Cavalry Tactics - Bannerlord Battlefield Tactics Guide

in this episode we're going to be looking at a ton of cavalry testing and tactics starting with cavalry only and moving on to cavalry versus foot troops let's get started for the first match up we will look at line formation on hold position interestingly enough once the two lines meet they pass right through each other with very little friction some casualties come from the initial charge but they mostly come from hand-to-hand combat while not moving the side on hold ground gets stomped which we can see is supported by the data and several runs holding ground nets .25 kdr and a zero percent win rate the true mirror match up line charge versus line charge this time we see a much more violent clash with most units running into an enemy and stopping while some pass right through and cycle charge back to the mob again not many casualties on the initial clash but really pick up steam once in melee combat without moving it's neck and neck right to the very end which we expected however we do see some interesting data with one side winning more than the other in my observation the side that sticks together closer for the melee combat will win more often so cycle charging is not good in calvary versus cavalry tactics when using advance command we see in the past a pullback from the main battle which is demonstrated even more when on horseback the casualties quickly pile up and advanced line is routed easily the data is very similar to line hold with only 0.29 kdr and 0 win rate looking at the commands for line formation charge seems to be the only viable option using advanced helps keep the unit cohesion but be sure to use charge before they reach the enemy line i don't think i've ever used shield wall for cavalry before so i had no idea what to expect here we see a similar pattern with a weak initial hit from the charge and most of the enemy passing through the lines however once the general melee starts we see the shield wall formation dominating the fighting it turns into a bit of a slog but shield wall still comes out on top the data is clear shield wall is far superior than line when holding position at 1.4 kdr and 100 win rate shield wall has a tighter formation which i suspect is helping in melee giving the charge command in shield wall produces some unexpected results it seems they act the same as line formation blowing past the enemy and coming back for melee it's a much closer battle this time with only a slight edge for the shield wall the kdr is much closer to one this time at 1.24 but still maintains a 100 win rate some interesting results here i can't recall ever using advanced formation and it performing well in melee combat but it seems to be slightly better in this case of shield wall for cavalry interestingly enough we see a 1.27 kdr and 100 win rate which is on par with charge i did not expect that shield wall was certainly a nice surprise with each formation performing well but hold ground performing the best it might be a viable option to ride up to the enemy in shield wall formation halt and bait them into attacking you as you can probably tell at this point the formations that keep calvary close to one another work best and those that spread them out perform poorly loose formation drives this point home with hold ground getting crushed at .17 kdr and zero 0 win rate it's not recommended to use charge formation seems to perform a little bit better as it forces each unit to seek out the nearest enemy causing them to bunch up it's a fairly close fight but the initial separation is enough to cause a loss with each fight at .87 kdr and zero percent win rate it's certainly better than holding ground but still should be avoided i really like advanced loose formation for cav versus cav battles it lays down a cool looking pattern that the enemy has to weave through drastically slowing down their advance the only downside is you won't have any units left to fight with it's just something to consider we see a 0.22 kdr and 0 win rate here which is on par with expectations the recap is easy don't use loose formation with cavalry facing other cavalry none of these were acceptable and you're better off using something else at first i thought about skipping circle and square formation testing but i'm glad i didn't hold formation is a mess since half or less of the circle is engaged in melee giving the enemy a huge advantage it's not pretty 0.63 kdr and 0 win rate charging the circle looks pretty cool at least more importantly we see the units packed fairly close together giving a slight advantage in melee that holds through to the end we end up with a 1.46 kdr and 100 win rate which is on par with shield wall holding firm circle advance took a really long time to test it's not a good formation to fight in but can be useful if you just need to delay the enemy as long as possible for other maneuvers we see a 0.73 kdr and 0 win rate so it's not the most useful the real use for circle formation would be a compact unit that can charge an enemy then fend off against arrows when stationary it performed better than line formation from holding ground and advancing but still not good enough i was expecting more of the same from square formation but to my shock we see it performing better when holding ground it's still not great results but better than most we see a 1.43 kdr and 100 win rate which is close to shield wall charge formation performs as expected with a nice early lead which holds through to the end there are some spots where the other side gets some good trades but overall square charge is quite good at 1.58 kdr and 100 win rate it's actually the best thus far however once we get to advanced formation we see the same pattern emerged like before and leading to certain victory at 0.84 kdr it's far from the worst on the list but still not usable at zero percent win rate i wasn't expecting this but square formation is one of the best for calvary versus cavalry fights with both holy ground and charge working quite well now for the biggest shock of this guide skein formation i don't want to spoil it any further so let's watch holding ground with skein is an interesting case because the two flanks are quite far from the main fighting causing a big discrepancy in numbers in melee we see one of the worst performances so far at .22 kdr and zero percent win rate surely charge formation will be the salvation rate after all skein formation was meant for cavalry charges we see a fairly close battle with skein pulling ahead slightly in the end the data set is small but at .95 kdr and 50 win rate it's on par with being in line formation no surprise here skein advance is trash and should not be used under any circumstances at 0.29 kdr and 0 win rate it's only slightly better than holding ground when it comes to cavalry versus cavalry combat skin information can be used when charging if you're okay with break-even results personally i would avoid it as other options are much better before we do the full recap let's look at a couple special uses of cavalry these cataphracts have a spear that's long enough to be braced making it an interesting counter to other cavalry units while on foot we dismount our units and set them in a line formation the initial charge we see a huge success with nearly 30 kills and only 10 deaths or so but the second charge hits from the back and more than makes up for it it's not a pretty sight and we lose with a .21 kdr now we dismount only 50 troops and position them in front of our cavalry who are in shield wall formation this will give a boost at the start but also a decisive advantage in the melee from the formation it's a convincing win at 1.83 kdr which is the highest we've achieved thus far okay one more because i wasn't happy with how short the spear brace was now we place 100 troops to run the length of our cavalry holy moly it's all green from the kill feed with a massive advantage on our side to start the battle stays in our favor and we can even remount the foot troops and combine them back afterwards we squeeze out a tiny bit more kdr at 1.9 but fairly similar results to the previous if you know where the enemy is going to charge you with cavalry this setup can really make a huge difference now let's take a look at all the different formations and commands to get a sense of what we should be using and what to steer clear of let's start with the easy ones to eliminate don't use line loose or skein regardless of what commands are given as each one results in very poor performance or at best break even shocking i know i used line and skein almost exclusively for my calvary now for the winners any of the formations that force our cavalry into shield wall which include shield wall circle and square formation all performing well shielball did well no matter which command was given although holding ground performed the best circle formation only worked when using charge and square did well as long as you did not use advance dismounting some of the cavalry for a spear brace line still performed the best though at 1.9 kdr if you have the time to micro it might be worth a shot here we go the real reason everyone uses cavalry to counter the cowardly archers we're going to use a different format for the testing since we will generally encounter archers in two different formats line and loose formation we will also test the difference between bunching together or spreading them far apart up first both sides will begin in line formation and bunched together we see a massive list of casualties with each charge that passes through the archer line there are a few casualties for the cavalry since a bunch of line of archers allows only a small fraction to shoot arrows for the data we are only looking at kdr since it's assumed that cavalry will beat archers every time the question is by how much in this case it's between 16 and 20 kdr we will leave both sides in line formation but spread them out a lot the initial charge is equally devastating as before but notice the kill feed turns red as they turn and charge again it's still an easy win for the cavalry but they take many more casualties now the kdr drops to around 5 which is nearly 4 times less with more archers able to shoot arrows casualties begin to pile up for the cavalry now we spread the archers out but bunch up the cavalry the casualties inflicted pile up with each row that passes so it seems that more than just the first row or two can attack with charge notice how much red is in the kill feed this time though there's a significant increase in cavalry being shot off the horses before and after the charge passes through the line it's still a win but a much costlier one we see the kdr drop all the way down into the twos ouch for the last one we switch it up archers are bunched up and cavalry spread wide an interesting thing happens the initial charge hits hard like usual but the flanks start to fold in and charge the archers from the side causing some damage but also stopping others from shooting arrows as they have to switch to melee mode now we see very few casualties on the cavalry side and it only gets worse with time we see an incredible 20 to 31 kdr for this matchup let's look at the other common scenario archers and loose formation i've seen the ai use both so we will run the same four tests again to see how each one holds up we start with both sides bunched up in loose formation the archers spread out quite a bit more but after the first charge they clump up into a giant square and get slaughtered there are a few more casualties from archer arrows but for the most part it's a stomp we see a kdr between four and six here so not quite as good as both in line formation with both sides spread out far we see a huge list of casualties on the first charge but also more cavalry being shot down with each charge it's still heavily in favor of the cavalry though which shows in the data at 4 kdr keeping the archer spread out but bunching the cavalry up we start to see a battle that could almost swing in favor of the archers the cavalry take heavy damage when facing away but also when at very close range to the archers before they hit it still results in a win but at 1.6 kdr it's not far from a defeat this time we keep the archers bunched up and spread the cavalry out once again we start to see the flanks of the cavalry curl inward and run down the line getting kills and switching archers into melee mode there is almost a constant presence of cavalry within the archer line which leads to a massive upset the kdr for this setup is between 11 and 14 kdr which is very impressive the next test was more of a personal curiosity we test with both lines spread out and issue the advance command it seems like the archers do worse when they can't shoot arrows and advance command keeps the cavalry stuck in the enemy line without cycle charging it's an interesting battle with a bit of back and forth but cavalry still hold the advantage to the end the kdr is less than impressive however at 1.9 and is near the bottom of the list in terms of performance for the final round of archer testing we use loose formation for both cavalry and archers my goal here was to try to minimize casualties from arrows with loose formation for a cavalry but let's see what the numbers say we start with both in loose formation and clumped together it's interesting because there are still plenty of casualties to arrow volleys but the casualties caused by the cavalry seem higher with more spread out formations from being in loose the kdr ends up being between 5 and 6 which is quite a bit worse than the previous test using clumped formations we see a similar pattern with both sides being spread out although our cavalry seem to have too many on one flank and not enough on the other causing an inefficient charge i was able to get the line a bit longer the second time around which shows in the data between 4 and 9 kdr it seems having enough length to cover the enemy line is key in the next test we see the same issue play out again with archer spread and calvary clumped up the cavalry clear out plenty of archers from the center but take massive amounts of damage from both flanks at 2.9 kdr it's nearly twice as effective as when cavalry was in line formation though finally we spread the cavalry wide and leave the archers grouped up tight this time we watch from directly above and see how deadly those side flanks are it's a masterful win at 14 kdr before we look at all the data combined let's run a couple more experiments it seems cavalry are very effective when charging but lose some steam after the first charge once the first charge is done we will allow our line to turn around and order them to dismount in the middle of the enemy formation now they fight on foot while outnumbering the enemy from both charges but it seems the archers are putting up quite a fight the battle is over quickly but some casualties are taken at 2.27 kdr it's not a great option considering how good some of the other ones were this time we split up into two groups and match the line length of the enemy this will cause less downtime between each charge and hopefully reduce casualties the first line slams into the enemy with some effect and the second line comes in shortly after but it was not as effective however the second time around is very effective and we see the archer lines quickly melt away to the constant pressure the kdr boosts up to five which is pretty good but i think we can improve further with a third line again we try to match their line's length and charge all three within a couple seconds between each hit the first line is largely ineffective but the second and third do a ton of damage and what's even better only moments after the third line finishes the first line has already turned around and entering the archer line it's a nearly constant stream of horses rushing through the enemy lines causing a ton of damage adding a third line boosts the kdr up to 8.4 which is a huge improvement now let's look at all the data together and see what important patterns emerge you'll notice there were quite a few more tests that i ran that did not make the video mostly because they were awful there's actually a way to lose 500 versus 500 using calvary and they both use advanced command the best case scenario is when the enemy archers are in line formation and are not very spread out which can lead to kdr north of 15. what's more common though is the enemy in loose formation and spread out in which we can see a slight edge to line formation there are two things we can't see from the data but i noted them down from watching all of these battles first archers that are spread out wide are harder to deal with for cavalry and second having our cavalry line is long as or longer than the enemy's archer line is critically important so be sure to spread your archers out very wide when facing off against cavalry and be sure to adjust your cavalry line before charging them in i can already see it now tons of complaints asking why i didn't test other formations against archers it actually didn't occur to me until i started writing the script so i went back in to do a small scale test with a few formations to see if there was a big difference we hold fire with the archers and see how many charge cycles it takes to knock each line out starting with line we see a small number of casualties for the first couple of charges but by the third charge we see a huge increase by the fifth charge the line is broken now for the winner of the calvary versus cavalry testing shield wall we see a bigger increase on the first couple of charges but a similar five charges in total to take them out loose starts off weak with only two casualties but picks up some steam with each successive charge by the fifth charge there is a single troop left but we'll make an exception and save five cycles now for most people's favorite skein formation it seems like a similar pattern to all of the other formations but with fewer casualties with each pass although this formation takes six passes to break oddly enough skein performed the worst out of all of them for the final section we will test cavalry versus a couple different types of infantry starting with the legionary first we will have the infantry hold their ground in line formation they don't seem to be able to stop the charge whatsoever and take heavy casualties with each charge we end up losing five cavalry which resulted in a 97.8 kdr i was not expecting these results considering how dominant legionaries are now we give the legionary the charge command and see how they fare the first charge has no casualties with moderate casualties inflicted but because the enemy is charging the cavalry turn around too quickly and don't gain enough speed for an effective charge they end up taking a few more cavalry out but it's still a stomp at 16.6 kdr lastly i wanted to see how charging into the circle formation the ai loves to use would work uh it works quite well it would seem they don't really get any hits off with each charge possibly because each unit is facing a different direction i'm not sure but it ain't pretty we end up with six deaths which is still in the 90 kdr range it seems cavalry are the hard counter to legionary and finally we look at a story of redemption in the shock infantry guide we used the menavalian against legionary and got stomped every time we now pit the same cavalry against them to see how they hold up starting with hold ground we see some disappointing results although there is a bit more red mixed in with each charge it seems holding ground isn't an option against cavalry with any melee unit however once we give the infantry a charge command all hell breaks loose not only do the cavalry not have enough room to cycle charge effectively but each pass allows the monavolen to catch up and pull more riders from their steed the cavalry only managed 208 kills before breaking and losing everything finally we find a use for the manavalian okay here we go we are hoping for some redemption for the skein formation the first pass is a positive trade then things turn ugly it seems the skein formation take a bit longer to turn around and our cavs are sitting ducks only 170 kills this time please stop using formation with cavalry alright it's time to pull out the tricks we try the two-line cavalry charge to see how they do the first line trades evenly and the second line trades poorly it just seems to go downhill from there though the monavole are very fast for foot infantry and can easily chase down cavalry they get stuck or slow down on other cavalry now we are down to 158 kills it's getting worse it seems the best chance we have is to manually control the charge distance our cavalry get cut down easily when they make a short turn after each charge so instead we instruct them further out each time even with controlling the charges we are still losing more than we are taking out it's not an easy battle finally we get a great connection and take out a sizeable chunk this continues for several minutes and ultimately ends in a victory at 2.45 kdr the biggest takeaway here is that cavalry must keep moving in order to be effective so try your best to keep them from getting stuck inside enemy formations manually controlling them can help or avoid sending them if you're not sure if you're trying to deal with cavalry charges then keep your shock troops towards the rear of your infantry formation and issue the charge command so they can catch the enemy cavalry when they get stuck or slow down if you found any of this info useful please hit the like button as it really would help me out a ton up next we will be looking at archers and javelin cavalry thank you for your time and i'll see you on the next one [Music]

Channel: Strat Gaming Guides

Views: 158,065

Keywords: Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord, Strat Gaming, Battlefield Tactics, Line Formation, Shield Wall, Square, Circle, Skein, Column, Loose, Charge, Advance, Hold Ground, Stop, Move

Id: xFS5Xqrl4gg

Length: 20min 3sec (1203 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 09 2022