Got a question, how can I focus on a fiew troops and actually try and build up a organized army if I am running around with 4 more parties of my clan with 1200 men total. I at one part I had like 3:1 cavalry ratio just bcs why not and now I got 5:1 because I cant recruit noble lines non stop. Another thing is how can I stop the nobles from giving troops to a garrison of a conquerred fief without taking their troops prior to the siege? Sry for the paragraph
@@nikolaradonjic1108 start a party on your own with all noble troops and max it out and after doing that for a few hours, call all your troops to your party, and if you have even three hundred max noble troops plus I am assuming 900 regular troops based off your question, then nothing will attack you anyway. And if you wanna take cities or castles without too many losses, then spam build trebuchets or preferably fire catapults and the second they are built store them, then bring them all out when the last building is about to be finished. Sorry if that was a lot and if you need any clarification I have no life and will respond whenever.
@@Strat-Guides I decided to light Roleplay as Daenerys Targaryen: I'll play either Empire or Vlandia, but I'll migrate to Khuzait, get a core army of Khan's Guard to march into Aserai, "buy" my Aserai infantry (unsulied) and then invade my home turf with my foreign army recruiting knights. I'm leaning more towards Vlandia, and keeping some ten Banner Knights and recruit companions to serve as my Queensguard. Edit: since I play on console and can't use a mod for ASOIAF, this is my take
I didn`t finish watching the video yet. But it`s great that you added a test of how a unit performs when outnumbered! It`s kind of the most common situation in the game.
I think I've tested this by experience, not by statistics in my current campaign. It's 5,000+ game-day, death-match against all eight kingdoms, but the army I've assembled and the use of advanced tactics gives us a shot against enemy armies, even outnumbered 3 to 1. Take a look if you're interested.
Maybe, but I'd happily take on that force with 100 Fian Champs, 100 Khans Guards, 100 Wildlings, 100 Sharpshooters, 100 Imperial Cataphracts and 100 Veteran Sturgian Spearman.@@darthflorida-man
They work a lot better with line breakers and Spearman working together. I think the Varyags perfom better than the axeman and the Otroki is very good for how much they cost. The Spearman and axeman do well in a shieldwall but have a low damage output that needs to be supported by some 2handers. Veteran Varyag has lower stats but somehow they always perform better for me than axe or spearmen.
@@KingoftheWelsh I know it’s an old comment but you kinda missed the point. Legionaries are OP against equal numbered opponents which happens like 10% of the matchups. You can’t run 100-200 100% legionaries and hit 300+ armies with them, while you certainly can do that with for example cataphracts etc
@@el_kasztanejlo8555 I understand the legionaries should be stronger I just didn't realize the margin was that wide. Meanwhile the Sturgy boys have apparently mid infantry and no cataphracts to make up for it while empire has Cats and Legs
@@KingoftheWelsh That's why you field massive armies of low tier sturgian inf shielding linebreakers and grind the enemy into dust. Those legionnaires won't be walking out of a 3 to 1 fights with berserker boys.
My man really does put in the work! 100 hours! This is why when it come to the strats and stats you’re the Aficionado. Every upload you can’t miss folks!
You are still semi delusional, this was in a vacuum with 0 ranged weapons. Veteran aserai have no armour on the head or feet... on a shield troop... big shields though. And spears, and javelin. Not trash but super weak to horse archers, massed archers, siege assaults, so on. The fact that they're good against mass melee threats/outnumbered means perhaps counterintuitively you want to use them sparingly and guarantee missile superiority. They do benefit the most from tactics such as hiding in woods, behind hills etc though negating much of the risks. Feels bad to have your t5 boys one tapped to the noggin though.
@@mandowarrior123 Well, I don't play multiplayer, so most of what you said doesn't really matter to me. Atleast in my games the AI loves recruiting/upgrading infrantry units and most of the armies I face are like 60-80% infrantry. The only thing I care about is "does my infrantry win/survive the engagement with the enemy infrantry". If I didn't care about having a balanced army aesthetic, I basically wouldn't even have infrantry in my army, due to how little armor matters. The only meaningful equipment for an infrantry unit in my experience is the shield when facing other types of units. But this is against the AI that doesn't really use any tactics at all :D
@@mandowarrior123 Aserai Vet Infs are buffed as of later patches and now have good head armor (same stats as Imperial Goggled Helmet, without the fashion). Their leg armor is still bad, but it's a tradeoff to make their loadout light enough for them to move faster. In my experience with them, I never had issue using them against horse archers and massed archers since they have large shields and their overall armor is pretty good (except for the leg). Also, their high-damage, long-reaching sword (which is the same weapon that Faris use) really works wonders against most units in melee, obviously except against shock infantry. If anything, you're the delusional one here.
I love leaving your stuff on in the background and just passively listening to the statistics while I do something else. You have a nice voice ... like the kind of voice a nerdy, awkward best friend would have. Hope your family life and living situation is going good. I appreciate all you do still.
Thank you so much for all the testing! I'm glad to see my respect for the Veteran Infantry was well founded lol Though I am a bit confused at the choice to leave out the Banner Knight and Druzhinnik Champion since you included the Khans Guard and Cataphracts.
Surprised to see the Aserai having such good infantry, but the rest is pretty much what I'd expect. Sturgia really needs a buff, they really don't do anything better than other factions. Great video as always!
There was some hidden factors there- veteran aserai have poor foot armour and minimal head armour. This leaves them vulnerable to getting one tapped at range and very vulnerable. This at least means the sturgians are the best overall in an environment with ranged weapons. Difficult to see benefit to axemen though unless you really can utilise their ranged attacks. Once fixed vs imps they'd be on par with spears. Perhaps shields a touch weaker and the reach / ai issue solved they'd be back.
As long as you micro Battanians are the best anti infantry faction in the game. their archers can beat all the other factions and it’s really easy to destroy big units of high tier infantry by surrounding them with spear or axe throwing units while falling back. The only thing they can’t do is kill cav but since their starting settlements are in forests just chase or bait the enemy army into a forest and use autoresolve
I'm currently running a Sturgia playthrough (mostly, using Fians for my archers) and am pleased to see your results match up to my own conclusions. Started with a mix of Heavy Axemen and Spearmen but quickly noticed that the death rate among the Axemen was significantly higher, so dropped them. Definitely think it's down to the axes being too short. I now run all Heavy Spearmen in the wall, with Linebreakers in the same formation, backing them up - generally somewhere around a 2/1 or 3/1 ratio. vs other infantry, they massacre them in a 2-3 deep Line formation (depending on width of enemy line) vs cavalry, they massacre them in Square formation vs ranged, they are practically invincible in Shield Wall while my ranged and cavalry counter
Started a Sturgian campaign recently as well. Been playing around and can confirm what you said. I'm going with pure infantry with some druzhniks cav mixed in. For the infantry go for Heavy Spearmen always with linebreakers mixed in. 2/1 ratio is my go to. Axemen suck - had hopes for them because they have throwing axes and Sturgia does not have good range, but they aren't as good. Linebreakers really dish out the damage, but are vulnerable to range and cav. Spearmen are good vs range and cav with their big shields and spears, and do well as main line, so there is good synergy. Spearmen with Linebreakers in 2/1 ratio.
Doing something similar but with no cav and all axemen with all the perks to increase dmg to shields. The strength of the axemen lies in softening up infantry imo Plus its very satisfying seeing a wall of shields getting popped :)
Obviously you can't shield wall axemen and throw axes. When they have the terrain curve visibility they're broken, but without, they're a bit of a wet fart. They die maybe slowest when outnumbered vs any other troops so are the best to hold the line- except sturgia has no range. If they weren't broken against some units i'd say they're decent enough. Frustrating thing is the game sells you on axe counter to shields and while they can do that, with their attacks not working breaking imperial shields is fruitless, and they have javelins.
idk why but i love axemen cuz in battle if something is running at my footman i just use comand to lose formation and they start to throw A LOT of axes and they just melt enemy did strat use their throwing axes? cuz i feel like they are a bit of broken and not bad and spearman are the one that are way worse (i have skills for throwing so maybe thats why they are better but even without that i like them way more) and when you atack castle you destroy everyone cuz there is like 20-50 axes that destroy any bow that is trying to shoot
Right when I need it! Also I think for dismoUnted cavalry it make sense to test Styrgian dryzhinnik. They probably have best stats among any shield infantry.
Awesome work as always. Your videos have shaped a lot of my current strategy & troop composition! running 2:1 ratio of Legionary and other shock troops has been to great effect, two shield square formations ahead of an archer line with shock troops behind in the gap. Infantry will usually split and the shock troops wreck havoc, also providing cover for heavy cav rushes on the archer lines. Incredibly fun when you can dismount and join the chaos.
I was planning to go for the same kind of army, but replacing the shock troop with heavy cavalry (cataphract), to get more options (protect the archer, reinforce melee, or chase the bowman / enemy cavalry). Have you ever tried that ?
@@Amodef I feel like, especially with imp cataphracts, you could use a relatively small formation in order to give you that extra flexibility with this structure of army. Maybe only 10-20 out of 150 troops for cav. From there you could set up the formations and leave the cav in reserve to protect flanks and break lines when necessary. It also allows you to punish primarily ranged armies much more than you otherwise would so I'd say it'd be worth having a small group of cav for sure.
i was literally wanting for a video like this last week. Great as always strat! crossbowmrn really surprised me and the legionaries too. I thought legionaries were the best, but not against actual armies we come across i guess. surprised!
This made me think alot, because i was playing Sturgia only the other day and i ran into an elite Empire army. Favoring a 60-40 mix of Heavy Axemen (for their throwing axes even though they kinda suck) and Heavy spearmen (to tank damage/stop some horses maybe) in my frontline; backed up by linebreakers for killing power. Finally some Champion horses to counter elite cav, and sturgian archers (worst archers in the game, but still has the potential to deal alot of damage). Anyways.. The battle was starting and both armies fielded an equal amount of men. My army of around 900 troops would at first glance have the advantage against the enemies 700, but the enemies had the quality advantage; 90 legionaries and 60 elite menavilion was the scariest among them, my weak archers would have to pull their weight. Menavilion being the faster troops (they charged) let me take out a solid chunk of them with bows and throwing axes before we crossed swords. When they reached us i held shield wall for as long as possible, giving archers time to pick at their flanking units. Then when entering line formation all my elite infantry got cut down; Similare numbers/and similare quality as both armies was only fielding about 300 each. I won the battle, but it turned into a grindfest and a phyric victory at best. Looking at the stats, my Heavy axemen did nothing; About 50 of them barely getting any kills, made me rethink fielding them at all. This video made me think of this, because the Heavy axemen does a horrible job against legionary infantry. Looking closer at the issue the Axemen seem to be missing alot, especially when they are backing up and trying to attack while doing this; This could be some issue regarding the length of the axe combined with attacking while backing up.
Yeah those linebreakers are nasty! Shield infantry can be useful even if they're bad - throwing weapons and blocking for the shock troops. You've got it figured out :D
I think the only thing this points to is every faction (except empire) needs a massive infantry buff. Battanian and Sturgian infantry sadden me the most.
I think it's worth noting that Battania as a faction isn't known for fighting in open field battles with massive assaults. Their specialty is in their ranged hit and run tactics, which can also be seen in game. Assuming you are disregarding Fians, the Wilding in particular can be an extremely dangerous unit when used in this manner. Any charging formation is going to be met with massive salvos of accurate spears. Set them in two formations with the engage command. Both formations will throw spears while still retreating from the charging infantry. If they stay in shield wall they will never catch you, if they line charge they are no longer well covered. Should one formation be caught set the other behind the enemy in a sandwich attack. Wildings are the masters of this combat method. You can even use a variation of this method against cavalry effectively. Oathsworn just suck, but it makes sense as this unit does not fit the Battanian style of warfare. Sturgia however makes no sense, as the units they are supposed to be built around (shielded infantry) are little better than the Oathsworn themselves. Instead the majority of their strong units are some type of cavalry, and the only decent infantry they have don't use shields at all.
I'm currently playing a Battanian campaign and can confirm that you have to put the Oathsworn into shield wall and let the Fian Champions do the real work.
Thanks for this awesome analysis! I’m doing a play through right now where I want to use only crossbows. I’ll have to start building my army of Imperials later today!
I can understand why you do the tests like this as it’s the only way to get consistent data, but turning off fire at will puts some of my favorite infantry (Wildlings) at a huge disadvantage. In my play through they seem to steamroll damn near any infantry line that survives the hail of throwing weapons that they throw. Wildlings paired with Vlandian cav is a deadly combo
Quality video, mate. I absolutely love the final column. I always found infantry vs infantry only evaluations for tier lists to be so incomplete. Question: For Battanian infantry, wouldn't it make sense to evaluate them with skirmishing rather than charge? Whenever I have done a battanian only campaign, I almost always let the enemy charge into me while I skirmish and kite. I don't think they were designed to blind charge.
I think testing against sergant crossbowmen, fians and khans guard should have been done where the troops have to attack while being shot at as that is how it would be in game. And for the khans guard have them be mounted
If you're going to manually kite then that's a whole different layer of tactical complexity that makes it impossible to have objective tests. Other troops would also benefit from you positioning them better and a lot of different inputs. You need a simple input for everyone. And even if you just let the Battanian infantry stand still and throw weapons as the enemy charges, IIRC from past tests that lead to flat out worse results. One wave of thrown weapons doesn't do much, and then your troops are still trying to throw weapons with the enemies in their face hacking them to pieces. The AI is just bad at that.
Yeah for a more realistic test it would. We were trying to isolate only melee combat here to keep this consistent across the board, since not everyone has throwing or ranged weapons. Basically we can only conclude that wildling should not be used in melee unless it's a last resort - but I don't think we can say they are bad units. I've used them a lot in the past and they are pretty nasty from the flank with javelins
I just rewatched this and re-found it helpful. Would have loved to see a version of this for the shock troops. I would also have loved to see which of these fare best against archers and which fare best against cavalry. Would also love to see a similar test for t6 mounted cav since we have Empire, Vlandia, Aserai and Sturgia T6 Cav, which is best against each other and which is best against archers (fians, asorted), infantry, not sure what else.
The Aserai Veteran Infantry surprised me the most, I thought they were supposed to be mid. I've been using Legionares for the bulk of my infantry. Seems I was not wrong to do so though. Great video!
Very interesting but from personal experience I can say a well placed shieldwall can make a huge difference. Might be interesting to see the difference with one side in shieldwall and the other charging. Now I want you to do an all crossbowman game. Usually they are just worse than archers but if they can be used as decent infantry thats gonna be interesting.
Yeah for sure, I usually do another test using the same unit on both sides, then test to see which formation and command does best. Since it's a mirror match up, it should be very obvious when one formation is better than another. Probably also makes sense to test against other units and compare the data obtained here
@Strat-Guides well as the units do so much different depending on what unit type they are up against, there could very well be a difference between how formations affect them. Speculation but for example if troops with mevanlions are worse in shield wall, or troops with small shields gain more/less from shield wall etc.
Thank you very much for this video. I appreciate all the time and work that went into it, and the resulting data is fantastic. Will you be doing a similar video for the other unit types (shock infantry, archers, cavalry, and horse archers)? Thank you!
Thanks for watching! We started with shield infantry since they tend to make up the bulk of most armies and figured it would be the most relevant. The AI doesn't really use archers effectively, or use enough shock troops to make much difference. I think maybe we could look at cavalry since they do use them a lot
Super surprised at the aserai infantry, I knew they were good since my first playthrough, got caught with Ain Baliq castle as my first fief and was stuck defending it and my villages in the canyon map, with veteran infantry and master archers I was regularly taking on twice my number and coming out on top. Explains a lot.
Never thought Aserai infrantry are better. Though because Legionary are more common due to geographic territory to recruit. Make it more acessible with decent stat You sure have a lot of time to test. My man what do you do for living lol. Love your videos.
I worked on this one with Flesson actually! He did the testing and I did the data analysis :) I've done videos like this before and the testing usually takes about a day worth of work
Aserai veteran infantry are still dealing with baggage from early access where they had a grand total of 18 head armor, making them a glass cannon. Ever since that was fixed they've been great, but still carry the stigma of their earlier underperformance.
Aserai have advantage of long and fast weapons. Their main weaknesses are small shields and bad permormance to heavy armoder units, but this is partialy compensated by attacking first thanks to weapon range.
Great vid. I'm running a battania only campaign, and I just want to point out that the Wildling does significantly better with the use of their skirmishing ability
I discovered how good Asereai veterans are last year by a complete accident (ran out of infantry during the conquest of Asereai itself), since then they became my favorite infantry unit.
ok so I am zero seconds into this video and I'm betting all the snow in my garden that the Sturgian Heavy Axeman is the best. I don't even care if they're the best statistically, they're still THE BEST(tm) because I love them.
I had my suspicion for last half of the year, that they are disaster, because their horribly short axes, and throwing axes is weaker than javelins + more inaccurate.
Seeing how these units fare against mounted cavalry and arrows would be interesting. It would help make a better overall judgement on what is best as infantry is not the only thing they will be fighting.
I tried this a bit in custom battle, Sturgian infantries vs 200 banner knights, in me test the Heroic Line breaker decimtes them followed by Heavy Axemen while the Heavy Spearmen did poorly against what they are supposed to counter. Regarding cavalry, they suck when there is too many of them.
The Crossbowmen were my surprise. And yes in a real campaign they can fire volleys at incoming, especially low tier mixed which may or may not have shields which just makes them an even better choice. So ... Imperial Crossbowmen, Legionaires, Aserai Veteran Infantry, Fian Champions and we can sweep across the world, got it. How do each hold in sieges though? I'd imagine having a pavese shield some crossbow troops might do well, but that's as far as I can figure for who could be of best use.
don't forget Khans Guards, who are actually pretty good in sieges as well surprisingly, but then again they got good archer skills, and good bow, plus the glaive.
I question trying to doomstack aserai vets- they have basically no head armour. These tests were projectile free. One vs two headshots to death for example is a world of difference. Not tried them myself though but siege assaults sound terrible with them.
Great video as always, love the fact you are actually using statistical methods. Just wish you had covered Sturgian druzhinnik champion on foot as well Also, I am super disappointed by the sturgian heavy axemen performance. Although I've been favouring the spearmen for quite a while now, I didn't realize they perform quite so poorly
@@Strat-Guides It's of course understandable, obviously you had to put a lot of work into the video as it is. Looking forward to more content like this, personally I would like to see an archer comparison video, maybe including crossbowmen and dismounted cavalry archers if it isn't too much work. Keep them coming
God damn Strat. We don't deserve content creators as good as you. Putting all this work into one video about a niche game, knowing full well that it's all gonna get patched sooner or later? You are a mad lad. Please take my like, sir. It's not worth much but it's all I have. Poor Battania. Guess everyone and their grandmother's getting promoted to falxman cuz that's the only Battanian commoner unit I'd use after this battle. Also disappointed to see Sturgia's poor performance. Infantry is supposed to be the one area they're good at. Not surprised to see the legionary up so high, though it does present a bit of a pickle given that the bulk of my Imperial commoner recruits usually get turned into Menavliatons. Guess I need a shock infantry list now, though it's hardly fair to ask you to put in this much work AGAIN.
Long time i haven't been around. Not surprised at all for the Sturgian. The moment they removed the shoulder pieces on the axemen without even giving them higher weapon skill made me sure they would be shit with such a low amount of armor. The "rework" they did to buff the sturgian infantry line was really bad.
Thank you so much for proving what Aserai vet. infantries are actually capable of. I always see other people talking about legionary or even darkhan of all things but no one talks about the Aserai veteran infantry with their 160 one-handed skill, which is very surprising.
Thanks for the video! Just starting up a new campaign now, Sturgian ex-Pat, betrayed by Ragnavad, sworn to revenge on his former kin and stability throughout Calradia. I will raid Sturgian villages from the start and then merc for whatever Empirical tribe is at war with Sturgia, probably North, I will try to be in a position to claim leadership when Lucon dies, immediately rebrand my new Empire and using the Diplomacy mod, ally with Battania/Khuzait to wipe Sturgia off the planet. Why did I choose this? Becausse Sturgian infantry recruitment perk and op Empire units.
As always, lovely work Strat !! Ive always said it, ASERAI INFANTRYMAN ARE SCARY xD Well balanced and well equipped unit, not invincible but very decent. VERY SCARY when backed up with cavalry and decent range. Specially when the AI manages to have good placement on the map (albeit very rare since well, AI shenanigans).
Just a note on the wildings. They are amazing with some management. Putting them on enage will have them back peddle to throw more javelins (and draw infantry into archer fire while breaking shields) Or, you can set up 2 units, one to draw the majority in, the other to flank around. Really strong. I also like it as it fits the battanian skirmish style of combat
I remember in Warband combination short axes + shields dominated melee engagements, especially in sieges. I think it's because units charged into each other up close and personal so short weapons allowed to perform proper swings in such tight clusters. Now units have priority set on keeping formation line resulting in them often behaving in absurd ways. So often I observed Sturgian Axemen just standing in line taking beating till they fell instead if making a single step forward so their axes could reach an enemy. In large mixed battles Menavlions score the highest kills while having the least deaths simply because they dictate the distance of engagement with their long polearms. Current combat mechanics doesn't allow other units to break formation line thus preventing them from wandering away from those who already poking their sticks at the enemy.
I think short fast weapons are still the best in this game like in warband. I mostly field Heavy axemen and searaider chief and they seem to dominate almost everyone including khuzait horse archers. I do exploit the ai bahavior though.
Great video as always. Only thing missing is the Sturgian Druzhinnik Champion, they have pretty decent athletics and melee skills. Have you tried testing them in battle?
@@Strat-Guides I was doing druzhinnik only playthrough back in the days and those guys were crazy effective, especially in sieges. They have high athletics skill, unlike most cavalry units (imagine having to fight on foot until t5), high armor, as every cavalry unit should have, and there's also a mace in their load out. Not sure how they're doing in recent patches though
I was shocked by the heavy paceman losing so hard to the legionaries. Must be something with the way their weapon lengths stack up that the axemen just don’t get in hits. In general, the counter to shield infantry is shock infantry. The main purpose of having shield infantry in your army is that they do much better at not getting hit by archers. I put them in shield wall formation and in a position to draw enemy archer fire. When shield infantry and shock infantry are mixed in a control group, the shield infantry will go in front to draw arrows and javelins. Then when you get close, the two handers take over. It’s unfortunate that the current system means that blocking with a shield in melee is not much different for the AI than blocking with a weapon, so two handers are better with more attack speed, damage, and reach without really giving up much defensively in melee.
I think the range advantage the AI has with two handers have makes them win against AI infantry with just a one handed weapon though I could be wrong. Regarding the shock troopers that's exactly what I've found, as well as you being able to use fewer shielded infantry with Sturgia due to their shieldwall blocking more arrows, they can have more shock troopers than other factions, meaning in my experience they tend to win all melees
These results are great and the research and effort that went into this is impressive, but I think turning off fire at will affects the outcomes significantly. I’ve found Darkhans to be extremely effective with their throwing spears for example.
We were trying to isolate melee combat on foot so we have to keep everyone to the same orders! In a real battle though, throwing weapons or ranged weapons would definitely help
Thanks for doing this. It's very interesting analysis. My only regret is you didn't test with the Druzhinnik Champion as they are like Cataphracts with better Athletics. But understandable given they are much harder to acquire/face compared to the Cataphract. Thanks again.
This really helps my theory that the sturgian infantry needs tactics to be effective and when used correctly I would say they are the best infantry but when just used to charge in they get slaughtered
Besides the obvious statistical advantages legionnaires have, the biggest one IMO is the ease of recruitment. Get all the perks to recruit bandit parties and upgrade them into faction troops and those 60+ man stacks of looters become a quick way to farm quality infantry for your vassals when you're sitting on near infinite cash in the mid-late game.
Thanks for the extensive time spent on the tests! I am very disappointed with the Sturgia Heavy Axeman. 1H axes have issues in Bannerlord regarding the role they play in battles. The extra damage to shields makes no difference since shields are just way too durable relative to how long melee battles usually last. Even with the short reach, I still find myself landing 'dud' (single digit damage) hits more than a 1H sword of longer reach. At least 1H maces are focused on countering heavy armor at the expense of efficiency against light armor. Battania Wildling is at least redeemed by the damage potential from having two stacks of javelin even if Aserai Veteran Infantry can take over skirmisher role to some extent.
Great video, crazy to see all the numbers laid out like that. I'm curious how the v. sharpshooters and i. sergeants stack up against mixed infantry but you already ran so many battles so I won't complain about it.
Pretty much confirms what I've been suspecting. The Aserai are terrifying; especially when you include their shock infantry, which they have access to a full tier earlier than everyone else. Battania isn't as bad as they seem though, you basically neutered them when you took their throwing weapons away. Still a great video though.
Kinda surprised how mid the Sturgian infantry did. I guess I mostly used them cannon fodder to protect my Fians… Would love a video like this but using mixes from different factions! Also do more historical tactic videos! Those are awesome!! Thanks for the content!
@@Strat-Guides their noble troop should’ve been an infantry unit similar to the huscarl from warband, would’ve fit their culture perks better and been more interesting
Ive found the best mix for foot troops is 2 legionary with 1 Battanian Wildlings and 1 Fian champion (as a ratio obviously, so like 100/50/50). I put my ligionaries either 2 deep in line formation or 1 line in sheild wall depending on the situation with the wildlings directly behind them in a single line and the Fian champions about 20 meters back, preferably at a higher elevation. All units hold fire until the enemy main formation gets in good effective range then set the fians to fire at will. Eventually you will force a charge and about 10 meters before their lines meet your legionaries switch the wildlings to fire at will. Then you can take your cavalry on a flanking or pincer maneuver. Its a great setup. I rarely lose a wildling or fian and even in 2-1 or 3-1 encounters I typically come away with maybe 6-7 dead legionaries (and some injured but thats no problem). The same strategy works if you replace wildlings with Sturgian heavy axeman or any infantry units with decent throwing weapons, but I don't like having to go to 3 different regions to recruit so I typically try to stick with imperial and Battanian units since im going to use legionaries for infantry and Fian champions for archers no matter what because they are just so far beyond any other similar units. The one exception is getting Khan's guard if I want cav archers because no other cav archers even come close. But usually I just do without cav archers til late game when I can keep a horde in a castle somewhere to replenish losses from.
Great work, as always, but, as true sturgia fanboy, ill tell that power of the heavy axeman is in thier throwing axes, that makes them somewhat usable against high tier inf, coz they heavily damage enemy shields or even break them. Same as battanians wildlings, i suppose. Give them commander with that perk that increase dmg to shield from throwing axes and they are golden. But overall spearboys are best at what shielded inf have to do, - HOLD THE LINE! (one loud salarian vibe here) Btw, aserie vets have some javelins, so by letting them use it - will increase thier kdr, i think
Agreed, hold fire for some of these units was rough. We had to in order to keep things even - this was specifically to test melee combat. I guess the question is - would they get enough kills/damage in to make a difference? If they only take out 3-4 before the lines meet, it might not be enough. Might have to do another, bigger test soon for that
You forget the reason that make Battania Wildlings so good is that they have 8 Javelins of tier 4 which is the strongest javalins you can get on soldiers. not letting the infantry use their strenghts will make them lose
The testing was specifically for melee testing, so the main point I tried to make with the wildling is to not let them engage in melee unless it's a last resort. You're 100% right, they are a good unit when used correctly. But if they get rushed and caught in melee, we can see with data how bad they are
@@Strat-Guides agreed. In my campaigns I try to juggle about 3/5 sturgian spearman and a combo of wildlings and legionnaires. Well the level leading up to those. Shooting for a combo of those three and battanian hero’s mixed with palantine archers. The nuances of formation with troop mixes is a magic of this simulation most don’t get. I’ve never been able to explain the complications of this game to new players. I love you’re Vids. The best source of bannerlord and eventually others I’m sure! 👍
Love this content! I would like other versions done with RBM and the old realms! (Old realms might not be feasable with the load times after the mod is installed but it would be nice to see). Or even lets say armies with 50-100 archers (same would be fine) and 100 infantry of each type.
i think the difference between khan's guard and fians is the damage density. When you get into the frontline moshpit(tm), the shielded troops have one-handed weapons and form a tighter group of damage-per-density since they can swing more against larger, more unwieldy weaponry. Fians have smaller two-handers than the glaive, but keep in mind that they also tend to use the thrust attacks very often which enables a larger damage density in the moshpit. and because of this concept, i believe that's the same reason why larger shields on infantry (cough, sturgia, cough) perform less well in comparison to more agile units as well as running the issue of having smaller reach weapons such as the axes being less effective since they just can't connect. in a similar vein, i feel as though the crossbowmen are powerhouses in melee both due to their maces but also the smaller shields they carry allowing more damage density against other troops. then again, it could just be that the maces are cracked and the bane of heavy infantry haha fantastic video, as always strat! def gonna do an aserai campaign next lmao
Interesting idea - I found out about this concept when fighting foot troops against cavalry - even low tier archers and counter cav if they are packed tightly enough to allow them down and ensure 5v1 or better. I think you might be right about that. It would be interesting to use my little warband to make exact replica units and change the weapon only to at which is best. Same stats, same armor, different weapons
@@Strat-Guides that'd be a fun video to watch if you're willing to put the time into it! also if you change the khan's guard weapon to a swordstaff i feel as though they may become even more busted haha
@@Strat-Guides it makes sense especially against cav since you want a stopping block to kill their momentum before just swarming them with pokes and jabs to whittle them away like an ant colony fighting a human foot haha if you were to do a video investing the time to study this with the warband mod, i would 100% watch it cause this is a fascinating topic! you could even go clickbaity and title the video "how to make sturgian infantry not suck" lmao
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Imagine dominating every melee troop, and then being annihilated by archers.
Dude that would suck
Tbf, those are not archers. They are dual role noble units.
Got a question, how can I focus on a fiew troops and actually try and build up a organized army if I am running around with 4 more parties of my clan with 1200 men total. I at one part I had like 3:1 cavalry ratio just bcs why not and now I got 5:1 because I cant recruit noble lines non stop. Another thing is how can I stop the nobles from giving troops to a garrison of a conquerred fief without taking their troops prior to the siege? Sry for the paragraph
@@nikolaradonjic1108 start a party on your own with all noble troops and max it out and after doing that for a few hours, call all your troops to your party, and if you have even three hundred max noble troops plus I am assuming 900 regular troops based off your question, then nothing will attack you anyway. And if you wanna take cities or castles without too many losses, then spam build trebuchets or preferably fire catapults and the second they are built store them, then bring them all out when the last building is about to be finished. Sorry if that was a lot and if you need any clarification I have no life and will respond whenever.
yep it happens
Oooh!! I missed these vids so much! Specially now that I'm hopping back into Bannerlord to finally try a World Conquest campaign.
Nice! Good luck with your campaign. Which culture did you decide to try it with?
@@Strat-Guides I decided to light Roleplay as Daenerys Targaryen: I'll play either Empire or Vlandia, but I'll migrate to Khuzait, get a core army of Khan's Guard to march into Aserai, "buy" my Aserai infantry (unsulied) and then invade my home turf with my foreign army recruiting knights. I'm leaning more towards Vlandia, and keeping some ten Banner Knights and recruit companions to serve as my Queensguard.
Edit: since I play on console and can't use a mod for ASOIAF, this is my take
@@matheusmterra their is an Song of ICE and Fire Mod, you can actually Join her faction in it, all the way in Essos its a good Mod.
@@MusMasi like I said, I play on Ps5. I'd love to play this mod but my pc is a toaster.
good luck man
go slow build up rep through trade...
I didn`t finish watching the video yet. But it`s great that you added a test of how a unit performs when outnumbered! It`s kind of the most common situation in the game.
It's really dumb to me that the two most infantry focused civs, Battanians and Sturgians, have the worst infantry.
I know rigth? Would be nice for the Noble sturgion troop to be infantry
Makes sense for battania kinda not sturgia at all though
I mean Battanians are insane at archery, but yeah their infantry is trash
@@Riskyfortabisky That came to mind because i remembered the nord hurskarls in warband tho. But i understand
They really have done sturgia dirty, at least battania has good archers.
I’d love to see a video where you build a perfect army, a combination of all possible troops in the game. Keep up the good work my man
I think I've tested this by experience, not by statistics in my current campaign. It's 5,000+ game-day, death-match against all eight kingdoms, but the army I've assembled and the use of advanced tactics gives us a shot against enemy armies, even outnumbered 3 to 1. Take a look if you're interested.
200 Veteran Infantry, 200 Fian Champs, 200 khans guard.
Maybe, but I'd happily take on that force with 100 Fian Champs, 100 Khans Guards, 100 Wildlings, 100 Sharpshooters, 100 Imperial Cataphracts and 100 Veteran Sturgian Spearman.@@darthflorida-man
Another great vid. Bummed to see the Sturgian units struggling so hard at their intended role, and shocked at just how OP legionaries are.
They work a lot better with line breakers and Spearman working together. I think the Varyags perfom better than the axeman and the Otroki is very good for how much they cost. The Spearman and axeman do well in a shieldwall but have a low damage output that needs to be supported by some 2handers. Veteran Varyag has lower stats but somehow they always perform better for me than axe or spearmen.
@@KingoftheWelsh I know it’s an old comment but you kinda missed the point. Legionaries are OP against equal numbered opponents which happens like 10% of the matchups. You can’t run 100-200 100% legionaries and hit 300+ armies with them, while you certainly can do that with for example cataphracts etc
@@el_kasztanejlo8555 I understand the legionaries should be stronger I just didn't realize the margin was that wide. Meanwhile the Sturgy boys have apparently mid infantry and no cataphracts to make up for it while empire has Cats and Legs
@@KingoftheWelsh That's why you field massive armies of low tier sturgian inf shielding linebreakers and grind the enemy into dust. Those legionnaires won't be walking out of a 3 to 1 fights with berserker boys.
The only reason why I get motivated back to bl is u fr. thx a lot for ur vids. Never stop!
same brother
I think your keyboard is broken.
Same
My man really does put in the work! 100 hours! This is why when it come to the strats and stats you’re the Aficionado. Every upload you can’t miss folks!
Glad to see I wasn't delusional about the Aserai Infrantry, they are my favorite faction :D
You are still semi delusional, this was in a vacuum with 0 ranged weapons. Veteran aserai have no armour on the head or feet... on a shield troop... big shields though. And spears, and javelin.
Not trash but super weak to horse archers, massed archers, siege assaults, so on.
The fact that they're good against mass melee threats/outnumbered means perhaps counterintuitively you want to use them sparingly and guarantee missile superiority.
They do benefit the most from tactics such as hiding in woods, behind hills etc though negating much of the risks. Feels bad to have your t5 boys one tapped to the noggin though.
@@mandowarrior123 Well, I don't play multiplayer, so most of what you said doesn't really matter to me. Atleast in my games the AI loves recruiting/upgrading infrantry units and most of the armies I face are like 60-80% infrantry. The only thing I care about is "does my infrantry win/survive the engagement with the enemy infrantry". If I didn't care about having a balanced army aesthetic, I basically wouldn't even have infrantry in my army, due to how little armor matters. The only meaningful equipment for an infrantry unit in my experience is the shield when facing other types of units. But this is against the AI that doesn't really use any tactics at all :D
@@mandowarrior123 Aserai Vet Infs are buffed as of later patches and now have good head armor (same stats as Imperial Goggled Helmet, without the fashion). Their leg armor is still bad, but it's a tradeoff to make their loadout light enough for them to move faster.
In my experience with them, I never had issue using them against horse archers and massed archers since they have large shields and their overall armor is pretty good (except for the leg). Also, their high-damage, long-reaching sword (which is the same weapon that Faris use) really works wonders against most units in melee, obviously except against shock infantry.
If anything, you're the delusional one here.
I love leaving your stuff on in the background and just passively listening to the statistics while I do something else. You have a nice voice ... like the kind of voice a nerdy, awkward best friend would have. Hope your family life and living situation is going good. I appreciate all you do still.
Glad I'm not alone with this lmao, I very often put his longer videos on in the background when playing Bannerlord
Thank you so much for all the testing! I'm glad to see my respect for the Veteran Infantry was well founded lol
Though I am a bit confused at the choice to leave out the Banner Knight and Druzhinnik Champion since you included the Khans Guard and Cataphracts.
Really appreciate the substantial effort invested here in making it viewer friendly and having a relevant sample size!
Surprised to see the Aserai having such good infantry, but the rest is pretty much what I'd expect. Sturgia really needs a buff, they really don't do anything better than other factions. Great video as always!
There was some hidden factors there- veteran aserai have poor foot armour and minimal head armour. This leaves them vulnerable to getting one tapped at range and very vulnerable. This at least means the sturgians are the best overall in an environment with ranged weapons.
Difficult to see benefit to axemen though unless you really can utilise their ranged attacks. Once fixed vs imps they'd be on par with spears.
Perhaps shields a touch weaker and the reach / ai issue solved they'd be back.
As long as you micro Battanians are the best anti infantry faction in the game. their archers can beat all the other factions and it’s really easy to destroy big units of high tier infantry by surrounding them with spear or axe throwing units while falling back.
The only thing they can’t do is kill cav but since their starting settlements are in forests just chase or bait the enemy army into a forest and use autoresolve
I'm currently running a Sturgia playthrough (mostly, using Fians for my archers) and am pleased to see your results match up to my own conclusions.
Started with a mix of Heavy Axemen and Spearmen but quickly noticed that the death rate among the Axemen was significantly higher, so dropped them. Definitely think it's down to the axes being too short. I now run all Heavy Spearmen in the wall, with Linebreakers in the same formation, backing them up - generally somewhere around a 2/1 or 3/1 ratio.
vs other infantry, they massacre them in a 2-3 deep Line formation (depending on width of enemy line)
vs cavalry, they massacre them in Square formation
vs ranged, they are practically invincible in Shield Wall while my ranged and cavalry counter
Started a Sturgian campaign recently as well. Been playing around and can confirm what you said. I'm going with pure infantry with some druzhniks cav mixed in. For the infantry go for Heavy Spearmen always with linebreakers mixed in. 2/1 ratio is my go to. Axemen suck - had hopes for them because they have throwing axes and Sturgia does not have good range, but they aren't as good. Linebreakers really dish out the damage, but are vulnerable to range and cav. Spearmen are good vs range and cav with their big shields and spears, and do well as main line, so there is good synergy.
Spearmen with Linebreakers in 2/1 ratio.
Doing something similar but with no cav and all axemen with all the perks to increase dmg to shields. The strength of the axemen lies in softening up infantry imo
Plus its very satisfying seeing a wall of shields getting popped :)
Obviously you can't shield wall axemen and throw axes. When they have the terrain curve visibility they're broken, but without, they're a bit of a wet fart. They die maybe slowest when outnumbered vs any other troops so are the best to hold the line- except sturgia has no range. If they weren't broken against some units i'd say they're decent enough.
Frustrating thing is the game sells you on axe counter to shields and while they can do that, with their attacks not working breaking imperial shields is fruitless, and they have javelins.
idk why but i love axemen cuz in battle if something is running at my footman i just use comand to lose formation and they start to throw A LOT of axes and they just melt enemy
did strat use their throwing axes? cuz i feel like they are a bit of broken and not bad
and spearman are the one that are way worse (i have skills for throwing so maybe thats why they are better but even without that i like them way more)
and when you atack castle you destroy everyone cuz there is like 20-50 axes that destroy any bow that is trying to shoot
Right when I need it! Also I think for dismoUnted cavalry it make sense to test Styrgian dryzhinnik. They probably have best stats among any shield infantry.
Yes
Kind of surprised he didn't test them
Dismounted vlandian bannerknight is best shield infantry. They destroy legionaries, cuz they have maces, axes and high stats.
Love to see you get back into the testing
Bannerlord Data Video. Give it straight to my vein!
The best Ranking Video I have had ever seen for any game guide video. Thank for your video!
I’m so happy you’re back! :) I love these videos!!!
Really insightful! Thanks for this. Going to have to incorporate some of those Aserai units now.
Thanks for the video, very informative. And i can feel the dedication behind this work which has surely been very long to put everything together.
Awesome work as always. Your videos have shaped a lot of my current strategy & troop composition! running 2:1 ratio of Legionary and other shock troops has been to great effect, two shield square formations ahead of an archer line with shock troops behind in the gap. Infantry will usually split and the shock troops wreck havoc, also providing cover for heavy cav rushes on the archer lines. Incredibly fun when you can dismount and join the chaos.
I was planning to go for the same kind of army, but replacing the shock troop with heavy cavalry (cataphract), to get more options (protect the archer, reinforce melee, or chase the bowman / enemy cavalry). Have you ever tried that ?
@@Amodef I feel like, especially with imp cataphracts, you could use a relatively small formation in order to give you that extra flexibility with this structure of army. Maybe only 10-20 out of 150 troops for cav. From there you could set up the formations and leave the cav in reserve to protect flanks and break lines when necessary. It also allows you to punish primarily ranged armies much more than you otherwise would so I'd say it'd be worth having a small group of cav for sure.
Dude, thank you for putting in the time to do this! This was amazing.
i was literally wanting for a video like this last week. Great as always strat! crossbowmrn really surprised me and the legionaries too. I thought legionaries were the best, but not against actual armies we come across i guess. surprised!
Nice, always love these videos. I know it takes a long time to test this thoroughly but I'd love to see the same vid but with RBM on. Keep 'em coming!
This made me think alot, because i was playing Sturgia only the other day and i ran into an elite Empire army. Favoring a 60-40 mix of Heavy Axemen (for their throwing axes even though they kinda suck) and Heavy spearmen (to tank damage/stop some horses maybe) in my frontline; backed up by linebreakers for killing power. Finally some Champion horses to counter elite cav, and sturgian archers (worst archers in the game, but still has the potential to deal alot of damage).
Anyways..
The battle was starting and both armies fielded an equal amount of men. My army of around 900 troops would at first glance have the advantage against the enemies 700, but the enemies had the quality advantage; 90 legionaries and 60 elite menavilion was the scariest among them, my weak archers would have to pull their weight. Menavilion being the faster troops (they charged) let me take out a solid chunk of them with bows and throwing axes before we crossed swords. When they reached us i held shield wall for as long as possible, giving archers time to pick at their flanking units. Then when entering line formation all my elite infantry got cut down; Similare numbers/and similare quality as both armies was only fielding about 300 each.
I won the battle, but it turned into a grindfest and a phyric victory at best. Looking at the stats, my Heavy axemen did nothing; About 50 of them barely getting any kills, made me rethink fielding them at all. This video made me think of this, because the Heavy axemen does a horrible job against legionary infantry.
Looking closer at the issue the Axemen seem to be missing alot, especially when they are backing up and trying to attack while doing this; This could be some issue regarding the length of the axe combined with attacking while backing up.
Yeah those linebreakers are nasty! Shield infantry can be useful even if they're bad - throwing weapons and blocking for the shock troops. You've got it figured out :D
If they weren't broken vs the legionary they'd be grand, they at least last a while despite no dps there.
Great video ! So the top 3 easy peasy armies :
1. Darkhan & Fian Champ
2. All Aserai veteran inf.
3. All Emp. crosbowman.
I think the only thing this points to is every faction (except empire) needs a massive infantry buff. Battanian and Sturgian infantry sadden me the most.
I think it's worth noting that Battania as a faction isn't known for fighting in open field battles with massive assaults. Their specialty is in their ranged hit and run tactics, which can also be seen in game. Assuming you are disregarding Fians, the Wilding in particular can be an extremely dangerous unit when used in this manner. Any charging formation is going to be met with massive salvos of accurate spears. Set them in two formations with the engage command. Both formations will throw spears while still retreating from the charging infantry. If they stay in shield wall they will never catch you, if they line charge they are no longer well covered. Should one formation be caught set the other behind the enemy in a sandwich attack. Wildings are the masters of this combat method. You can even use a variation of this method against cavalry effectively.
Oathsworn just suck, but it makes sense as this unit does not fit the Battanian style of warfare.
Sturgia however makes no sense, as the units they are supposed to be built around (shielded infantry) are little better than the Oathsworn themselves. Instead the majority of their strong units are some type of cavalry, and the only decent infantry they have don't use shields at all.
Thanks for these videos guy! Always enjoy these test videos
dude this is unreal nice work
I'm currently playing a Battanian campaign and can confirm that you have to put the Oathsworn into shield wall and let the Fian Champions do the real work.
Would love to see a version of this video where the infantry troops are allowed to use javelins if they are equipped.
Thanks for this awesome analysis! I’m doing a play through right now where I want to use only crossbows. I’ll have to start building my army of Imperials later today!
I can understand why you do the tests like this as it’s the only way to get consistent data, but turning off fire at will puts some of my favorite infantry (Wildlings) at a huge disadvantage. In my play through they seem to steamroll damn near any infantry line that survives the hail of throwing weapons that they throw. Wildlings paired with Vlandian cav is a deadly combo
Quality video, mate. I absolutely love the final column. I always found infantry vs infantry only evaluations for tier lists to be so incomplete.
Question: For Battanian infantry, wouldn't it make sense to evaluate them with skirmishing rather than charge? Whenever I have done a battanian only campaign, I almost always let the enemy charge into me while I skirmish and kite. I don't think they were designed to blind charge.
Yeah thats what I was thinking, Sturgia and Batannia should get a volley in before each fight for their infantry
I think testing against sergant crossbowmen, fians and khans guard should have been done where the troops have to attack while being shot at as that is how it would be in game. And for the khans guard have them be mounted
If you're going to manually kite then that's a whole different layer of tactical complexity that makes it impossible to have objective tests. Other troops would also benefit from you positioning them better and a lot of different inputs. You need a simple input for everyone.
And even if you just let the Battanian infantry stand still and throw weapons as the enemy charges, IIRC from past tests that lead to flat out worse results. One wave of thrown weapons doesn't do much, and then your troops are still trying to throw weapons with the enemies in their face hacking them to pieces. The AI is just bad at that.
@@thevermintide1290 Legionaries have javs too though tbf
Yeah for a more realistic test it would. We were trying to isolate only melee combat here to keep this consistent across the board, since not everyone has throwing or ranged weapons. Basically we can only conclude that wildling should not be used in melee unless it's a last resort - but I don't think we can say they are bad units. I've used them a lot in the past and they are pretty nasty from the flank with javelins
One thing this video is missing is opinions. And that’s why I believe you make the most useful videos. Facts.
As an Aserai truther I finally feel validated as it’s one of the less popular factions lmao.
Great video, looking forward to other possible rankings!
This kind of videos are the best for a data-addict like me !
Youve done what I've always wanted to do but didnt have the time
Please make this a series
Holy cow STRATS IS BACK 🎉
I just rewatched this and re-found it helpful. Would have loved to see a version of this for the shock troops.
I would also have loved to see which of these fare best against archers and which fare best against cavalry.
Would also love to see a similar test for t6 mounted cav since we have Empire, Vlandia, Aserai and Sturgia T6 Cav, which is best against each other and which is best against archers (fians, asorted), infantry, not sure what else.
The Aserai Veteran Infantry surprised me the most, I thought they were supposed to be mid. I've been using Legionares for the bulk of my infantry. Seems I was not wrong to do so though. Great video!
Very interesting but from personal experience I can say a well placed shieldwall can make a huge difference. Might be interesting to see the difference with one side in shieldwall and the other charging.
Now I want you to do an all crossbowman game. Usually they are just worse than archers but if they can be used as decent infantry thats gonna be interesting.
another reason why battanians suck, they have small (oatsword) or tiny (wildling) shields
@@user-wq9mw2xz3j i think he should try using chicken wildling tactics to see how well do they manage compared with this Numbers
Vlandian crossbowmen have been able to double as great infantry for a long time. Protect with cav though.
Yeah for sure, I usually do another test using the same unit on both sides, then test to see which formation and command does best. Since it's a mirror match up, it should be very obvious when one formation is better than another. Probably also makes sense to test against other units and compare the data obtained here
@Strat-Guides well as the units do so much different depending on what unit type they are up against, there could very well be a difference between how formations affect them.
Speculation but for example if troops with mevanlions are worse in shield wall, or troops with small shields gain more/less from shield wall etc.
Thank you very much for this video. I appreciate all the time and work that went into it, and the resulting data is fantastic. Will you be doing a similar video for the other unit types (shock infantry, archers, cavalry, and horse archers)? Thank you!
Thanks for watching! We started with shield infantry since they tend to make up the bulk of most armies and figured it would be the most relevant. The AI doesn't really use archers effectively, or use enough shock troops to make much difference. I think maybe we could look at cavalry since they do use them a lot
@Strat-Guides Awesome. Thank you once again. I love your videos and they are super helpful.
Super surprised at the aserai infantry, I knew they were good since my first playthrough, got caught with Ain Baliq castle as my first fief and was stuck defending it and my villages in the canyon map, with veteran infantry and master archers I was regularly taking on twice my number and coming out on top.
Explains a lot.
Never thought Aserai infrantry are better. Though because Legionary are more common due to geographic territory to recruit. Make it more acessible with decent stat
You sure have a lot of time to test. My man what do you do for living lol.
Love your videos.
I worked on this one with Flesson actually! He did the testing and I did the data analysis :) I've done videos like this before and the testing usually takes about a day worth of work
not surprised the Asarai did pretty well, a bit surprised the strugian axemen where that bad.
Aserai veteran infantry are still dealing with baggage from early access where they had a grand total of 18 head armor, making them a glass cannon. Ever since that was fixed they've been great, but still carry the stigma of their earlier underperformance.
Aserai have advantage of long and fast weapons. Their main weaknesses are small shields and bad permormance to heavy armoder units, but this is partialy compensated by attacking first thanks to weapon range.
@@ShummaAwilumwait, they changed that? I need to keep up 😅
Great vid. I'm running a battania only campaign, and I just want to point out that the Wildling does significantly better with the use of their skirmishing ability
Yeah they are actually really good units as long as you keep them out of melee combat! This video was only to test their melee abilities
Thank you for this work, man!
What a high quality video! Thank you so much!
I discovered how good Asereai veterans are last year by a complete accident (ran out of infantry during the conquest of Asereai itself), since then they became my favorite infantry unit.
Great video really needed it!
I had the feeling that aserai veteran infantry would be more practical!
ok so I am zero seconds into this video and I'm betting all the snow in my garden that the Sturgian Heavy Axeman is the best. I don't even care if they're the best statistically, they're still THE BEST(tm) because I love them.
ok so I finished watching the video and... oh. Oh... No. :(
Lol
🤣
🤣🤣🤣
I had my suspicion for last half of the year, that they are disaster, because their horribly short axes, and throwing axes is weaker than javelins + more inaccurate.
If a modder could use this data to edit recruit costs and salary would make for a great rebalance
money is not really an issue in this game. may need to grind sometimes, but small wage differences dont matter
No, much better off just straight up changing units entirely so that they make more sense.
" My little warband" Mod
@@TomSmith-bh5tz That does not help with editing troop costs.
Im actually mostly surprised the results are so varied depending on what melee unit theyre up against
Seeing how these units fare against mounted cavalry and arrows would be interesting. It would help make a better overall judgement on what is best as infantry is not the only thing they will be fighting.
Calvary goes 😵💫 when contacting heavy infantry.
I tried this a bit in custom battle, Sturgian infantries vs 200 banner knights, in me test the Heroic Line breaker decimtes them followed by Heavy Axemen while the Heavy Spearmen did poorly against what they are supposed to counter. Regarding cavalry, they suck when there is too many of them.
The Crossbowmen were my surprise. And yes in a real campaign they can fire volleys at incoming, especially low tier mixed which may or may not have shields which just makes them an even better choice.
So ... Imperial Crossbowmen, Legionaires, Aserai Veteran Infantry, Fian Champions and we can sweep across the world, got it.
How do each hold in sieges though? I'd imagine having a pavese shield some crossbow troops might do well, but that's as far as I can figure for who could be of best use.
don't forget Khans Guards, who are actually pretty good in sieges as well surprisingly, but then again they got good archer skills, and good bow, plus the glaive.
I question trying to doomstack aserai vets- they have basically no head armour. These tests were projectile free. One vs two headshots to death for example is a world of difference. Not tried them myself though but siege assaults sound terrible with them.
Great video as always, love the fact you are actually using statistical methods. Just wish you had covered Sturgian druzhinnik champion on foot as well
Also, I am super disappointed by the sturgian heavy axemen performance. Although I've been favouring the spearmen for quite a while now, I didn't realize they perform quite so poorly
Yeah we had to pick one cav to dismount and went with Cataphract, but I'm curious to see how the others would fare as well
@@Strat-Guides It's of course understandable, obviously you had to put a lot of work into the video as it is. Looking forward to more content like this, personally I would like to see an archer comparison video, maybe including crossbowmen and dismounted cavalry archers if it isn't too much work. Keep them coming
Great video, appreciate all the time that went into it
God damn Strat. We don't deserve content creators as good as you. Putting all this work into one video about a niche game, knowing full well that it's all gonna get patched sooner or later? You are a mad lad. Please take my like, sir. It's not worth much but it's all I have.
Poor Battania. Guess everyone and their grandmother's getting promoted to falxman cuz that's the only Battanian commoner unit I'd use after this battle. Also disappointed to see Sturgia's poor performance. Infantry is supposed to be the one area they're good at. Not surprised to see the legionary up so high, though it does present a bit of a pickle given that the bulk of my Imperial commoner recruits usually get turned into Menavliatons.
Guess I need a shock infantry list now, though it's hardly fair to ask you to put in this much work AGAIN.
Instant like for the effort, now let me bring some snacks to enjoy.
Long time i haven't been around.
Not surprised at all for the Sturgian. The moment they removed the shoulder pieces on the axemen without even giving them higher weapon skill made me sure they would be shit with such a low amount of armor.
The "rework" they did to buff the sturgian infantry line was really bad.
Yeah Sturgia took one in the shorts this patch lol
Crossbowmen are just waiting for a musket to be the best units period
Yeah! Sometimes I use them like muskets - hold fire after each volley so they can shoot together :)
Thank you so much for proving what Aserai vet. infantries are actually capable of. I always see other people talking about legionary or even darkhan of all things but no one talks about the Aserai veteran infantry with their 160 one-handed skill, which is very surprising.
Ya. If you told to pick an army to kill an army of khan’s guard, I would go with aserai vets as infantry.
Wow this is a lot of work. Well done!!
Thanks for the video! Just starting up a new campaign now, Sturgian ex-Pat, betrayed by Ragnavad, sworn to revenge on his former kin and stability throughout Calradia. I will raid Sturgian villages from the start and then merc for whatever Empirical tribe is at war with Sturgia, probably North, I will try to be in a position to claim leadership when Lucon dies, immediately rebrand my new Empire and using the Diplomacy mod, ally with Battania/Khuzait to wipe Sturgia off the planet.
Why did I choose this? Becausse Sturgian infantry recruitment perk and op Empire units.
So the best overall shield infantry is Crossbowmen. That's a surprise :D
As always, lovely work Strat !! Ive always said it, ASERAI INFANTRYMAN ARE SCARY xD Well balanced and well equipped unit, not invincible but very decent. VERY SCARY when backed up with cavalry and decent range. Specially when the AI manages to have good placement on the map (albeit very rare since well, AI shenanigans).
Just a note on the wildings. They are amazing with some management. Putting them on enage will have them back peddle to throw more javelins (and draw infantry into archer fire while breaking shields)
Or, you can set up 2 units, one to draw the majority in, the other to flank around. Really strong.
I also like it as it fits the battanian skirmish style of combat
I remember in Warband combination short axes + shields dominated melee engagements, especially in sieges. I think it's because units charged into each other up close and personal so short weapons allowed to perform proper swings in such tight clusters.
Now units have priority set on keeping formation line resulting in them often behaving in absurd ways. So often I observed Sturgian Axemen just standing in line taking beating till they fell instead if making a single step forward so their axes could reach an enemy.
In large mixed battles Menavlions score the highest kills while having the least deaths simply because they dictate the distance of engagement with their long polearms. Current combat mechanics doesn't allow other units to break formation line thus preventing them from wandering away from those who already poking their sticks at the enemy.
I think short fast weapons are still the best in this game like in warband. I mostly field Heavy axemen and searaider chief and they seem to dominate almost everyone including khuzait horse archers. I do exploit the ai bahavior though.
Great video as always. Only thing missing is the Sturgian Druzhinnik Champion, they have pretty decent athletics and melee skills. Have you tried testing them in battle?
I'm a big fan of the Sturgian noble cav, but I haven't tested them on foot - I wonder how they would hold up
@@Strat-Guides I was doing druzhinnik only playthrough back in the days and those guys were crazy effective, especially in sieges. They have high athletics skill, unlike most cavalry units (imagine having to fight on foot until t5), high armor, as every cavalry unit should have, and there's also a mace in their load out. Not sure how they're doing in recent patches though
Love the guides. Miss these!
I was shocked by the heavy paceman losing so hard to the legionaries. Must be something with the way their weapon lengths stack up that the axemen just don’t get in hits.
In general, the counter to shield infantry is shock infantry. The main purpose of having shield infantry in your army is that they do much better at not getting hit by archers. I put them in shield wall formation and in a position to draw enemy archer fire. When shield infantry and shock infantry are mixed in a control group, the shield infantry will go in front to draw arrows and javelins. Then when you get close, the two handers take over. It’s unfortunate that the current system means that blocking with a shield in melee is not much different for the AI than blocking with a weapon, so two handers are better with more attack speed, damage, and reach without really giving up much defensively in melee.
I think the range advantage the AI has with two handers have makes them win against AI infantry with just a one handed weapon though I could be wrong. Regarding the shock troopers that's exactly what I've found, as well as you being able to use fewer shielded infantry with Sturgia due to their shieldwall blocking more arrows, they can have more shock troopers than other factions, meaning in my experience they tend to win all melees
These results are great and the research and effort that went into this is impressive, but I think turning off fire at will affects the outcomes significantly. I’ve found Darkhans to be extremely effective with their throwing spears for example.
We were trying to isolate melee combat on foot so we have to keep everyone to the same orders! In a real battle though, throwing weapons or ranged weapons would definitely help
Thanks for doing this. It's very interesting analysis. My only regret is you didn't test with the Druzhinnik Champion as they are like Cataphracts with better Athletics. But understandable given they are much harder to acquire/face compared to the Cataphract.
Thanks again.
This really helps my theory that the sturgian infantry needs tactics to be effective and when used correctly I would say they are the best infantry but when just used to charge in they get slaughtered
Besides the obvious statistical advantages legionnaires have, the biggest one IMO is the ease of recruitment. Get all the perks to recruit bandit parties and upgrade them into faction troops and those 60+ man stacks of looters become a quick way to farm quality infantry for your vassals when you're sitting on near infinite cash in the mid-late game.
Awesome video, great job!
Thanks for the extensive time spent on the tests! I am very disappointed with the Sturgia Heavy Axeman. 1H axes have issues in Bannerlord regarding the role they play in battles. The extra damage to shields makes no difference since shields are just way too durable relative to how long melee battles usually last. Even with the short reach, I still find myself landing 'dud' (single digit damage) hits more than a 1H sword of longer reach. At least 1H maces are focused on countering heavy armor at the expense of efficiency against light armor.
Battania Wildling is at least redeemed by the damage potential from having two stacks of javelin even if Aserai Veteran Infantry can take over skirmisher role to some extent.
As an Aserai enjoyer I see this as an absolute win.
Great video, crazy to see all the numbers laid out like that. I'm curious how the v. sharpshooters and i. sergeants stack up against mixed infantry but you already ran so many battles so I won't complain about it.
Pretty much confirms what I've been suspecting. The Aserai are terrifying; especially when you include their shock infantry, which they have access to a full tier earlier than everyone else. Battania isn't as bad as they seem though, you basically neutered them when you took their throwing weapons away. Still a great video though.
Running headfirst into other units is exactly situation that suits legionaries
LOVE IT AND THX FLESSON TOO
👍
Kinda surprised how mid the Sturgian infantry did. I guess I mostly used them cannon fodder to protect my Fians…
Would love a video like this but using mixes from different factions! Also do more historical tactic videos! Those are awesome!! Thanks for the content!
Yeah I was sad to see the Sturgian infantry not perform better. They should have the strongest based on their culture's focus.
@@Strat-Guides their noble troop should’ve been an infantry unit similar to the huscarl from warband, would’ve fit their culture perks better and been more interesting
Epic test way to go man.
Fun and helpful video! Thanks a bunch!
The Axemen shocked me as I love using them and usually they survive and do a lot of damage but I always pair them with H. Spearmen.
Ive found the best mix for foot troops is 2 legionary with 1 Battanian Wildlings and 1 Fian champion (as a ratio obviously, so like 100/50/50).
I put my ligionaries either 2 deep in line formation or 1 line in sheild wall depending on the situation with the wildlings directly behind them in a single line and the Fian champions about 20 meters back, preferably at a higher elevation. All units hold fire until the enemy main formation gets in good effective range then set the fians to fire at will. Eventually you will force a charge and about 10 meters before their lines meet your legionaries switch the wildlings to fire at will.
Then you can take your cavalry on a flanking or pincer maneuver. Its a great setup. I rarely lose a wildling or fian and even in 2-1 or 3-1 encounters I typically come away with maybe 6-7 dead legionaries (and some injured but thats no problem).
The same strategy works if you replace wildlings with Sturgian heavy axeman or any infantry units with decent throwing weapons, but I don't like having to go to 3 different regions to recruit so I typically try to stick with imperial and Battanian units since im going to use legionaries for infantry and Fian champions for archers no matter what because they are just so far beyond any other similar units. The one exception is getting Khan's guard if I want cav archers because no other cav archers even come close. But usually I just do without cav archers til late game when I can keep a horde in a castle somewhere to replenish losses from.
24:59 if by youtube algorithm you mean my silly brain: yes, it does love tierlists
(i really need this as a recap for all the data lol)
Yeah. We just love ur bannerlord content. Please more 😊
Great work, as always, but, as true sturgia fanboy, ill tell that power of the heavy axeman is in thier throwing axes, that makes them somewhat usable against high tier inf, coz they heavily damage enemy shields or even break them. Same as battanians wildlings, i suppose. Give them commander with that perk that increase dmg to shield from throwing axes and they are golden.
But overall spearboys are best at what shielded inf have to do, - HOLD THE LINE! (one loud salarian vibe here)
Btw, aserie vets have some javelins, so by letting them use it - will increase thier kdr, i think
Agreed, hold fire for some of these units was rough. We had to in order to keep things even - this was specifically to test melee combat. I guess the question is - would they get enough kills/damage in to make a difference? If they only take out 3-4 before the lines meet, it might not be enough. Might have to do another, bigger test soon for that
💗
28:38 Vlandian Infantry -> Veteran Infantry, but unimportant: obvious what you meant
Woops, I'll blame my wife for that one since she edited it haha 🤣
@@Strat-Guides She does a great job
@@potawto Agreed! I was only teasing :)
@@Strat-Guides ;) add more fart jokes to make sure she knows you care
Never one to do a half-assed amount of research for a ranking video huh? Nice work
You forget the reason that make Battania Wildlings so good is that they have 8 Javelins of tier 4 which is the strongest javalins you can get on soldiers. not letting the infantry use their strenghts will make them lose
The testing was specifically for melee testing, so the main point I tried to make with the wildling is to not let them engage in melee unless it's a last resort. You're 100% right, they are a good unit when used correctly. But if they get rushed and caught in melee, we can see with data how bad they are
@@Strat-Guides Good content as always. keep up the good work !
That algorithm tier list jab was gold
It's a shame they get pushed so hard given how useless most tier lists are lol It's always much more nuanced than "This good, that bad"
@@Strat-Guides agreed. In my campaigns I try to juggle about 3/5 sturgian spearman and a combo of wildlings and legionnaires. Well the level leading up to those. Shooting for a combo of those three and battanian hero’s mixed with palantine archers. The nuances of formation with troop mixes is a magic of this simulation most don’t get. I’ve never been able to explain the complications of this game to new players. I love you’re Vids. The best source of bannerlord and eventually others I’m sure! 👍
Nice.... Very nice! Now let's see Sargent Crossbowmen vs Khans/Cataphract :D
I would think they perform similar to the Legionary, but you never know!
Havent watched yet...Darkhans, dont let me down!!!
Love this content! I would like other versions done with RBM and the old realms! (Old realms might not be feasable with the load times after the mod is installed but it would be nice to see). Or even lets say armies with 50-100 archers (same would be fine) and 100 infantry of each type.
just addressing the elephant in the room..we need this for all units 😮
i think the difference between khan's guard and fians is the damage density. When you get into the frontline moshpit(tm), the shielded troops have one-handed weapons and form a tighter group of damage-per-density since they can swing more against larger, more unwieldy weaponry. Fians have smaller two-handers than the glaive, but keep in mind that they also tend to use the thrust attacks very often which enables a larger damage density in the moshpit.
and because of this concept, i believe that's the same reason why larger shields on infantry (cough, sturgia, cough) perform less well in comparison to more agile units as well as running the issue of having smaller reach weapons such as the axes being less effective since they just can't connect.
in a similar vein, i feel as though the crossbowmen are powerhouses in melee both due to their maces but also the smaller shields they carry allowing more damage density against other troops. then again, it could just be that the maces are cracked and the bane of heavy infantry haha
fantastic video, as always strat! def gonna do an aserai campaign next lmao
Interesting idea - I found out about this concept when fighting foot troops against cavalry - even low tier archers and counter cav if they are packed tightly enough to allow them down and ensure 5v1 or better. I think you might be right about that. It would be interesting to use my little warband to make exact replica units and change the weapon only to at which is best. Same stats, same armor, different weapons
@@Strat-Guides that'd be a fun video to watch if you're willing to put the time into it!
also if you change the khan's guard weapon to a swordstaff i feel as though they may become even more busted haha
@@Strat-Guides it makes sense especially against cav since you want a stopping block to kill their momentum before just swarming them with pokes and jabs to whittle them away like an ant colony fighting a human foot haha
if you were to do a video investing the time to study this with the warband mod, i would 100% watch it cause this is a fascinating topic! you could even go clickbaity and title the video "how to make sturgian infantry not suck" lmao
@@Strat-Guides Same stats, same armor, different weapons is a brilliant idea for a test!