Mount And Blade Faction Specialties
I think the best way to show this is by a rating of infantry, cavalry and archers/xbowmen for each faction. (I give numbers 1-5 for each)Vaegir: Inf: 3, Cav: 4, Arc: 5Swadia: Inf: 3, Cav: 5, Arc: 4Rhodok: Inf: 4, Cav: 0, Arc: 5Nords: Inf: 5, Cav: 0, Arc: 3Khergit: Inf: 0, Cav: 4, Arc: 0Sarranid: Inf: 4, Cav: 5, Arc: 4So Vaegir ans Swadia are the two knight factions, where Swadia has focus on the knights, while vaegir has focus on archers. Rhodoks have good infantry and xbowmen. Nords have insane infantry, no cav, ok archers.
Khergit have only cavalry, and it's decent but not excellent. Sarranids are basically great at everything, with cavalry as great, or better than swadian knights, archers almost as good as vaegir, and infantry that is pretty good. If you have the khergits, and you tell them to follow you while you fire arrows at the enemy then they will destroy everything yes. However, if you set up an army of rhodoks on a small hill with xbowmen at the top and shield+spearmen at the foot of the hill, the khergits will be destroyed. It's all about tactics for the units that you have, I figured the khergist weren't that great since they don't have that heavy armor. (especially for a new player which probably will have his/her troops just charge anyway). A bit late to the party but here goes:Nords:Their infantry is superb, their archers a bit underwhelming but it's the complete lack of cavalry that realy hurts nord armies.That being said, Huskarls are by far the best infantry.
Not even a swadian heavy cavalry charge can break a decent Huskarl shield wall. They use axes and throwing weapons so are great at both sieges and open field battles.Bonus: their lands are infested with sea raiders, which can be a real pain in the ass.Swadians:Their infantry and archers are aquedate but nothing to get realy exited about. It's the heavy cavalry that sets the swadians apart from the other factions.
By far the best heavy cavalry (only contested by Saranid mamelukes) but they are high tier and thus take a while to aquire.Their archers use crossbows, the cavalry use a mix of lances, 2hander swords and normal swords. The infantry uses a mix of weapons but nothing realy distinct as far as I can remember. They are usefull, but not the best and usualy I just use them for garrison duties except for the cavalry, which is one of the most powerfull forces you can get in open field battles.Also their lands are filled with the least powerfull bandits.Vaegirs:Their archers are the best you can get, tough many prefer the Rhodok crossbowmen for sieges.
Their infantry and cavalry are not particulary great and generaly I just put them into garrisons. The archers are what you realy want here. Especialy in open field battles.Rhodoks:Rhodoks excell at infantry. They do not have any cavalry but their use of glaives makes them awesome at taking out enemy cavalry.
Their archers excell at siege battles and they are the best crossbowmen you can find in the game.Infantry bring lots of pointy goodies to the battlefield, and are great at dealing with a cavalry charge and in sieges. The archers are great at open field battles but their use of crossbows makes them excell at siege battles.Khergits:The second tier of Khergits are cavalry. That is one step up from fresh recruits. If you want a giant cavalry horde or a quick fix of cavalry troops these are your best bets to quickly gain the greatest amount of cavalry in the shortest time possible.
And a hundred mounted soldiers hurt. Their lancers aren't exactly the best cavalry you can get but the khergits are the only faction with mounted archers.They dominate in open field battles with reasonably flat terrain but they are absolutely terrible at sieges. These guys should be the last kind of troops you bring to a siege.Also mounted bandits, fuck those.Sarranids:The sarranids are somewhat ahead of swadians and vaegirs in infantry, but their arcehrs aren't anything special.
They are better than nord archers but worse than vaegirs. Their heavy cavalry/mamelukes are the only real contestant to Swadian knights. They don't rely on special elite troops that dominate their particular field but rather on their troops being somewhat above average when compared to their counterparts.They aren't the strongest in any field (except maybe mamelukes) but they don't have any particular weaknesses to exploit (such as the no cav for nords and rhodoks). Nords and rhodok have boss foot melee troops and the Rhodoks have the best Crossbowmen. However they don't have calvery and the Nords have bad archers.The Swadians have good calvary but the rest of their troops can be rolled over with ease.The Vaegirs have good calvary (not as good as Swadian) but their main advantage is good archers and spam units.
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However many don't have shields go get cut to pieces by Archers.The Khergits have their Horse archers but have almost no infantry. Also they suck in sieges.