Cavalry Tactics - Bannerlord Battlefield Tactics Guide

[@daviddavidson505]

The best use I've found for melee cavalry is to have them intercept horse archers. They don't need to kill 'em, they just need to tie them up long enough for the foot soldiers to win the fight. A cavalry shortage is pretty painful when fighting against Aserai and Khuzait armies, it makes a world of a difference to be able to keep them busy dealing with butter knights so they can't pepper your troops uncontested.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I love using cavalry against horse archers! At the very least the run them back the the enemy line :) I've always found the Khuzait to be a real pain to fight against, but usually come out on top so I think it's more of an annoyance than a real threat in my games lol

[@mage0534]

Reason why I've gone through the effort of making a full cav army as a vlandian lord, dealing with the cavalry bastards is far easier now since I can just say no to their cav

[@ericgraham2977]

yeah this. every fight that i know is going to have enemy horse archers i set up a diagonal line of archers and and some horsemen further back to keep the f*ckers from circling

[@Strat-Guides]

@@mage0534 Lol if you can't beat em, join em right?

[@patrickwinegar5635]

I love playing as khuzait, I run all cav mainly archers but I add in about 40% lancers and cycle charge them as a flank gets exposed. I charge through with the lancers then have them reset to follow me after the initial charge. It's 100% faster than just full horse archers

[@JJPA32]

Skein formation is weird. Historically it's purpose was to pierce through a formation with a center loaded force (Traditionally it looked more like an arrow to really get that heavy punch through the enemy.) This would heavily disrupt the opposing formation, divide a group of troops in half, and allow your infantry/cavalry to get behind the enemy and effectively encircle them quickly or harass/target troops the enemy might want to keep protected such as archers or skirmishers. But in Bannerlord the human aspect of disruption doesn't really apply to the AI since they magically know where to be, and you can already very easily break right through an infantry formation with a cav charge in any formation. Skein seems like a roleplay formation more than a practical one. Especially since equalized alpha damage strikes are the name of the game in Bannerlord, the layered hit one at a time strat just gives the infantry more chances to land a killing blow on the charging cav.

[@Strat-Guides]

I think you have it spot on - It's more of a RP formation to use. It would be really cool if they could model the human aspect of war and combat in a, but I can't even comprehend how difficult it would be. This reminds of the conversations that sprung up about pikes and how they were a deterrent for horses rather than a deadly stick to stab with, but it's difficult to model horses fear I guess.

[@Luis519RS]

I think the physcological factor was part of it too. When you are in a line holding for a charge and you see the highest concentration of horses gathering in a collision course. You may see troops moving out of the contact point to not get trampled instead of valiantly taking the brute force of the charge. Causing a domino of effect of the biggest concentration of cav facing a smaller concentration of troops. But the AI simply doesnt fear death by a 100 horses.

[@maximnikolaev6627]

I always thought skein formations was to blitzkrieg to their backline and get their archers or (in some cases) get their leader if they are holding onto a spot. Either way I usually use skein formation for my foot infantry around mountains and such so archers usually have a worse time than shield wall.

[@emircankose5740]

Skein historically was for mobility while charging, it allowed the first unit in the arrow head to take command, every other soldier a rank behind would follow the rank front, allowing to make turns while on the charge without clashing. After the initial charge if you want your horseman to engage in melee of course a tighter and uniform formation would be better.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@emircankose5740 Ah that makes sense, I suppose it's the same logic behind diamond formation and some others use throughout history then? I don't have any experience riding horses so it wouldn't have occurred to me. It's also not an issue in Bannerlord since they just act like bumper cars lol

[@Strat-Guides]

This guide was both painful and fun to make! I learned so much and I really hope you can too from watching it. It's a bit longer that the usual, but I cut it down from 25 minutes to 20 because breaking it up into 2 videos was not an option. Also, I didn't label anything as a bonus because I felt like 60% of the video would be considered a bonus haha. If you missed any of the previous 4 episodes in the series, you can find them on the playlist here: kzbin.info/aero/PLtLh7oY6l6_-imuXlvZSFiZErbNrG06Ol

[@mikhailfilitov1479]

Looking forward to seeing the javalry in action! (or javcav, whatever you find more appealing).

[@Sprayer-px3tu]

You showed the same table for Cavalry Line Charge as you did for Cavalry Line Hold.

[@Mikalent]

So I do not mean to sound ungrateful for your time and dedication to this, but I do have to ask, in the Cav vs Melee infantry, why did you not test the compact square formation for infantry? With so many bodies packed together, would they not stop cav that entered the formation by the mid point, thus robbing many cavalry of their momentum?

[@Strat-Guides]

@@mikhailfilitov1479 Lol I like that, it doesn't take forever to say :) There are a lot of Ls and Rs in Javelin Cavalry which can be tricky to say fast

[@Strat-Guides]

@@Sprayer-px3tu Yeah that was a mistake, sorry about that. The final recap page is the most accurate one since I was using that and I must have forgotten to adjust the crop

[@mikhailfilitov1479]

I *really* liked the new way you're editing the table of the data. Laid out nice and clean so people can pause to watch, narrated accurately but also having the visual aid of colour coding red and green is great. I've been coming back to these videos heaps because there are so many little gems in them.

[@Strat-Guides]

Thank you!! I'm glad this format worked although some of the table data was a bit small for my liking so I might change that up for the next video..

[@TheCillisSst]

Your guides are absolutely lovely, but I must say that I would also love to see some actual gameplay from you where you apply your terrific knowledge in strategy and tactics to dominate as a Calradian Napoleon.

[@Strat-Guides]

Thank you for watching! I do have a series I just finished recently, but I didn't apply any of these tactics in there since I completed that before starting these tests. I have another campaign that I'm hoping to start before the end of the month, so keep an eye out for that! It will be playing as Amir Timur (Tamerlane) and will be an extremely hard bandit run :)

[@TheCillisSst]

@@Strat-Guides very cool, thank you for answering! Notifications are active :)

[@Strat-Guides]

@@TheCillisSst Sweet, I'll do my best to get it out soon! Here is a basic overview of the ruleset we will be following: - Start with nothing (no money, weapons, armor, food, nothing) - Start at war with all kingdoms including minor factions and in jail somewhere - We aren't allowed to buy supplies from anywhere (peasants, caravans, towns, etc.) until we capture a fief, then we can trade with only our own fiefs. - We can only convert prisoners, no hiring troops of any kind. Prisoners are limited to troops that cannot be recruited normally, so we can use bandits, mercenaries and minor faction units (also peasants, these are really important actually lol) - No smithing to sell at any point, all money must be earned from loot, raiding, fiefs, etc. I've done extensive testing and I finally figured out a way to make it work :D

[@Evgenii_SPb]

Wonderful job. Just an unrealistically large amount of information, for which I am extremely grateful to you. Lots of new things for me.

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm happy to help :) Once I get done with the unit vs unit testing, I'll make all of the data public for all to access as well in case anyone is curious!

[@justusbogner]

I usually don't comment on KZbin videos, but your channel is *criminally* underrated! Well done, especially with this battlefield tactics series! You deserve a ton more viewers.

[@Strat-Guides]

I really appreciate the support! I'm the same way, I prefer to stay on the periphery :) Thank you for the kind words and I will continue to work hard!

[@leohawk776]

Holy crap. You just changed my view of how I use my cav. I thought the same thing you did about the skein, so it's good to see I'm not the only one who thought that. Thanks for the info, man. I have been doing break even work at best, and that makes so much sense now.

[@Madhattersinjeans]

I appreciate you using different unit types and mixing up the numbers. The sizes of the units can very much change the outcomes of battles even in fairly close engagements.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's true. Especially when it comes to cavalry. It's not common to see 100% cav army in the real game.

[@Radu93Z]

You are doing a great job, significally improved my gameplay after watching your guides.

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm really happy to hear that, that's my main goal with the channel :D

[@philjohnson1744]

I learn something I didn't expect on every one of these. Nice work.

[@Strat-Guides]

Nice, that's my goal!! I learned a lot myself, especially this guide in particular. My cav utilization was quite bad!

[@lucho9911]

Welp i guess i wont be using skein formation anymore, simply fascinating testing !!! Well done sir !!! One thing id like to see (probably gonna have to be a mod) is the ability for the player to use cavalry in a siege battle. Id love to be able to sally out from a secondary gate to cycle charge the attackers/break the siege equipement and then fall back behind the walls. Altho id imagine that would be some major work (AI pathing, increase of siege map size, bigger spawn area and making sure units dont spawn on roofs and i could go on). Now for the mounted archers/skirmishers, thats gonna be a good one (they all are really)

[@Strat-Guides]

I know, I will probably still use skein from time to time just based on pure habit lol I'll have to retrain my brain :) 100% agree, that would be such an amazing thing to see. I think there are many cases where a sally out would be appropriate, but lack of mobility makes it less-so. I'm excited to test the ranged cav as I have a few ideas that I want to test out that might change the way I build my army!

[@SharpTiger14]

just wanted to comment that I love the content! Love the effort you put into these vids, it really shows. Keep up the work, and hope to see more from you!

[@Strat-Guides]

Thank you for the words of encouragement! I appreciate it :D

[@hitmanx200]

I like using two separate cav formations, both spread out and stacked about 5 units deep and width changes depending on how many I have on hand but at least 10

[@Snikwald]

Skein, you were the chosen one

[@cccaaawww8685]

I disagree because horses are powerful but it’s not a car.it would be simply unfair if you could trot through formations.There’s two possible compromises though.We could have it to where when you hit an infantry unit you lose all your speed and A knock them prone B deal more damage.

[@Strat-Guides]

Haha I should have brought back the star wars scene again, but I just used it in the archer video. That's a good one though!! Yeah charge damage is so weak in game. It would take being trampled 25 times or so do down someone, which seems absurd lol I'm pretty sure the human body can't handle 24 charges and still survive only to die on the 25th :)

[@Strat-Guides]

I think having them mow a whole line down would also be unrealistic, but I do think they should do more damage for at least the first 1 or 2 infantry they come into contact with. 2 - 4 damage is less than the looters stones and frankly I would rather get pelted by a rock than run into by a horse at full speed :D

[@Snikwald]

@@Strat-Guides they should do more trample damage, but at the cost of slowing down, like irl - cav literally bogging down in deep inf formations where they are hopeless and surrounded. In summary - devaststing first impact plus uber morale damage even before the connection, after it massive slowdown where they are dead if enemy endured or without their own inf

[@natpat6394]

I’ve been waiting for this video from you! Now my knightly order can be better.

[@Strat-Guides]

Haha yes, let the hooves shaking the ground drive fear into your enemy! :D

[@josecoronadonieto6911]

I found hilarious that during the menavlion testing one of the menavlions mounted one of the horses.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol that cheeky guy :) "I'ma get up out of here now..."

[@Adjure]

this was so intriguing to watch even though I'm a player that just presses F6 at the start of each battle and goes ham on the enemy with a two handed axe

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol nice, well at least you know why the AI does so poorly now then :) I know what you mean, it's so easy to get sucked into a battle!

[@storm0fnova]

it's important to note that imperial cataphracts have 2h polearms which means on shield wall they can't use their spears. while all other cavalry with 1h spear can still use spear and have couchlance during shield wall. the shield wall charge is a lot better offensively with other faction cavalries. Also never really got into using Skien might as well call it slein cause it's a dead formation i never use. defensively the shields walls allow cavalry to be much more durable as their shields absorb a lot of the attacks, while not slowing them down like infantry. but offensively you want to have as much contact area as possible during charge (as shown by your 3 line method being most effective, 2 rows per line enough, u don't want more rows of cavalry per line of charge or they just run into the horse in front of them and come to a dead stop). the longer the line the better the result due to more points of contact (wrapping around the flank). the cavalry ai tends to bunch up and run into each other coming to dead stops. a while ago i ran some tests using tier 4 imperial cavs vs tier 6 fians. just checked the initial charge. did everything between narrow column to 2 row super long shield wall and found the latter offered the best result. of course from your testing i can tell if i split them into multiple lines and cycle charge it would be better still. another trick is i just run my cavalry through enemy formation. without issuing any command. this way i found they stay in formation the best and half way through the move, i tell them to turn and face the enemy once they get to the other side so they are immediately ready for another round.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a great point about the shields. I did some extra testing afterwards and couch lance didn't seem to have a big impact on cavalry vs cavalry charges, only if one side was holding ground and even then it was a tiny difference. There was a huge difference with couch lancing vs infantry though! Agreed, spreading them out seems to be optimal compared to a tight bunch that doesn't cover the enemy line. That's a good idea, you could issue the move order well past the line to avoid them getting hung up but they will still charge once they get close to the enemy without needing to give the command. I'll have to try that one out!

[@storm0fnova]

​@@Strat-Guides with my experience it's interesting that in cavalry vs cavalry they don't use the spears much if at all. i had a group on shield wall and the imperial cataphracts got as many kills as the other noble cavs that had the spear vs horse archers. i think it's due to the horse rider ai only able to aim their couchlance low. which results in like 60% misses, 30% hitting the horse, and once in a blue moon they'd hit a horseman in the leg/foot. might just be anecdotal evidence but i think pretty much every time i got downed by a lance it's in the leg

[@Strat-Guides]

@@storm0fnova True, the only time I notice they use it is when I see a horse rear up but it's pretty rare. I'm wondering if it's certain formations that let them use it but not others? I should pay closer attention to that. Yeah the AI aim with couch lance is odd, I noticed that as well.

[@Cozonac3000]

I chose to play with banner knights only on my main character, and I notice that even though, skein formation is for cavalry, its performance is quite poor. Your video helps a lot. Thank you!

[@DestroyerOfOgis]

You're using the 2nd worst cavalry, be careful with it.

[@Cozonac3000]

@@DestroyerOfOgis if I am not mistaken Vlandian Cavalry is known for its charge dmg?

[@DestroyerOfOgis]

@@Cozonac3000 Known for being on par with Battanian cavalry.

[@Cozonac3000]

@@DestroyerOfOgis i did not played with other cavalry apart from the aserai and the sturgian ones. I am still a new player, but I find vlandian cavalry better and also because I like knights in general.

[@DestroyerOfOgis]

@@Cozonac3000 Oh. I will inform you that the Sturgian Druzhinnik Champion is the best tested cavalry.

[@porcus123]

I am trusting the delegate comand, not sure but If you use a companion or family member they seem to also gain tactics exp. Atleast in a army vs army battle as a comandar

[@darkwolfderai3920]

All this has done is reinforce my preference for cataphriacs and albertrist, I probably spelt both wrong, as you shown, cataphriacs have a in built counter to calvary in the on foot brace ability, as for albertrist, or heavy shield crossbow men, being able to shield wall in tough situations and switch to melee is a great counter to archer weaknesses

[@jeremynicholson8088]

Love the videos man keep up the good work

[@silentmayan5427]

I feel like the issue is how far they go after a charge. If they went further after punching through and before turning around, they'd have more speed.

[@coollman8619]

I feel that they need to add more damage to cavalry charges as the main threat from cavalry was the devastating charges. You should be able to get a lot of value by cycle charging with a large group of cavalry and be able to disrupt and destroy shield wall formations with the exception of spear shield wall formations. This would buff cavalry but then the maintenance cost can be increased and food requirements increased to maintain the horses and balance out the buffs. This would, at least in my opinion, make the game more realistic and strategic with cavalry. Also, after watching the braced pikemen, what if you kept 2 rows of it facing in opposite directions so that no matter where the cavalry charge from they face the same deadly defense?

[@Strat-Guides]

There is some mods that do that, I need to try them out to see how good it is. I would like to see cav as more effective, but also more rare/expensive. Great question about the pikes, I actually did try that one! The problem was that most of the cav that broke through ended up coming back to the line slow enough to not take brace damage. They didn't cycle charge far enough back and ended up destroying the back line :(

[@eise1001]

As always thanks for another amazing guide! Whats the best offensive tactic vs other cavalry?

[@Strat-Guides]

Thanks for watching! For offense, I would stick with square charge or shield wall charge. I need to test it out, but it might be even better to go shield wall, ride up to the enemy and stop just before reaching them and hold position, hopefully baiting them in :) Or you can aggro them with your main character and set you cav in shield wall nearby, bait them in there too. I have a few ideas that I'm still working on :)

[@jyuppiter4540]

I usually *hate* these types of META tests for single player games, but this one wasnt so bad. They commonly feel like someone is trying to break the game, or just find the most time-efficient way of going through it, like they don't even want to play the game and are doing it for some other reason. But you manage to avoid this roleplaying-breaking feeling and I honestly feel like I'm talking about battle tactics and strategies with some other commander from the Calradian continent instead of some internet nerd. A very number savvy Calradian commander.

[@pathfinderlight]

It's interesting that this game isn't very realistic. Cavalry horses will not generally charge straight through a tightly packed formation of men, no matter how they're armed. It has to do with the fact that horses don't like charging into things that look to them like fences or walls.

[@t___m]

Why did you use I. Elite Cataphracts? Not that they're bad, but V. Bannerknights, S. Druzhinnik Champions and majority of other top tier cav have couchable lances. Wouldn't that give different results?

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah it's a valid question. My logic was that I was using empire troops for most all of these tests (not skirmisher cavs because they don't have one in their lineup). It would have made a lot more sense to use a couch lance enabled cav unit though. On the bright side, the way they behave doesn't change between all of the cav units in the game so only the numbers of casualties inflicted should change.

[@McCbobbish]

I honestly usually just set them to AI mode and focus on commanding my infantry and archers

[@Strat-Guides]

I feel like anytime I give delegate command to my cav, they go in first and get stuck in the enemy shield wall :(

[@Ulathar]

Soooo the TL;DR; is: better do not use skeine formation at all on cav? Thats suprising... used it 24/7 lol.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah based on the way the way AI works as well as damage calculations for charge damage, it's less than ideal. If they ever fix those 2 things, it will probably be a good formation on cav!

[@kufcio14]

17:47 I believe I can fly!! XD

[@Strat-Guides]

Hahaha 10 out of 10 for the excellent spinning too!

[@AVERYhornyMrDinosaur]

i use Cavalry for disrupting archers and formations, for example shield walls advancing into my archers (having my ponies flanking from their rear). also they are good for stalling troops to have more time to position, and then retreat them.

[@maximilianocdebaca8193]

Do soldiers with pikes automatically brace their weapons if in a formation about to be charged by cavalry?

[@Strat-Guides]

Yes, but only when they are close enough! So if you see them not bracing, it's probably because cav aren't close enough. I think they do it after around 100m or so?

[@maximilianocdebaca8193]

@@Strat-Guides Thank you very much for letting me know!!

[@covrmeporkins38]

What is this test map I keep seeing where it's completely devoid of terrain? I want to grab it for myself.

[@Strat-Guides]

I just made a blank map using the editor in the steam workshop. Just create a blank map, be sure to include a border, spawn points and fleeing points and it will work. If you don't have those, it will crash. It shouldn't take more than 3 minutes to do the whole thing and there is a really good youtube series on it, just search for Bannerlord map editor! Sorry I wish I could help more but I'm working on a remodel and moving and won't have time to do anything else until end of the month.

[@covrmeporkins38]

@@Strat-Guides No no that's plenty. I'll have to look into it. Thank you!

[@Darkcamera45]

How do you get your units to brace or do they automatically do it

[@Strat-Guides]

They do it automatically. I find the line formation to be the most reliable formation for spear bracing but they seem to do it in all of them. Oh and make sure they aren't moving

[@Darkcamera45]

@@Strat-Guides ok thank you also I just wanted to ask if you ever plan on doing a unit tier list video with all the data you’ve compiled it’d be Intresting to see what unit is best in each of their respective categories

[@michaellowe2305]

The cowardly archers lol

[@kwazhims3lf]

"Slein formation" the *_ONLY_* formation

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol Use skein, get slain :D

[@ModulusOrbis]

hi u can do this test with realistic combat mod? i think this is the most used mod right now btw use cataphract cav for testing seems unfair for a realistic result, i never ever had such cav army

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm planning on streaming a whole campaign using RMB soon and after the campaign ill do a full review with some testing to compare it to vanilla. Yeah I know what you mean, only if you play Empire, but I didn't have time to test every cav in the game for this guide so I had to pick something. I'll be testing all units as well soon!

[@ModulusOrbis]

@@Strat-Guides i wait for it!

[@Jakman01]

Can I just say, you have become my go-to guy for bannerlord content. The extensive tests and data. So much work. I learned sooo much from all of your videos. So from the bottom of my bannerlord soul, thank you 🙏 also man shieldwall was surprising

[@Strat-Guides]

Thank you! I hope I continue to earn that designation :) I know, I'm embarrassed to say that this was probably the first time in 3k hours of playing that I used shield wall for cavalry. Who knew??

[@wingfootmcnova9130]

I've never used skein/wedge calvary formations in Mount and Blade or the Total War games because I'm unconvinced the AI is good enough to make them really work. In a real battle there's a big psychological component in using formations like that. It may take a lot of nerve for a line of spearmen to hold when a line of calvary begins charging them but they're all together facing them down. However when the calvary is charging in skein/wedge formation they're pointing at 2 or 3 of the spearman in the frontine and those guys have to watch those charging horses knowing they're going to get hit first. That's not to say they'd turn and run but they're going to side step a little bit and be more willing to give ground and that will allow the calvary to piece the formation.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a tough one to model in a game. There are a bunch of things similar to this that would be nice to have, but I'm not even sure how they would implement it? I agree with you though.

[@blue_3675]

WingfootMcNova use those in Total War games, the formation itself changes about nothing but the ability gives you vertain buffs and debuffs, they can be useful diff from bannerlord since it does not add buffs

[@ShiningDarknes]

Basically when in doubt use either shield wall or square, these formations just work in most situations as long as you do not leave them in advance if the enemy meets your units.

[@bronzejourney5784]

@@Strat-Guides Its easier than than you think actually. Not everything has to "happen" in a game, thats why we have rpg elements to them. When the cavalry using skein formation, they could just ignore enemy infantry's knockback/knockdown resistence completely, and it would express that "one soldier in the front side stepping and giving ground" _just_ perfectly enough.

[@Hedgemonkey5]

Interesting. One of my favorite tactics with massed cavalry is to give them the Column and Follow Me orders, then lead them around the enemy infantry in a big snake to line up parallel with the enemy archers. Then, giving the charge command while still in column means your cavalry charge the *length* of the archer line and completely avoid infantry!

[@Strat-Guides]

Ooh nice, I didn't think of that! I use that for horse archers but it could be incredibly potent with melee cav too!!

[@radicalphil1871]

I do almost the same but cycle forth and back through enemy lines like making an 8 with enemy lines in the middle of this 8. So my cav doesn't stay long enough inside enemy lines to be drawn into close fights but still has its charge bonus and when enemy lines get lose I give the charge command. This keeps casualties low and makes a lot of fun.

[@Jixxor]

Before watching I hope Wedge formation performs well because as a Total War and Conqueror's Blade player I just carried that habit over and use my cav to charge in Skein all the time. It just feels and looks right. Although a proper Wedge formation would be really neat. Edit: man that sucks

[@Strat-Guides]

I feel your pain. I used skein and line so frequently!

[@alejodavies]

Lmao

[@martind5653]

I feel same, bamboozled and betrayed. Question is, what if one uses realistic battles mod.

[@kubaGR8]

It's not that good in Total War either.

[@pendantblade6361]

I love how the Skein formation has become a meme on the channel. Anyway, one of the weird things about cavalry in MnB (both Bannerlord and Warband) is that having your horse killed under you, historically, was a very bad thing. Not only did you lose the Ferrari of the day, but you are also liable to have yourself trapped under your own horse, breaking legs at best or breaking your spine at worst. Assuming of course the rider wasn't able to jump off his horse before that happen. But of course, in MnB, the horse acts as an extra healthbar. This means that horse archers are just BEEFIER than normal archers, because the former doesn't have a decrease in accuracy. Historically, horse archers would charge within a hundred yards, shoot, and wheel away. Anyway, just wanted to give my 2 florins. NOW GIVE ME BANDITLORD EPISODE 1, STRAT.

[@Strat-Guides]

Oddly enough it's best on infnatry vs infantry battles and worst used with cavalry lol makes sense (TW Maths)! Yeah good point, also there are no injuries to deal with until health goes to 0. It's funny how 1hp troop performs the exact same as 100hp troop, but that might be tough to model in game? Haha I have to get the recap video for WC done first :) I just started on that last night at the same time I was uploading this one! The work never pauses for a moment, trust me!

[@chappy4756]

@@Strat-Guides you could have your weapon and athletics skill decrease in-battle by .5% for every 1% of health lost. and have perks in athletics that mitigate to maybe a .25% decrease or something?

[@Strat-Guides]

@@chappy4756 That's a good idea and would probably be easier to implement. Although maybe it would add a lot of processing power to have it tracked for each unit? I'm not really sure, I don't code at all lol But I like the idea. I'm sure people would complain about the damage not being localized (leg hits slow movement, arm hits slow swing speed, etc.)

[@tolveor]

@@Strat-Guides wasnt stamina a thing in warband? it might simulate some of it at least

[@jbg9350]

Totally agree. They sould add fall damage when the horse is killed (and maybe a chance for the rider to be killed instantly?). That would balance the whole game while being more realistic. If they dont do it maybe a modder will?

[@williamyeh298]

please test relative effectiveness of using the move command to put "Line" formation calv on top of the archer formation. Without cycle charging the archers go into melee mode and don't get to shoot the retreating calv in the back.

[@Strat-Guides]

That's a good idea, I forgot to test just moving the formation on top of the other. I'll test it on the side today and try to get back to you on it.

[@GorNaKat]

These formations and tactics tests are exactly what M&B needed all along. We fight, but we, apparently (cav skein) don't know if we can perform better.

[@Strat-Guides]

One can never trust intuition and logic when TaleWorlds Maths is at play lol

[@stephencarpenter3124]

I've had some Positive results with Column + Charge against enemy infantry. Cavalry punches through the enemy line and leaves a nice hole for my Infantry to Exploit.

[@Strat-Guides]

So I tried column with the cavalry but I couldn't get it to work :( I suspect it's because I was trying with 500 haha I think the AI would have a much easier time with 50 - 100. I'll have to try it again with smaller numbers, thanks for the heads up!

[@stephencarpenter3124]

@@Strat-Guides Possibly, also try splitting the force into one column to punch the hole and then a Skein behind it.

[@christianmunkjensen8817]

What about using column formation to charge along the archer line?

[@Strat-Guides]

@@christianmunkjensen8817 So I tried column, but my cav got stuck in a giant circular ball lol I only have 10 - 15 following me and the rest were goofing off. I think if I did it again with less than 500 cav it might work :) I think it's a good idea though, more surface area for the charge.

[@dontmindme.justaguy]

I learned to fear the Menavilaton fairly early on. When you are riding into a line of infantry on horse back, those little bastards are about the only ones able to hit you. And when they do, they do some serious damage.

[@iamdanieloliveira]

There's one command missing there, and it's the one I often default to with cavalry: follow. It creates a long column behind you, which you can then use to manually charge the enemy from the flanks. It slaughters troops in line formation, and if you charge from the right infantry can't use their shields effectively. Against another cavalry unit it helps outmanouvering them. You can attack their weak spots for massive damage or disrupt their formation to prevent their charge from gaining momentum. It's micromanaging, but you can do it for just 1 or 2 charges and then give the charge command so you can focus on the rest of your troops.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah great point! I will be testing the follow me command when we get to the mixed unit testing :)

[@Nuno.A]

I do kind the same, I tend to have a strong cavalry, atm I begin with intercepting enemy cavalry, that done the infantry usually just begun fighting, this allows to charge the back with a wide formation, loads of kills right there, pull back and repeat, basically shock cav tactics, the infantry and archers stay back, and when they engage I relegate command

[@spedepasanen7229]

Man, TW shoud just hire you to write the ingame encyclopedia.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol I did reach out to them recently about making a beginner's guide and asked for some basic support on their end but they "Don't have anyone at the company that can handle that kind of interaction" or something to that effect. Basically standard corporate translation for "F$%^ off" haha. I wasn't even asking for anything from them other than basic info - no sponsorship, money, etc. just info.

[@KillerPsycho101andGames]

I use full Calvary. Currently 130 melee calvary and 118 horse archers. I take on armies 4 times my size and lose about 5 men. When a war breaks out I immediately go into enemy lines and attack any lord I find stopping them from making strong armies. At the start of a war between Western empire and batannia had captured over 30 lords right after the war started. Hear the end of that war 4 armies of 430-460 marched into my territory (at this time I had around 130 men) I crushed all of them as my men were experienced with while theirs were mostly just recruited. My calvary have wiped out the northern empire, southern empire, vlandia, and batannia.

[@ashutoshtripathi.]

Feel like slien formation would be great for attacking the already engaged infantry in the rear Wasn't that its historical purpose too?

[@Strat-Guides]

I'm not 100% positive on the historical purpose, but I'm pretty sure skein was used often with cavalry. I've heard of infantry formations using it as well, the one I can recall was the "barbarian tribes" using it against Rome to put pressure on a specific section of a line. As for Bannerlord, it seems like the straight formations perform better overall although I'm not entirely sure why. I do know that skein is difficult to judge how wide the formation is to make sure you have it wide enough to cover the enemy's length.

[@ashutoshtripathi.]

@@Strat-Guides It makes sense that skien formation would be good at penetrating an enemy formation from the rear. As for infantry, Hannibal famously used the crescent formation in the battle of Cannae and won. The problem with Bannerlord is that the numbers in general are too small to use any historical formations. At most you have 500 men on your side and just a single legion had around 4-5 thousand soldiers not counting the cavalry during the manipular period (I think.) Most setpiece battles had at least 10k soldiers on either side. Compared to that, even the most epic battles in Bannerlord are just skirmishes.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@ashutoshtripathi. That's a great point. Combat in Bannerlord also happens at such an insane pace that's probably not realistic at all, which makes maneuvering even harder because by the time you flank, the main battle is over.

[@fredmeyer369]

@@Strat-Guides Looks like Square formation is gonna be my go to in Cav vs Cav lol... never used circle or square but those results surprised the hell out of me.

[@FiltyIncognito]

@@Strat-Guides I think that skein might be so terrible because the staggered first-contact with the enemy formation allows multiple enemies to strike the leading skein'ers simultaneously while also giving the enemy a brief period to wind up for another swing before the skein's next in line make contact, basically putting the skein's center at a huge disadvantage right from the start which culminates in the center falling apart very quickly and allowing the enemy to cut off and surround the left and right side of the skein, granting them the numerical advantage of a surround not just right from the start at the center of the formation but also as the center collapses, getting worse and worse as it goes on. The way the AI handles reinforcements from its group is also pretty poor, incapable of handling the heavy losses to the center of the skein. Also, flanking can work if you set it up beforehand. Keep your flankers off to the side far enough and in low enough quantities that the enemy doesn't focus on them enough and orient their army to counter your flankers. Then it's just a matter of timing, capitalizing on the small differences in move speed and riding close enough to other enemy formations to save time, but not close enough to get intercepted. That's pretty common in Total War, zipping your cav just barely past or between enemy formations to get to the enemy's juicy center or backline, and also involves the tactic of push'n'pull with your cav to force the enemy's army into disarray, opening up all kinds of opportunities if you're quick enough to take advantage of them.

[@LetsPlayCrazy]

*in ATLA cabbage guy voice, every time skein is used to less and less effect*: MY SKEINS!!! :'(

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol I had to look up that reference, but that's a good one :)

[@TheShyoto]

So I came back to this one while developing some more "unorthodox" tactics during my "establish the vaegir kingdom" RP run-through and stumbled on a gold'y thanks to this vid. With the pre assumption that the Vaegirs love 2h weapons, archers, and individual combat over formated line fights I was obviously having a bad day to massed vlandian charges that my small number of heavy cav just sucked up so many casualties trying to slow down for me. So, I stuck a 2-deep line of heavy cav in front of the archer line in shield wall and put a clump of sturgian linebreakers in between the ranks. It was phenomenal. The vlandian charge stopped dead on the front rank of holding cav and then just MELTED when the linebreakers charged. 150 kills, 0 deaths. Thanks strat, as always your vids are so pivotal to my continued success in this game.

[@Strat-Guides]

Nice!! I do something similar, but I am going to try it your way because I generally keep my shield wall slighty ahead and get some casualties. I usually stick my cav in shield wall inside the shieldwall formation, but I think your way is more optimal! Thanks for sharing :)

[@rathfoks5051]

Shield wall on cavalry certainly has its uses in normal battles as well. You can use cavalry and horse archers as mobile infantry/archer combos to ride out to a flank, put your horses in shield wall in front of your horse archers, then just treat them as a normal foot soldier army that can retreat quickly if need be. Legionaries don't do well against cavalry. Despite having a short polearm, they seem to hate using it regardless of circumstance. I wish they would just give them normal javelins tbh. Other cultures like battania have an abundance of polearms on their troops, yielding much better results against pesky cavalry groups.

[@Strat-Guides]

That's a solid idea. I wonder if the horse archers can fire through the shield wall too since they are cav? Those HA are cheaters lol Yeah I noticed that, they rarely pull the Pilum out. It's a shame cause it does decent damage.

[@storm0fnova]

you just need to keep your infantry on shield wall so they don't get hit hard by the charge at all or 1 shot by couch lance. legionaries will throw their polearms and they only have 1. so if you hold fire they might pull it out and stab the cavs with it. the darkhans are in the same weird position but they have better throwing spears that do more dmg and are longer.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@storm0fnova Oddly enough, in all the testing I did there wasn't a single Pilum that was thrown! I'm wondering if they changed the AI recently because I'm pretty sure I remember they doing that previously.

[@storm0fnova]

@@Strat-Guides yeah i think they made the ai not throw their last throwable or something like that. which is odd since legionaries and darkkhans only have the 1. i remember all the testing i did last year they threw their spears and if you time the volley right before the charge you see a nice span of greens. but it was months ago any things change too much.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@storm0fnova Yeah I think they tweaked the AI at some point because I remember it being good with throwing weapons, then terrible. Now in today's patch it seems they fixed it again lol so here's to hoping!

[@KevinSmith-qi5yn]

Me coming into this. So how do I counter Spearman with cav. At end of video, =_=... So how do I counter cav with Spearman?

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol it might be easier to counter them with shock troops. I just tried it with T5 sturgian spearmen and it was really bad lol on hold ground, the spearmen killed 5 but lost all 500. I put them in shield wall and gave the charge command and they survived a lot longer, but they still got destroyed. I would just assume that spears don't work in Bannerlord lol Use shock troops to counter cav from now on IMO. I hope that helps! I'll be covering this a lot more in depth once we get to the mixed unit testing.

[@ЯреЯреДазеОраораоров]

You wanna say, that F1+F3 was ultimate spear cav only tactic all this time?

[@Strat-Guides]

LOL This time, Sun Tzu was right ;)

[@johnteds4761]

Do you feel like Bannerlord is ready for full release? Also, do you plan to expand content to other games? I love your content but am currently not playing Bannerlord (elden ring, you know).

[@Strat-Guides]

No, not yet but they are running short of time if they want to keep to their schedule of Q2 release. Yeah I do! I have a few games on the radar, but need to finish up a few more guide in Bannerlord before I feel okay about moving on. I picked up Elder Ring as well, it's pretty fun! It's my first souls game, so the learning curve was pretty rough. It took me about 3 hours to get past Margit lol that was a unique gaming experience for sure :P

[@johngarcia6810]

Just found these videos. Super informative thank you for doing this!

[@cannibrel]

Great vid. I would really like to know how the cavalry weapons and horses effect their fighting. Lance length? One handed verse polearm? Small steppe horses verse larger destriers? In my experience, cav are better when using one handed against cav or inf that are tight, like where your cav get stuck into the enemy lines and cant really cycle charge or get some distance. But, in longer battles where reinforcements come through, and troops are more widely spread, lances and spears are great for picking off exposed troops. Having smaller horses closer to the ground also make polearms kills against foot troops easier i think. And what about charge damage? Just some ideas bro :)

[@Strat-Guides]

These are all excellent questions and I just don't have a good answer to any of them (I have some ideas, but without data they would be unfounded). In the very near future, I'll be doing unit vs unit testing and I think I should have a much better idea at that point. Those are very good points. I'm sure the charge damage adds up over time. Most AI won't 1-hit kill, so if they get bumped for 4 damage 5 or 6 times, that might be enough to take time to kill from 3 hits down to 2 or 2 to 1 and so on so it probably does make a difference.

[@alexjerrard9066]

@@Strat-Guides god bless you brother, this is some real impressive dedication

[@Paul-yw4yr]

I always use cavalry for hit and run attacks and also preferably from the flanks or from behind. Or to harass scattered formations do screw the morale. No point to use cavalry like infantry. And i use wedge formation only for frontal attacks to split infantry and get behind them if i can not go around. Also cavalry works better in smaller groups, 20-30

[@renanrochapacanarotrinca3812]

In my opinion, not trying to counter argue your data, but cavalry is all about pisitioning and timing.

[@Paulunatr]

My preferred use for cavalry is usually making them follow me and then crashing into enemy weak points as normal. Not very graceful and probably gets more of them killed than they would left to their own devices, but I'd rather have a unit accomplish something useful and die than run around being useless as AI cav are wont to do

[@raymondjhorology]

Normally what I do albeit convoluted, I split my cavalry into two equal units, especially if I am playing defensive or am outnumbered. I split them into flanks on either side of the advancing enemy. I have my infantry in the middle and ranged behind them and their shield wall. As they approach my cavalry slams into the sides drawing the outlying soldiers attention , my infantry holds the line and archers pick them off through the chaos. Iam level 6 clan tier so my regular party is around 200-220 and I have around even splits between Calvary Archers and Infantry. Sometimes I skimp on the infantry depending on the faction I face, I go with more archers versus heavy horse factions like the Aserai. An abundance of archers usually makes mincemeat out of them lol. Haven’t lost yet despite being outnumbered 3 to 1 at some points. (Edit) I also play as Vlandia so my crossbowmen are high level and my Knights are pretty formidable. I usually recruit sturgian infantry though because their heavy armor seems to hold up better in line clashes.

[@Splyt__]

I've never understood why people get so happy over skein formation so glad this video shows how bad it is.

[@edwardofengland2993]

Something I am fond of doing is to use elite heavy cavalry in an anti-infantry role. Not so good in real fights but a few expensive horsemen are a very satisfying way of dealing with looters.

[@peacy-bet-r6251]

Cavalry only campaign.... I'm thinking of doing it 🤔🤨

[@Strat-Guides]

You'll never have to worry about movement speed again :D Taking a fief sounds like a pain though lol might want to level up tactics and auto resolve it!

[@tomasznych9002]

Just picked up Bannerlord and I am bumbfolded on how they fck up cavalry. Trying to figure out how to charge-repeat as "just charge" causes cavalry to chill next to the enemy formation waiting to be chopped

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah it's pretty frustrating. I recommend commanding them manually :(

[@markolson6521]

I never knew spreadsheets could be so sexy, but that's the power of Bannerlord.

[@hexo2342]

I like cavalry and all but one major issue I have with them is that they never charge at the right formation. I charge them in but they all target the enemies one horse archer instead of the huge infantry blob right in front of them. So I'm basically having to babysit them the entire battle because not doing that will get the entire formation killed. Although, I have found a counter where you move them to the formation you want them to attack, then charge once they are close to the formation.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah they seem to seek out the closest target to their current position, which can change before and even after the charge :(

[@vgalis]

I usually have the opposite problem. I have a small cavalry force that I would like to chase off enemy horse archers with. Instead they suicide into the main body of enemy troops leaving the enemy's cavalry to harass me.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@vgalis Lol it sounds like you recruited Marshall Ney to lead your cavalry, stole him from Napoleon :D

[@anonymussicarius8899]

Message received, from now on my melee cav will be known as the great and terrible CUBE OF STEEL! XD

[@Strat-Guides]

Haha perfect! I never thought I would recommend square or shield wall for cavalry, but here we are!

[@anonymussicarius8899]

@@Strat-Guides Never would I have thought either to follow such advice, but the numbers are undeniable. :D (and everything in me is adversed against using Shieldwall with cav *shudders*, so luckily I have an alternative. XD)

[@Strat-Guides]

The hardest part for me is un-learning the muscle memory of using skein with cav. It's not easy!!

[@FiltyIncognito]

Honestly, skein formation in this game confuses me. Why did they bother even adding it? Even IRL it seems like it'd be useless for cav, and infantry don't have the behaviors or AI to take advantage of the benefits of skein. It's a shame you can't take proper advantage of cav in this game. Coming in from the side with a diamond or wedge formation would decimate an archer line in a single charge, with very minimal casualties. And trimming the edges of an infantry formation with a slanted line/half wedge formation would be utterly devastating. You could really only pull that off if you lead the charge yourself, and had access to those formations.

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol it's TW maths I suspect :) It would be nice to have more options or even be able to customize our own.

[@Tepotita]

This video was really good. I always made my cavalry go to skein. Won't do it again. Gonna check move of your videos!

[@Strat-Guides]

Thank you for watching! Hopefully the other videos are useful as well :D

[@queensheza7375]

Subject change. Execution. Has it happened to your character ever? Twice to me. And it's broken. As after I choose the heir the sprite is stuck in the middle of a town with no way to click leave. I ended up rolling back the save. Just wondering.

[@Strat-Guides]

So it's never happened to me yet, but I've seen it happen to others! Pretty crazy, I'm not sure what causes it exactly. Wow, that's a nasty bug! Good thing you had a save game to load back up.

[@linming5610]

The cavalry is broken. What should be done is if the cavalry is stuck, they shouldn't be able to slice through like a butter like how a charging horse do. They should have a speed debuff when stopped by a wall of men. And the brace mechanic. They shouldn't be done like that. Instead of killing the rider, they should stop the horses thereby stopping the cavalry behind. This game really suffers from bunching up.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah I fully agree with that. They just kind of push through like a plinko machine, sort of slowing down but mostly just bouncing around until they push through. A cav rework would be nice, but I suspect it's going to stay the way it is. I would be okay with them making horses easier to down as well as that would make me think twice about charging into a huge line.

[@pyscoandco]

Stupid question, is there a special way to chain commands, such as ordering your cavalry into a shield wall followed by charging in that formation, or do you simply give one command after the other?

[@Strat-Guides]

Nope, I've tried that too :( Especially with move orders. You just have to wait and time them manually.

[@AbramsRael]

Me who just had used skein formation as default for cav since that's what I was conceptualized for. "Well shit, no wonder I'm always losing more cav than I think I should be."

[@Strat-Guides]

LOL you're not alone :) Now I have to un-learn using skein all the time.

[@Myrth1]

>Best use of cavalry >Starionary line of shield wall >Worst use of cavalry >Skein charge into enemy One job. You had one job, TaleWorld And this video comes particularly jarring, given for last couple dayis I'm replaying "With Fire and Sword" (and as a gun-shy Crimea, no less), which operates on Warband mechanics with few tweaks. And it's just mind-numbing how in 2010 they managed to make solid game where cavalry charge works like a cavalry charge, pike wall works like a pike wall and units have both proper reach, counter and physical presence on the battlefield, but can't pull the same thing in 2020 (or ever since). Hell, even disorganised, automated frontal charge seems to work better by itself, and things get really awful once one side uses proper formations to counter whatever is trying to attack them. Bannerlord? Nope, sorry, it's fucked, hope you like having a spreadsheet of counter-intuitive formations in front of you during each prep phase for a battle. It also crushes my original dream of someone re-making WF&S on Bannerlord (which is all I really cared, tbf), since the battle mechanics are laughably awful when compared.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah and I don't think this is something they can "hotfix" with a patch either, it's probably a large portion of their code. I'm not sure if this was intended or not, but I would love to hear from the devs on it!

[@Myrth1]

@@Strat-Guides I think - but that's pure speculation - the initial goal was to "shake things up". And they shaken them so much, third of the game stopped working properly as a result. But since it's so ingrained into the gameplay at this point and since Bannerlord is already almost 5 years overdue (time flies under covid especially fast), all they can do is plaster the holes and smile while doing so, because changing the battle mechanics at this point is near impossible. If I can ask something - did you consider doing "small" comparisons for a change, or you don't think it would affect things? To elaborate: Warband was capped at 144 (145?) units at once to be taking part in the battle. Do you think smaller scale of battles could affect things, or it would remain unchanged in Bannerlord? Since it sometimes feels like the big problem is how much bigger the armies are and how this creates weird outcomes (like simply being swarmed over, because your 80 elites stand virtually no chance over their 400 peasants)

[@Strat-Guides]

@@Myrth1 It's a good question - so the main reason I chose to do the testing at the higher numbers is to smooth out the data. For example, it wouldn't be unreasonable for a 10 vs 10 to end in a completely lopsided win based purely on luck. You only need 2 or 3 units to get lucky hits, turning the battle into a 8 vs 10 which snowballs into a total victory. However, the odds of 100 units getting luck and turning into a snowball win is extremely unlikely, which means the numbers from 500 unit battles will be more "stable" than for smaller ones. However, the units may act different in massive pack of 500 compared to a more realistic size of 100 - 300. Once we get into the mixed unit testing, we will be forced to use smaller group sizes so we will see then!

[@Myrth1]

@@Strat-Guides I'm mostly asking about size around 100-150, rather than a literal handful of soldiers. And the reason is that your own outfit is going to be 100-150 soldiers strong and rest being just armies you command/are inside. So while I do get the statistical approach with bigger sample giving more stable results, this leaves it open to the speculation that the AI might behave differently at smaller soldier number, say, 100 guys.

[@Strat-Guides]

@@Myrth1 That's a good point, I will try to pay closer attention to the AI with different sized of units. I had not considered that before.

[@avatharb]

if you were to use cavalry on the flanks of enemies, attacking them from the right or left, so NOT frontal then that would probably affect kill/death ratios a lot. why didnt you test those scenarios?

[@Strat-Guides]

My plan was to cover that topic extensively in another video when we get to mixed unit combat. I just finished ranged combat this month so the next video in the series is mixed combat!

[@KoreyMacGill]

infantry shield wall advance archers lose formation advance cavalry+horse archers column formation and follow me. take em around smashing in this order: horse archers, archers, infantry. works every time

[@Strat-Guides]

I know most of this testing is done to combat the AI which is usually brain dead, but I would love to try some of these ideas and test to see how they compete against other's ideas. It's doable because with RTS mod I can control both sides. That would be a really fun series of videos! Totally useless, but I think it would be fun :)

[@fabf77]

"Cowardly archers", harsh words from a soldier riding a 300 kilo armored beast - A Battanian Noble, possibly.

[@Strat-Guides]

Hahaha good point! The classic French vs English topic :D

[@martineberhardt2205]

Was missing square formation for cavlery Vs inf. charge. It fared so well Vs other cab maybe it's good Vs infantry too?

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah good point, my goal with the video was trying to find good ways to use cavalry against the AI and to my knowledge they don't really use square ever. It would be nice to know for our sake though, I'll be sure to test it once we get into the mixed unit testing!

[@JD-jr8nq]

I’m currently doing a all cav/ horse archer play through Your vids have definitely helped

[@IWLDELJ]

Do you have a channel on Odysee? I'd love to see you there. You don't have to do much to set up a channel if you haven't already. If you already have one over there, could I get a link?

[@Strat-Guides]

I don't have a channel over there, this is the first I've heard of it! I'll have to check it out, thank you for the heads up :D

[@Random-World-Eater]

hum, honestly i thought loose would do much better, giving the riders some room to poke with their spers... but apparently not...

[@Strat-Guides]

I think the issue is that cavalry AI doesn't follow the same rules as foot troops. Perfect example is horse archers that can shoot without restrictions while foot archers cannot shoot through their friends.

[@madman026]

oh yeah i will just use the best tactic :) f1 f3

[@Strat-Guides]

Haha good ole Sun Tzu, still works even in 2022 :)

[@mortache]

I almost never use cavalry to engage infantry. I let the infantry engage and take the cavalry with me to hit the archers in the back. When in range I ask them to shieldwall and charge at the archers.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that seems to be the most prevalent tactic. I do something similar as well :)

[@lukedavis3408]

So once again advance has 1 use in any video. Advance into charge. Is there a reason to have the advance formation move in the game? Other than role play.

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that's a good point, I would rather charge act the same way as advance until within a certain distance of the enemy. Although maybe they would get confused by stray cav roaming the lines, which would be annoying lol

[@BorisTratar]

why would you use catas against normal archers? if you want to test best cav, put them against best archers, noble units versus noble units... else just test normal cav versus normal archers... anyway good job either way.

[@BorisTratar]

anyway, we get the point if you gonna use cav, what formation to use...

[@Strat-Guides]

I was just mostly just keeping the theme the same - empire units. I'll be doing a bunch of different faction unit testing soon so we will be able to see the difference but couch lance does about 2x the kills per charge so you're 100% right.

[@shadowblade5656]

This one I think is the most useful to me yet, because I've never been great at using cavalry as effectively as I know they *could* be. The shieldwall and square results are super interesting, and I had no idea the cataphracts could brace their spears like that. Thanks!

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah me too! I've integrated a lot of these into my recent play through and it made a huge difference. Actually, one thing that works wonders is to have your infantry in shield wall with cavalry in shield wall right behind them or even inside the infantry formation. Once the enemy cav hits the formation, they all melt away quickly! If they have a lot of cav, you can place horse archers right behind them since they seem to shoot through everything lol

[@SDShannonS]

This was great though I would have liked to have seen details on what troop types were being used. "Cavalry" is a bit nebulous. You did mention Legionaries and Menavliaton (though not whether they were regular or Elite Menavliaton) but I'd be curious to see whether there was a significant difference in results when pitting a given cavalry force against Fian Champions as opposed to some other kind of archers. Having said that, I do understand the video was less about specific troop types and more about effective formations. Still, having that information would be of benefit, I think.

[@SDShannonS]

P.S. Watch for the misspelling of "slein" instead of "skein" in the heading overlays.

[@Strat-Guides]

Oh sorry, the unit info was in the data presented after most of the tests, although towards the end of the video I don't think I used them so great point, I should have added that in! I used all T5 units, so Cataphract for the cav, legionary and menavlion for infantry and Paletine archers. I have already started doing some of the work for unit vs unit testing, which I think will answer a lot of the questions you might have :) Yeah a couple people mentioned that haha It would have been more appropriate to misspell it as slain, but alas it was a typo that I missed in my final review of the editing.

[@sharpclaw24]

Huh, I've been using my cav in a square and charge, turns out it's one of the best tactics : v

[@Strat-Guides]

Lol well I can honestly say you're in a very small minority! Big brain plays :D

[@botmushin8878]

Why would your cavalry ever be "holding ground"? It is suicide.

[@Strat-Guides]

Without doing rigorous testing, one can never say for certain :) I've actually got a technique that I will be showcasing in the next tactics guide video that uses cavalry on hold ground and is extremely effective! Stay tuned :)

[@georgerukhadze9164]

WAIT PLEASE TRY SHIELD WALL + DISMOUNT

[@Strat-Guides]

Yeah that might work a lot better actually. I'll test it out today :)

[@TheAnalyticalFailure]

After seeing one of your other videos and how you do your data-driven analysis, all I can say as a Vlandian main who always uses Skein formation charges is FUCK....

[@Strat-Guides]

Don't worry, I have a video this week that will make you very happy :) 1.9.0 has changed all of this!

[@TheAnalyticalFailure]

@@Strat-Guides looking forward to it

[@jchweszczuk5691]

Hello everyone! Is there a way to command a friendly unit to attack a specific enemy unit, say, infantry attack enemy bowmen. I bought Bannerlord but only play it a little when they released EA.🤗

[@Strat-Guides]

There used to be a mod that did that, but that mod isn't updated anymore. There is no way to do it in vanilla Bannerlord :(

[@jchweszczuk5691]

@@Strat-Guides Thaaanks love your content

[@LDProductionsClass]

What commands are you giving the cav to charge through while remaining so unified?

[@Strat-Guides]

It's still the charge command. A lot of the reason for them staying like that is the enemy is clumped into one formation. In normal battles, parts of the formation will target different units and start going all over the place :( You can use advance and then switch to charge before they hit to keep them together. That should help!

[@MrMcMuggel]

Thanks for this amazing cav guide. Sadly this video has been marked as heresy, from the church of skein formation. Expect the spanish inquisition ;)

[@Strat-Guides]

Thank you! LOL Nobody expects the inquisition... :D

[@h21lad13]

How about calvary in the terrain like the high ground or forest or sometimes even river crossing

[@Strat-Guides]

Great point! Cav perform terribly on hills, but I need to run more tests to see about how forests and water effect them. I was trying to cram as much as I could here and I totally forgot about that, thank you for reminding me :D

[@TheJurzerker]

Oof, i just started playing this game, and prior to now had said "well obviously i should put my horses in skein" and hadnt worried about it.

[@Strat-Guides]

I recently did an update to all the tactics guides, although cavalry is mostly unchanged and skein is still bad for cavalry lol

[@TheJurzerker]

@@Strat-Guides i actually already had watched that and ended up here. Very helpful, shield wall for horses and skein for infantry with the charge issued right as they are connecting has been a game changer.