Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

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Teliyx

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Teliyx

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About this mod

Vlandian-themed custom Troop Tree for MyLittleWarband,
balanced around being tankier but with economic downsides

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The Jaculan Hammer & Anvil
Vlandia-themed Trooptree for MyLittleWarband

For my taste, the Vlandian Faction Troops fall short of what they were intended to be.
It is balanced, but not fun.
So, after being frustrated about this for the 6th time, I finally used MyLittleWarband for something usefull (instead of designing doomsday Warriors I never use more than once).

Changes


This Trooptree very much so resembles the native Vlandian one, but generally your Troops form Tier 3 on upward are more durable than their native Counterparts. Also, all Tier 5 & 6 units get fancy armor. Shoutout to MaGiC48x for his wonderful Swadian Armoury !

  • The Crossbowmen from Tier 3 on upwards have a 50 % Chance to have traded their Sword and Shield for a Twohanded Axe and an extra Stack of Bolts.
  • The Infantry remains basically unchanged up to Tier 3, but branches on Tier 4 into Landsknecht and Shieldbearer.
    • Shieldbearer is your basic Anvil Unit, better armor, better shield, 50% chance on some Francescas. In theme with the native Vlandia Troop I gave them some spears, but only T3, and they dont improve on upgrade. These guys can withstand pretty much everything but their offensive power is limited.
    • Landsknecht is your offensive Infantry, Voulges and Pikes are their thing. also, 50 % chance on Francescas. Not as Tanky, but have more athletics and look like you would expect the townguard of a D&D game to look like.
  • Your Knights have recieved the biggest change. Here is where I balanced the Troops for the economy of Vlandia.
    • First, your Tier 2 comes with a sumpter horse. You stil get dudes with horses, but the upgrade to Tier 3 isnt free anymore.
    • Second, better armor for the Knights themselves. In difference to native, you can hurl these guys into the ranked up enemy Tier 3 Troops and have more than a 50 % Chance of them getting out alive. Mainly this manifests as more leg armor and better shoulder pieces.
    • And last, your Tier 6 Bannerknights are now the absolute best heavy Cavalry in the game. I upgraded their lances and their horses. Your Knight finally acts like one and starts to ride a noble mount. Sadly, he wants you to pay for it.
  • Vanguards have been removed. With tankier Noble Cavalry, you dont really need them anymore.

So in conclusion, your Hammer is now the best in the game, they punch as hard and as fast as Tier 6 Khuzait, while tanking as hard as the Imperials.
The Anvil finally works the part and can tank a Khuzeit Charge head on. Your Infantry doubles down on its specialisations, both between ranged and melee, but also within the melee Tree itself.
Ranged have 50 % more ammunition and get their tankiness out of their armor instead of their shields, so they are a bit tankier to ranged fire. You stil need to keep enemys away from your crossbowmen. They arent super soldiers.

The realm remains as defensive as before, with lots of efficient low level troops available. But your offensive power now dosnt lay in waves uppon waves of chaff, but in the tactical application of your hammer, which is stronger but also costs more.
You will not be abel to field a doomstack of these guys unless you own 3 citys.
Expect to not be able to steamroll early on. To make these Guys work on the offenisve you need a lot of specialized companions. A Surgeon with the Veterinarian Perk is very much so needed, as well as a few good captains. Investing into riding for the Breeder Perk is also a good idea. Good governors if you can help it at all to afford all those noble mounts.

Requirements:


Addendum: Noble mounts appear to not be needed to upgrade to final Tier. I seem to remember in a previous version that it worked as intended, but for now enjoy your Knights without having to pay for the mounts...
I might do a slight refurbishment in the near future, depending on my time to test for balance.


Read me rant on about why basic Vlandia Tree is stupid
My reason for these Changes

The following Description may or may not contain several doses of sarcasm. Reader discretion is advised.

As far as I understand it, Vlandians are supposed to be the End-all-Be-all of Hammer & Anvil.
Your Anvil isnt as hard as you'd expect it to be, and your Hammer falls well short of the Imperial Cataphracts, because they have better Mounts, better Armor and a better Statspread. The Cavalry in particular... the part that is readily available does not pack a punch, and those that do are few.
The Problem ist similar to russias military in ukraine; they have a large and modern Military. But the large part aint modern and the modern part aint large.

To compensate for this, you dont get Skirmishers, and your Infantry does not get throwing weapons, despite having the space (and skillpoints) for
it! Its similar to sending an armoured Spearhead into battle without fuel supply or infantry support! (ok, stop with hacking on russian military, this is about bannerlord and not political after all)
Wonderfull...

Bad trade on paper but in reality you actually do get something, and that is one hell of an economy. Vlandian Troops get one hell of a Bang-for-your-Buck on early Levels, to the point that if your short on cash, staying at T3 Crossbowmen is viable because they will perform roughly as good as Sharpshooters most of the time.
Recruits replenish much faster than elsewhere in my experience, because the villages are just safer than in other places of the map.

This menas that despite being supposed to be the very Epitome of Hammer & Anvil, you get to fight much like everyone else but without skirmishers and often more losses than you would expect.
You compensate with high availability for your Recruits and an economy to support it.

But I wanted the full Hammer & Anvil Experience, and I really wanted my KNIGHTS to look like, well, Knights...
Also, the area around Jaculan has a lot of trees. You would expect that about half of the blokes you recruit have experience in cutting down trees or plowing a field. At least some of them will be happy to stay with their 2 handed blunt weapon, they are used to it.
Surprise, the first town I conquered this playthrough was Jaculan, and while designing this Trooptree I went a bit into roleplaying mode.

When playing on 600 Battle size, I often found myself in ammo shortage for my crossbowmen after the second wave of enemy reinforcements. When accounting for accuracy and Shields, your average Veteran Crossbowmen has enough ammo to kill roughly 2 enemy Tier 4 guys.
Even with a company of Bannerknights and Voulgiers/Sargeants, you rely on the enemy to come to you because your infantry sucks when it has to advance into enemy missiles, and your Cav isnt tanky enough or available in large enough numbers to punch a hole into a battle line in an economic fashion.
Its not that it cant do it, its just that what you have left afterwards is more suited to be turned into burger meat than go for a second charge.

  • When attacked by infantry, the crossbowmen do fine, but that really shouldnt happen all that often. Most archers have enough ammo for 3 enemys, and while they empty their quivers faster, they also usually have the option to collect the arrows your enemys have shot at you to fill up a bit. Vlandians dont get that, unless they are facing Imperials. Even then, due to the higher accuracy of crossbows most of those bolts are stuck in shields or the flesh of your comrades-in-arms. I wanted some form of sustainment in firepower.

  • Infantry is a strange bunch.
    • The Voulgiers are perfect to kill of Infantry if the battle ever becomesa scramble, but you never want it to come to that.

    • Pikemen are next to useless, because while they can turn a charging horse into kebab, if you brace them for it, they get killed of by archers. They are supposed to protect you from skirmishers, but they have no protection from missiles...
    • The Swordmen/ Sergeants are probably the best of the bunch, reasonably tanky, spears and melee grindiness...But sadly, they are a Jack-of-all-Trades, and we all know that makes them Masters of Nothing.
      Specialisation on a battlefield role is badly needed, and some added survivability to make up for the lack of your own skirmishers wouldnt hurt either.
  • The light cavalry is a joke. Dont get me wrong, Vanguards are excellent guys. The problem is, that about 60 % of your light cavalry get turned into so much grinded meat before they get a kill, only the smallest percentage of them ever gets to be a vanguard. Spending your expensive and/or rare War Mounts on a Gallant is much better than these guys in the early game, and lategame you get enough Knights to make do without Vanguards.
    Overall, a useless branch in the Troop Tree.

  • Finally, the Knights. I have mixed feelings about them. On the one hand, you dont need a normal mount, which bolsters the already considerable economy of the Vlandians further. But their progression is hardly a good noble tree. Its better than the Light cavalry of Vlandia, sure.
    But for a heavy cavalry these guys neither pack enough punch nor do they bring enough raw tankiness to the playing field to be taken serious.You dont get usefull Skirmishers, so you need knights to deal with enemy light cavalry. They usually get the job done, but they take a LONG time to do so. And while they do it, you dont have them available to punch into the rear of the enemy archers. They need more punch, more armor and preferably a bit more speed as well to get something out of their punch in a timely manner.

You can usually squeeze out a win, but you lose more men than you should, making your refurbishment of troops take longer than for other cultures. You get more recruits per village, but you also need to visit more villages. Your cheap guys are damn good in terms of cost efficientcy, but to be able to push on after one or two fights against 600-ish armys you need the extra bit of power those higher tier units bring to the table.

If you like roleplaying from a themed perspective, Vlandia is not the right faction due to its playstyle.

So after making my guys a bit harder to kill, and generally more suited for the role they are intended to fulfill, i had to balance them out. Luckily, here we can use the same thing that native uses. Economy. If they suddenly punch harder and live longer, you dont have to spend your money on new recruits anymore.
To make it so that you stil have to spend that money, I made the most vital piece of your troops more expensive. And thus, the noble knights of the Jaculan Hammer & Anvil Warband were established.