Bannerlord ULTIMATE Aserai Units Guide

A complete Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord guide that covers all of the Aserai troops.
This is a compilation video of all the Aserai top tier units. I run tests, played and ranked all of the units on a scale from 0 to 5. As always these videos are an indication of how i personally evaluate the units, you might have a different opinion from me and be free to let me know it in the comments section.
0:00 Palace Guard
3:29 Veteran Infantry
8:10 Master Archer
12:08 Vanguard Faris
18:31 Mamluk Heavy Cav
23:18 IMPORTANT
Hey! My name is LyonExodus a 4K+ hour Veteran of Mount & Blade Bannerlord and streamer. I have done many tests on units and guides over the course of my career playing this game and i am always looking to improve my game with , close to impossible, challanges and bring up to date information to the community.
I mainly talk about Troops, Tactics, and Kingdom Management in my videos.
For other mechanichs or videos i recommend checking these channels:
Swally0ne: / @swally0ne479
Flesson19: / flesson19
StratGaming: / stratgamingchannel
If you want to check my latest challange head over to my Twitch.
Twitch: / lyonexodus
Hope you enjoyed the content and if you did subbing to the channel would make my day a little better.
#guide #troops #units

[@LyonExodus]

I am running a little experiment with this video. If you came here from Flesson and Strat discords leave a comment. If you came here from YT or notification leave a like.

[@zada0579]

Your videos on the units of the factions have opened my eyes and made me love the Sturgians and Asreai, I'm what you call an infantry enthusiast i ranked factions by either how strong or interesting their infantry are and your video introduced me to the Heavy Spearman of sturgia (I'm a massive fan of Spear and Shield) and the fact that those guys are not terrible is amazing to me, and your video on the Veteran Infantry of the Asreai really open my eyes to how good those guys are and from my Asreai playthrough Vet Infantry can beat other tier 5 infantry if they are supported by other infantry like Palace Guards so Vet Infantry Palace Guards combo is devastating in my Playthrough, so again Thank you so much keep up the good work

[@zada0579]

And also if i may add the Faris man they are terrifying i lost 25 cataphracts it was horrible

[@papanzi]

Aserai veteran infantry is actually very good and can rival legionnaries if you know how to use them. These javelins hurt af

[@Darkcamera45]

Love these videos very informative

[@ShummaAwilum]

I think a lot of the hate for the aserai veteran infantry dates back to when their helmet only had 18-20 armor value, making them a bit of a glass cannon. Their performance increased noticeably once they had a proper t5 helmet. As for the swords..... Not sure why taleworlds insists on giving cavalry swords to foot troops, but most of the foot troops in the game have swords that are too long.

[@HistoricalWeapons]

Historically accurate for Arab infantry to use those swords

[@masonarmand8988]

I always mix aserai and vlandian for some personal reasons so I appreciate you showing how to optimize their units and how to cover strengths/weaknesses.

[@catalinbostan3542]

14:28 Oh god,that was funny.. The lonely Vanguard entering the Bucellari line aiming at the mass but switching last second to "Fck that guy in particular" nuking that guy 20 meters off his horse Bottom middle to left corner.

[@constantinodelgado8509]

You should do a tier list for each faction.

[@tinylegofiend8605]

If you mix palace guard with legionnaries they will stomp on any army, I've had them getting double to triple the kills than any other

[@LORDMEHMOODPASHA]

3:43 definitely misunderstood AND underestimated, in a 100 highest level infantry V.S. 1000 recruit level units, the AVI was the only one to actually survive long enough to break the 1000 host morale, causing them to route and thus win, they have ridiculously huge shields (A feature not traditionally renowned in historic medieval Turco-Perso-Arab armies) and a high DPS javelin weapon (A feature the legionary units of the empire lack). In face the huge shields and javelins make the AVI, ironically, more like Roman legionaries than the legionaries of the empire, who are supposed to be based off ACTUAL Roman legionaries.

[@LyonExodus]

Empire is more Byzantine than roman

[@user-cr4cj1fl8z]

TW rebalancing troops since the game came out and they still havent learned that foot troops perform bad with long weapons cuz they end up in Close Combat so a fast short weapon will bring more dps consistantly. If you check you`ll notice a lot of 1h swords are the same lenght as 2h ones. Now i always felt 2h swords to be quite short and not very good looking so i avoided making a 2h sword character while the 1h long swords may do well in cav fight but a polearm is always the better choice and more often than not i found myself searching for second sidearm that is shorter so i can actually hit people in siege brawls. 1h swords for foot should be between 70-90 range and only cav using anything above 100. And why in hell we can swing polearms or axes that are over 150 but we dont have a 2h sword reaching more than 120. Like okay cap it at 137-140 but most 2h swords are just 1h with different grip so there is no point in going full 2h when you can just find that mixed sword that supports both styles so you get all the advantages. One of the reasons why sturgian footmen can score kills even vs elite troops often since their axes are mostly shorter with decent dmg and the speed aint that bad. Sturgia gets clapped in autoresolve by mostly everyone yet they have been the hardest enemy for me to fight army vs army with Aserai being tied with them for that spot. I mean we already have mods fixing the troops giving us improved troop trees so is there anything in the game that hasnt beet upgraded by the players at this point ? Like is there a single thing in the game made by TW that didnt needed to be fixed in order to work properly ?

[@LyonExodus]

well wouldn't it be an anomaly if things worked properly from the get go? even engineers and architects might create something that works perfectly in a lab or on paper but when used for real it shows huge flows. Likewise in games mechanics are likely to not be used as intended by the playerbase: exploited, broken etc.. most common examples are card games. The people that make the sets generally have a good idea of how good a card can be but the thousands or millions of players might end up creating a meta around a card that the designers considered crap or filler. in card games you have bans or limited lists for a reason, design doesn't always translates to balance. in a way TW creating OP or broken units is just part of the process, the problem isn't the lack of balance, or the players exploiting features. that is to be expected. the real answer is: Will they change the units to work better and create more competition in the future? if the answer is yes, than that's simply the ecosystem of the game. if the answer is no, well it's a bit of an issue. We know they take action on the easy to fix aspects of the game if creators can show them what's wrong with it and can back it up with evidence. I say creators because even if they do listen to normal players, creators still have a huge influence over the playerbase, and if they release something that shows to thousands of players something that is wrong or broken than TW will be more inclined to take action due to peer pressure. Obviously that's not always the case but it definitely plays a role. I can only hope that my videos will give TW the tools they need in order to balance the plain field across the troops.

[@paweplaczek2191]

160 1h might have impact depending on AI combat break points for 1h.

[@LyonExodus]

If it's every 50 it does. on average it's 30 more points than a T5 unit. But from my experience they seem better now than they ever used to. On 1.7. they ranked 6th Vs low tiers on my personal testing. from 6th to 1 is a big jump

[@paweplaczek2191]

@@LyonExodus Supposedly its something like weapon skill divided by 3.5. Soo they should have their combat AI better by something like 8 levels than other T5. Max AI combat level is 100 and requires 350 skill. From what i read 300 is when AI start to use its max tier combat logic. You might try testing it with a capitan perk for 1 tier better 1h and +30 1h and compare results.

[@LyonExodus]

oh we did test that. A buddy of mine messed with the code and we could verify skill impacted the outcome. He accounted for the weapon swing speed and dmg increase of the skill, so the troops with an higer skill recieved the same weapon but way worse. they also found the 350 skill requirement formula but they couldn't quite understand how that impacted the ai as there are like dozens of combat ai variables. At the end we know skill is important but in the case of the Vets they weren't that good in 1.7. so i am guessing the armor improvement is what made them jump. I would have liked to state that in the video but too much information is not always good. didn't wanted to confuse any new players or make the veterans roll their eyes

[@requiemaeternam3406]

Aserai Cav Is Better dashed behind their lines while they engage your big infantry blob mostly veterans and few guards you let your Cav waste all ammos then break your shield Wall and general charge = GG Just get to 275 atletichs ASAP and your aserai Will be Monsters.

[@LyonExodus]

You sure you don't mean Medicine 275? cause athletics doesn't affect troops.

[@requiemaeternam3406]

@@LyonExodus yeah sry man and it's quite Easy in fact the best medic Is aserai and your First son full int can really reach that fast. I see anyone complaining how bad aserai are but their whole army Is flexible and fast.

[@LyonExodus]

@@requiemaeternam3406 Always thought of the Aserai as either the best or second just behind the Khuzaits in terms of rooster. The Khuzait have some units that are just a bit too strong. But a stacked army of Aserai is a force to be reckon with even in the ends of the AI.

[@requiemaeternam3406]

@@LyonExodus in my three last campaigns they Always manage to Easy take southern Vlandia and most South Empire towns but then they stops, It really looks like their Ai profile Is very conservative, even with armies very big at disposal they mostly defend their territory. Unlike Batannia and Vlandia that expands and Battle constantly.

[@SakethCVES]

Came here from ze discord

[@oditeomnes]

In other words: not great, not terrible.

[@LyonExodus]

Yeah, upper middle of the pack kinda faction with a few very good units and a somewhat normal playstyle

[@yaqubebased1961]

Persians

[@holoqofholoqqia9503]

I still have no idea after a lot of testing a lot of gameplay and a lot of valid arguments to be made, people still think the Aserai are the weakest faction in the game. My fat fucking ass they are. People like to hate on both the Aserai and the Sarranids but I have a sneaking suspicion that many if not all who hate on them have never played a full campaign with them it's frustrating to see.

[@Carl007Jr]

Taleworld it seems hates the Aserai and Sarranids. They make them the faction that's beatable. I was hoping for a balanced game, but Taleworld has made the Aserai and Sarranids horrible. I have suspicions as to why, but regardless of those suspicions, the analysis proves it. They have horrible armor and weapons through all tiers and get killed very easily, and their skirmish capabilities are pure luck and very inaccurate.

[@holoqofholoqqia9503]

@@Carl007Jr Every single faction in both games are beatable. In the other video you replied calling me a Vlandia fan boy for DEFENDING the Aserai. Ever since I bought Bannerlord and Warband my main factions have been nothing but Aserai and Sarranids. You called me a liar in the other video replying to me. I think the only liar here is you here.

[@Carl007Jr]

Aserai are easily arguably the weakest faction in the game. TaleWorld needs to seriously buff them. All of their units are easily defeated by nearly every single other factions adjacent units. This type of unbalance really makes these games boring and seem biased.

[@LyonExodus]

What do you think of Battania or Vlandia then? You sure they are the weakest? The weakest unit they have is arguably their archer, after the helmet nerf. Most veterans agree on the Aserai having one of the best rosters second only to the Khuzait.

[@Carl007Jr]

@@LyonExodus - Yes. I do see them as the weakest. The Vlandian Sergeants, Voulgiers, Vlanian Knights, and Banner Knights , are "follow your captains" command soldiers that on their own need little to no command or exceptions to perform incredibly well. The Aserai have no way to defeat other tier 5 troops. Terrible armor, terrible weapons, slow weapons, and reliance on luckiness with throwing weapons is all they have, since they have consistently lower than 100 throwing skill. They don't have a single tier 5 or noble troop that is the best. Not 1. They have a military play style that's more of a "doesn't quite do well at anything" rather than "does does kind of well at everything" like most people assume. I've played as the Aserai since the early access release. Even with the latest improvements, they are still no match for Vlandia, Sturgia, the Khuzaits, and of course can't beat the empire. The only choice with the Aserai, is mass spamming a massive amount of troops numbers, and trying to time the "fire at will" command for throwing infantry. Relying on perks and extremely tedious and constant tactics to make their troops effective against other factions, proves how weak they are. The Battanians have the Fian Champions. Not only are these the best archers, they have one of the best two handed weapons and high two handed skill. Regardless of what troops you use to help shield or take damage for the Battanian Fians or Fian Champions, they can easily best just about everything, including other tier 5 troops, aside from the tier 5 cataphract. I can add many more unit points as to why the Aserai are the worst, but these are just just a few that prove it. Here's just a couple more points though: Khuzait Darkhans are better than any Aserai infantry. The Khuzaits are basically a cavalry army, and have better cavalry than the Aserai. Sturgian shields, shield wall, spearman, and axemen can absolutely destroy the Aserai cavalry, infantry, or "throwing" advantage people say the Aserai have, which they don't. Aserai Master Archers don't have endless *arrows. Vlandians can pretty much just charge into the Aserai and win. Any vlandian tier 5 unit will massacre Aserai tier 5 units. Even many tier 4 vlandian units will massacre tier 4 or 5 Aserai units. - the Empire is OP. I'm sure you know this though. - The battanians I already went into about the fians and fian champions. TaleWorld dropped the ball and are continuing to drop the ball with the Aserai.

[@LyonExodus]

Well to your comment i would add: For your playstyle they are the weakest. to me it looks like a skill issue to be honest. Most of us veterans and even the data proves that the Aserai are solid across the board and do have the best infantrymen for vanilla standards. many, like you, think that performance Vs T5 means anything at all. But if you were to look at any enemy army the % of T5+ troops is very small. Thus making the performance Vs T4- being much, much more important for any unit. And the Veterans are the best in that area. You can mitigate a lot of those perceived weaknesses with captain perks, which in my videos i try to hint at which one to pick depending on the units. With this said i used to be an "Aserai is weak" guy as well (around 1.6), until i had to play a full campaign with them and in my mind they are the absolute most solid all around roster the game can offer. They can deal with any situation well and don't need to rely on an OP unit to do so like the Kuzaits or the Battanians or at times even the Empire, as pre buff to the Palatines their battleplan was all around Legionary and Cataphracts being superior melee units. Vlandia in this current stage of the game is considered the weakest faction among veterans since the only troop that does better than average is the Banner Knight everything else is below average for it's class. Battania has a very similar issue with the only unit that is able to carry them being the Fian Champions. And don't get me wrong. i love playing a full Wildling Battanian army but it's not even close to what an army of Aserai Veterans and Palace Guards can do. But if the veterans agree on the Aserai being a top 3 rooster with the data also confirming such opinions i think you really need to consider the fact that your playstyle might be the reason you find them to be weak, not them being weak themselves. if TW has to buff them just because you find them weak anyone else would start advocating fro nerfs. Be objective mr Saracen. Nothing leads anyone with veteran level of experience and data to think of them as a weak rooster. They might not have an OP unit, yes indeed. But they are above average in basically any class they bring. Infantry being the best out of 8 Shock trooper being the 2nd best out of 5 Archer being anywhere from 4th to 1st out of 6 Noble Cavalry currently sitting at 3rd out of 9 Mamelukes depends, i personally don't like them and the data puts them in 3rd out of 4. But some like them a lot even more than the Khuzaits standard.

[@Carl007Jr]

@@LyonExodus - Notice by your own words here: 1. The Aserai problems have to be mitigated with perks 2. Veterans, and veterans alone, see the Aserai as playable and effect. When it's the experts that are the only ones that can play them correctly, they are absolutely underpowered. Vlandian Knights are also incredibly effect and are tier 4 troops, and can take on nearly all Aserai cavalry, at tier 4, let alone the banner knight. Test the voulgier against the palace guards. See what happens. The Aserai need a bunch of extra accomodations to make their army playable and effective. The best route, is usually a massive amount of heavy Mameluke cavalry, supplemented by Aserai Faris, veteran Faris, and Aserai vanguard. Even then, they get butchered by better cavalry (khuzaits, empire, and vlandia) and also get their asses kicked by Sturgian infantry (literally just command then to follow their sergeants, the Aserai will run out of ammo on the huge and high hit point shields of the sturgians, then charge and be killed), and by the battanians since an army of fians and fian champions would absolutely massacre any Aserai cavalry since the Aserai cavalry have tiny shields and very weak big shields. I'm not an amateur bud, I've been playing this since it came out. Any other faction, you wouldn't need to carefully plan your perks with. I'd say the battanians may need another good unit, but can literally conquer with archer armies. The Aserai can't conquer with any type of army unless you're an expert who also carefully times your perks, and uses tactics on the field well last beginners. Aserai are only playable basically on "hard" mode. That doesn't speak to their ability, it speaks to their inability. The data shows that they absolutely suck. Do this yourself, and test each Aserai tier 5 unit against other tier 5 units, watch how bad the Aserai lose. Skills in one handed etc., don't matter when your weapon is too long, weak, and slow, ie., the Aserai veteran infantry. Or, when your weapon is too short and weak (palace guards tier 4 and 5). The "skirmish" argument people use as well doesn't make any sense with the Aserai. With their max elite unit throwing skill being in the pitiful 80s, they hit shields or the floor with their javelins. Then that's it. They have no ability after that. Small shields, weak armor, weak big shields, slow melee weapons, and not being able to defeat tier 5 units (which is a big deal late game). They still suck after 1.9 as well. They need a LOT of improvement. Not shinier helmets and slightly buffed this and that with infantry units. They need a massive unit weapon, armor, shields, and skill upgrade across the board. My play style isn't just charging in. The Aserai can't charge with anything at all. They aren't good in any way. Cavalry charge hit and runs suck because they are all impervious to arrow fire, aside from the Aserai veteran infantry until their brittle weak shields break. Their horse archers tier 5 units have tiny shields and shit armor that also gets them eaten alive by the khuzaits, and any faction archers, crossbowmen, pole arm infantry, of anything else that can hit them. The Aserai veteran infantry aren't quite good at anything and for all the appearance of armor they have they're unbelievably brittle and incapable of one handed melee. The master archers are incredibly slow at firing, with such bad armor and one handed as well. The palace guards have exact disadvantages to get wrecked by anything two handed tier 4 and above, due to their short length, mid damage, slow axes and terrible body armor. The Aserai need a massive buff.

[@LyonExodus]

​@@Carl007Jr my friend. testing Vs T5 has been done on the very unit analysis and they aren't great. unfortunately you seem to not understand why that is meaningless which the related video explains in the last part. Testing Vs T5 performance which in your eyes is a BIG DEAL really isn't. WHY? Because the AI brings way more T4 and lesser units than they bring T5. Unless you mod to help the AI cheat upgrades. Have a look at any enemy army you encounter and count how many T5 units they actually have. you will soon realize that the majority of the times the amount is in double digit at most out of 1000 troops. then what about sieges? Mostly made up of militias units which i use in my tests. The Veterans are the best at killing T2 units. And garrisons? generally smaller than 100 men for most places and filled with lower tiers. I have tested the Palace Guards in the video that soon will come out and no, they aren't anywhere worse than Voulgiers when it comes to fighting infantry. Then why do you think that the Palace Guards getting beaten by the Voulgiers automatically makes the Voulgiers better? when the Palace Guards will never face that many Voulgiers ever. you need to test against the units you fight most often. That is Empire troops. especially the lower tiers of the empire. Obviously testing against all the low tiers would be ideal, but that would require a clinically insane amount of time. That's how you understand how good a unit is. And on the perks you are incorrect. All factions need to have strong captains to buff their units. The one that is most dependable on perks is Battania. As they are a skirmishing faction and throwing weapons need perks to be good. Then the Fians hard carry any underperforming unit they got. The Vlandians are next. Since they are one of the least armored faction at high tiers. They need the athletics perk 250 to be remotely tanky. Then a bunch of 1H perks to help the Sergeants and POLEARM perks for the Voulgiers for mitigating the poor armor sets that make them bleed (in comparison to other troops) Vs low tiers. The Sturgian archers need an almost perfect Bow captain to be on par with the other T5 archers. The lower tier of the Aserai being weak is something i haven't tested. but it's also something i don't consider a big issue since the player should be capable of having over 50% of it's party made of T5+ units at all times. Which regardless of the faction it will always be more powerful than most armies the AI will ever be capable of fielding. Coming to tactics. The Veterans and Palace guards are very simple. Keep them in the same unit, tell them to hold fire, set them on a tight shield wall formation and attack the enemy when it approaches. You only use the throwables against defensive armies or with the fallback command. In all other situations it's more trouble than it's worth. The archers and Horse archers are simple. One stands and fires, the other flanks. Battania is much harder to use and build tactically speaking unless you spam Fians. Vlandia is one of the worst after the nerfed accuracy of the sharpshooters of 1.8. and really struggles until you get some good armor perks. So i really have no idea how you got to become this biased against the Aserai. There is nothing that leads me to think they are a weak faction. Both from an analytical point of view and experience. You seem to just make the same mistake i used to, and many testers still do, which is thinking Vs T5 performance is a good representation of how good a troop is. It's not. the sooner you understand that the better you can realize what units are good and which are not.