it's a shame TW removed the ability to set unit types in party menu, more often than not shock troops get mixed in with heavy infantry units in battle because of the way unit composition are structured.
Y'all missing the "in party menu" part of this comment. Definitely agree, from the party menu you should be able to set everything from who goes in what squad and what companion leads each squad. It's annoying when you grab a governor to join your party and have to wait until the setup phase pf a battle to set them to lead the units you want
@@fromthefire4176 that's unfortunate to hear. Tried Warband on console before recommending it to my console friends and enjoyed commanding troops more than I expected to on the console version
I find it better for roleplay to only recruit the units the faction I'm playing has. Empire is easiest because of availability of recruits, and best all round quality. The Aserai are my favourite faction though.
yeah i have an army of only Khans gurds and i dpnt think i have ever lost a battle, and most of the time i beat the oponent even whne outnumberd 4/1 XD
@@ilgazozden8289 To be fair, I was looking, and Italian Spartan might have something for mercenaries, caravan guards, and minor faction units at any rate.
i remember in the early game my bandits archers were pretty good. they were always getting more kills than 4th tier emperial archers. but in the late game u cant realu build an army of something other than recruits anf merc troops
Imperial caravan guards are pretty decent, i got captured and lost all my men so i hired 10 Imperial caravan guard in Epicrotea than i got attacked by 30 sea raiders i had some imperial and sturgia recruits that got wiped but the caravan guard managed to kill a good amount
The thing about sturgians heavy axeman and Heroic line breaker... is there throwing weapons.... that was the deal breaker for me why I always pick them
Long story short for what best troops are based on all the stats (If you can't be bothered to watch the video) All these units are the ones that got the 'best' title by Louie111 (I) *Archers*- Battania - Fian Champion (Skill tree - Battanian volunteer-> (Can be gotten in any battanian settlement [Lowest tier troop for the faction]) Highborn Youth (First archer upgrade)-> Highborn Warrior -> Hero -> Fian -> *Fian Champion* (Crossbows are much less efficient than bows for these troops) (II) *Infantry*- There are two types of infantry there are shock troopers (which are not the star wars evil bad guys but instead they are infantry units that use good weapons and specialize in killing rather than holding the lines) and of course there are shield troops which are pretty self explanatory! *Best shield Infantry*- Imperial Legionary, followed by Sturgian Heavy Axeman closely second... Legionary skill tree- Imperial Recruit (Can be found in settlements owned by the Calradic Empire) ->Infantry man -> Trained Infantry man ->Veteran Infantryman -> *Legionary* Skill tree for Heavy Axemen because I'm just that amazing- Sturgian Recruit (Can be found in any settlement owned by the Sturgia empire) -> Warrior -> Soldier -> Spearman -> *Heavy Axeman* Sturgian Heavy Spearmen have the best armour which makes them really good against calvary but only calvary- Sturgian Recruit (Can be found in any settlement owned by the Sturgia empire) -> Warrior -> Soldier -> Spearman -> *Heavy Spearman* Shock troops- Imperial Elite Menavliaton, these troops have the highest tier gear out of all the shock trooper units and are really strong (Very good anti-Calvary unit)- Imperial Recruit (Can be found in settlements owned by the Calradic Empire) ->Infantry man -> Trained Infantry man -> Menavliaton -> *Elite Menavliaton* Dismounted + Hold fire Khuzait Khan's Guard are absolutely the best shock troops but they are calvary units that have everything calvary taken away from them pretty much Khuzait Nomad (Can be found in any settlement owned by the Khuzait empire) -> Noble's Son -> Qanqli -> Torguud -> Kheshig -> *Khuzait Khan's Guard* (III) Calvary units - The best melee mounted unit in Louie111's opinion is the Imperial Elite Cataphract, it has good armour and use two handed polearm, Vlandian Banner Knights are also good from my experience in-game as they have gotten more armour and they are really good at charging the enemy army full speed Imperial Elite Cataphract- Imperial Recruit (Can be found at any settlement owned by the Caldradic Empire) -> Vigla Recruit -> Equite -> Heavy Horseman -> Cataphract -> *Elite Cataphract* Vlandian Banner Knights- Vlandian Recruit (Can be found at any settlement owned by the Vlandian Empire) -> Squire -> Gallant -> Knight -> Champion *Vlandian Banner Knight* Mounted Archers- Khuzait Khan's Guard are the best troop (in Louie111's opinion)- Khuzait Nomad (Can be found in any settlement owned by the Khuzait Empire) -> Noble's Son -> Qanqli -> Torguud -> Kheshig -> *Khuzait Khan's Guard* Second best- Khuzait Heavy Horse Archer, have good armour and lots of arrows- Khuzait Nomad (Can be found in any settlement owned by the Khuzait Empire) -> Tribal Warrior -> Raider -> Horse Archer -> *Heavy Horse Archer* These troops have been based on personal experience and could be possibly changed in the future (anything after two weeks of this video being up or so) Higher quality troops require much more denars and no matter how bad you think your army is, using tactics could win you anything I had a whole army full of archers of all kinds and I managed to take on armies that had a much bigger advantage than me (I had around 60 archer troops while they've had 100-140 troops all together), tactics can go a long way in this game! Hope this helped
@@ogonplayzgames7823 Imperial recruits can't be upgraded to vigla recruits and nomads not to noble sons. You need to find the villages that have them to start the training of Khan's guards and cathaphracts. I wrote it as a question as that might have been different in an earlier version.
@@DatAlien Yes I did make that mistake I apologize I only had around 60 hours of playtime at the time of making this comment, you are correct, This is also the case for battanians archers, if you wish to get fian champions you need to get the archer type starter troops.
In the newest version of the game banner knights use actually a different, more heavier type of brigandine, not the one you showed in the vid. So they got a bit more armor recently, wich is nice imo.
@clauseblitz4682I actually faced off with swadian knights VS mamlukes. Was bout 10 to 1 in favor of Swadia. The mamlukes are faster and definitely do a little more damage but the knights were just tanks. I legit just destroyed anything with them. I'm glad they aren't a thing in bannerlord, I can still use my dumb ways of killing 1k plus troops just with the player character but at least I can't just steam roll a kingdom with only 50 troops
Such a good explanation of shield infantry! Also, Elite Cataphracts are an absolute menace. If you're fighting again an empire faction, you have to have some kind of dedicated shock troop to deal with how tanky the cataphracts are. I've had some fights where almost 1/2 of the enemy force was cataphracts.
My best working tactics to fight against cavalry at the moment is to form a square shield formation with braceable infantry (like battanian oathsworn) - usually every cavalry composition gets instantly dismantled by such formation. I've fought and held 400+ vlandian horses with such formation and minimal losses. But you need high tier troops for that.
The AI of Catapphracts always strike from front / it will hit ur frontline in the face... if u access Vlandian , u can access Vlandian Pike man / sergeant it will kill those Cataphract with spear brace. As ASerai u can hold fire until its around 150 to change in fire at will, it will throw those javelin more accurate... U dont always need same shock trooper to stop those Cataphracts.
It is worth mentioning that the imperial legionaries cant make as effective shield wall as the sturgian infantry because they can't lift their shields above their heads
Only aserai veterans can provide best shieldwall. But their slow caskara and poor polearm weapon make them not a best choice when u need a damage from your shielded infantry units. However each of them carry stack of javelins which can be useful in a short combats. For example - legionary cant throw his pilum and other types of shielded infantry armed with throwing axes(if they carry throwing weapons at all). And veterans armor much more then a "decent"
Wow I didn’t know this thanks. I saw another video also saying how the aserai infantryman had the biggest shields to that covered almost their whole body. Aserai mamluck horse archer Calvary (which have shields unlike the khans) & their infantryman are so underrated.
I played as Northern Empire, my Army consist Sturgian Heavy Axeman / Heavy Spearman (Depending the enemy) and Khuzait Khan Guard (Skirmishing, and charging after empty). I have control North East tritory , never lost in battle
I think the versatility of the druzhinnik champion is a little missed here. They have incredible Athletics and one handed skills (because of that sacrifice to the Polearm skill) and makes it incredibly fun to use them as dragoons for the purpose of eliminating or even just tying down enemy archers, or making a break in the back of infantry formations
Good story for why I recommend a few Banner Knights in your personal retinue if you’re not on foot. I just started playing last week and one of my first big army battles was joining a Vlandian crusade against the Aesari, their 1300 or so outnumbered our 1000, among which around 100 were mine. I’d noticed my personal forces were joining the battle in a trickle, so held them back to build up while I rode ahead to fight with the rest of the Vlandians, who as expected were worn down until they routed. Meanwhile I’d set up my guys on an excellent position on a hill, good diversity of infantry, archers, and cavalry, and we fought so long and cut that 1300 down to a few hundred maybe, and maybe if I tried again I could have done it. Then there was a point I noticed they just kept coming and coming and everyone else was dead or running. All my companions dead, and what was left of my mostly top tier force. All but 4 Banner Knights riding to the death by my side like something out of a legend after everyone else ran, continuing to get kills in this big swarm of enemy units, and so I kept going with them for a good 10 minutes after, fighting cavalry as their infantry kept reforming and trying to chase us down, until archers finally wore my health and downed me. The knights were still going, still fighting.
you see the nice thing that i field armies where all of them are t5-6 it means i dont have to deal with even thinking about sending higher level units first or not
Honestly i love my catapracts. I use them as shock cav(guess thats what they are designed for lol). They can soak up so much dmg. If u simply let them crash into enemy lines u can get so many kills and time to let ur archers or HA cook. But yeah. It definitely feels like Khans Guards are op ;)
Well from what this video says, I was using the best cav, infantry, and shock troops. My biggest weakness was my choice of archers. I've been using a mix of multi-cultured archers with Imperial Crossbows and Battanian Archers and Aserai Master Archers. I personally tend to favor tactics where I can move my troops as a sort of mobile fortress as it were, using my cavalry to screen enemies or cause long term distractions while my infantry move in with the archers being positioned behind the infantry just close enough to do maximum dps for medium range. But my archers always performed sub-par when not in a number favored battle. Mostly because of my crossbow usage, trying to get more armor penetration is what was in my mind. But now I've got a correction to make. Woo!
Crossbows is only good use 4siege def. Coz of unlimited ammo. And If u wanna use archers U have no choice. Fians just too good. In bow range,dps, accurate, ammo count, armor count, melee skills. Or u just waste the slot can be filled with juicy cataphract.
I mean it makes sense though. Historically bows WERE much better than crossbows when in the hands of a trained person. The reason armies in the old days liked crossbows is because it took a lot more training to make someone a competent bowman than it did to teach them how to use a crossbow. You could put crossbows in the hands of fresh conscripts and give them a quick crash course on using them and have a relatively competent unit. This game doesn't really do anything to simulate the difference in training required between bows and crossbows so the weapon that is actually better just ends up being better.
Mixing a few crossbows into your mass of archers isn’t bad IMO. They are great for killing horses and breaking shields, and as someone said above, fantastic in siege defense. My most recent playthru has 1 crossbowman for every 3-4 archers
@@xNotNickthis is what I do!! I have like 40% my army as archers &/or crossbow men, & in that ranged half it’s like 90% archers & a few crossbow men just to harass Calvary & shield troops. Then 35% infantry & the rest split between horse archers & Calvary (but more Calvary than horse archers to balance out the more foot archers.) Might reverse that eventually idk.
My fav shock infantry : unmounted khan's guard My 2nd fav archers: unmounted khan's guard My fav cavalry: khan's guard on hold fire My fav hose archer: yep you guessed it
Currently playing my first playthrough as a Bandit lord. And i must say that i didnt have much hope for all the bandit troops...BUT, im really surprised by the following bandit units. Main shield infantry - Sea Raider Chiefs Archer Units - Forest Bandits Main Cavalry - Highwaymen Ofcourse not as good as the top tier troops seen in this video, however if you want to play a Bandit lord you can totally do that with all the available bandit units. And with the right Rogue perks you can just walk up to any roaming bandit group and simply recruit them for free! Which is kind of broken atm because one of the missions for the Dragon banner quest line, sends a bunch of large groups of bandits to your settlements that you are suposed to fight off. But you can just walk up to them and recruit them for free, and the game counts this as having defeated these groups. You can even do this with the conspiracy groups, sadly the game wont let you recruit them.
I used to run a very mixed unit in early to mid game, but now in late game I found most success with 150 Khan's Guard and 100 Legionaries. I swapped out all my fian champions against Khan Guards, and it is so much better against bigger armies. It is much easier to outmaneuver and outflank enemies with horse archers and get to the back of a shield wall this way. Als the strong melee of the Khans means you can easily use them as shock troops and as counter cavalry like you said in the video. Only problem is replacing them once a few of them die because I have to do a recruitment run across the map. Good video.
You can use Advanced Garrison mod to keep troops you use in your fiefs. It creates AI recruiter who will run across the map for you :) You can easily define what troops to recruit and up to what tier to train.
@@S3mj0n oof I feel you on run across the map. Such a pain fighting vlandians and having to go all the way back replenish my horse archers that I’ve lost
I only use imperial troops and use my prisoners as a resupply of troops. Only keep high tier imperial prisoners to move into the lineup after a battle. There's a perk for the morale penalty but don't use it. On console too
Lol i just did the same thing, but I swapped out the whole 360 man fian squad for all Khans. Only reason im getting ready to cheese is because I'm 10 days away from choosing the banner with like 15 central empire fiefs owned. I figured once the WHOLE damn map declares war on me. I can quickly dispatch big armies while being mobile enough to keep all 15 fiefs safe by my self for a while. wishing thinking probably
khuzait khans guard is allways in my party, as horse archers and also cavalry. The others I usually take the same from my culture, if playing aserai, would be aserai archers and infantry, if battaninan I would pick battanian fians and mix the infantry with emperial, etc
I usually go with a 60/40 mix of Empire Legionaries and Sturgian heavy axe for my infantry with a shock troop detachment of Empire Manavliaton and Battian Falx. For ranged I go with a 50/50 mix of Vladian Sharpshooters and Battanian Fian Champions for consistent damage and fire output. My Cavalry is usually a 60/40 mix of Empire Cataphact' and Vladian Banner Knights, for Mounted Archers Khan's Guard. With this composition my single party of around 400 can solo armies 2 to 3x larger than my own with relatively light casualties, Hammer and Anvil for the win.
i think you're onto something with the infantry. When I made a mod for my aserai, i gave my veteran infantry maces, and they started trading equally with imperials. And when i gave my palace guards pauldrons and a better helmet, they started smashing as good as sturgians and imperial menavliaton it might be that maces and shield are one of best pairings, and full torso head coverage and two handed are best pairings
Maces are the go to weapon against armor, always has been When you don't have a shield you can only rely on heavy ass armor so yeh those were basic common stuff really
I think the Vanguard Faris are a different class, imo they're much closer to traditional light cavalry and should be in a class of their own really, between horse archers and heavy cavalry. Since they're fast they're very useful against horse archers and can accompany my own while circling around enemy lines and then defend said horse archers.
Yea Faris are mounted skirmishers which are very much their own kind of troop (kinda like how there are two types of infantry) they are like half horse archer half cavalry but don’t fit too well into the tactics of either, I have found that they excel at taking down enemy mounted units, but they aren’t that good at much else.
Yeah i bring them along with me when i go sniping for lords with horse cav, i can line up the horse archers, then bring the faris' around the back and either way one of them have an angle, their javelins also 1 shot tier 1-2 infantry which is very strong, any troop on a horse can always choose when to engage infantry so theyre like dragoons I use them in line no f1f3@@ebosarchives
i personally use massive khans guard in my army. i litterally skirmishing my enemies untill it was gone :D and while manuvering my khans guard, i will charge the enemy with vlandian banner knights. no matter how small the battlefield was, keep doing it again and again
they punch above their weight in a way that is, frankly insane, you can bait cavalry into charging you, run away so they waste their charge.. then retaliate which mulches them.. after that you just set them still so they fire some volleys and then run away again.. your biggest issue is a heavy presence of archers unless you can isolate them and cut them to pieces, crossbows will hit very hard and KG dont have shields.. but ive won some.. frankly insane victories.
ranking them according to their mean is probably more informing than ranking them according to their best. since singling out a try heavily favours luck. Good video anyways, thanks!
There were some really bad outliers among the worst runs. Fians for example had a run were they kept missing the last 2 units for like 20 seconds. I should have either taken the 3rd best run (out of 5) of each faction or do more runs to mitigate the impact of the outliers and take the average. Anyway, when taking the average times (minus the outliers) I also come to the (same) conclusion that the Aserai and Imperial archers are roughly 10-20 % slower than Fians in that test.
Druzinnik is funny unit because they are basicly infantry on horse. They true power is visible in siege were catafract is slow, bannerknights is low armor and Khan Guard is lack of shield. Druzinniks is prety fast on foot (they have the biggest atletics of all cav unit) very good (and pretty light as for this class) armor and BIG shield. If i must choose unit to cav only game i choose them but in other cases i probably go with Bannerknights
This makes total sense, except I think the Sturgians should have a clear win for shock troop. Would be cool if they made those better. Fian champions makes perfect sense for that culture.
@@teeheeteeheeish well, Sturgia has a powerful infantry unit that can quite resist any infantry in the game, however, for some reason they are mounted ... yes, I'm talking about druzhinniks. Battania has the best archers, Vlandia has the best crossbowmen, Acerai has the best mounted skirmishers, the empire has the best shock cavalry, and the Khuzaites have the best horse archers. In principle, each faction has its own strong unit
@@annmeyfaylinn2015 Hi, I'm new to BO and I'm doing only infantry with a shield, currently I only have legionaries , I want to be able to farm the forest bandits more easily because I always have several casualties against them. Which infantry unit with a shield would you recommend? Sorry if you don't understand, I'm using the translator.
@@lJuanDiegol against forest bandits? U need kill them or capture? If u want to kill them best to use fians. Otherwise, imperial crossbowmans or legionary. They have blunt weapons and imperial crossboman pretty good in close combat fight. But when your medicine grow to 75, best choice to capture forest bandits will be sturgian axeman I think. But i use fians, because I don't care about bandis survival. And get use to casualties. It's normal thing to lose a few men after fight in a high difficulty. Especially among heavy infantry, they die like flies. Archers in general are best killed either by other archers or by cavalry.
I'd be interested to see the difference between Battanian Fian Champions and Forest Bandits - my understanding is that they use the same bow as the Fian champions, Forest bandits set you back 8 denars per day whereas Fian champions set you back 17. The forest bandits are ofcourse worse, but I wonder how much worse they are - I'm running a campaign currently and I got 3 very early on (back at clan tier 1) - I now have 7 fiefs and clan tier 6 - those 3 bandits are still going strong in my army, at this point I refuse to get rid of them because I'm emotionally attached xD There is also a chance that they arent normally in big fights because the x number of troops is gives me is made up of the highest tier the game will let me have, but still :)
Lords cultural influence on troops should have more impact on troop morale, recruitment and stats IMO. There should be negatives and positives for sticking to one culture and running mix of bests from different groups.
I'm using Druzhinniks as my main infantry Since they are more effective than legionnaries, die less often because of their armor, act as a very mobile infantry to flank the ennemy and is close to be the best cavalery as well (recent test shows that). They are really cool as well. They are the best infantry in the game. Great video ;)
@@getemguapo_tv those are actually good. They are almost as good as any shielded tier5 infantry (maybe better than vlandian sergeants) in terms of line holding and damage output (they have the same one handed axe than the axemen). And the are on horse, so you can make an army where the mellee job is only done by them, have them in, at least, 2 groups where 1 group is dismounted. And if you have to get to a position its faster to get there on horse than on foot
@@AzoiatheCobra i just use the strat that I used for warband. For every archer there will be three cavalry melee units. (Druznik champs, banner knight champs , and elite catifracts) and then a nice lil sprinkle of linebreakers
My infantry is mainly made of Battania wildings? The ones with 10 spears to throw backed up by a huge force of fians. Honestly they hold the line well since head on cav charges get decimated by javalins and the archers decimate enemy shield wall from the side. Then after a few minutes I retreat to resupply and start the battle again
To add if you bring in your cav behind the enemy shield wall as it approaches yours they will often turn which ends up them being butchered by the javalins
I use a wilding shield wall to soak up charging enemies and projectiles with falxman behind them and fian champions behind them all firing. When the enemy fully commits I charge and the falxman go around the flanks and slaughter infantry and horseman. I've won several battles where I'm outnumbered by 200-300 by doing this. Battanians are nuts if don't let the ai charge in head first
I once did a Khuzait campaign recruiting ONLY Khan's gaurds... was the easiest campaign I ever did they are just so good at every important role you need filled
Yea I love the video and (kinda) super agree with these rankings, though I wished you had considered the option of dismounting Druzinniks to be used as infantry, with them having the highest skills when compared to other infantry and the highest athletics when compared to other cavalry and I would have at least liked to hear why they aren’t very good as infantry if that was the case
Big fan of having archers and shock troops behind a wall of shields. Archers pelt away at the enemy, repositioning if the enemy puts a shield wall. Shocks troops throw what they have and when they’re about to meet the shock troops either break past the shield wall to meet the enemy, or they circle around. Haven’t decided which works better yet
Archers : Battania fian champion Tank Infantry : Imperial Legionary Shock Troop: Imperial Menevlation Cavalry : Imperial Cataphract Horse Archers : Khan's Guard I have 330 medicine , all part limit increasing and troop/infantry hit point increasing perks. With 475 troops (Not the Ruler Clan atm so would have 100 more) I can easliy win against 2x armies and can defeat up to 3.5-4x armies on highest difficulty.
I've found that nothing beats horse archers or heavy cavalry on flat terrain. All you can do is circle formation with pikes vs heavy cav and circle formation with shield infantry vs horse archers, with pikes inside if cav breaks through. Literally all you can do, but if the vortex starts and theres 100+ horse archers your pretty much guaranteed to get widdled away. This is true for rolling hills and regular terrain with very few mountains. Mountains is where things get interesting. Mountains are where strategy and formation come into providing you a huge advantage. Classic loose formation for your archers, stick them on the side of a mountain facing the enemy with full line of sight. Loose formation makes massed arrow volleys less effective, you get your shock infantry or throwing infantry just under them- go for a skein formation with shield infantry holding the foot of the mountain, or a little further. So your archers with the high ground can melt the enemy blob when it smashes against your shields. Counter cav with cav, make sure you wrap up their cav charge with yours and when their main formation gets wrecked you reposition your cav at the foot of the hill so the main enemy cav force has to skirmish under a hail of arrow fire from your archers which have the high ground. With shock infantry you can have them hold up behind the shield infantry and have them charge in after the enemy has been widdled down a bit bashing against the shield wall. Thats why I love mountains, pretty much unbeatable. A lot of the times I just face the enemy cav by myself though because its fun.
Best units: (if you Dee this and don't watch the video at least give him a like) Archer: Battanian fian champion Shield: imperial legionary (varied) Shock: imperial elite menavliaton ( there was a better one but this one is more easier to get) Mounted melee: imperial elite cataphract Ultimate unit: crusade Kahn guard
Many units have situational advantages, though that is not the case for all. For example, the Battanian Oathsworn are the best anticavalry unit, as they have a spear that can brace, shields, and throwing axes. Sturgians in general specialize in dealing with shielded units. Their Linebreakers and Heavy Axemen tear through shields, and are my favorite infantry to use in sieges. Vlandian Sharpshooters have some of the best shields in the entire game. When attacking in siege, their accuracy and power is very handy. On the field, I often split my infantry into two square formations, and in between a line of shielded crossbow units. The Vlandian Sharpshooters can soak up a lot of arrows, and return back with powerful volleys before retreating back into their shields. Banner Knights have the best charges, meaning they run in, charge the enemy and get right out. Cataphracts can stay in the thick of it thanks to their armor, meaning they can hold a flank. Sturgian Druzhinnik are essentially Sturgian Spearmen with throwing axes and horses, meaning that of all the Cavalry units, they actually have the stats such and weaponry to perform as heavy infantry. This includes Atheletics, most Cavalry units do need it, but because the Druzhinnik do, they really do double as a mounted infantry unit, just don't expect them to beat the Bannerknights in a head on charge. Some units are just straight garbage and lack any situational advantage such as the Sturgian Archers/light cavalry, Khuzit infantry/Heavy Cavalry, or all Batannian Cavalry. Units like these exist soley to give each faction a balanced force, but many other units have situational advantages. The Empire is a Jack of All Trades, meaning they will do perform better in most situations, but finding out each units strengths and weaknesses they can be surpassed.
Damn the idea of playing as the Empire seems more and more attractive by the minute. They seem to have second best of everything and a lot more towns with their culture to consolidate a huge realm with good loyalty across the board.
I think thats kinda the intention, I think lore wise the empire has taken aspects of the other nations to make themself stronger but never really beating the orginal nation at that thing kinda reminds me of humans in fantasy setting. Never the best at anything, but usally the second best at everything
i use 100 imperial cataprachts with 220 battanian fian champs. no infantry bcs i hate when i fight 320 vs 700-800 fight and lose all my infantry, archer x cav loses least amount of troops in big battles and battanian archer is op as f so i can easily win 300 vs 700 fights. (bannerlord difficulty )
honeslty it would have been nice to use the tier 5 fian after seeing that the tier 6 fian was the best, just for comparison with the others tier 5 archer
Overall, I give this video a 8.5/10, which is the most impressive video I've seen about troops in Bannerlord. All other "troop rating" videos are, at most, 5/10's. Took down some points due to the cavalry part, but good overall. Archers and Horse Archers, you can't go wrong with them. Good old Fian Champions and Khan's Guards. But let's move on to the infantry and cavalry parts. Why the Sturgian Heavy Axeman is the Best Shield Infantry (Legionaries are a close second) First, the Legionaries defeat all shield infantry in frontline battles, they get a point for that. They also have a better KDR against Shock Troops. (Heroic Line Breaker) Heavy Axeman 0 - 2 Legionary But the Heavy Axeman shines in KDR against mid tiers, (Imperial Trained Infantryman) KDR against decent archers, (Palatine Guard) and KDR against cavalry. (Druzhinnik Champions) In fact, the Legionaries had 15 times more losses than the Druzhinnik Champions while the Heavy Axemen carried out an even battle with around 50 Druzhinnik Champions to 70 Heavy Axemen dead. Heavy Axeman 3 - 2 Legionary Overall they are close but the Heavy Axemen have a slight edge over the Legionaries. Let's move on to the Shock Troops. Why the Sturgian Heroic Line Breaker is the Best Shock Infantry (Menavliatons are a close second again) The purpose of Shock Troops are to break shield walls, and shield walls are made by shield infantry. The Sturgian Heroic Line Breakers have the best KDR against Shield Infantry. Menavliatons are anti cav but cav can be stopped by spear shield infantry too. Therefore the Heroic Line Breakers take the dub here. Moving on to Cavalry next! Why the Sturgian Druzhinnik Champion is the Best Cavalry (200 cav vs 400 inf tests) Khuzait and Battanian cavalry out from the first place. Unusable. Vlandian cavalry also out, the so-called "cav faction" has overrated cavalry. Vlandian Banner Knights have the lowest KDR among Vlandian, Aserai, Imperial and Sturgian cavalry. Aserai cavalry is quite good and has nice KDR. Now, the Druzhinnik Champions are above the Cataphracts because they suffered only slightly more casualties than the Cataphracts, being only 2 men difference between them. However the Druzhinnik Champions are above all in terms of killed infantry, while the Cataphracts are second to last. As I said, agree with the archers and horse archers. However, thank you for not displaying Sturgia at rock bottom.
Bro this is best list of the game. Lot of stupid "gaming websites" called sharpshooters best archers but u just prove what is good on something with atleast 90 iq logic. Thanks for video, keep going it king
Idk if it’s the newer update but I find cross bows are GREAT, vlandian sharpshooters seem to mulch enemies, I used 100 of them being supported by 100 spearman, we had to fight 300 legionaries and we pulled out on top, a shield wall front backed by the crossbows who then can also enter melee fairly well is great
Love the little bit you have at the end, i literally bought this game because i couldn't stand watching my friend just charge all everytime i saw him play ,,, a sharp mind has killed more men than sharp swords
Lol if charge all is working from the start of the battle than your friend had that cheesing squad. Those first 10 strategical minutes of the battle is the most fun to me.
I have been eyeing another medieval game to play, after Mordhau, that has a different approach to game play. This game looks so fun and your in depth guide gives me great hope that I will adore this game. Louie, you helped me get into mordhau, and I'm now almost level 200, thank you my friend for introducing me to that wonderful game, and having such meticulous videos.
Best is entirely circumstantial, take shock cavalry. Where the vlandian variant might perform better in the field, the druziniks high athletics makes it way better in a siege or dismounted situation.
Battanian fians, just them, nothing else. Get two hundred or so and you can beat most other armies that are worth double your number. They are good against cavalry because of heir long two handed weapons, and also great in melee. The biggest advantage they have is that they will blacken the sky with arrows before you can reach them with anything else, and horses don't have shields, so they are pretty defenseless against them, even the best mounted archers will be completely screwed when going against them.
Favourite troop: khan's guard. They're too multifunctional in terms of roles they can fill well on the battlefield, but also on the campaign map. More notably. They profit from mounted and ranged perks reducing their upkeep and increasing the security they provide as a garrison. The only drawback is their recruitment might be a bit hard. Considering you need to go over to khuzait lands
Idk mam I've destroyed whole cavalry forces with just a detachment of 40 khans guard. As soon as the cataphracts complete their charge they hit a wall and take their time leaving which gives khans guard time to swap and swing their polearms roughly 4 times before they wipe them out and swap back to skirmishing
Aserai Infantry Battanian Archers Khuzait-Manluk horse archer mix Caraphract cav. I know a lot of people will disagree but i see much use of the Vlandian pikeman because they are always ready for incoming horses, they don't usually need to swap weapons. But apart from being Anti cav. they don't do very well on the battle field that's something i gotta admit.
Legionaries are best against pure tier 5 infantry because of their maces, but Aserai Veteran Infantry is actually the best against a "regular" enemy army which has a mix of many troop tiers
The task of shielded infantry units is to take damage and veterans handle it best. But legionaries can inflict damage better then anyone else of shielded infantry units🤔 Still they are not meant for that.
Vlandian archers are my favorite no matter what.simply for the fact that they make good infantry. 18 shots then you just got another infantry unit with a shield and if you make up for the slow reload with numbers i don’t notice the difference tbh
Seems kind of silly that crossbowmen would have less ammo than bowmen. I mean, they are using shorter bolts, so if anything, they should be able to carry more.
I find Vlandian infantry with kite shields and such to be semi-decent troops that can make a good shield wall and so on , I'm a Vlandian fan myself gotta keep the Butter meme going somehow lol. I find Vlandia is a pretty decent "all round" faction to play as, they're not totally OP unless you know how to make them that way but can at least hold their own in many large scale battles.
I exclusively get units that turn into kharn guard they just so OP the "circle thing" has gotten me through some tough ones! omw to 300 but my party capacity is only 250 atm and they keep dying, 10 every few battles takes its toll but even in small numbers their KDR is 5 to 1. They need war horses to upgrade past tier II which is pricey but still makin bank so its all g.
Best horse archer is the Khan Guards, best heavy cavalry is Khan Guards, best shock infantry is dismounted khan guards, and second best archers is khan guards (best overall if you include the ability to melee as part of what matters for archers). The glaive is insane
I usually just make an imperial legionary square of 100 men and place 150 fian champions at the back to cut down all the enemy forces, im never really worried about enemy cavalry cutting down my archers since not much cavalry gets through the square and the fians themselves decimate cavalry. Thats why i never get my own cavalry
Cavalry - Vlandian Banner Knight - Imperial Elite Cataphract - Aserai Vanguard Faris Not including Horse Archers and Crossbowmen because we know who they are and they have no competition
As a starting player, I have a question. Is there an easier way to split up your infantry squads when commanding? Or will I always have to manually transfer the troops into different squads? That would seem to be(and is having to do that already when assaulting bandit hideouts) a huge time dump. More so than actually playing the game. I’m asking as a new Xbox player trying to enjoy the single player side of the game too.
I don't really like how the cav just go through the shield wall and spears as if they're not there. And when you use cav, they do the same and don't stay in formation, making it difficult for them to cause a lot of damage to infantry formations. And it also makes them vulnerable to archers.
Well you're still right about the infantry the imperial legionaries are still the best along with the sturgeon heavy axe men being the second-best not sure about the sturgeon heavy, but they have fixed a few problems in the freezing update for the banner nights they do have better armor now except for the azurite Faris although they do look a lot better I'm look like real azerai Farris now except it's still not as good as what they had before.
You forgot a great fact with shield troops in a shield wall with 2 lines are the axemens not so easy to down she have small shields that's true but the second line use also his shield and protect the first line also when I fight with axemens in a wall again imperial the wins every time!!!
My favorite strategy to use is the nonsense the Rhodoks in Warband used. Have an equal number of crossbow units and shielded infantry. Find a steep hill, dense forest, or something of the like. Put the crossbow units in a loose formation and shielded infantry in a shield wall behind them. The position of the formations will disrupt cavalry charges and hinder horse archers. The crossbow units pick off infantry units as they approach, and when they make contact, I give the hold fire and engage commands to all of my troops. The crossbow units on the outer flanks surround the enemy infantry while the shielded infantry whittle them down. Once the infantry is dealt with, a order all troops to go into shield wall until the enemy cavalry is dealt with. Then all that's left is to clean up the enemy ranged units. In the event of an enemy party forming a defensive formation, I get into effective firing range and behind cover. I then take pop shots at the archers, and the commander until the lose their nerve and charge.
I think it's not quite fair that khan guards where included outside of thier category, while other cavalry didn't, druzhinik champions would be no.1 front line infantry
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archer - battanian fian champion
shield - imperial legionary
shock troop - imperial elite menavliaton
best shock troop - (dismounted) khuzait khans guard
melee cavalry - imperial elite cataphract
archer cavalry - khuzait khans guard
it's a shame TW removed the ability to set unit types in party menu, more often than not shock troops get mixed in with heavy infantry units in battle because of the way unit composition are structured.
You can separate shielded infantry units from shock troops in combat by selecting shield-bearing infantry into a separate group
You can still do it. Make a separate infantry unit, set the first ones preference to shields only and the rest will be at the other unit
Y'all missing the "in party menu" part of this comment. Definitely agree, from the party menu you should be able to set everything from who goes in what squad and what companion leads each squad. It's annoying when you grab a governor to join your party and have to wait until the setup phase pf a battle to set them to lead the units you want
@@SuperPope69yeah, especially on console where the ui for the battle deployment phase is really slow and irritating to navigate too
@@fromthefire4176 that's unfortunate to hear. Tried Warband on console before recommending it to my console friends and enjoyed commanding troops more than I expected to on the console version
I find it better for roleplay to only recruit the units the faction I'm playing has. Empire is easiest because of availability of recruits, and best all round quality. The Aserai are my favourite faction though.
I have a similar strategy in that I only recruit from the area I am in and fill the castles/towns with a local garrison.
Khans guards are the best unit overall, they are very flexible and can be used in many ways
As core infantry they’re terrible . But jack of all trades I agree
@@Jesusplease1990 they are too expensive for inf use. I either combo them with Sturgian heavy axe or imperial legionary.
@@Baebon6259 not just that they lack shields which render them useless as core infantry but shock troops they’re great
yeah i have an army of only Khans gurds and i dpnt think i have ever lost a battle, and most of the time i beat the oponent even whne outnumberd 4/1 XD
i just made a whole army of khuzait mounted archers and kept hunting the northern empire kings, eventrually i had like 80 khans guards@@Baebon6259
Say, what about Militia, Caravan, Bandit, and Minor Faction troops? those would be worth thinking about for bottom of the barrel things.
That's a pretty good idea and i always wondered about that too
@@ilgazozden8289 To be fair, I was looking, and Italian Spartan might have something for mercenaries, caravan guards, and minor faction units at any rate.
i remember in the early game my bandits archers were pretty good. they were always getting more kills than 4th tier emperial archers. but in the late game u cant realu build an army of something other than recruits anf merc troops
@@gabeowser9881 Well, with the right leadership perk, they can be again.
Imperial caravan guards are pretty decent, i got captured and lost all my men so i hired 10 Imperial caravan guard in Epicrotea than i got attacked by 30 sea raiders i had some imperial and sturgia recruits that got wiped but the caravan guard managed to kill a good amount
The thing about sturgians heavy axeman and Heroic line breaker... is there throwing weapons.... that was the deal breaker for me why I always pick them
Long story short for what best troops are based on all the stats (If you can't be bothered to watch the video)
All these units are the ones that got the 'best' title by Louie111
(I) *Archers*- Battania - Fian Champion (Skill tree - Battanian volunteer-> (Can be gotten in any battanian settlement [Lowest tier troop for the faction]) Highborn Youth (First archer upgrade)-> Highborn Warrior -> Hero -> Fian -> *Fian Champion*
(Crossbows are much less efficient than bows for these troops)
(II) *Infantry*- There are two types of infantry there are shock troopers (which are not the star wars evil bad guys but instead they are infantry units that use good weapons and specialize in killing rather than holding the lines) and of course there are shield troops which are pretty self explanatory!
*Best shield Infantry*- Imperial Legionary, followed by Sturgian Heavy Axeman closely second...
Legionary skill tree- Imperial Recruit (Can be found in settlements owned by the Calradic Empire) ->Infantry man -> Trained Infantry man ->Veteran Infantryman -> *Legionary*
Skill tree for Heavy Axemen because I'm just that amazing- Sturgian Recruit (Can be found in any settlement owned by the Sturgia empire) -> Warrior -> Soldier -> Spearman -> *Heavy Axeman*
Sturgian Heavy Spearmen have the best armour which makes them really good against calvary but only calvary- Sturgian Recruit (Can be found in any settlement owned by the Sturgia empire) -> Warrior -> Soldier -> Spearman -> *Heavy Spearman*
Shock troops- Imperial Elite Menavliaton, these troops have the highest tier gear out of all the shock trooper units and are really strong (Very good anti-Calvary unit)-
Imperial Recruit (Can be found in settlements owned by the Calradic Empire) ->Infantry man -> Trained Infantry man -> Menavliaton -> *Elite Menavliaton*
Dismounted + Hold fire Khuzait Khan's Guard are absolutely the best shock troops but they are calvary units that have everything calvary taken away from them pretty much
Khuzait Nomad (Can be found in any settlement owned by the Khuzait empire) -> Noble's Son -> Qanqli -> Torguud -> Kheshig -> *Khuzait Khan's Guard*
(III) Calvary units - The best melee mounted unit in Louie111's opinion is the Imperial Elite Cataphract, it has good armour and use two handed polearm, Vlandian Banner Knights are also good from my experience in-game as they have gotten more armour and they are really good at charging the enemy army full speed
Imperial Elite Cataphract- Imperial Recruit (Can be found at any settlement owned by the Caldradic Empire) -> Vigla Recruit -> Equite -> Heavy Horseman -> Cataphract -> *Elite Cataphract*
Vlandian Banner Knights- Vlandian Recruit (Can be found at any settlement owned by the Vlandian Empire) -> Squire -> Gallant -> Knight -> Champion *Vlandian Banner Knight*
Mounted Archers- Khuzait Khan's Guard are the best troop (in Louie111's opinion)- Khuzait Nomad (Can be found in any settlement owned by the Khuzait Empire) -> Noble's Son -> Qanqli -> Torguud -> Kheshig -> *Khuzait Khan's Guard*
Second best- Khuzait Heavy Horse Archer, have good armour and lots of arrows- Khuzait Nomad (Can be found in any settlement owned by the Khuzait Empire) -> Tribal Warrior -> Raider -> Horse Archer -> *Heavy Horse Archer*
These troops have been based on personal experience and could be possibly changed in the future (anything after two weeks of this video being up or so)
Higher quality troops require much more denars and no matter how bad you think your army is, using tactics could win you anything
I had a whole army full of archers of all kinds and I managed to take on armies that had a much bigger advantage than me (I had around 60 archer troops while they've had 100-140 troops all together), tactics can go a long way in this game!
Hope this helped
Since when can regular recruits be upgraded to elite unit recruits?
@@DatAlien Could you elaborate?
@@ogonplayzgames7823 Imperial recruits can't be upgraded to vigla recruits and nomads not to noble sons. You need to find the villages that have them to start the training of Khan's guards and cathaphracts.
I wrote it as a question as that might have been different in an earlier version.
@@DatAlien Yes I did make that mistake I apologize I only had around 60 hours of playtime at the time of making this comment, you are correct, This is also the case for battanians archers, if you wish to get fian champions you need to get the archer type starter troops.
Thanky ou so much, wish it was written in there
In the newest version of the game banner knights use actually a different, more heavier type of brigandine, not the one you showed in the vid. So they got a bit more armor recently, wich is nice imo.
0/10 can solo 75
Bring back the swadian knight juggernaut
@@Epck I just got hit with a wave of nostalgia
@@Epck
I actually prefer the mamluks
@clauseblitz4682I actually faced off with swadian knights VS mamlukes. Was bout 10 to 1 in favor of Swadia. The mamlukes are faster and definitely do a little more damage but the knights were just tanks. I legit just destroyed anything with them. I'm glad they aren't a thing in bannerlord, I can still use my dumb ways of killing 1k plus troops just with the player character but at least I can't just steam roll a kingdom with only 50 troops
my friend who suggested bannerlord to me said "khans guard are essentially medieval navy seals"
Quick, no-nonsense and efficient. Well done my dear sir
Such a good explanation of shield infantry!
Also, Elite Cataphracts are an absolute menace. If you're fighting again an empire faction, you have to have some kind of dedicated shock troop to deal with how tanky the cataphracts are. I've had some fights where almost 1/2 of the enemy force was cataphracts.
My best working tactics to fight against cavalry at the moment is to form a square shield formation with braceable infantry (like battanian oathsworn) - usually every cavalry composition gets instantly dismantled by such formation. I've fought and held 400+ vlandian horses with such formation and minimal losses. But you need high tier troops for that.
The AI of Catapphracts always strike from front / it will hit ur frontline in the face... if u access Vlandian , u can access Vlandian Pike man / sergeant it will kill those Cataphract with spear brace. As ASerai u can hold fire until its around 150 to change in fire at will, it will throw those javelin more accurate... U dont always need same shock trooper to stop those Cataphracts.
I’d rather fight a bunch of cataphracts then khans guards
It is worth mentioning that the imperial legionaries cant make as effective shield wall as the sturgian infantry because they can't lift their shields above their heads
Wich explains why i suffer more losses with Legionaries than Battanian or Sturgian infantry
Only aserai veterans can provide best shieldwall. But their slow caskara and poor polearm weapon make them not a best choice when u need a damage from your shielded infantry units. However each of them carry stack of javelins which can be useful in a short combats. For example - legionary cant throw his pilum and other types of shielded infantry armed with throwing axes(if they carry throwing weapons at all). And veterans armor much more then a "decent"
Wow I didn’t know this thanks. I saw another video also saying how the aserai infantryman had the biggest shields to that covered almost their whole body.
Aserai mamluck horse archer Calvary (which have shields unlike the khans) & their infantryman are so underrated.
I played as Northern Empire, my Army consist Sturgian Heavy Axeman / Heavy Spearman (Depending the enemy) and Khuzait Khan Guard (Skirmishing, and charging after empty). I have control North East tritory , never lost in battle
I think the versatility of the druzhinnik champion is a little missed here. They have incredible Athletics and one handed skills (because of that sacrifice to the Polearm skill) and makes it incredibly fun to use them as dragoons for the purpose of eliminating or even just tying down enemy archers, or making a break in the back of infantry formations
Good story for why I recommend a few Banner Knights in your personal retinue if you’re not on foot. I just started playing last week and one of my first big army battles was joining a Vlandian crusade against the Aesari, their 1300 or so outnumbered our 1000, among which around 100 were mine.
I’d noticed my personal forces were joining the battle in a trickle, so held them back to build up while I rode ahead to fight with the rest of the Vlandians, who as expected were worn down until they routed. Meanwhile I’d set up my guys on an excellent position on a hill, good diversity of infantry, archers, and cavalry, and we fought so long and cut that 1300 down to a few hundred maybe, and maybe if I tried again I could have done it.
Then there was a point I noticed they just kept coming and coming and everyone else was dead or running. All my companions dead, and what was left of my mostly top tier force. All but 4 Banner Knights riding to the death by my side like something out of a legend after everyone else ran, continuing to get kills in this big swarm of enemy units, and so I kept going with them for a good 10 minutes after, fighting cavalry as their infantry kept reforming and trying to chase us down, until archers finally wore my health and downed me. The knights were still going, still fighting.
you see the nice thing that i field armies where all of them are t5-6 it means i dont have to deal with even thinking about sending higher level units first or not
Honestly i love my catapracts. I use them as shock cav(guess thats what they are designed for lol). They can soak up so much dmg. If u simply let them crash into enemy lines u can get so many kills and time to let ur archers or HA cook. But yeah. It definitely feels like Khans Guards are op ;)
Heavy knight Calvary charges are the gold standard running down the enemy with a formation of heavily lanced knights never gets old.
4:56 is this a child running through the battlefield
Lol that's funny it does look like a child, idk
@@u.s.citizen9933he wanted to recite a poem, like they do in the cities
Well from what this video says, I was using the best cav, infantry, and shock troops. My biggest weakness was my choice of archers. I've been using a mix of multi-cultured archers with Imperial Crossbows and Battanian Archers and Aserai Master Archers.
I personally tend to favor tactics where I can move my troops as a sort of mobile fortress as it were, using my cavalry to screen enemies or cause long term distractions while my infantry move in with the archers being positioned behind the infantry just close enough to do maximum dps for medium range.
But my archers always performed sub-par when not in a number favored battle. Mostly because of my crossbow usage, trying to get more armor penetration is what was in my mind. But now I've got a correction to make. Woo!
Crossbows is only good use 4siege def. Coz of unlimited ammo.
And If u wanna use archers U have no choice. Fians just too good. In bow range,dps, accurate, ammo count, armor count, melee skills. Or u just waste the slot can be filled with juicy cataphract.
I mean it makes sense though. Historically bows WERE much better than crossbows when in the hands of a trained person. The reason armies in the old days liked crossbows is because it took a lot more training to make someone a competent bowman than it did to teach them how to use a crossbow. You could put crossbows in the hands of fresh conscripts and give them a quick crash course on using them and have a relatively competent unit. This game doesn't really do anything to simulate the difference in training required between bows and crossbows so the weapon that is actually better just ends up being better.
Mixing a few crossbows into your mass of archers isn’t bad IMO. They are great for killing horses and breaking shields, and as someone said above, fantastic in siege defense. My most recent playthru has 1 crossbowman for every 3-4 archers
@@xNotNickthis is what I do!! I have like 40% my army as archers &/or crossbow men, & in that ranged half it’s like 90% archers & a few crossbow men just to harass Calvary & shield troops.
Then 35% infantry & the rest split between horse archers & Calvary (but more Calvary than horse archers to balance out the more foot archers.)
Might reverse that eventually idk.
My fav shock infantry : unmounted khan's guard
My 2nd fav archers: unmounted khan's guard
My fav cavalry: khan's guard on hold fire
My fav hose archer: yep you guessed it
Currently playing my first playthrough as a Bandit lord.
And i must say that i didnt have much hope for all the bandit troops...BUT, im really surprised by the following bandit units.
Main shield infantry - Sea Raider Chiefs
Archer Units - Forest Bandits
Main Cavalry - Highwaymen
Ofcourse not as good as the top tier troops seen in this video, however if you want to play a Bandit lord you can totally do that with all the available bandit units.
And with the right Rogue perks you can just walk up to any roaming bandit group and simply recruit them for free!
Which is kind of broken atm because one of the missions for the Dragon banner quest line, sends a bunch of large groups of bandits to your settlements that you are suposed to fight off.
But you can just walk up to them and recruit them for free, and the game counts this as having defeated these groups.
You can even do this with the conspiracy groups, sadly the game wont let you recruit them.
I used to run a very mixed unit in early to mid game, but now in late game I found most success with 150 Khan's Guard and 100 Legionaries. I swapped out all my fian champions against Khan Guards, and it is so much better against bigger armies. It is much easier to outmaneuver and outflank enemies with horse archers and get to the back of a shield wall this way. Als the strong melee of the Khans means you can easily use them as shock troops and as counter cavalry like you said in the video. Only problem is replacing them once a few of them die because I have to do a recruitment run across the map. Good video.
You can use Advanced Garrison mod to keep troops you use in your fiefs. It creates AI recruiter who will run across the map for you :) You can easily define what troops to recruit and up to what tier to train.
@@Nemesid1 I play on console so unfortunately no mods yet. Maybe one day, there are more and more games that support mods on console now.
@@S3mj0n oof I feel you on run across the map. Such a pain fighting vlandians and having to go all the way back replenish my horse archers that I’ve lost
I only use imperial troops and use my prisoners as a resupply of troops. Only keep high tier imperial prisoners to move into the lineup after a battle. There's a perk for the morale penalty but don't use it. On console too
Lol i just did the same thing, but I swapped out the whole 360 man fian squad for all Khans. Only reason im getting ready to cheese is because I'm 10 days away from choosing the banner with like 15 central empire fiefs owned. I figured once the WHOLE damn map declares war on me. I can quickly dispatch big armies while being mobile enough to keep all 15 fiefs safe by my self for a while. wishing thinking probably
I like to limit myself to one culture's unit's so I have to play around their strengths and weaknesses
Me too, unless I'm playing empire.They are way to op being the best in all categories except ranged
Why? Is there an advantage to this?
@@Cowboys777 nah it's just for fun
Way better than other videos that are just opinions. Nice testing! Now I finally know what troops are best.
You literally have others with statistics and proper testing, all data recorded, but K.
I pretty much just run elite cataphracts and khans guards later in the game, virtually unstoppable
khuzait khans guard is allways in my party, as horse archers and also cavalry. The others I usually take the same from my culture, if playing aserai, would be aserai archers and infantry, if battaninan I would pick battanian fians and mix the infantry with emperial, etc
I usually go with a 60/40 mix of Empire Legionaries and Sturgian heavy axe for my infantry with a shock troop detachment of Empire Manavliaton and Battian Falx. For ranged I go with a 50/50 mix of Vladian Sharpshooters and Battanian Fian Champions for consistent damage and fire output. My Cavalry is usually a 60/40 mix of Empire Cataphact' and Vladian Banner Knights, for Mounted Archers Khan's Guard. With this composition my single party of around 400 can solo armies 2 to 3x larger than my own with relatively light casualties, Hammer and Anvil for the win.
i think you're onto something with the infantry. When I made a mod for my aserai, i gave my veteran infantry maces, and they started trading equally with imperials. And when i gave my palace guards pauldrons and a better helmet, they started smashing as good as sturgians and imperial menavliaton
it might be that maces and shield are one of best pairings, and full torso head coverage and two handed are best pairings
Maces are the go to weapon against armor, always has been
When you don't have a shield you can only rely on heavy ass armor
so yeh those were basic common stuff really
I think the Vanguard Faris are a different class, imo they're much closer to traditional light cavalry and should be in a class of their own really, between horse archers and heavy cavalry. Since they're fast they're very useful against horse archers and can accompany my own while circling around enemy lines and then defend said horse archers.
Very good strategy
Enemies can’t catch them, but if they do, they have bodyguards, and your horse archers can just pick off the chasing Calvary
Yea Faris are mounted skirmishers which are very much their own kind of troop (kinda like how there are two types of infantry) they are like half horse archer half cavalry but don’t fit too well into the tactics of either, I have found that they excel at taking down enemy mounted units, but they aren’t that good at much else.
Yeah i bring them along with me when i go sniping for lords with horse cav, i can line up the horse archers, then bring the faris' around the back and either way one of them have an angle, their javelins also 1 shot tier 1-2 infantry which is very strong, any troop on a horse can always choose when to engage infantry so theyre like dragoons I use them in line no f1f3@@ebosarchives
Khans Guard sounds crazy the are good at everything, best shock troops, best horse archers and second best melee cavalry.
i personally use massive khans guard in my army. i litterally skirmishing my enemies untill it was gone :D and while manuvering my khans guard, i will charge the enemy with vlandian banner knights. no matter how small the battlefield was, keep doing it again and again
I know it is late, but just a comment on the methodology, averages are the way to go, it is even common to eliminate the extremes to avoid outliers.
to be honest, an army of khan's guards will solve all your problems
they punch above their weight in a way that is, frankly insane, you can bait cavalry into charging you, run away so they waste their charge.. then retaliate which mulches them..
after that you just set them still so they fire some volleys and then run away again..
your biggest issue is a heavy presence of archers unless you can isolate them and cut them to pieces, crossbows will hit very hard and KG dont have shields..
but ive won some.. frankly insane victories.
Looks like it hasn't changed since day 1 haha.
ranking them according to their mean is probably more informing than ranking them according to their best. since singling out a try heavily favours luck. Good video anyways, thanks!
There were some really bad outliers among the worst runs. Fians for example had a run were they kept missing the last 2 units for like 20 seconds. I should have either taken the 3rd best run (out of 5) of each faction or do more runs to mitigate the impact of the outliers and take the average.
Anyway, when taking the average times (minus the outliers) I also come to the (same) conclusion that the Aserai and Imperial archers are roughly 10-20 % slower than Fians in that test.
Druzinnik is funny unit because they are basicly infantry on horse. They true power is visible in siege were catafract is slow, bannerknights is low armor and Khan Guard is lack of shield. Druzinniks is prety fast on foot (they have the biggest atletics of all cav unit) very good (and pretty light as for this class) armor and BIG shield. If i must choose unit to cav only game i choose them but in other cases i probably go with Bannerknights
This makes total sense, except I think the Sturgians should have a clear win for shock troop. Would be cool if they made those better. Fian champions makes perfect sense for that culture.
Sturgian linebackers can't defeat even a battanian elite fians... And they not even a shock troops🤣
@@annmeyfaylinn2015 I know, it’s ridiculous. I think it would be cool for balancing if every race had one superior class of Soldier.
@@teeheeteeheeish well, Sturgia has a powerful infantry unit that can quite resist any infantry in the game, however, for some reason they are mounted ... yes, I'm talking about druzhinniks. Battania has the best archers, Vlandia has the best crossbowmen, Acerai has the best mounted skirmishers, the empire has the best shock cavalry, and the Khuzaites have the best horse archers. In principle, each faction has its own strong unit
@@annmeyfaylinn2015 Hi, I'm new to BO and I'm doing only infantry with a shield, currently I only have legionaries , I want to be able to farm the forest bandits more easily because I always have several casualties against them. Which infantry unit with a shield would you recommend?
Sorry if you don't understand, I'm using the translator.
@@lJuanDiegol against forest bandits? U need kill them or capture? If u want to kill them best to use fians. Otherwise, imperial crossbowmans or legionary. They have blunt weapons and imperial crossboman pretty good in close combat fight. But when your medicine grow to 75, best choice to capture forest bandits will be sturgian axeman I think. But i use fians, because I don't care about bandis survival. And get use to casualties. It's normal thing to lose a few men after fight in a high difficulty. Especially among heavy infantry, they die like flies. Archers in general are best killed either by other archers or by cavalry.
I'd be interested to see the difference between Battanian Fian Champions and Forest Bandits - my understanding is that they use the same bow as the Fian champions, Forest bandits set you back 8 denars per day whereas Fian champions set you back 17. The forest bandits are ofcourse worse, but I wonder how much worse they are - I'm running a campaign currently and I got 3 very early on (back at clan tier 1) - I now have 7 fiefs and clan tier 6 - those 3 bandits are still going strong in my army, at this point I refuse to get rid of them because I'm emotionally attached xD
There is also a chance that they arent normally in big fights because the x number of troops is gives me is made up of the highest tier the game will let me have, but still :)
Lords cultural influence on troops should have more impact on troop morale, recruitment and stats IMO. There should be negatives and positives for sticking to one culture and running mix of bests from different groups.
You have right.I like this Game very mutch.
I'm using Druzhinniks as my main infantry
Since they are more effective than legionnaries, die less often because of their armor, act as a very mobile infantry to flank the ennemy and is close to be the best cavalery as well (recent test shows that). They are really cool as well.
They are the best infantry in the game.
Great video ;)
You talking about the Druzhinniks champions? The ones on the horses?
@@getemguapo_tv those are actually good. They are almost as good as any shielded tier5 infantry (maybe better than vlandian sergeants) in terms of line holding and damage output (they have the same one handed axe than the axemen). And the are on horse, so you can make an army where the mellee job is only done by them, have them in, at least, 2 groups where 1 group is dismounted. And if you have to get to a position its faster to get there on horse than on foot
@@AzoiatheCobra i just use the strat that I used for warband. For every archer there will be three cavalry melee units. (Druznik champs, banner knight champs , and elite catifracts) and then a nice lil sprinkle of linebreakers
Yup. And they can couch their lances. They are something that combines banner knights and cataphracts
My infantry is mainly made of Battania wildings? The ones with 10 spears to throw backed up by a huge force of fians. Honestly they hold the line well since head on cav charges get decimated by javalins and the archers decimate enemy shield wall from the side. Then after a few minutes I retreat to resupply and start the battle again
To add if you bring in your cav behind the enemy shield wall as it approaches yours they will often turn which ends up them being butchered by the javalins
I use a wilding shield wall to soak up charging enemies and projectiles with falxman behind them and fian champions behind them all firing. When the enemy fully commits I charge and the falxman go around the flanks and slaughter infantry and horseman. I've won several battles where I'm outnumbered by 200-300 by doing this. Battanians are nuts if don't let the ai charge in head first
I once did a Khuzait campaign recruiting ONLY Khan's gaurds... was the easiest campaign I ever did they are just so good at every important role you need filled
Nice one mate. It is for sure you put a lot of effort in this. Keep going
Yea I love the video and (kinda) super agree with these rankings, though I wished you had considered the option of dismounting Druzinniks to be used as infantry, with them having the highest skills when compared to other infantry and the highest athletics when compared to other cavalry and I would have at least liked to hear why they aren’t very good as infantry if that was the case
Big fan of having archers and shock troops behind a wall of shields. Archers pelt away at the enemy, repositioning if the enemy puts a shield wall. Shocks troops throw what they have and when they’re about to meet the shock troops either break past the shield wall to meet the enemy, or they circle around. Haven’t decided which works better yet
I love Bannerlord, my favourite game in past years
Archers : Battania fian champion
Tank Infantry : Imperial Legionary
Shock Troop: Imperial Menevlation
Cavalry : Imperial Cataphract
Horse Archers : Khan's Guard
I have 330 medicine , all part limit increasing and troop/infantry hit point increasing perks. With 475 troops (Not the Ruler Clan atm so would have 100 more) I can easliy win against 2x armies and can defeat up to 3.5-4x armies on highest difficulty.
I've found that nothing beats horse archers or heavy cavalry on flat terrain. All you can do is circle formation with pikes vs heavy cav and circle formation with shield infantry vs horse archers, with pikes inside if cav breaks through.
Literally all you can do, but if the vortex starts and theres 100+ horse archers your pretty much guaranteed to get widdled away.
This is true for rolling hills and regular terrain with very few mountains.
Mountains is where things get interesting. Mountains are where strategy and formation come into providing you a huge advantage.
Classic loose formation for your archers, stick them on the side of a mountain facing the enemy with full line of sight. Loose formation makes massed arrow volleys less effective, you get your shock infantry or throwing infantry just under them- go for a skein formation with shield infantry holding the foot of the mountain, or a little further. So your archers with the high ground can melt the enemy blob when it smashes against your shields.
Counter cav with cav, make sure you wrap up their cav charge with yours and when their main formation gets wrecked you reposition your cav at the foot of the hill so the main enemy cav force has to skirmish under a hail of arrow fire from your archers which have the high ground.
With shock infantry you can have them hold up behind the shield infantry and have them charge in after the enemy has been widdled down a bit bashing against the shield wall.
Thats why I love mountains, pretty much unbeatable. A lot of the times I just face the enemy cav by myself though because its fun.
Best units: (if you Dee this and don't watch the video at least give him a like)
Archer: Battanian fian champion
Shield: imperial legionary (varied)
Shock: imperial elite menavliaton ( there was a better one but this one is more easier to get)
Mounted melee: imperial elite cataphract
Ultimate unit: crusade Kahn guard
Many units have situational advantages, though that is not the case for all. For example, the Battanian Oathsworn are the best anticavalry unit, as they have a spear that can brace, shields, and throwing axes. Sturgians in general specialize in dealing with shielded units. Their Linebreakers and Heavy Axemen tear through shields, and are my favorite infantry to use in sieges. Vlandian Sharpshooters have some of the best shields in the entire game. When attacking in siege, their accuracy and power is very handy. On the field, I often split my infantry into two square formations, and in between a line of shielded crossbow units. The Vlandian Sharpshooters can soak up a lot of arrows, and return back with powerful volleys before retreating back into their shields. Banner Knights have the best charges, meaning they run in, charge the enemy and get right out. Cataphracts can stay in the thick of it thanks to their armor, meaning they can hold a flank. Sturgian Druzhinnik are essentially Sturgian Spearmen with throwing axes and horses, meaning that of all the Cavalry units, they actually have the stats such and weaponry to perform as heavy infantry. This includes Atheletics, most Cavalry units do need it, but because the Druzhinnik do, they really do double as a mounted infantry unit, just don't expect them to beat the Bannerknights in a head on charge. Some units are just straight garbage and lack any situational advantage such as the Sturgian Archers/light cavalry, Khuzit infantry/Heavy Cavalry, or all Batannian Cavalry. Units like these exist soley to give each faction a balanced force, but many other units have situational advantages. The Empire is a Jack of All Trades, meaning they will do perform better in most situations, but finding out each units strengths and weaknesses they can be surpassed.
Damn the idea of playing as the Empire seems more and more attractive by the minute. They seem to have second best of everything and a lot more towns with their culture to consolidate a huge realm with good loyalty across the board.
I play sturgians and migrate south
I think thats kinda the intention, I think lore wise the empire has taken aspects of the other nations to make themself stronger but never really beating the orginal nation at that thing
kinda reminds me of humans in fantasy setting. Never the best at anything, but usally the second best at everything
i use 100 imperial cataprachts with 220 battanian fian champs. no infantry bcs i hate when i fight 320 vs 700-800 fight and lose all my infantry, archer x cav loses least amount of troops in big battles and battanian archer is op as f so i can easily win 300 vs 700 fights. (bannerlord difficulty )
honeslty it would have been nice to use the tier 5 fian after seeing that the tier 6 fian was the best, just for comparison with the others tier 5 archer
it's OP already. crushes any other tier 5 ranged.
The tier 3 Fian ( so after only 1 level up ) are better than every tier 5 archer.
Faris are more like skirmisher cav along with the Battanian mounted skirmshers and Sturgia Horse Raiders
Overall, I give this video a 8.5/10, which is the most impressive video I've seen about troops in Bannerlord. All other "troop rating" videos are, at most, 5/10's. Took down some points due to the cavalry part, but good overall. Archers and Horse Archers, you can't go wrong with them. Good old Fian Champions and Khan's Guards. But let's move on to the infantry and cavalry parts.
Why the Sturgian Heavy Axeman is the Best Shield Infantry (Legionaries are a close second)
First, the Legionaries defeat all shield infantry in frontline battles, they get a point for that. They also have a better KDR against Shock Troops. (Heroic Line Breaker)
Heavy Axeman 0 - 2 Legionary
But the Heavy Axeman shines in KDR against mid tiers, (Imperial Trained Infantryman) KDR against decent archers, (Palatine Guard) and KDR against cavalry. (Druzhinnik Champions) In fact, the Legionaries had 15 times more losses than the Druzhinnik Champions while the Heavy Axemen carried out an even battle with around 50 Druzhinnik Champions to 70 Heavy Axemen dead.
Heavy Axeman 3 - 2 Legionary
Overall they are close but the Heavy Axemen have a slight edge over the Legionaries. Let's move on to the Shock Troops.
Why the Sturgian Heroic Line Breaker is the Best Shock Infantry (Menavliatons are a close second again)
The purpose of Shock Troops are to break shield walls, and shield walls are made by shield infantry. The Sturgian Heroic Line Breakers have the best KDR against Shield Infantry. Menavliatons are anti cav but cav can be stopped by spear shield infantry too. Therefore the Heroic Line Breakers take the dub here. Moving on to Cavalry next!
Why the Sturgian Druzhinnik Champion is the Best Cavalry
(200 cav vs 400 inf tests) Khuzait and Battanian cavalry out from the first place. Unusable. Vlandian cavalry also out, the so-called "cav faction" has overrated cavalry. Vlandian Banner Knights have the lowest KDR among Vlandian, Aserai, Imperial and Sturgian cavalry. Aserai cavalry is quite good and has nice KDR. Now, the Druzhinnik Champions are above the Cataphracts because they suffered only slightly more casualties than the Cataphracts, being only 2 men difference between them. However the Druzhinnik Champions are above all in terms of killed infantry, while the Cataphracts are second to last.
As I said, agree with the archers and horse archers.
However, thank you for not displaying Sturgia at rock bottom.
What ever dude, vlandia has best pike infantry. Move along
Bro this is best list of the game. Lot of stupid "gaming websites" called sharpshooters best archers but u just prove what is good on something with atleast 90 iq logic. Thanks for video, keep going it king
So... khan's guard only is still the best army composition? Nice, my old playthrough isn't dead!
KHANS GUARD Also the top kuzait melee unit forgot what its called but they are better than I expected and love using them
This video is informative as hell😎🙏💯 Thank you for teaching me which variety of troop types are the best. Have my like and sub👍
In KG's defense they are the only passable dismounted unit Khuzaits get for seiges, apart from hiring other factions or cashing in mercs.
I'm always using veteran brigands for cavalry since they're obtainable through upgrading basic recruits
Empire faction, hammer and anvil tactic on open field will always be my go to go style,
Idk if it’s the newer update but I find cross bows are GREAT, vlandian sharpshooters seem to mulch enemies, I used 100 of them being supported by 100 spearman, we had to fight 300 legionaries and we pulled out on top, a shield wall front backed by the crossbows who then can also enter melee fairly well is great
It's simple khan's guard ,fian champion and legionary is the best unit in the game
For short just use khuzait khan's guards.
Love the little bit you have at the end, i literally bought this game because i couldn't stand watching my friend just charge all everytime i saw him play ,,, a sharp mind has killed more men than sharp swords
Lol if charge all is working from the start of the battle than your friend had that cheesing squad. Those first 10 strategical minutes of the battle is the most fun to me.
Great video, very helpful and will make it easier for me to gather my army.
Infantry : Battanian Fian
Cavalry : Khuzait khans Guard
Just use this combination is enough... U can control Calradia...
Currently using a Valandian Cavalry build in my run and this vid was very helpful
I have been eyeing another medieval game to play, after Mordhau, that has a different approach to game play. This game looks so fun and your in depth guide gives me great hope that I will adore this game. Louie, you helped me get into mordhau, and I'm now almost level 200, thank you my friend for introducing me to that wonderful game, and having such meticulous videos.
Best is entirely circumstantial, take shock cavalry. Where the vlandian variant might perform better in the field, the druziniks high athletics makes it way better in a siege or dismounted situation.
Battanian fians, just them, nothing else. Get two hundred or so and you can beat most other armies that are worth double your number. They are good against cavalry because of heir long two handed weapons, and also great in melee. The biggest advantage they have is that they will blacken the sky with arrows before you can reach them with anything else, and horses don't have shields, so they are pretty defenseless against them, even the best mounted archers will be completely screwed when going against them.
Favourite troop: khan's guard.
They're too multifunctional in terms of roles they can fill well on the battlefield, but also on the campaign map. More notably. They profit from mounted and ranged perks reducing their upkeep and increasing the security they provide as a garrison. The only drawback is their recruitment might be a bit hard. Considering you need to go over to khuzait lands
Fun fact sturgian line breakers have a special trait that lets them deflect arrows
Sturgia infantry axe men are awesome I have 350 troops and can win a fight against 950 troops
Idk mam I've destroyed whole cavalry forces with just a detachment of 40 khans guard. As soon as the cataphracts complete their charge they hit a wall and take their time leaving which gives khans guard time to swap and swing their polearms roughly 4 times before they wipe them out and swap back to skirmishing
Aserai Infantry
Battanian Archers
Khuzait-Manluk horse archer mix
Caraphract cav.
I know a lot of people will disagree but i see much use of the Vlandian pikeman because they are always ready for incoming horses, they don't usually need to swap weapons. But apart from being Anti cav. they don't do very well on the battle field that's something i gotta admit.
Legionaries are best against pure tier 5 infantry because of their maces, but Aserai Veteran Infantry is actually the best against a "regular" enemy army which has a mix of many troop tiers
The task of shielded infantry units is to take damage and veterans handle it best. But legionaries can inflict damage better then anyone else of shielded infantry units🤔 Still they are not meant for that.
Vlandian archers are my favorite no matter what.simply for the fact that they make good infantry. 18 shots then you just got another infantry unit with a shield and if you make up for the slow reload with numbers i don’t notice the difference tbh
This is the worst thing about them lol.
Seems kind of silly that crossbowmen would have less ammo than bowmen. I mean, they are using shorter bolts, so if anything, they should be able to carry more.
Excellent work! Keep it up!
They really dropped the ball on making Sturgia the best infantry as they are said go be in lore.
I personally prefer the Sturgian horse cav over any others, in my games they seem to survive longer than any other melee cav.
Druzhinnik is best!
I find Vlandian infantry with kite shields and such to be semi-decent troops that can make a good shield wall and so on , I'm a Vlandian fan myself gotta keep the Butter meme going somehow lol.
I find Vlandia is a pretty decent "all round" faction to play as, they're not totally OP unless you know how to make them that way but can at least hold their own in many large scale battles.
I exclusively get units that turn into kharn guard they just so OP the "circle thing" has gotten me through some tough ones! omw to 300 but my party capacity is only 250 atm and they keep dying, 10 every few battles takes its toll but even in small numbers their KDR is 5 to 1.
They need war horses to upgrade past tier II which is pricey but still makin bank so its all g.
Best horse archer is the Khan Guards, best heavy cavalry is Khan Guards, best shock infantry is dismounted khan guards, and second best archers is khan guards (best overall if you include the ability to melee as part of what matters for archers).
The glaive is insane
IMO- fians, sturgian heavy spear, cataphract, Kahn’s guard
I usually just make an imperial legionary square of 100 men and place 150 fian champions at the back to cut down all the enemy forces, im never really worried about enemy cavalry cutting down my archers since not much cavalry gets through the square and the fians themselves decimate cavalry. Thats why i never get my own cavalry
Great video once again!
My list:
Archers:
- Battanian Fian Champion
- Aserai Master Archer
- Imperial Palatine Guard
Shield infantry:
- (Dismounted) Sturgian Druzhinnik Champion
- Aserai Veteran Infantry
- Imperial Legionary
Shock infantry
- Sturgian Heroic Line Breaker
- Imperial Elite Menavliaton
- Aserai Mameluke Palace Guard
Cavalry
- Vlandian Banner Knight
- Imperial Elite Cataphract
- Aserai Vanguard Faris
Not including Horse Archers and Crossbowmen because we know who they are and they have no competition
Khuzait khan guards are the goat, Goat of everything, they are the best troops that I have encountered yeah boy
As a starting player, I have a question. Is there an easier way to split up your infantry squads when commanding? Or will I always have to manually transfer the troops into different squads? That would seem to be(and is having to do that already when assaulting bandit hideouts) a huge time dump. More so than actually playing the game.
I’m asking as a new Xbox player trying to enjoy the single player side of the game too.
I don't really like how the cav just go through the shield wall and spears as if they're not there. And when you use cav, they do the same and don't stay in formation, making it difficult for them to cause a lot of damage to infantry formations. And it also makes them vulnerable to archers.
Vlandian sharpshooters make a damn good shield wall tho ill give them that
Well you're still right about the infantry the imperial legionaries are still the best along with the sturgeon heavy axe men being the second-best not sure about the sturgeon heavy, but they have fixed a few problems in the freezing update for the banner nights they do have better armor now except for the azurite Faris although they do look a lot better I'm look like real azerai Farris now except it's still not as good as what they had before.
Ancient battle strategy reduced to "circle thing" lmao
Maybe you and Strat Gaming can collaborate on testing, he does a lot of comparing and testing and spreadsheeting for bannerlord too
My armies are always like 50% Fian Champions. I love spamming them and letting them destroy advancing formations
You forgot a great fact with shield troops in a shield wall with 2 lines are the axemens not so easy to down she have small shields that's true but the second line use also his shield and protect the first line also when I fight with axemens in a wall again imperial the wins every time!!!
Archers I use Vlandians Sharpshooter because they're good at distance and use Battanian Fian Champions because they're the best archers
My favorite strategy to use is the nonsense the Rhodoks in Warband used. Have an equal number of crossbow units and shielded infantry. Find a steep hill, dense forest, or something of the like. Put the crossbow units in a loose formation and shielded infantry in a shield wall behind them. The position of the formations will disrupt cavalry charges and hinder horse archers. The crossbow units pick off infantry units as they approach, and when they make contact, I give the hold fire and engage commands to all of my troops. The crossbow units on the outer flanks surround the enemy infantry while the shielded infantry whittle them down. Once the infantry is dealt with, a order all troops to go into shield wall until the enemy cavalry is dealt with. Then all that's left is to clean up the enemy ranged units.
In the event of an enemy party forming a defensive formation, I get into effective firing range and behind cover. I then take pop shots at the archers, and the commander until the lose their nerve and charge.
I think it's not quite fair that khan guards where included outside of thier category, while other cavalry didn't, druzhinik champions would be no.1 front line infantry
Not sure if they've been nerfed, but regular Battanian Falxman are absolutely ridiculous at causing mayhem