next, particularly non-shielded infantry. For me the legionary is the best in account of its armor and avilability but, I dont know which elite infantry (line breakers, mameluke guard, menavliaton) could be of more use, particularly in open field battle
In my opinion Bannerlord is very forgiving on troop choices the most a viable. Fire and Sword was much more punishing if you didn't use Swedish troops your ass was wooped very often.
Play as you like and have as much fun as possible.
I feel like its quite a good picture. The druzhinik, aside from being super hard to get I must argue that they are incredibly good and usuay dont die as much as even the cataphract since they are reliable in sieges.
My favorite unit is also the faris, oh man is it good. But it needs a bit more micro and the shield plainly suck so so bad. I mean the faris shield is even worse than the batanians cavalry targe wich says a lot.
It would be great, when its possible to change the mount/horse color.
I play it on PS4/PS5 so there are no mods to change that. The color you start with, is the color for the entire game.
Iam in love with this game since the first preview and horses are a very popular in the game.
I hope that Taleworld bring a color option with the next Patch.
Personally, I would have preferred to have Khan's Guard on this list due to their duality, in the same vein as the skirmisher cavalry.
Thanks for the breakdown
U A doing grate job mate, however Could you create a simple graphics showing you tier list, so it could be kept for future references
horsearcher or heavy infantry as next video and i disagree with cataphracts in a tier because their lance in not couchable wich is for me a no go for shockcav
Well, that sucks for me. I like Battania and Sturgia and like to mix up the units so I can have the best from the two factions in the various roles....but knowing the Druznik under performs by so much and the Battanian Mounted Skirmisher as well.....I think I am going to play my other concept, Azeri and Khuzait. (I like to play what I would consider similar factions, picking the best from both to create a more capable army. I dont' really play the kingdom stuff).
Khans Guards are archers but they arent push overs. They perform well in melee. I dont know the numbers off the top of my head and the battles take longer but I lose less guys.
It's not "Druznik". It's dru-jin-nik. With emnphasis on middle syllable.
Thank you for the great tier list.
Spasibo bratan!
They changed the cataphract lance, thats why the elite cataphract dont use it anymore. You can only brace with it now, and i dont know how that makes any sense.
The best way to use cav in bannerlord 2: “troops! DISMOUNT! Shield wall!”
I actually do consider the Faris to be S tier. Not better than the Cataphract or Banner Knight per se, but no other unit is BOTH heavy cav AND skirmish cav. Kinda like how the Khans Guard is heavy cav and cav archer at the same time. I think that versatility is really valuable, especially with cav which you're generally microing more than infantry or archers anyway.
By similar reasoning, Sturgian Horse Raider > Battanian Mounted Skirmisher any day of the week. IDC what the stats say, the Mounted Skirm is not capable of charging with a lance because it doesn't have a lance. Both are primarily skirmish cav but with only 1 stack of javelins - once those are gone, the Horse Raider is the way better light cav unit because it actually has equipment.
i do agree on the Faris. their versatily should play a factor when ranking them even if the Killing potential is not quite the same as the Cata but i also think that there is no Cavalry unit that deserves an S tier in Bannerlord.
On the other skirmishers their overall killing potential when they run out of javelins is really bad. your only option at that point would be to dismount them. And we need to keep in mind that the Sturgian Horse Raider has no Horse armor. that alone makes them one of the weakest lancers
You can do a video about bowmans,horse archers,mercenaries about the video
Love your videos man!!
the way i get horses is to just defeat enemies and instantly have t5 & 6 troops waiting to be recruited as prisoners
With the new patch the druzznik or however its spelt its THE best cav against infantry
I have no idea about fighting on foot but when on a horse back banner knight will slaughter those cataphracts
That's why they get to deal with my khans guard and when they break to reform I crush them with my elites. They don't win fighting on horseback without the charge.
Cataphract lasts longer then banner knights in a siege. I usually have a bunch of both and banner knights drop dead so fast in a sieges. Like 3 to 1 . It's frustrating
Its not the size of the lance in the hand, but the rider in the saddle mate!
Thx for the video bro. Could you make one with best workshops? Like type / city. I do like Salana brewry because of x3 grain. But my others are average. Also it says its lvl 1, you know how to get them higher lvl?
Yep, he's also my go to guy for economic guides.
My good buddy Flesson19 did JUST that! As well as one for caravans! Please go and check him out
-Elite cataphracts don't have a couchable spear which means they'll always lose 1v1s against other cavalry
-imperial chargers are very slow so they cant catch other cav/horse archers
-they do have better armor than other cav but armor doesn't really matter in bannerlord. In my opinion they are pretty overrated and A tier.
Have you considered the armour changes in the latest patch? Armour is now much more useful.
@@kruesae22 not really. armor is now more effective against blunt weapons but that's it. i never saw anyone complaining about blunt damage, piercing damage is the main problem.
I would love to see a Trash Units tier list.
like the best units that are tier 1 to tier 2.
For those throwing, raider-style cav I have no idea how to actually use them to take advantage of their skills, since the battle command system is so damn unwieldy. So they’re junk to me only because I have no idea if they’d be utilized correctly. Better to just get those cataphracts and be done with it!
I think cavalry (as called cavalry by the game) is not good enough to spend warhorse upgrades on. It can be used defensively and for distraction, but for the investment of warhorses and t6 wage I want killers. Currently, cavalry fails to connect it's attack too often and then makes itself vulnerable again as it leaves to cycle charge. I do like the toughness of the cataphracts though, for something to be a small mobile SW or a distraction to open enemies to ranged attacks they're really good.
Imperial Charger is best war horse in the game. Because it's cheapest. And Cataphracts has one huge weakness. The lance that is not couchable and that require two hands, so no shield. So Fians and high tier crossbows mow them down when you slow them with thick infantry line. Shock cav is weak in Bannerlord, especially that AI uses it head on. Skirmishers are all much better.
I THINK I showed that the new Lance is couchable. I'm not at my computer to check, but it used to just be two handed, they got a new one. It might be BRACEABLE which doesn't help on horse back
@@italianspartacus Nope. Two handed, braceable and one gear set only. Maybe in 1.8?
Oh yup! I'm using 1.8. Shit sorry man, should have clarified
great video thank you
one idea (an idiotic one, but one nonetheless): what about you do a tier with the best non crafted weapon for each type? wanna know where the menavletion stands
IMO the ease of recruiting and promoting is 90ish % of what makes a unit strong in this game, so Druzhinniks are arguably garbage, while banner knights and khuzait units are great because they become mounted very early (or start as mounted)
When going into hideouts where no horses are allowed, and the game suggests using them, should i instead select infantry?
The battainian skirmisher is not the same as the sturgian because battainian skirmisher just doesn't have a pole arm
90 points is essentially 3 perks
Sturgian Druzhnik are the best cav in bannerlord, often unrerrated (just like here) mostly because you grade them according to the stats, but they have the deadliest crouch lance in the game and they have superior leg armor counter to banner knight (which is the most important for cav units against infantry). Banner knights are maybe better on their own and they are quite versatile, but Druzhniks, when combined with different cav units, are devestating. Their charge is better than Banners and they are not easily knocked down, unfortunately when it comes to hand-on-hand combat they are not superior as Banner knights are. I think you should overthink this grading. Imperial Cataphrachts lance can't crouch, and that is a big blow in terms of strategy. You can only use them in hand-to hand combat or chasing enemies. Farris, Cataphracht and Druzhnik are the best units to combine. How I use them, I skirmish with Farris to open a flank, than I charge with combination of Druzhniks, Banner knights and other crouch lance units (mostly my companions), and when they come hand-to-hand I charge with non-crouch lance cavarly, when they engage I retreat the crouch cav and charge again. Most of 1:2 or even 1:3 battles are won easily like this. But don't disregard Druzniks! They often have more kills on charge than Banner knights, but you have to retreat them when they engage in hand-in-hand. This aspect of micro-manage is what people are missing in the game.
how is a shield , on the Feris, called large shield, but then you call it small? Is that HP & speed vs size? ?? thanks
I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I'll send 100 elite cataphracts to drive off 60 enemy cavalry and mine just melt, even on easy.
honestly... i think TW should either make different units for each empire nation or diferent culture bonus for each empire nation... because lets be honest, the avaiblity of empire units is too huge... i love it in a empire campaign but hate it on any other
how do you change the set the unit uses?
I only recruit heavy horsemen+ as prisoners so I dont' 'have to deal with war mounts...
I noticed you didn't include the Khan's Guard. They are relatively easy (or more so, more consistent) to recruit, and I would easily put them at the top of this list due to their multipurpose functionality (ranged and melee) and their incredibly high damage polearm (Glaive) that can one shot many units from a standstill...not counting movement damage bonuses. They lack armor and shields but have extreme damage effectively making them glass cannons, which is perfect for shock cavalry.
Am I the only one who often dismount cavalry even in field battle? Granted it is cause when playijng Vlandia i basically do not use infantry, but have like 3/5 Knights, 2/5 Crossbows.
The battanian suffering is real.
You would be crazy to put up with Battanian Horsemen.Longest spear in the game of course,but they are UNCOUCHABLE(honestly who would want a long spear with low damage and uncouchable).Even worse,their one handed stuff is horrible and nothing could get him a win.I'd rather prefer Mercenary Cavalry over this,most horrible thing in the game.
When Bannerknights get Shoulders, they will reign supreme :-)
Plz do a horse archer guide next
Done! :)
Batanian horseman "sub-par skills"
Vlandian vanguard "really solid stat line"
Bruh you even pointed out they were the same
Sparty first of all thank you for not making these dumb 100 vs 100 units videos for Bannerlord. Second of all, leveling up the units is not issue thanks to Steward skills (donation of armor and weapons), so an argument about any sort of hardship players may experience with leveling troops is not an argument at all. Because we can literally buy experience for our units.
Noble-line recruitment. Each and every kingdom have castles, castles may have 2-3 villages. 2 of these villages probably will have 2 notables with Noble-line units. So it does not matter if you are Aserai or Sturgia, you will always have access to 12-18 Noble units from a single village.
Elite Catas as S tier. These dudes are armed with Pikes... Which means they charge without their shields up. So, all these bolts, arrows, axes and javelins will damage them and kill them dead faster than any other cav unit in the game, Sparty. No amount of armor will save them.
Moving to specifics. Why DCs are so beastly in melee (let say during siege battles)? Weapon lenght stat. For AI the smaller the lenght the better. AI can not judge or use the lenght of the weapon properly. Smaller lenght prevents AI from chamber blocks and glancing hits. Which means on average DCs will land more succesful hits than let say a Cata. Not because of their skill, but because of the lenght of the weapons they use. And it's very easy to check, as you know AI tends to break their cav into two groups. Just ride there and force a sword fight on a horse back with any number of the cav AI has. Most of the hits AI units would land on you will be glancing hits for little to no damage or hits with a chamber of the weapon that does small amount of damage. So alone, you can destroy half of the enemy cav without taking any significant damage if you stick close to them.
So yeah, Banner knight is very powerful, mace variant especially. DC close second and then the rest of them.
p.s. Druznik :P
p.p.s. But in the case of cav on cav action, i completely agree with you, 100%. It's Catas, then Banner Knights, then the rest. But cav on cav actions only happens at the end the battle and hardly matters, unless you are using a mod that allows specific targeting for units.
I dont use much tier 5 cavalry because the war horses are so expensive. pls consider this
Remember, Cataphracts also looks best 😂
Can you do a tier list of Keanu reeves characters?
I need help to fix my bannerlord launcher it dosent work and i casnt use mode or nofhing
If you use a ‘steppe warhorse’ to train a Asserai tier 5 cavalry unit, does this change the stats of the unit?
no, the warhorse used to upgrade them doesn't actually get used by the troop. As a result, it's best to upgrade troops with the Imperial chargers bc they are the cheapest warhorses.
@@elliot9854 Thanks, now I don’t have to buy Aserai warhorses for 1500 denars each when I want to upgrade my Mamluk cavalry.
Is this still up to date?