Bannerlord Tactics, Expert Tactics, Volume XII: Channel Your Inner Napoleon

Welcome back future Khans, Emperors, Jarls and Sultans of Calradia! We're continuing to show our late-game campaign including huge battles, and winning(most) of these battles by deploying advanced tactics to overcome superior enemy forces. Our entire channel is dedicated to helping players improve their field command and if that's your desire, or just want to see huge, dramatic battles, you've come to the right place.
This series, part 12 of our Expert series showcases some of the most difficult challenges I have faced, and then we deploy a compilation of very difficult tactics to try and surmount these formidable challenges. This series is designed to help players further their field command to the point where they will fluidly move troops depending on situations, and win battles like a Legend.
Please comment, like and subscribe if you're interested in more of my ultra-late-game campaign, that may end up ending in utter despair, but that's the challenge of it. Any challenge where success is assured is no challenge at all.
My campaign is an extremely late-game campaign where I am resolved to give no peace to these scum Kingdoms attacking me - seven of the eight have been at war for years, with only Sturgia at a neutral stance. My family of warriors is now large though and with what remaining strength and valor we can must, we stand against the map of Calradia.
Join me on this adventure if you like huge battles, the use of advanced tactical maneuvers and intense Bannerlord gameplay, and subscribe to my channel if you want to follow along. This campaign is very lightly modded:
I use four mods:
Lord Retinue Uptier(Makes the enemy forces stronger, much less peasants and lower ranked troops)
www.nexusmods.com/mountandbla...
Improved AI Troops(Also makes enemy lords and their armies tougher by giving them a higher daily xp rate. This means you'll routinely face armies with HUGE numbers of the highest tier units, sometimes four or five times the normal amount in vanilla Bannerlord): www.nexusmods.com/mountandbla...
Death for all: This mod allows you to set the rate at which nobles die more often. I want both a harder challenging late-game but also a more realistic game. If you're cut down with a massive aserai two-handed axe, you shouldn't just be injured 99.9% of the time. It's a very customizable mod so you can just a little more death or set the death rate so high you get several deaths every battle. The number I often like is '10', some deaths but not a massacre of nobles...
www.nexusmods.com/mountandbla...
I also use the Dismemberment Plus Mod: It's highly customizable and works seamlessly with the new beta(and versions back to 1.28). I thoroughly recommend it if you enjoy carnage!:
steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
I've also used Realistic Battle Mod in the past and highly recommend it for Ai and battle realism BUT I find the pace too slow for my taste and the AI is actually rather predictable after a half dozen battles. Still I wanted to put a plug in for it here, it's a GREAT mod and highly configurable. www.nexusmods.com/mountandbla...
Much of the music and inspiration for this and other videos in the channel are inspired by Epic History TV - probably THE best channel on youtube(and the internet for that matter) covering the Napoleonic wars. With amazing work Epic History TV takes you through the dramatic and incredibly story of Napoleon covering all of his most famous battles. I HIGHLY recommend it.
Epic History TV:
/ @epichistorytv
#bannerlord #war #medieval #bannerlordgameplay #bannerlordmod

[@arrgylerawrgyle3784]

Jarl Great Glaive, Slayer of horses, and some men...

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

lol, more horse-killer accusations! I plead the 5th...

[@wesselbooi]

Some 300 men that is tho 😅😂

[@ferg4486]

I'd argue that it's easier to kill the horses since they have no shields 😅

[@bobyisthebest2665]

this has to be one of the best bannerlord youtubers definetily under rated. love the content

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

Thank you brother, it means a lot to know the content is well loved. More to come!

[@dylanallen2286]

I always do enjoy this series sometimes more than the 300 mainly because of the good old modified killbox and peekaboo ridge. But seriously I love the way that you narrate the battles and while you’ve may not like it I love the cursing, it adds to the atmosphere.

[@brettsalisbury1527]

Before I played Bannerlord, when I heard people "hate" a particular kingdom I thought they were being extra. They weren't sometimes a kingdom is so much of a pest! I like the cursing as well 😂

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

I like the cursing haha, I'm a big fan of highly eloquent speech, clearly showing sophistication and education and mixing in f-bombs with articulate speech, it's a great amalgamation of education and fucking profanity. :)

[@davudbooth5446]

Always appreciate your videos, man. I’m starting a new campaign entirely today, now that i’ve got a general idea of tactics and game mechanics. You’ve been a great help, keep it up brother.

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

Hope you crush it, not much makes me happier than guys watching some of my work, then getting out there and dominating. Crush it!

[@brettsalisbury1527]

How many times do you think you've started a new campaign so far? I think I've started about 5 serious campaigns with 2 going over about 70+ years

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

@@brettsalisbury1527 If you're asking me, just five earnest campaigns, but only two past 2-3 game years...

[@stillcantbesilencedevennow]

I love the dual circles. A circle of inf at the outside, a smaller ring of archers inside. Place on a hill for bonus points.

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

Just finishing the production of a really cool video that features a circle defense strategy. Highly complicated and yet also fairly easy to pull off. Stay tuned!

[@arthosytg]

Im playing my own game listening and I just hear you say "Im just swallowing up guys on this right flank" 😳

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

LOL you can take it however you want dude lol

[@joelhall3820]

Great lesson as always…Professor of Destruction!

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

A+ for smoozzing the professor (LOL), thank you

[@goldenas3512]

what a cinematic masterpiece

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

Thank you, and more coming(I'm processing Expert series #18 tonight and I can say it's the biggest battle I've ever seen...

[@horiadragoiu]

Nice ! I guess you killed 300 troups all by yourself. That axe is amazing.

[@therealmexicanking]

Need that tutorial

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

@@therealmexicanking Thanks! I think the closest thing I can show is this episode where I cover some equipment suggestions, shows a handful of our custom weapons, our characters specs and more pre-battle philosophy...

[@ethansmith8813]

This is my favorite tactic channel. I usually play Valandia and strictly use cavalry with infantry and crossbow sitting on a hill somewhere. Thinking about using knights and Khan's guard combo

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

Thank you brother, Tons of potential tactics with Vlandia, and I love having a forward, elite Xbow division for squares(see the custom battles if you want a few ideas).

[@ethansmith8813]

@@HeadlessHorsemanProductions often times that's all I use. 50 Sergents to take the brunt. Then 50 knights to break there cav and then archers. And the rest in two Xbow divisions on the infantry flanks. Simple beginner strat. Almost always works in defense though the limit is about 2 times the outnumbered as you HAVE to outlast their elite tier for it to work long battles

[@ethansmith8813]

@@HeadlessHorsemanProductions the custome battles is my favorite bannerlord series. Taught me almost all I know about it

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

@@ethansmith8813 Well that's amazing, thanks for sharing that feedback (and thank you!)

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

@@ethansmith8813 Sounds like you're well on your way to conquering if you're defeatinf forces twice your size regularly!

[@ferg4486]

Great video! 👏👏👏 The background music is awesome. Were you playing some Dark Knight music? Now I definitely need to re-watch that equipment video. That axe looks deadly!

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

Thank you - yes indeed(imagine the fire, hans zimmer), and go craft(or find) a shorter axe or two-handed sword, it's lethal once your range is down...

[@Taemoco]

I love all the Javelin throwing, good vid as always My Battles are f*ing insane cause Make Calradia great Again Mod is no fun if you just f1 + f3 Espeacially vs Pretorian Cav they just fuck your Troops up on mass.

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

Not familiar with that mod but I'll check it out (and I'm a HUGE proponent of javelins, though I suppose you know that already...

[@megusta1583]

Watchin this makes me think I’ve been rushing too much most of my companions get at most 1 kill and are hardly leveled.

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

Make a reserve 'elite' unit of some of your best troops and companions and use them on a flank or when the battle is in a dire state...

[@brettsalisbury1527]

Bringing them into hideouts and tournaments are easy early levels for them before getting into huge battles.

[@megusta1583]

@@HeadlessHorsemanProductionshow didn’t that occur to me 😂 time to level them against bandits and bases Speaking of which I’d love to see you do a long campaign starting from nothing and watch as you and them all level up!

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

@@megusta1583 Here to help! Salvo forth and crush it!

[@ivanleung12251]

Great video! thank you for sharing. Would you mind to share your pc setup? Your graphics look awesome and it seems smooth.

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

Thank you - I had an older PC, but upgraded last November for about $1,500: MSI Aegis R Gaming Desktop - 13th Gen Intel Core i7-13700F - GeForce RTX 4060Ti +32 GB of RAM

[@ivanleung12251]

​@@HeadlessHorsemanProductions I am using amd 5600x, 3070ti and 32gb ram, it stutter a lot with custom graphic settings (800 combat party size) :(. I am going to upgrade my pc soon, hope it goes well

[@arrgylerawrgyle3784]

​@@ivanleung12251 bannerlord runs surprisingly smooth actually. I run this game on a i7 950 with 12 gb Ram and a GTX 560. No I don't have all the settings turned up, but often it is stuff in the background that can mess with your game.

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

@@ivanleung12251 It's a pure joy to play Bannerlord at 4k graphics and 100 FPS, hope you find that upgrade soon!

[@ivanleung12251]

@@arrgylerawrgyle3784 What is your game resolution? I am running bannerlord with 2K. When I engaing with enemy's infrany man (like 150 vs 150) at the frontline, doing some damage and random shits, it sutters a lot and fps drops intensively. I have tried with 600, 800 and 1000 battle size, it seems less sutter with smaller size but no big difference with the FPS. I guess the stutter caused by a lot mods installed and it is CPU bottle-neck for my situation.

[@FightingFriends]

More strategies than tactics but could you talk about rebuilding an army. I recently lost my whole clan army, it was my first major defeat in a long time, I had tons of food and horses stored in my castles but I had keep my garrisons low from back when money was scarce. I now have an army of 700 tier 2 and 3 troops. I’m winning and they are leveling up but I have lost momentum on the map. Just looking for something I might have missed because my plan was to rebuild a smaller party not a clan army.

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

I might be able to feature this in a future episode but the main thing I do is have 2-3 'restocking' capitals/cities that have a LOT of horses, food, armor, and of course, low level, highly upgradable troops(think battanian heros, sturgian soldiers, etc.)

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

We also have an episode coming very soon that shows how to 'level up' low tier infantry easier. Stay tuned! (It will be pre-battle tips and tricks volume X). Hope that helps...

[@Vonbrow]

what difficulty you playing on?

[@HeadlessHorsemanProductions]

I've reduced player damage for some fights in my late game-campaign, if and when the RTS mod doesn't work(which allows you to switch to a new, alive character), in order to continue showing tactics. All the rest of the settings are on bannerlord, or the hardest.