Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion - Top Ten Best Units

The ten strongest / most significant units in the RTW Barbarian Invasion, in my opinion. Did my best to include a mix of cavalry, horse archers, infantry and foot archers. Individual rankings not that important - just showing what the units can do. Got some fun clips for this one.
Check out my Lombardi campaign (mentioned here): • Lombardi Campaign - Ro...
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro / Number Ten
02:00 Number Nine
02:45 Number Eight
03:15 Number Seven
03:59 Number Six
04:48 Number Five
05:24 Number Four
06:34 Number Three
07:40 Number Two
08:43 Honourable Mentions
09:57 Number One
----- Spoilers ahead -----
10. Lombard Berserkers (Lombardi, Alemanni, Burgundii)
9. Francisca Heerbann (Franks)
8. Sarmatian Armoured Archers (Roxolani, Sarmatians)
7. Hunnic Elite Warriors (Huns)
6. Goth Raiders (Goths, Ostrogoths)
5. Paladins (Franks)
4. Equites Clibinarii (East Roman Empire)
3. Comitatenses First Cohort (West & East Roman Empire)
2. Imperial Household Bodyguard (East Roman Empire)
1. Clibinarii Immortals (Sassanids)
Hon. mentions: Chosen Axemen (Saxons, Lombardi, Alemanni, Burgundii), Auxilia Palatina (WRE), Bosphoran Infantry (Roxolani/Sarmatians), Hounds of Culann, Gallowglasses (both Celts), Graal Knights (Romano-British).
Why Chosen Axemen over Golden Band? Golden Band don't do armour piercing damage, meaning their offensive potential is relatively low for their price. They also require more time and infrastructure to train.

[@pastorofmuppets9346]

bruh after all these years now i learn influence determines bodyguard size

[@bartelvandervelden9894]

Cursed is thy profyle photo

[@donisbaddass]

I always thought it was from their place in the family, but I guess that was just a factor into the influence

[@Bob2854]

Wait what

[@Resolance]

Is it not their number of command stars?

[@pastorofmuppets9346]

@Resolance combination of influence and personal security, as i later found out. Idk about exact numbers but the latter affects bodyguard size much more

[@nukesomething5518]

>they have no legitimate counters >western roman loads chariot ballista with malicious intent

[@huntermad5668]

Try to do that in the town square!!!

[@hengineer]

Chariot Ballista gotta be the single handed most GOATed unit. Only thing that can counter is horse archers used them all the time to break sieges.

[@botai_]

I used to play RTW: BI. 15 years later: KZbin recommends me this video.

[@Newidhan]

I remember Sarmatian cavalry for western rome being the best unit hands down since they had the armor of heavy cavalry but the speed of equites from the base game, allowing them to actually keep up and catch light cavalry archers

[@budwyzer77]

Once you can recruit a critical mass of Sarmatian Auxilia you can more or less wipe the floor with the Vandal and Hun doom stacks. I'd rate the SA as the very best campaign units due to their speed, power, and ease of recruitment.

[@johnirby8847]

Most underrated unit in the game

[@cobrazax]

yes its an awesome heavy cav unit that is easy to access and is affortable and quick to recruit. supremely deadly.

[@VitorEmanuelOliver]

Imortal counter: let them shoot a trash unit until they run out of arrows then send ballista chariots to snipe them

[@huntermad5668]

Hard to do it when they sit in the square their mud brick cities. And better to secure the eastern frontier before they got too strong as ERE while as WRE you would have enough troops and money to drown them in auto when you meet them

[@699CHIP]

“At least one or two good units” *cries in berber*

[@huntermad5668]

Hahah, your general bodyguard couldn't beat any serious heavy cav...!!! Light infantry against all heavy infantry line up from other factions !!! Useless cavs against mass Samartian aux or Clibarii fron The romans or noble cav from the bard. No need to consider super heavy Sassanid cav

[@budwyzer77]

The Berber campaign is insanely difficult and just not fun. Your units suck so badly you can outnumber the Romans 4:1, suffer triple their losses, and still win a Heroic Victory. There's basically nothing you can do if the Eastern Romans decide they want to take Carthage.

[@huntermad5668]

@@budwyzer77 I played all other factions but not Berber.... They simply have no viable unit for taking cities...

[@budwyzer77]

@@huntermad5668 Your choices are either to sacrifice a truly absurd number of Berber Axemen in a frontal assault or wait for an enemy army to relieve your multi-stack siege. Oh, and be prepared to sacrifice a truly absurd number of Berber Axemen and your barely-adequate cavalry in *that* battle as well. The Romans will kill a fuckton of your units no matter what you do.

[@matthewneuendorf5763]

Best start to an ERE game is to get all your pagan generals into a single army and take the Sassanids out by just riding over them. If you lose the army, you can raise Christian generals and build proper armies. If you win, you take out the biggest early game threat to your success.

[@andoniarmentia1024]

Lol

[@palacehaunter5442]

Nah leave the Sassanids. Focus on destroying the Goths with 80 percent of your army

[@pira707]

@@palacehaunter5442 nah invade sassanids with all your eastern armies and consilidate your european forces and build forts on all river crossings and just fight back the horde invasion with clibinarii after you take forever to recruit them. You should have enough funds to support a beast cav army after murdering the sassanids.

[@BroughtToBear]

Clibinarii definitely deserving of that top spot. They seemed to dominate literally anything I put them up against and proved the only way to take on the ERE initially, as Sassanid low tier units were simply terrible.

[@karelspinka3031]

I've already posted my "Sassanid guide in a nutshell" on Lugotorix's video, but I think it deserves a spot here: 1) Recruit Clibinarii. 2) Send them to fight. 3) Take a cup of coffee and watch how they melt your enemies. 4) Deal with the religious unrest in your new cities, somehow.

[@BroughtToBear]

@@karelspinka3031 Deal with the religious unrest by recruiting more Clibinarii and killing the fools who dare rebel when you retake the city.

[@lautaroespora4920]

The only problem with the paladins is the requirement of the a church, which can be a pretty big deal in the campaign and mess up your public order.

[@Joker-yw9hl]

Good stuff! I will be honest though and confess I was surprised not to see Plumbatarii on the list somewhere. The sheer amount of armour piercing ammunition! Longer range than javelins too. Not sure where they'd go on the list in all honesty but I really rate them

[@alexandrostheodorou8387]

Agreed. In my campaigns tho generally I run an army of 6 Comitenses 4 Sarmatians Auxilia and boosted with Mercs when needed. Recruiting and retraining Plumbatarri is hard when taking cities in the Rhine/Britannia. Online I always go with Plumbatarri. Love them.

[@DJ-me9kw]

I KNEW I wasnt the only one getting destroyed by the immortals!

[@Taipei_103]

I’ve been playing Rome Total War for well over a decade and today I just learned that the general’s influence stat affects how many bodyguards he gets.

[@Norovo]

tl;dw armour piercing weapons good

[@sauronmordor7494]

ok!

[@thekillers1stfan]

Berserkers are insane. One of the main reasons I colored the map as the Alemanni

[@failproductionsdk]

lmao. Before i was thinking; Hmm this guy sounds kinda like the old ''Legend of totalway'', just more polite. Now im sure you're a more polite early version of legend of totalwar xD

[@Patrick462]

Came here to get tips for Rome Total War: Remastered (which includes BI). Good stuff.

[@Seth9809]

I enjoyed this video a good bit, and I find it to be very inspiring for writing ideas.

[@joejosa8985]

Thank you so much. All these years, now I know influence = bodyguards.

[@Sssniperwolf1996]

Thenks for the video, you help me a lot 🙏😊

[@wearing_a_golden_facemask_9432]

Bro, the Graal knights are clearly the best Calvary unit in the game, no question.

[@Jorn-gy3yc]

The profile picture suits your comment

[@basiliimakedonas1109]

Bro there's less that half of the fucking bodyguard

[@vadimromansky8235]

roman sarmatian auxilia! not strongest but favourite

[@philippei.72]

They are also very strong for their cost, and you can get them early

[@huntermad5668]

Lv2 stables is almost everywhere when you managed to stabilize the Empirr so you could thrown them in a fight carelessly and reinforce them at the conquered cities and good as new next turn. Quite cheap for their performacne

[@budwyzer77]

Sarmatian Auxilia carry the same base stats as just about every standard noble heavy cavalry unit but they move at the same speed as the Foederati Cavalry. They're amazing for breaking enemy bodyguard units and then running down the fleeing generals.

[@alexandrostheodorou8387]

Plumbatarri Are my Favorite Unit. Put Limitanei in front of them, and Plumbatarri will throw countless missiles. When the Limitanei breaks Plumbatarri Charge in and deal with weakened enemy infantry.

[@allenrosales9738]

Plumbatarri are great. They have a better missile attack than the usual Comitatenses as well as comparable melee attack.

[@alexandrostheodorou8387]

@@allenrosales9738 They also have tons, of missiles. Comitenses have 2 Volleys. Plumbatarri have 10 Volleys. Limitanei just need too hold for about a Minute or so, and the Plumbatarri behind them will rack up kills via Missile Volleys. Also if you win the cavalry engagement, after the limitenai break, send the plumbatarri charging in, and then you cav for flanking and its a wrap.

[@Joker-yw9hl]

They're beasts!

[@andreascj73]

I think you forgot the Western Roman Sarmatian Auxilia, a powerful cavalry, easily accessed and cheap. You can spit out two of the for every one Paladins Unit.

[@notevenclown9304]

Really cool video m8, but i still cant believe you did not include the chariot balistas of the WRE

[@vikingcathq]

I swear berserkers launching their opponents into the air is a reference to Asterix and Obelix, lol...

[@Althemor]

I'll admit that the prevalence of horse archers significantly reduces the impact they could have, but I have found carriage ballistae to be incredibly good units. You have to keep them away from enemy missile fire, yes, but as long as you do so, they _annihilate_ anything else. Though I guess they're severely hampered by being a T5 unit. Also, they kind of suck in armies without a general. They will get the general in that case, and then after the fight their unit count gets reduced by one, which then means that the next fight starts with one less carriage. Still, their damage is ludicrous.

[@CKyIe]

agreed!

[@REAPERthePRUSKIE]

Those immortals actually live up to their name

[@dieterhans1860]

In my opinion thr best unit: Armbrust Wagons of eastern einen Empire...soo quick, Shooting so fast, so deadly. An entire Army of Thema ist a doomstack

[@andrewcrawford8306]

No mention of the Western Roman Generals Bodyguard? Those dudes cleaned house time and time again in my campaign. I literally put all my generals in one stack and beat every horde I encountered with ease.

[@huntermad5668]

They would melt against Eastern Bodyguard and Immortal as their armors would be negated by their maces You can do all that with every bodyguard units except the Berbers since their bodyguard units are really weak.

[@NotFinnish]

Nah bro, peasants are the best! Also did you notice "mercenary herdsmen"? They're not mercenaries but rebels only

[@flatbat8571]

Do the Equites Clibinarii actually use a mace? Looks more like a rolling-pin!

[@oryn_games9881]

The best

[@ippolit4262]

Graal Knights sir!!

[@wearing_a_golden_facemask_9432]

This guy knows the truth

[@frisianmouve]

What you're saying about Clibanari immortals pretty much also applies to the cataphract archers from the base game

[@CKyIe]

imho, the carriage ballista should be number one. They are the ultimate general killers though are vulnerable to other cav (if caught) as well as archers. If you get 2 or 3 general units on their own (undefended by an archer unit), you can use one unit of carriage ballista to kill them off one at a time.

[@cobrazax]

you should also talk about sarmatian auxilia and carrage ballista.

[@stormcrower2088]

Barbarian factions have the best bodyguards in Goths

[@littlekuribohimposte]

The Immortals were hell to fight. I usually beat them by making sure my faction leader/heir were the ones fighting them so I could beat them withsheer numbers. But at one point, I only beat them by having four units of horse archers shooting them from alldirections, so when they chased one, it exposed their backs to three different volleys.

[@idontlikerome2744]

Any words on the western roman Bucelarii? I usually recruit them cuz i like crossbowmen and makes the roman army more medieval

[@huntermad5668]

As WRE, You get Samartian Auxillary at lv2 stable. They are the only thing you need to restore the glory of Rome. I tried them out and not impressed. Low range, flat trajectory, useless in melee. You better of recuit the merc crossbowmen

[@speedygunyke1]

never knew swimming was a thing

[@LyricalDJ]

It's not in the base game, it was newly introduced in Barbarian Invasion.

[@kianlakzaee1046]

how can we get the influence increase??

[@khadajhin5130]

Hounds of cullan, woof woof !

[@eduardmart1237]

What FPS do you have on your pc? Did you find magical cure to fix performance problems on modern PCs?

[@taowroland8697]

There are several fixes. Check steam forums; most effective is the .dll file

[@Norovo]

Yep, you probably need to replace d3d8.dll if you are experiencing campaign map lag. My pc is terrible 😁

[@vikingcathq]

No Sarmatian Auxilia or Plumbatarii? D:

[@redcypher8058]

Berserkers all the way for me. See what happens when berserkers defend a gateway against a horde is hilarious

[@sauronmordor7494]

top

[@matteogirelli1023]

4:40 I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS POSSIBLE

[@kelorednaxela]

Brah, you forgot about... Carriage Ballistae!!! They decimate anything from a distance. Their projectiles are armor and body (!) piercing and they are fast and hard to engage in melee. In my opinion they should be #1.

[@ghnanrohit3029]

Immortals can be countered by eastern archers who are more numerous and have higher range

[@stringpuppet3626]

4:26 UNITS CAN SWIM! WHAT THE FUCK!.

[@huntermad5668]

New feature in BI

[@jean-sebastienmatte2358]

Yeah, but guys drown when they are tired so... don't think every battle is an excuse to take a bath.

[@budwyzer77]

It's not nearly as cool as it looks. Many of those dudes will refuse to just USE THE DAMN BRIDGE and instead wear themselves out by swimming across the river.

[@entspannter]

And they can fight each other IN THE WATER

[@danisrusski6297]

Sure, the Paladins are better than the charge cathapracts of ERE and Sassanids, but sassanid clibinarii with bows and a higher AP attack more than make up for their lower defence vs equites clibinarii

[@rtwmoder]

Sassaniands normal clibinari is good to High armor Have mace ap Bow and good charge

[@JanJansen985]

Barbarian Invasion is good CA really let their hair down and went crazy with this one Atilla total war tried but didnt have the same magic

[@taunotooming6747]

Imperial German Bodyguard for WRE!

[@tuhoangduongochoatrancoixu7870]

how to do melee cavalry clibitarii i turn archery off and on target melee and they still shoot arrows and won't melee

[@Venakis1]

Ctr+ right click on enemies.

[@johnirby8847]

Sassanid normal clibanarii can beat equities clibanarii hand to hand and they can kite and shoot arrows like a horse archer.

[@Nonsense010688]

Where are the ballistic chariots?

[@huntermad5668]

Why recuit them? Not like the romans didn't have lower tier unit capable of the conquest of Europe for them. Last tier Archery range is high investment when you can just charge your aux or cataphract led by gen and win. They are finicky in field battle; require babysitting unlike rushing cav charge with all those excellent heavy cavs. Really really annoying to use in town/city. To summary; with thr resources put in to recruit balistae; you could spam several powerful heavy cav units easier to use; to replace, cheaper

[@Sol_Invictus510]

Frankish paladins op.

[@huntermad5668]

Need to angle the charge just right at enemy generals then mass rout.... But die like fly when caught by immortals

[@taowroland8697]

Cost effectiveness should be the bottom line. I really wish more players played multi. In vanilla rome, the level of gameplay with "pros" is strikingly high, but we lack new blood. There are so many mechanics secrets and tactics that you never see against the abysmal ai, y'all are missing out big time.

[@MajkaSrajka]

What you are saying is NOT correct. The base game catriphacts DO in fact have armor priercing maces. They have two melee weapons, and have to be ordered via alternative attack command (ALT-click), akin to how you can force ranged units into using melee weapons.

[@thoneras9611]

Thats what he said, isnt it? I think he meant, while in the base game the C. have mazes, in BI they dont.

[@Lavafired]

Best unit chariot b

[@palacehaunter5442]

Best Faction? Alemanni!

[@LyricalDJ]

1) I'd rate Hounds of Culann higher than Lombard berserkers. They are very similar but the Hounds have armour-piercing while the berserkers have a higher base attack. So against light units the berserkers will do better (including against Hounds) but against armoured units the Hounds are a lot more effective while still performing well against light units. Simply test both against a unit of comitatenses, the results speak for themselves. 2) Goth raiders are definitely a great archer unit but I have I would have to say they are in fact not the best archer unit in the game (although they're close). I have two other candidates for 'best archer unit'. The Eastern archers from the ERE are simply better than the raiders simply because of their higher armour. Yes, you don't really want to run them into melee but that shouldn't be the biggest concern anyway. I performed a simple test and it easily showed Eastern archers beat Goth raiders in a shootout whereas the Goth raiders beat the Eastern archers in melee. The other candiate I put here not because of sheer firepower but because of value for cost. I'm talking about the Lombard archer unit. Their upkeep is only 105 and for that cost you get an archer unit which, upgraded and with experience (you can get from shrines), can outshoot the best archers fielded by the AI. Suffice to say you won't ever lack for good archers when playing as the Lombardii (Or Burgundii or Alemanni), nor will you find it hard to find the funds to pay for them.