How Good Is ARCHER ONLY In Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord?

[@ResonantRTS]

It's my final Mount and Blade II: Bannerlord giveaway and ITS A BIG ONE! So here's your last chance to win, Enter here- gleam.io/TwO85/biggest-mount-and-blade-ii-bannerlord-giveaway

[@danielzaba9913]

I think melee cavalry only is super op aswell. Edit: My bad, you already did that.

[@maxmuller8633]

@Edin Khuzait infantry are the best I think, their archers are decent.

[@keylandmccarthy2143]

Something with sturgeons Berserkers or whatever their Noble unit is

[@Kcaizer23]

I hope i win lol i really love mount and blade and i hope i can play this game too

[@Luciferjr96]

Hi, I have experimented alot with Khuzait Khan's Guard, like the fian champions they are insaze with their accurary, but due them being on horses they are harder for the enemy to hit, aswell as they can make more space. When the arrows run out they have a glave, than in my opinon is insane, due to it long swing range and dmg output, I had an army of 110, where 70 where Khuzait Khan's Guard. Faced an army on around 1000, we lost the fight, but they lost around 700 guys.

[@jwoellhof]

I frickin love the AI archers picking up arrows and shooting them back at the enemy.

[@scooterparsons5349]

A looter threw a rock at me, I realized if I was quick enough I had the prompt to pick it up in midair lol. Somebody will do some crazy shit like catch an arrow and shoot it back. I mean, Lars Anderson can do it irl lol.

[@billylionisnotagoat]

@@scooterparsons5349 i know what to name my lord haha

[@Doomlordof]

They can do it? Nice

[@omokok1877]

@@scooterparsons5349 yeH defo

[@SkyForceOne2]

@@scooterparsons5349 not with a warbow tho ;) And irl its a bit more... dangerous

[@Zwerchhau1411]

Everybody gangsta till the sand starts speaking Celtic

[@CastorRidicule]

Scriosfaidh ár saigheada an ghrian amach. (Google translate into Irish for the relevant 300/Herodotus quote. 9 chances out of 10 this is at least somewhat mangled)

[@celtichistory]

@@CastorRidicule Labhraim Gaeilge. Looks good to me but I'm not fluent.

[@SabbathEnjoyer]

sand? u mean grass

[@DestroyerOfOgis]

Everybody gangsta until the snow starts speaking Sturgian

[@hugdeeznuttz3458]

France: you cant just use archers to wipe out all of our nobility England: haha longbow go whip

[@aleide2980]

Longbows aren't as useful as you think vs plate armor.

[@flyingdutchman9053]

Aleide aka not usefull at all against full plate. Main success was range, easy training and availability. Against knights all they could do and did was shoot the horses.

[@HistoricalWeapons]

@@aleide2980 but fir the horses they are

[@digiorno1142]

@@aleide2980 longbows dont do anything to plate armor tbh. The english victories against the french were mostly determined by their environment and the french troops

[@skemjames]

@@digiorno1142 When 5000 arrows are flying every 20-30 seconds, they will find the gaps in the plate and not all plate armour was thick, their was many weaker parts to it, generally the only part an English longbow couldn't penetrate was a well shaped helmet and the center of the breastplate.(arrow tip will also differ results)

[@blax140]

the real question is why does he have a wooden hammer equiped

[@ResonantRTS]

Best weapon

[@Dragl1d3]

@@ResonantRTS to bonk anyone out of line

[@commanderclueless5456]

The wooden rake is superior but only when riding a war mule called biscuit

[@DrTasty18]

I'm beginning to get to that point in my game, where I'm more comfortable not needing the most badass weapon I can get. Like yesterday I thought "I'm gonna go attack this enemy lord, screw it, I'm gonna use this pickaxe and stick javelin, see how this goes."

[@notNovot]

Slave trader

[@SmurfInHell]

The largest reason I've found that the high archer armies are crushing right now is due to how the enemy AI shields against arrows. Notice in a lot of your clips especially with the enemy lords they are not using infantry with shields on the frontlines, and the ones that are there are NOT even pulling their shields up most of the time or do so too late. The biggest reason archers are so deadly right now even in head on battles is due to the serious lack of shield usage by the enemy AI before it is too late. This is normally caused when the enemy doesn't have enough shield infantry to do a proper formation like shield wall or circle, so the AI when charging will not use their shields properly (the ones who do have shields) causing them to be fresh fodder for arrows instead of much harder to kill.

[@treeloft2429]

theres also alot of being hit through shields and being able hit others through shields atm

[@gameslayer404]

that's definitely a problem then. If a lot of troops don't have shields, then it is quite historically inaccurate. As most units (especially in the earlier ages) had shields; also most troops had spears and other polearms do to spears just straight up being better weapons then swords. Swords are side arms and are really only used when you are out of formation and you are going against someone with a sword. What i'm saying is shields were mostly used, and spears were more effective in formations then swords.

[@clnetrooper]

@@gameslayer404 the thing about shields can be fixed quite easily i think. I gotta check it tomorrow. For the infantry with spears i do not agree as much. Yes, it was used because it was the best for the way of fighting in the middle age. But for example look at romans. They used a lot of heavy shields and tight formations but little to no spears. Why ? Because in their very tight formations spears were a hassle to the mens and they relied on their pillum. Javelin like weapons made to be throw just before the ennemy charge and to pierce through shields with ease. Then they used stab swords, aka their glaive. And i don't think romans sucked this much at war, they conquered a lot. So what i mean with all that is : only spear and shields is not the only way to fight. There's other ways that worked and it has been proved in history. Of course i'm not saying it wasn't efficient. It has been used a lot for this reason. You have to take another point into consideration : cost. In medieval time the soldiers had to pay for their own weapons and armor. And so what was the best way to get protection and be efficient for cheap ? A shield made out of wood and a spear made out of wood and a little bit of pointy iron or steel at the far end. Most soldiers were poor and couldn't afford plate armor that easily.

[@aa-kz7hc]

@@clnetrooper take a loot at the Macedonian phalanx

[@aa-kz7hc]

@@clnetrooper i meant look

[@hansblix4083]

I like the fact, that archers pick up arrrows.

[@oddone3153]

immersion lvl +1

[@miiiiiiiiiiick]

It took me a while to realise that when I was first playing - I was circling skirmishers trying to make them run out of javelins before I closed in - then I realised they were picking them up... whoops. It's great and works amazingly.

[@matthewmorris9532]

Archers seem really op in bannerlord. Playing campaign with an army of 70% archers works pretty much exactly like it does in this video. You can take out armies 2 to 3 times your size with ease.

[@shadowsend9221]

Well its realistic lmao

[@funnyguy5746]

@BingoBangoBongo It seems that later on in the Middle Ages they became OP going by agincourt

[@killerflow100]

@@funnyguy5746 They didnt invented plattet armour for no reason, Heavy Armour isn't good. Armor < Agility, and on top of that, chain-armour is better for cutting, blunt. So yeah, look up Tod's workshop in youtube, not even english long war bows (300lbs+) could penetrate heavy armour from just a few meters. Not even modern Steel Arrows could.

[@AllegrettoTurbo]

there is a reason we use guns today and not swords... projectiles are op in real life

[@ninja393]

that's what melee armies say about riflemen now, which is why there are no melee armies. Just because the were left out of the histories, because "HURRDURR muh heavy infantry" doesn't mean they weren't just as effective irl.

[@4djhowar]

"Arrows cost money. Use up the Irish. The dead cost nothing." - Edward Longshanks

[@AtheAetheling]

God I hate that movie. One long inaccurate streak of piss. But i have to admit...Longshanks was the best part of it.

[@thegamelabgaming7556]

Dolph Lundgren you could claim that’s what the prime minister has to say every time they get elected and I’d believe it

[@estebanperez2557]

Best movie vilian ever 😂

[@beepIL]

@@AtheAetheling The problem with scotland, *increasing a few octaves* is that it's full of scots! ha!

[@PewPewPlasmagun]

@@beepIL Blasted Scots! They have ruined Scotland!

[@NUSensei]

Archer only? Sounds like my kind of thing.

[@joesphstalin7167]

NUSensei yes love u vids

[@ghostface1621]

After a battle I walk the field and spear the corpses to make sure they are dead.

[@magnemerstrand2289]

Steve Bourque What are you an englishman?

[@ds2k15]

"I mean, there's no reason we can't be civilized"

[@phamthienphuc3951]

i mean i do that to... but with a gun... and when i play Resident Evil...

[@maxmuller8633]

We needs go be civilized when you can gain coins from looting dead men, but there will be some getting used to it.

[@threadysr]

This reminds me of the film Troy. “What’s the fool doing? He’s going to take the beach of Troy with 50 men?!

[@shqiperia60]

Shaun Threadgold hollywood drama brainwash

[@danhansen3480]

''By all the warlords loved by the gods, i hate him the most''

[@davevd9944]

@@shqiperia60 You want Hollywood to make a realistic historic movie ? HAHAHAHAH keep dreaming :D They had decent battles and Sean Bean didn't die what a miracle.

[@242kal]

@@shqiperia60 you want a realistic movie about ancient greek myth??

[@rpscorp9457]

@@shqiperia60 Well...it is Achilles

[@soulmed6873]

Rhodoks' flashback intensifies...

[@jakovcivcija7545]

Do horse archers next!

[@tijnjansen858]

It's gut

[@Elgato1221]

U want to break the game. That’s how you break the game

[@gramthelamb]

They are op

[@Mircoow]

Jakov Čivčija or Aserai horse tribesman. With the javalins they are fucking OP

[@C1umsyJester]

Khuzait horse army ez game

[@pilentus]

Ehhhh I feel it should have been set to realistic to be a completely fair comparison. My opinion though.

[@yuibkys3522]

I would agree if it were a conparison but the intend is to see if its viable

[@keikoethan3258]

If it was realistic those probably doesn't have a chance to reach Battanian Fian champion

[@keikoethan3258]

I watch a streamer with 150 archers using 80 of these and a tire 2,3 archers he smash a 900+ with 300+ on realistic

[@TheYdyp]

@@keikoethan3258 The realistic setting would have indeed not changed the number of deaths on the enemy because they take realistic damage anyway. But he probably would have had more causalties on his side when the few cavs arrived or when they got shot by arrows. Still though the point stands that archers are in the current state of the game a bit OP.

[@keikoethan3258]

@@TheYdyp agreed but I think only with the like Battanian Fian champion would make your army invincible the battle was 900+ vs 300+ he won with 6 casualty those archer are like a Lazer beam

[@Damric4114]

"Let's invade this castle of the optimum test" *enemy sends a thousand troops*

[@jakubchalupa8510]

I'd say archers are OP, bu that it makes sense in Bannerlord lore. There are very powerful bows, but most units simply don't have the armour to deal with them. Hell, there are some reneissance looking crossbows, while the amour is a few centuries behind.

[@suzumes6738]

The Romans had and used crossbows, but they weren't common. Nor are they particularly common in game, so that fits lore pretty well

[@vanlao6367]

not to mention enemy A.I lords never optimize their armies and will always have a mix of tier 1 up to tier 6 units, so archers become even deadlier because of target rich environment.

[@DragonDaggerFeenix]

that smacks of apologism to me. game balance always comes first

[@jakubchalupa8510]

@@DragonDaggerFeenix It should, but it's not like archers are unbeatable, cavalry is still good against them. The problem in campaign is that you often see armies consisting of half recruits, which of course archer will destroy. Also the AI command in battle doesn't know how to fight against it. If this gets fixed, archers would not be so powerful. Overall damage reduction against armor for arrows would help as well.

[@alfredthegreat5452]

@@jakubchalupa8510 Not really since many troops don't have shields in bannerlord, most armies are made of recruits and low tier troops, which don't have shields, which is very historically inaccurate because basically every infantry in that era carreid a shield.

[@Freddysquiggles]

Fian Champions have been dubbed as the "Medieval Railgun" by some members of the community and it's really true. They have 280 bow skill and wield the strongest bow in the game the noble long bow. They have a kill ratio of about 2-3 units for every 1 fian champion whereas all other regular archers are at around 1 to 1 with their meager 130 bow skill. While perks don't work yet, bow skill still improves fire rate and accuracy.

[@TheSteamblade]

Why perks won’t work? My perks just work normally

[@bobalex794]

@@TheSteamblade Not all perks work yet as its in EA. For example I have the perk from steward that gives you an extra companion slot for each fief you own and I own 3 towns and a castle, it doesn't do a thing.

[@WestbrickFansGotNoBrains]

i have both fian and palatine. they both are op...

[@MandaloreTheReclaimer]

There's a perk in tactics that gives your army 20% more arrows and it makes them even more powerful, they might need some balancing or Infantry need to have shields at lower tiers.

[@kurrwa]

lower fire rate of archers :D

[@MrFasho123]

Am I wrong but wasnt cavalry the way to go to in the older games? I remember just building full cav armies of either different factions or just full swadian and crush everything in my way. Also shouldnt cavalry crush archers normally?

[@BekeroParyin]

@@MrFasho123 Cavalry destroyed everything in warband, and is still decent in bannerlord, against archers as well. But it's not as viable to go all cavalry in bannerlord because even though they will still perform well horsemen tend to die against large clumps of infantry after the initial charge.

[@SkyForceOne2]

the problem really is how little and badly shields are used in this game. AI sucks at raising them and attacking will expose you to anything.

[@majormajorasic]

@@MrFasho123 Warband had Huscarls that countered all archer compositions due to their tank nature and dealt with most of cavalry as well. Bannerlord is probably going to be somewhat like Warband where a single unit armies will be the go-to option for players, so a choice between heavy cavalry, mounted archers, archers/crossbow men or heavy shield infantry.

[@justsomeguy2918]

Shhhh, you’ve expose my strat to the devs... lmaooo

[@porfirij]

to be fair, you have to do quite a lot of quests to gain the favour to start recruiting them reliably though, at least on realistic settings. i went with a pure empire army (legionaires & archers) first, quested a lot in battania, and eventually replaced the empire archers with fians, and added some imperial shock cav. you can do basically everything with ease with that composition of just 3 units (30% legions, 55% fians, 15% cataphracts)

[@justsomeguy2918]

porfirij yeah, well I find if you check every town every 15 minutes you’ll get about 4 of the 15 or so that have fian archers, and what is trained seems to be related to who the trainer is because I find that a lot of the time, the same trainer will train the same units.

[@porfirij]

@@justsomeguy2918 yes, just specific locations let you recruit a culture's noble unit, but on 'realistic' you will have to do quite some missions for those villages in order to unlock the slots that feature those archer. they are extraordinarily rare in the first column that is available to everyone.

[@kcazseeley]

Hunt down forest bandits. The bandit archer lines can be upgraded into the battanion fions

[@flyingdutchman9053]

kcazseeley got to 200+ fians and abou 100 bandits really quick. That will take on elite armies with about 800 troops with almost no losses. (On realistic btw.)

[@Deguu68]

7:15 the boundaries are actually a huge tactial advantage since their cav is now unable to make them turn 180° distracting them from the main enemy.

[@vultureTX001]

yep you got your back to a wall, so no lances in your kidneys!

[@jakoberickson4616]

They should make it to where enemy troops have 10 seconds pass the boundary, like how the player and their army has.

[@MadHashashin]

Think it's too cheesy to use them. In Total War there's a barrier too and in multiplayer people look down on it as corner camping.

[@bakersmileyface]

Or you can just order your men to face in the direction that the enemy infantry are at?

[@bakersmileyface]

@@Deguu68 form circle or skirmish them with your own cavalry. In the first place if you let the enemy get behind you then you're doing something wrong. I usually have my infantry shield wall in the centre, I have spearmen flanking both sides of that formation. My archers are on loose formation at the front of the shield wall and have them fall behind the shield wall when the enemy gets close. I have my horse archers and cavalry together and keep them behind my formation. I make as much use of the archers as possible before I have to pull them back, the spearmen deal with any cavalry that gets involved and as they're on both ends of my formation, they're easy to manoeuvre around. My infantry will clash with their infantry. My cavalry I will either use to take out any horse archers, or I will have them circle around and attack enemy archers. If my spearmen are done with enemy cavalry then I'll have them flank and break the enemy infantry. With this my army of 150 men can deal with around 500 men armies on realistic and is practically invincible on lower difficulties. So you can see why I would find it puzzling that youd consider the barrier to be an advantage. As far as I'm concerned it just restricts my movements. I honestly don't see how you could consider it an advantage unless you haven't got many troops or you've got a shitty army composition. Even then it's situational because you'll have your back to a wall and have no way to regroup or hide if enemy archers do too much damage to your infantry.

[@ColeNOXyd2nd]

to improve archer performance use "face direction" so they dont move/turn the formation

[@ResonantRTS]

I use that many times throughout the video

[@herblewis6250]

@@ResonantRTS What about the time you got wiped while yelling "nooooo face the infantry not the cavalry!"

[@MysticKnight]

@@ResonantRTS Nooooooo, not my archerinos, my heckin' good bois Battanian Fianerinos!!!

[@PastLifeVillian]

@@herblewis6250 Pretty clear he was pressing the face direction button and it just wasn’t working bc there were people behind his line lol

[@Azrai030]

I Play only all realistic and you Beat with only 100 Fians every 300 men Army easily

[@TheMelnTeam]

Fians are a pain to get in numbers. They're much better than regular tier 5 archers, but even the 130 bow skill guys like palatine guard or Asarai do the job and are actually easy to mass.

[@Azrai030]

@@TheMelnTeam create 1 or 2 Partys with your wanderers... They Pick Up all Battanian archers . Create a Army only with your wanderers and Take all the archers.dispand army and repeat process

[@fxbeliever123]

Yup. I do this too with Master Archers

[@Azrai030]

@@fxbeliever123 i think you can do this with all archers

[@tobywest8887]

the problem is that most armies consist of low level infantry without shields which makes them extremely op

[@gothicpando]

So what you're saying is... I should get more fians...

[@erikengvall]

You're*

[@Random_Guardsman]

@@erikengvall You took the time to read through the comments to look for grammar fails to correct them, you must be a real fun person.

[@gothicpando]

@@erikengvall Omg Ocd satisfied? 😆

[@Sorestlor]

They are the ultimate cavalry defense too compared to dudes with shields in my tests. Aparently any infantry with shields get messed up if they stand too close since they hit each others shields.

[@jager4508]

only problem is that they are not realy easy to get

[@Seoulve]

I think the tests would be more interesting on "realistic". Easy mode does not tell us much about the relative strength of the units

[@TheUtopianHuman]

Khuzaits are insanely strong. 100 Khan's Guards can wreck 300-400 loosing only 2-3 guys. Not to mention that when you fighting force of 1000 and you're out of arrows, you can just run away and fight another time with full stock of arrows again. I had never seen such an annihilation of an enemy in any game before. No wonder Mongols and such were unbeatable in medieval times.

[@mrqzo6521]

Can u escape with all your trooos of the battle and then fight again?

[@mrqzo6521]

What i mean by that. Is that u start a battle. Put your archers near red zone and when enemy gets to close u just run. And then like restart the fight with less opponents coz u killed Them in the battle before. Or u get captured?

[@nbp2015]

@@mrqzo6521 - You can hold tab, hit alt, and click on "End Battle" at any time. This sets you back to the "engagement menu." You still have to fight them or |try to get away" but if you end the battle, and then immediately attack again instead of trying to flee, both sides keep their casualties and both sides refill on ammo. If you have more ranged than them, that's an advantage for you!

[@Kaan_is_myname97]

And gokturks and huns

[@mrmysterium1638]

You don't need to run away from battle with khan's guard, when they are also the best shock troop in the game with their overpowered swingable glaives.

[@primeautism]

The Fian Champions, Palatine guards and Forest bandits are too op

[@andredulac4456]

they don't look too op when I crush them under my vlandian hoof :p

[@primeautism]

@@andredulac4456 well yeah, cavalry is the counter to all troops, especially if they are in your army

[@maximecolby7443]

@@primeautism infantty with spear fuck cav charge though

[@andrejanastasovski1189]

Nah 100 Fian can easily win vs 100 Banner Knight

[@PrinceDolos]

Fian Champions are WAY more powerful than Palatine Guards. They use the best longbow which one-shots all low armored targets in the game and have 230 archery and athletic stats.

[@reveriesend4668]

- You need a minimum of 50 q4-q5 archers to do the archer-only party build. - Battanian Fians are the best archers personnel quality-wise, but considering you need to put a bit of an effort to harvest them feasibly, Aserai Master Archers is usually the go-to option. Aserais have less armor and lower range, but shoot way faster with more arrow stock (and even more arrow stock if you build your char properly). - Try the mounted archers, especially khuzaits one (including khan guard, which counts as mounted archers despite having armor as thicc as cataphract). 30 men and a good sense of positioning is all you need to pepper any army (they'll retreat around the moment your run out of ammo.) - You can make archers not advance in sieges by telling them to follow you, and you yourself not go forward. Note: the AI stupidly raises the ladder every time it get knocked down. That's where the main casualty source is. So usually: I bring a few infantries + unhorse my lieutenants (take the horse off their equipment bracket) so that they are the first to repeat that mistake. Same thing: usually you only need 50 q4-q5 archers to take down a normal-sized enemy fortress (around 350-400 men total, which usually has a maximum of 250-300 ranged troops on them). If you're out of ammo (somehow), just quit the battle, let the in-game clock tick a second, then charge again. Never tried doing 50 archers with 1k men on sieges (I chose to carry 200 + a bunch of parties instead). Though I have peppered >1k army in field battle with archers before they even reach my line a few times. - But despite all, personally, even if I am using 50 archers build, I always at least bring my companions + an extra elite unit of 20-30 men, a mix of khuzait top tier mounted archers, imperial bucelarii, and 2-3 vlandian heavy cavs (the pleb one is enough, Vlandian Vanguard). Even if I know my line can't be broken, I still preferred having safe hands. So.

[@Azula01]

Bannerlord Fian Champion: Look at me annihilate everything Warband Pendor Noldor Twilight Knight: Allow me to introduce myself...

[@KP-ek7qu]

Haha I loved PoP so much, will be great to have a bannerlord version. But for the record, archery was op as hell in PoP too

[@saltbox]

1:08 did you mean Battanian areas? Wouldn't you find Battanian Highborn Youth in Battanian areas rather than Vlandian areas? Just wondering, thanks.

[@TheOnlyCarupa]

I think they need to add some kind of cost associated with archers/cavalry in the campaign, like arrows are not free so you need to keep hardwood and iron in your inventory so they need to restock or else it would cost like 2 - 3 denars per archer after a fight to show that they needed to restock, or something to that effect. Same with cav, also cav should probably cost a lot more food to feed the horses, idk if that is in yet but I never notice a difference.

[@Marcus1Arelius3]

“Who am I? Ramsey Bolton?” I’m deadddddddd 😂😂😂

[@tymon5349]

i know 100 or so HA can wreck a 2/3 times larger force.... really curious how the fian will manage

[@MilkShaikh]

Tymon HA?

[@DarthConstipate]

Horse archers I presume

[@LyricalDJ]

The thing with archers is that _if_ they are effective in a certain situation (of course, not if a certain battlefield negates much of their arrowfire or a certain unit type is able to tank or rush), their effectiveness increases when their numbers increase. Well, up to a certain point. You can see it in this video - in lower numbers the archers aren't able to pick off all the light cavalry in time, turn and thereby lose effectiveness. In higher numbers they don't need to and therefore the whole group will be more effective. Although in some situations different troops can substitute by tanking for the archers or by charging and pinning the enemy in place, in both cases ideally allowing the archers to keep firing uninterrupted. Which raises another question: how many of such troops would you need in order to best allow your archers to function? It doesn't work as a percentage - I'm fairly certain that the larger your force the lower the percentage required is. And is it better to invest in a number of those or would just getting more archers be ultimately the way to go? Or, perhaps, at which point might it become worthwhile?

[@vihta545]

08:42 "Should any free soul come across that place, in all the countless centuries yet to be, may all our voices whisper to you from the ageless stones: 'Go tell the empire, passer-by, that here, by empire law we lie.'"

[@masonk3720]

I have found that many times archers will fire at their enemies while even the front archers are engaging with them in Melee combat. No army with equal numbers to an army of all archers can succeed unless you precisely flank.

[@KingTiger10588]

Love it! Reminds me of the Ivory Archers from Native in Warband. Kinda paints a picture of archers in the Battle of Agincourt

[@kcazseeley]

If you have the disciplinarian perk you can upgrade bandit archers into fions. Recruiting bandits is the best way to get some of the tier 6 troops

[@joshtolentino4284]

"Cause everybody's been using easy mode" Bruh...I've been on realistic ._.

[@alexanderdavies4734]

yeah i played first campaign on realistic unitil when with high tier armour on i was still getting like 3 shot by forest bandits

[@joelhicks5468]

@@alexanderdavies4734 I set everything to realistic except my own character's damage, because I like feeling like a battle god

[@storm0fnova]

@@joelhicks5468 lets be honest, even with best armor equipped and 1/3 damage, you still get 1 shot by couch lance...

[@Gamerad360]

I only play realistic, and I still win, you just need those good troops.

[@Saladon89]

wut sucks is that when u go against a large army like that, they get to spawn all their troops but u only get a few of urs against the entire army, and they will spawn as each of ur troops or their troops die

[@bunker6762]

F1 F4. Archers will shoot and back away to stay at range when needed.

[@reprex1286]

Bunker BBQ cavalry can make them keep trying to run away and then they won’t shoot

[@League_Femboy]

Ye it messes with their ai because if cavalry goes behind them they can end up running into the infantry.

[@sushmag4297]

@@League_Femboy yep, i never use f1 f4 when there is cav because the ai usually gets messed up. F1 f4 is only good against looters or armies with only melee and ranged troops.

[@JustinBieberFailz]

Something else you can do that is probably kind of an exploit is have an archer army like this -> make sure you're the aggressor -> leave them lined up and shooting like you have them with your character stood way back -> when the enemy army gets into melee range just retreat from the battle. their army will be - a few 100 troops and you'll lose nothing. only negative is you dont get the gear money or renown etc. from the first battle -> however if your town is being sieged by 1000 men early game and you have only 100 archers you can repeat the above enough times to disburse them and stop the siege.

[@lelouche25]

As a Battanian for my first playthrough. I've been saying this since launch. Batanian archers are the deadliest son of bitches in Calradia.

[@dodgerpatrol]

Yuki Terumi so basically the vaegirs

[@karlkarlsson93]

It's even better if you make them face a specific direction since moving makes them fire less. High ground increases range and make sure that noone stands in a ditch. If you have a lot of archers or very little space you'll want them to split up using F7. Split them until they are able to stand in double row at loose formation, consider forming a V or \_/ to achieve this. Dealing with cavalry you'll want to flank the enemy on the left flank with your cavalry until behind them and send your horse archers out the right flank and let them charge as soon as the enemy gets close. That way you'll distract both cavalry flanks and maybe even their infantry giving you more time. Dealing with lots of horse archers you'll want to stand close to the edge of the map, wait until they are to the left your archers and move your cavalry behind them. That way they get stuck/stand still and make easier targets, don't let the horser archers circle you. Also a small amount of shieldwalling Legionaries just standing in front of your archers will buy you a lot of time. 5 Cavalry, 5 Horse Archers, 20 Inf and 170 Archers are a good mix. This way you can fight 200 vs 600. Depending on luck you'll win with few to no casualties on realistic difficulty. Additionally noting that I only had 20 Fian Champions and 150 Aserai Master Archers. Also its worth to point out that Fian Champions have a archer proficiency of 280 whilst other archers only have 130. Furthermore to my knowledge only Khuzait Marksmen, Aserai Master Archers and the Fian Champions have two quivers. Palentine guards suck bc they only have one. And I believe the Khuzait Marksmen to be better than the Aserai Master Archers.

[@kram2k]

5:04 Really, you had reduced inflicted damage for your troops enabled this whole time? This makes the matchup comparisons pretty worthless as it multiplies the strength of veteran units by a significant amount. My suggestion that at least for these troops videos please play on realistic.

[@ShakaTechie]

Ah you discovered the beauty of Fian's! I stumbled upon their crazy effectiveness when taking only them into bandit hideouts. AMAZING results!

[@buttergolem8584]

It's pretty good. I have 80 archers, 30 Infantry and 40 cavalry.

[@sigurdmalminhansen4846]

When you are facing a large armies you can find a fine position, shoot some arrows get som kills, then retreat, and attack once more, keep doing it and you can cut down large armies

[@alexanderdavies4734]

shh dont expose my strat

[@adrianjenkins58]

1:10 you said vlandian areas, these archers actually come from battanian areas

[@homeagain24]

8:43 the three blind archers episode from samurai jack

[@Krilledass]

I think most people play on realistic no?

[@ZeSluzzable]

I think so too

[@nadiemi422]

@New Keys Only you

[@fxbeliever123]

@New Keys you just suck ass.

[@Krilledass]

@New Keys It is way to easy if you dont play on realistic imo. At least have your troops on realistic, can understand that some people dont want to die so easy but having the troops take less dmg is to op.

[@gumo17641]

go realistic or go home...

[@rasplez9889]

The first thing I did when starting bannerlord was turning all my imperial recruits into archers, just to speed up that ranged element to my party as infantry only can be a recipe for disaster. But I noticed only a few of my archers were wiping out entire groups of bandits and looters. So I really leaned into it, although I never tried archer ONLY. That'll be the next thing I do.

[@strange_and_random]

Really interested in seeing top Horse Archer units perform. Especially vs Fians like these

[@fanyechao2761]

Kuzait Khan's Guard is the best horse archer, they are not the best archers but they have the glavie and it is super powerful in melee

[@xClintBeastwood]

Archer AI can struggle vs Horse Archers. Especially if you have them holding a formation instead of charging or skirmishing. Horse archers aren't particularly accurate but they are hard as hell to hit, and tanky. With that being said, Fian Champions are absolutely broken and will demolish anything in the game regardless of armor or shields because the AI is too stupid to use them.

[@strange_and_random]

@@fanyechao2761 right, thanks! Would be interesting to test them against Fian Champions, of course

[@Saren5796]

I am currently running an army mostly comprised of the Khuzait's upgraded Khan's Guard which are death itself. They have fast horses and the most ridiculous fast firing bows. They are also quite powerful in melee, easily killing anything but highest tier infantry in sword fights.

[@prestontheinconsistentyout1573]

BTW, longbows in this game actually have a much faster rate of fire then the regular warbows.

[@mulle236]

3:30 the reason for this not fireing and sometimes fireing is its more easy to shoot not moveing targets and as soon as they start moveing abit then you lose that. then you wait for the target to come closer around 150m

[@lfc_doliveira]

"Somehow, that's only a knockout"

[@Minotaur5200]

Thing what I noticed with our own troops is they will not use shield on their own either, unless you specificaly order them into a shield wall. In Warband, they would raise shield by default. No order was needed.

[@omegaRST]

Two changes to make archers more interesting: 1) heavily nerf archers in melee, this makes them still be fun and useful at range but it makes you need a strategy to avoid fighting at close range, also it makes infantry more necessary to hold the line and take settlements 2) fix the AI building peasant only armies, shields and armour really help against archers. I would love to hear any more ideas on how to make archers more interesting or make infantry more worth while

[@Deguu68]

the meele isnt really the problem and i dont think theyre OP either, he just had a terrain advantage in his battles thats all.

[@clnetrooper]

@@Deguu68 nah, basic recruits units should be given a small heater shields or another makeshift shield before going to specialize.

[@Deguu68]

@@clnetrooper ok that sounds reasonable, but they could also be upgrated faster.

[@KP-ek7qu]

AI using shield wall would be helpful. Also, the speed of warbows should be much slower. For reference, the infamous longbow had a rate of fire about 6 per minute. Weaker bows could fire much quickly, but those should be ineffective against armor

[@omegaRST]

@@Deguu68 t5 archers are equivalent in melee to most t4 and even some t5 infantry! That to me is too much, make them specialized to the point where they cant defend themselves from anything more than t3. Also the fire rate and range combination of the Fian is too much, I agree with other comments here, they should nerf the fire rate if the range is high

[@John_Conner222]

very cool to see. I always played a full 100 knight swadian army in warband and got bored. One day I made a 150 man rhodokian crossbowman army and it was devastating. Nothing could touch it. Good to see the tactic still works.

[@rob7566]

Put them in fall back mode thay keep out of maele range

[@theoneinthemiddle5553]

My favorite thing to do is use bridges. Make a shield wall at on end of the bridge and put your archers on both sides of the bridge. Have them hold fire and wait for the enemy army to engage the shield wall on the bridge and then have your archers open fire from the sides. I defeated an army of 600 with 200 archers and like 40 cavalry riders.

[@Charok1]

they don't have shields, so fighting crappy armies doesn't mean anything. I only use shield troops

[@secretblaze1235]

Surprisingly the sturgeon druztlic (or whatever it's called the tier 5 sturgeon elite cav) is the best melee cav in game. Tho it has less armor and stats to the vlandian knight its 180 in one handed means u can circle them thru ai armies and they will slash and hack them with there swords. (Which turns out is a lot deadlier then the flat shock effect from caves lance charges.)

[@SonofPerson]

Fantastic. Calradia's Fire for Warband had Rangers as a bread and butter for me. Murderous ranged troops with the two-handed swords for mop ups or supporting shock troopers in a jam. Had the heavy armor to last fight after fight too. Thanks for this video! I'll probably be going for these troops when i get Bannerlord.

[@scottnunyos2315]

If you put those archers in the middle of an infantry formation, you can fire on the enemy calvary as yours attacks.

[@KaterKarlo001]

"who am i ramsay bolton?" omg that killed me hahahaha

[@HistoricalWeapons]

Looks like my boys and I at the range

[@The_Flamekeepers]

At the famous Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the winning English army had a composition of 3 archers for every 1 man at arms. That's what a premodern "hail of lead" looks like.

[@SkyForceOne2]

well the cav couldnt really get to them in the first place.

[@SephonDK]

So Fiann Champions are hard to get if you're dependent on rare spawns. My suggestion is to get Disciplinarian and then get a lot of Forest Bandits, either by them immediately surrendering to you, or you recruiting them from imprisonment. With Disciplinarian, they upgrade into Fiann, and they're not too shabby to begin with.

[@Dinawartotem]

One of the reasons archery is amazing right now is because the bows do pierce damage which pierces armor. There is a mod out there that makes it slashing which makes armor a lot more viable a counter to mass archer. Also, you can order your men to disengage F6 and they will skirmish backward and keep shooting to give themselves more time against foot infantry.

[@levikarkiainen331]

It really reminds me of the Lotheran Sea Guard from Warhammer. An Archer Spearman hybrid unit. Easily some of the best unit types in the game. Archers always do great if left unimpeded and Spearman Excel against cavalry which is the only thing fast enough to get around the front line in order to try and spill into the back line. It's a hard counter for the counter to archers. Just simply glorious.

[@dustindubbo2892]

I’ve got 110 vlandian sharpshooters(they can be pretty good infantry too and can really bring down the armored horses) and then like 30 or so banner knights or cav of that level. Seems to work pretty damn well.

[@steviet6878]

lol all those bodies covered in arrows....Like the final scene from the 300 movie. We will Block out the Sun!!! Would love to see a all archer cavalry army. bring on the Mongol horde

[@Kacper0Plazma]

2 issues, 2/3 dmg is a very big help for archers units. We have tier 7 vs army who have average tier 3? So 125*3*2/3 vs 50*7, so 250 strength vs 350 strength, when units tier 0 is especially weak(because they don't have shields) vs archers and disadvantage in a fight is especially strong when we have infantry vs ranged units. 7:00 actually realistic situation, nothing strange... You have nobles archers vs some farm boy on terrain when archers are strong :D

[@isaacdoggart4879]

"their cavalry is charging" meanwhile I keep expecting to hear the crispins day speech from your character.

[@HuskingPHP]

This is the most Viable Army I think. 1. Can Take Enemies Double their Size if in a Lake/River Map. 2. They aren't as Costly as Horse Archers/Cavalry 3. Atleast an In-Game Year will be sufficient to get atleast 20 - 30 or So Battanian Youths after Finishing Village Quests. - Out of All The Noble Units, I think this is the Best If you have a Good Frontline Infantry as Bait for the Cavalry or The Enemy Calv. Is Only a Small Amount (Around 5 - 10).

[@fentoyal]

If you consider how much time you need to grind to get 50 Fian Champions vs how long you need to get that 130 random dudes, then I think it's pretty balanced.

[@bluenova123]

Apparently Fian Champion equipment load outs are bugged. They only get a 1 handed sword despite having 220 two handed, but the regular Fian gets a two handed though.

[@Bear_Duck]

I think for testing units realistic would be better because it makes it a fair fight against the AI

[@savior_protector1721]

Reminds me of when Eddard Stark said 30 (or maybe it was 300) good archers and Moat Cailin could hold the North.

[@howitzer551]

Just a tip for anyone who wants to do this get a good shield and a fast horse once your Archers start to all open fire ride forward on the left side then cross the front of your enemy(outside javelin range) to the right side. If you do it right the enemy should turn to face you even a little bit and their shield will no longer be blocking the incoming fire and your kills should sky rocket. To be honest in the current state of the game the Fian champions are really the only unique noble tree unit the rest are all very samey and they might be the most powerful(tied second place to elite cataphracts and banner knights)but that's just my opinion.

[@Jamie-ng3zp]

Khan's Guard are pretty cool, heavy horse archers with a 2H glaive

[@MrMhmToasty]

I've recently been playing on realistic with an army of 140 archers only. Mostly Palantine and Aserai Masters. I can easily take out 300-400 unit armies while only losing 20 units, especially if my character rides out to distract the enemies cavalry

[@vicious_love]

I agree with some of the comments stating that most of the warriors simply have a pretty bad armour which can be easily penetrated by arrows since the latter deal piercing damage. However it'll be nice if you've turned your difficulty up to realistic. If you don't like your protagonist being annihilated in combat, just set the amount of damage taken by him to the easiest and leave everything else on realistic. IMHO, you'll never truly experience M&B without using those realistic settings. Though, to be honest I usually save and load often to win the tournaments since they can be pretty unfair as you probably already know

[@SupremeParadox]

Before even seeing this video I have been using an Army of all fians for a while. Got them up to 200 plus, which did take quite some time, but yeah it has been unstoppable. I've taken on 1,000 troop armies (battle size it set to max) with them and they just crumble and fall. Especially if you use "advance" on them because when the cav charge and infantry charge they will keep moving back to ensure they don't get tangled in melee and they run quite fast as you stated.

[@glacialrelic7878]

what about the Imperial sergeant crossbowmen when talking about projectile based units? They are heavy armored, have crossbows, a one handed sword with a large shield. They seem like the tanky ranged boys and I would like to see an army of them show cased like you did the fian champions

[@glenp.8241]

Pretty good it's all I do is train archers trick is to hold fire until they get close and then they just crumple or run away also use the infantry as a bait to distract the ai

[@frataltnsoy455]

If you have lots of archers make sure to download the fire arrows mode. It is only visual and barely effects the fps maybe 1 or 2. When you fight at night with arrows damn it looks amazing.

[@adamfrost9241]

I actually really like the tactics involved with organising multiple troop types, but my army's not super different to this right now. 70 Battanian and Imperial archers, 40 Battanian skirmish troops in front of them and a few cav to mop up the runners. Its so OP. I do think shield wall needs to be the default formation instead of line though. Then, y'know, people might use their bloody shields!

[@kindafatkindastrong5683]

My fav setup infantry in the front with shield wall archers behind them and horse archers behind them just melts armies without shields

[@Iris_n_Parti]

I always thought that Imperial Sergeant Crossbowmen would do a great job at anything because they are the closest to Line Infantry in which they can also be used as Line Infantry but when I tested them they were quite terrible when in a siege due to how their Crossbows are supposed to be used by shooting directly at a target that is out in the open and not up at targets that are in cover seeing this test made me think that I should test out these units as well

[@Riingwraith]

I think some of these units are ahead of its time, you get late middle age units against early middle age ones

[@KainYusanagi]

Battanian Fian Champions (greatsword heavy infantry *NOBLE TROOP UNIT* with uber longbows that outrange everyone else) vs. almost all Peasants, Recruits, and Tribesmen, with a few lightly armored scout cav of the desert and steppes factions primarily, in the wide open desert or with a river to defend them. What do you think would happen? Lol.

[@entelin]

battania's archers are exceptional because they can rank to 6. Position still matters a lot, they aren't great in melee, once you get a lot of them simply spreading out on flat terrain isn't going to cut it. Ideally a spread box shape on the side of a hill so everyone can fire. In my last game on full realistic, I had about 120 rank 6 archers, and about 80 rank 6 knights. The knights are the best infantry even off horseback, they are substantially armored. So I'll take the knights off horseback and form a thin shield wall in front of the archers, and mostly wait for the archers to mow everyone down, then mount and chase down those that flee. The problem with battanian archers is it takes a long time to raise an army of them, only a handful of towns have them.

[@duhagumrukcu]

This is actuallu the tactic im using, large archer army with a few shield infantry and a support cavalry group to stop enemy cavalry from charging into the archer line. Its pretty damn strong.

[@daveyxx1193]

all i do is have forest bandits/fian archers, battanian wildlings for weight, maybe 5 cav to follow me as i hunt down surviving cav to protect archers. wildlings shield wall at the skirmish phase to defend from arrows, then everyone (except recruits) are loose formation at the cav charge so they have space to let their ranged weapons loose like how scipio beat hannibal in zama. put recruits in their own grouping and have them shield wall at the back, make them charge after the initial clash to catch any loose cav that make it through the missile wall so they gain experience and survive the fight, then order them back in formation if they get too disorganized. decimates every cavalry charge. used to have a full horse archer army but that was boring. figured this out cause vlandia always snowballs, and battania is always first to go for me. wanted to do a battania playthrough to stop the snowball but didnt wanna do any one unit cheese builds that exploit the ai's inability to recognize compositon.

[@picklerick3358]

In my first campaign i went with Vlandia and wanted a archer and calv army

[@TuDeDaTe]

I think khan's guard might be even better since they dont even come to melee range of cavs if they still habe arrows and you dont even have to keep them in a line you just order them charge and they just circle around enemy.

[@teambellavsteamalice]

I was curious how different tiers compare. Are there any tier 2 archers that are good value for money (at 2 denar each), or are tier 3 always better if you compare against double numbers? For tier 3, still cheap at 4 denars, which are best, Aserai or Imperial archers or Crossbows (Vlandian). Difference between siege offense, siege defense or open field? I feel tier 3 is best value for money for castle defense, but a mix might be nice. Any difference in tier 4 between the previous units? How do tier 4 forest bandits and fians compare are they similar at this tier or slightly worse but higher potential? How do tier 4 compare to twice the number tier 3? Which is best at tier 5? And how do they compare in value vs 2 tier 4, how do tier 6 fians compare to 3 tier 4? A special note is Bucelarii, how are these guys compared to their foot versions? How do they compare vs other horse archers? If you had to pick one units of infantry (with shields) to protect the archers, which ones (legionnaires, vlandian sergeants or others?) Any decent enough tier 3 infantry with shields for siege defense?

[@wsgr8752]

Though the Battanian archers are really the best, I presonally prefer crossbowmen cuz they have shields. If you have a few maybe around 10 to 20 cav, you can draw enemy attention to yourself and your cav, then let your ranged units use up all their projectiles. Once they are out of ammo then they will have to engage in melee battle and that's where the shield is really useful.