Building the Best Army in Mount and Blade Warband: Infantry and Cavalry

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One of the best creations of modern gaming are the platforms, like Steam and GOG, which allow gamers to enjoy any number of older games (or ancient games), as long as they can handle the graphics.

And one of the great things about video games is they lend themselves to analysis. Not just the stories, but statistical examination.

Mount and Blade: Warband is both an older game and one that needs analysis.  It is an action, strategy, role-playing game from 2010. The player controls an adventurer in the land of Calradia, a fictional medieval setting. The land is rent by perpetual war between six factions. Since it is an RPG the character has four attributes, twenty-four skills, and six weapon proficiencies The player can hire soldiers and move around a massive map of Calradia in real time. There are towns, castles, and cities to visit. There are villagers, caravans, and armies moving from town to town and city to city. The game has no required goals, no larger story-line. The player is free to do whatever they want, (they could become a bandit, fighting for no purpose) but there are two satisfactory options: join one of the factions to help its lord become ruler of Calradia, or become king oneself.

To conquer land the player must use their skills and soldiers to win battles against enemy armies. The battles are the action element. As the leader of the army, the player can order his archers, infantry, and cavalry from the hilltop nearby (if the player is a frail commander), or in the midst of battle (if the player is a valiant knight). The battles are real time, with up to seventy-five soldiers per side at a time. Reinforcements arrive as soldiers die if either side has reserves.

While the logistics of raising, training, and feeding an army are important, the composition of the soldiers for battle is crucial. Each of the six factions has different soldiers, and their top tier archer, cavalry, and infantry are remarkably various in quality (though some factions don't have a top tier level of all three types).

The question is then, which units should the player hire and which should they avoid. For instance, if they were unfortunate enough to start in the Sarranid Sultanate, and tried to form an army mostly of infantry they would be amazingly disappointed.

How could one know which units to use? After playing many battles, the player might have a reasonable idea about which units are the most effective. Or they could look at the attribute, skill, and weapon proficiency for all the units. The numbers would help, but they wouldn't necessarily illustrate how the unit would preform on the battlefield.

But there is a third way. The game includes a custom battle mode, where the player can assign two teams to fight against each other, and allocate the percentage of archers, infantry, and cavalry in each army.

I played a battle of 100% infantry vs 100% infantry for each possible match-up. Then I did the same for archers, and then cavalry. What follows will be the results of each battle and a short analysis of why some soldiers were better than others.

First, the infantry. Each battle had one hundred vs one hundred infantry. In each battle I had a minor effect, perhaps killing two to five soldiers. Below are the results.


Note (Reading the Graphs):
In the graphs below the colors are used to say whether the army I led won: green is victory for me and red is a loss. The numbers divided by a slash are the soldiers killed. The left hand is the number my team killed and the right hand number is the number of my men killed.

Infantry 100v100
Against:



Clayton leading:

Vaegirs Khergit Nords Rhodoks Sarranid Swadia
Vaegirs X 65/100 20/100 17/100 82/100
100/74
Khergit
100/31
X
 42/100 62/100 100/19 100/23
Nords 100/15 100/24
X
 100/44 100/14 100/10
Rhodoks 100/19 100/29 100/72
X
 100/13 100/11
Sarranid
100/26
 69/100 45/100 33/100 X
100/18
Swadia 80/100 46/100 15/100 16/100
100/73
X

The infantry for some faction are terrible: Vaegirs and Swadia both lost four battles of five, and the Sarranids lost three. Oddly, under my command the Rhodoks defeated the Nords, and then the Nords vanquished the Rhodoks. Both were so close that I must have had the deciding effect.

Though both the Nords and Rhodoks were undefeated, the Nords were superior, taking less casualties in each battle. Their Nord Huscarl were deadly, because of powerful javelins they threw before the melee began, tough armor, plenty of health, and fierce axes. The Rhodok Sergeants
had superior heavy board shields and long pikes. The three worst teams; Vaegir, Swadia, and Sarranid all suffered from their units having fewer points in the Iron Flesh skill. Iron Flesh reduces the damage a unit takes (it is sort of like bonus armor). In addition these three were wearing inferior chain armor.

Cavalry 50 v 50
Against:



Clayton leading:

Vaegirs Khergit Nords Rhodoks Sarranid Swadia
Vaegirs X 20/50
50/2
 50/3 50/35
11/50
Khergit
50/20
X
 50/2 50/0 50/40
48/50
Nords 11/50 1/50
X
 51/30 11/50 5/50
Rhodoks 1/50 6/50 51/7
X
 0/50 5/52
Sarranid
15/50
 15/50 50/7 50/1 X
32/50
Swadia 50/22 50/42 50/0 50/2
50/30
X

In a complete reversal of the infantry, the Nord and Rhodok cavalry were terrible. Actually, in the campaign they don't even have cavalry, but instead of mounting the best units on horses, the custom map gave them some scout cavalry. Both teams wore leather armor and wielded inferior spears, not proper lances. I felt completely safe charging unsupported into their midst, watching their attacks harmlessly bounce off plate armor.

The best team was the Kingdom of Swadia which routed the competition, going five for five. Their main advantage was the Swadian Knights, the most well armored mounts and soldiers. The Khergit Khanate was nearly as effective as Swadia, only losing to the Swadians by two soldiers when I commanded them, and by eight when I commanded the Swadians. 

Next week there will be there a further analysis of the archers and some mixed unit combat.

Mount and Blade Best Army Series

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