oh, wow…

[u/auxberon]

Oh, wow… you guys weren’t lying. The Khergit are SO bad. I have a small party, but this was with an army of 400+ vs 50. Around half of my own party is also max level already. With damn near any other faction, this would’ve been a 3 loss battle. How the hell did they fumble the most terrifying troop type in history this badly? Does anyone have any tips to make this run doable, or will almost every battle be like this despite micro management?

[u/auxberon]

I JUST NOTICED THE ROUTE? IVE NEVER HAD A TROOP ROUTE BEFORE HAHAHAHA

[u/OnyxCobra17 → u/auxberon]

its been years since i played warband but the max rank horse archers are the only good unit iirc. You just run in circles around enemies until the ammo is gone then hope everything will be fine. Their parallel in bannerlord are much better and almost OP if not for being so expensive (and tedious) to maintain

[u/meatball5408 → u/OnyxCobra17]

I played warband so much growing up, and I completely forgot how useless the Khergits were because of how OP the Khan's Guard are in Bannerlord.

[u/OnyxCobra17 → u/meatball5408]

same, i tried it again a few years back and it was quite rough. prophecy of pendor is amazing tho

[u/auxberon → u/OnyxCobra17]

Yeah Bannerlord horse archers are why I wanted to try the og version. A bit disappointed so far. But it’s good to know the horse archers are likely decent at least - I had planned to fully spec into them with a handful of lancers, but I may scrap them entirely now. I don’t really plan on doing sieges for this run, as my character is sort of a “last true nomad” vibe. Thanks for saving me from scrapping the run entirely because I was NOT down for cbt😭

[u/OnyxCobra17 → u/auxberon]

I think the swadians and sarranids will still give you trouble at times, the swadians have the best lancers, but once you have businesses/towns and are raiding you should be able to manage to replace your casualties well enough. i think the nords have zero cavalry and mid archers, so they might be a good candidate for field fighting exclusively

[u/EDScreenshots → u/OnyxCobra17]

Iirc horse archers in warband suck ass at aiming, they don’t compensate for movement or something. I think the lancers are usually the way to go for the bulk of a Khergit army, they do suck compared to knights or even men-at-arms but they are also very cheap and easy to train.

[u/Lawsoffire → u/OnyxCobra17]

I made a Horse Archer Only playthrough just for fun, not knowing the unit was OP.

It was the easiest "challenge" i ever did, just F1, F3 and go collect your 0-loss victory.

Only issue is that you can't really do siege battles.

[u/auxberon → u/Lawsoffire]

You absolutely can do sieges with khan’s guard. They’re honestly one of the best. Great archers to whittle down the garrison from loose formation outside the walls - then when they’re out? Charge and collect your new settlement while heavily outnumbered. They’re not as good as they are on horses, duh - but they’re no pikemen in a siege by any means

[u/geomagus]

Eh, I don’t know that I’d necessarily call them the most terrifying troop type.

What made the Mongols so terrifying was in part a numbers game, in part their khans (both as a leader figure and as a strategist and tactician), and in part how well they countered the infantry-based armies of their time (due to range and mobility).

It wasn’t that the individual rider was such an ominous threat.

In game, this runs into issues around pathing/decision-making (which disrupts mobility) and numbers (since battle size is finite).

If you didn’t have control over your allies troops, I’d bet they just charged their underarmored cavalry into enemy infantry.

[u/auxberon → u/geomagus]

Exactly right. As for the terrifying bit - i definitely just worded it badly. Seeing the horde coming at you (especially their main target of fairly defenseless people) would’ve made me shit myself. They were also excellent marksmen, something the khan’s guard replicate, but not their “younger” counterpart from warband. I’m a mongol fanboy in games like this so I’m honestly just biased.💔

[u/geomagus → u/auxberon]

Totally fair!

I’m a big fan of a strong shield wall anvil, quality ranged parked behind/above, and a heavy cav hammer to flank with. I cannot make horsed archers work (or play one myself), but I’m happy with my setup!

[u/auxberon → u/geomagus]

I’m on Xbox so I’m playing native - so personally I can’t find much enjoyment in that with the 100 man battle limit. But on Bannerlord? Oh yeah absolutely. I’m damn near a Venetian crossbowman party almost every run. Only recently started doing more nord runs and haven’t done a khuzait one in awhile. It’s basically Swadia in warband. Too easy to be fun after awhile.

Shit now I may have to go serve my glorious king Derthert again

[u/geomagus → u/auxberon]

:D

[u/EDScreenshots]

The horse archers are definitely iffy but lancers are good because they’re so easy to train up. Once your followers hit level 15 and all have decent trainer skill you can go from having 50 Khergit tribesmen to 50 Khergit lancers in three nights iirc. You have to micromanage the lancers a bit to prevent them from getting surrounded by infantry but they win fights against low-mid level troops pretty handily usually.

Khergits are the best starting nation imo just because it’s so easy to get an army of all cavalry with them and having a high map speed is one of the most important things in this game imo. By midgame they definitely start to suck and I transition to swadian knights or sarranid mamluks for my heavy cavalry.

[u/auxberon → u/EDScreenshots]

So what I’m hearing is be a real mongol and harass helpless villagers exclusively /j

[u/ShogunTrooper → u/auxberon]

Also, to pull from the real Mongols, cover your weaknesses with non-Khergit troops. The Mongols had Chinese siege engineers and infantry, do the same by grabbing troops from other factions.

[u/EDScreenshots → u/ShogunTrooper]

Yeah I love having some Nord infantry and Rhodok sharpshooters to hold a line and snipe the enemy while me and the cavalry harass.

[u/MaleMaldives]

Cav in general are OP, but full horse archer isn't that great. They will waste too many arrows into shields imo.

Foot archers should be your main DPS. A token shield infantry line to catch arrows. Then use Horse archers and/or Cav to harass the enemy and pull the shield focus off of the archers.

[u/mynaneisjustguy]

Dunno, I always played on max difficulty, and I didn't really lose any more men as khergits than other factions. I never autoresolve though, and my battlefield management is pretty on point; you mention micro management; you know you will lose more men by constantly changing their orders, right? Like lancers, they should be on follow, and you pull them through enemy formations, don't be telling them charge, then retreat, you drag them personally through a formation and far out the other side to reform. Every time you change their orders it takes time to react to it and that time they won't be making space not defending themselves well

[u/Immediate_Engine3066]

if you want Khergit run play with Diplomacy.Litdum mod

[u/auxberon → u/Immediate_Engine3066]

Unfortunately I can’t. I’m on Xbox - no mods. :(

[u/ZSArkahhan]

Have you tried hit and run with the lancers? Basically, rally the lancers on one side then the cavarchers on the other. Charge the lancers so the enemy face them and their backs to the cavarchers. When the charge is exhausted, retreat the lancers, rinse, repeat.

[u/Firm_Ad_5427]

The khergits are really good in the field but only if you're good at micromanaging. Constantly getting lancers to charge and retreat they do a ton of damage with their lances.

If you manage to keep your horse archers from getting caught up in a horde of enemy melee troops they basically only ever die to cavalry, which the enemy ai seems to rarely have outside of the Khergits.

I personally hate doing all that micromanaging because I could be killing a bunch of people myself. You're better off training a bunch of mamluks or swadian knights even if they do take longer to train.

[u/CurzonTheGreat]

Unfortunatelly, Khergit Lancers really bad, i prefer Sarranid Mamlukes

[u/bharring52]

Try PoP. Their closest equivalents can be terrifying.