Bannerlord All-Out War Campaign, Part 6 The War of Attrition
Table of contents
- Turning the tide in battle isn't just about numbers—it's about strategy and timing.
- When horse archers can't move, they become dead archers.
- When the enemy is spread out, seize the moment and strike hard!
- In the heat of battle, strategy and grit save the day.
- Turning the tide with strategy and grit, our capital thrives amidst relentless battles!
Turning the tide in battle isn't just about numbers—it's about strategy and timing.
Welcome back, friends, to another episode of Tactical Enlightenment. We are on day three of this never-ending battle. This is day three of real-life attempts to rescue our main capital in our campaign of Epic Croia. Our YouTube channel is dedicated to helping you get better at Banner Al through the use of advanced tactics and fuel command.
Currently, we are facing down 2400 or so Kate that are sieging our castle in EP Croia. It has been a long road to get to this battle, but it looks like I finally have a chance to defend our capital. Leading up to this, we have had around 10 battles, and at one point, we were captured and had to undergo a rebuilding process. We are likely to lose Varago Castle, but if we can defend our capital and march through the endless armies of the enemy, I will consider that a huge win.
Our army crew is solid, but many of my companion armies are extremely injured—16 here, 5 there, and 32 on another. Despite these injuries, we don't have the luxury of time. We will wait a bit longer for good daylight for this battle, but we should be outnumbered like 3 to 1, making this battle very difficult. Interestingly, the militia is part of the battle, which I haven't seen before. They are brave enough to sally out and help us, so we are not outnumbered as badly as I thought. Still, militia against Kate is not a good recipe.
We need to assign captains to some of the divisions, as many have been knocked unconscious and seem to forget their division. We will stick the rest of these guys in the eighth core and won't waste too much of your time here. I could do a bridge defense against Kazet, but they have so many horse archers and total archers. I have an idea: let's try to trap the Kazet. We will position well back of the bridge so that they have to cross it to get to us. Once they cross, we can spring the trap.
We will position infantry and archer divisions in front of both archer visions in a shield wall to absorb the initial onslaught. Then, we will slide the second, third, and seventh cavalry divisions behind the enemy, attacking with the second cavalry division and blockading the bridge with the third. This should prevent their retreat and allow us to bring the full force of our units to bear, including the infantry boring in on their horse archers, hopefully slaughtering all their forces.
One of their scouts is ahead of the rest of their troops, and we will take her out. Here come their horse archers. We need to bait these guys into attacking rather than shooting arrows across the bridge. Our troops are positioned far back so that if they want to shoot at us, they have to cross the bridge. If they do, they will fall into our trap.
We will edge our troops forward as they come onto the bridge. This is going to work. We will have the second and seventh cavalry divisions follow me, and the third division will physically cross the bridge.
When horse archers can't move, they become dead archers.
Back, that was strange artificial imbecility, as I like to call it. All right, so here come their horse archers. I need to bait these guys, right? I want these guys to attack; I don't want them shooting arrows across the bridge. That's why our troops are positioned so far back. If they want to shoot at us, they're going to have to cross this bridge. If they do, they've fallen for our trap here.
All right, so we're going to edge these guys forward. They're on the bridge now; they're coming. All right, this is going to work. So, second, third, C, follow me. We'll have the seventh as well; that's the horse archer division. I'm going to attack with the second and seventh. I'll probably attack some too, and then we're going to physically send the third across. They're pretty much all across. I'm going to position the third on the other side of the bridge, and then what I'll be able to do is have them form a square and come to me as soon as the enemy is trying to retreat. Here, as soon as they've had enough, we open fire. Here the arrows are rocketing through. They'll probably get a few kills; they got a couple, three kills. But when they try to retreat, these guys are going to have a very nasty surprise for them. They're going to find that their emergency exit door here is closed.
All right, look at these guys; they're bottled up now. In comes our second cavalry. Oops, I'm getting slashed myself, but here comes our infantry too. Our archers are reigning death on these guys now. The screen is full of green because horse archers that can't move are called dead archers. These guys are [expletive]. They're trying to fight back now; they're getting hit with [expletive] javelins and throwing weapons. The infantry launches into battle; that's [expletive] beautiful. And 170-180 horse archers become 20; they get butchered.
All right, now we're going to set up our archers here on the wings. I'm not sure if the enemy is going to fight a standard bridge battle or not, but of course, now we have the bridge bottled up. Looks like our infantry is putting down the last of their horse archers. We might be able to drive around behind the enemy. I've got the second C following me here. The enemy is sort of positioning over there. If I can drive troops around behind them here while they're held up at the bridge, we might be able to pound their archers and give them a little hammer-and-anvil action here with our cavalry division. I don't do this very often, but I'm feeling especially frisky in this battle. This battle has been a long time coming. I've been kind of ruminating about how to destroy the Khuzait here. Obviously, we're outnumbered and outgunned, fighting with militia, but we're going to use our brains here and butcher the enemy. We're getting great death spam; that's probably because we killed a lot of their archers, right? A lot of their horse archers. And now their cavalry is probably jammed up on the bridge. Without horse archers, obviously, Khuzait is a much weaker kingdom.
All right, so here we go. We're going to pin them down with infantry at the front. They've got a big line of archers at the back. If I can get these guys to rout—if I can get them to reform, not rout—they're not going to rout yet, but if I can get these guys to reform, I think we can slam them with this C division and cause panic within their ranks. Here comes my cavalry line. It's only like 20 guys, but it's still going to be right up their ass and probably unexpected by the enemy. C launches in behind them. Now we're going to drag these guys around. I'm basically going to prevent their infantry from getting to our cavalry, and we're just going to circle around and try to trample their archers. We're using the horse archers' tactics against the Khuzait here. Look at them; they're starting to scatter. They're being pounded by archers, and we're going to suffer some losses here. Of course, our cavalry is intermingled with their infantry. They still have some horse archers. Obviously, they've got a big troop from over here. In fact, let's attack these guys next. I think the enemy is close to reforming. Of course, they're going to get reinforcements close to this side, but I think we'll be able to set up a nice defensive mark over here with archers, with the infantry taking a lot of arrows to the face. They must still have cons guards here. I see K guards, in fact. Fortunately, my polearm is a verified K guard killing machine. Okay, so their infantry and archer lines have broken up here. We're going to steamroll right through these guys before they can reform.
When the enemy is spread out, seize the moment and strike hard!
The enemy forces are beginning to scatter as they are being pounded by archers. We are going to suffer some losses here, as our cavalry is intermingled with their infantry. They still have some horse archers, and there's a big TR from over here. In fact, let's attack these guys next. The enemy is close to reforming, and they are going to get reinforcements close to this side. However, I think we'll be able to set up a nice defensive mark over here with archers and infantry, despite taking a lot of arrows to the face. They must still have cons guards here; I see K guards, in fact. Fortunately, my polearm is a verified K guard killing machine.
Their infantry and archer lines have broken up here, and we are going to steamroll right through these guys before they can reform. Our infantry is charging through their infantry, and I've got my cin e eighth core here charging through their reforming infantry. If we can kill half of these guys, they won't even be able to join their other forces over here, giving us yet another advantage in numbers or at least equal numbers. They still have a huge amount of horse archers, which is always the case. Even though we trapped and destroyed most of their first horse archers, probably half of a typical cazade army is horse archers. These guys are all dark hands, so we still have our work cut out for us in this battle.
Let's get our infantry and archers moved up here. It's clear at this stage that we're going to have some room to operate. Stick the fifth archers here on the right, trying to spread them out with the skirmishers in front of them. On the side here, we will have our crossbow division. Their units are kind of spread out; they've got some units trying to position towards us and a unit of infantry towards the back of their force. Anytime the enemy is spread out, take advantage of it. My javelin needs some work; I'm getting a little rusty.
I've still got a lot of elite archers and I'm still killing tier five archers. When you can't throw javelins well, stick to your polearm. These horse archers are doing a number on us over here. I almost always try to prioritize their horse archers. Even if you can just take them off their horses, these guys become much easier to kill.
It looks like I positioned my archers wrong here. I wanted the fourth on this left flank. I think it's actually better that I waited because we wanted to thin out these horse archers first before making this movement. Once we do that, we'll have flanking archers on the enemy and reduce their horse archers considerably. We'll then be able to drive in on that main enemy force. They have almost 450 guys there. One of my companions was just killed, and I am determined to avenge them.
Their troops are really spread out, with infantry sort of quasi-charging and their archers in engage or advance mode. You can see them moving up, really spread out. I'm trying to get good angles for our archers here. Raise your shields. The sixth line is pouring in strong; this is our best infantry line. They have the strength and are making good ground on the archers here. Once they close the distance on these archers, it's going to be curtains. A bunch of skirmishers and high-level shock troops are just going to rip right through these archers.
The enemy is already getting another wave, which is a sign that we need to attack even more aggressively. When the enemy gets a wave of reinforcements, they are very likely to reform with their troops. We need to cut them off before they can do that. Anticipate where the puck is going to be; we're going to skate to it and score a goal here. The archers are finally starting to rake these guys with broadsides. It took a while to get the positioning right, but now they're there. We're getting reinforcements too, and we're going to move up aggressively. I'm going to try to jam the enemy up at the bridge. The archers are already positioned well, and that's the fourth I've moved up.
In the heat of battle, strategy and grit save the day.
The archers are just going to rip right through these enemies. The enemy is already getting another wave, which is a sign that we need to attack even more aggressively. When the enemy gets a wave of reinforcements, they are very likely at some point to reform with their troops. We need to cut them off before they can do that. We must anticipate where the puck is going to be, skate to it, and score a goal here.
The archers are now finally starting to rake these guys with broad sides. It took a while for me to get the positioning right, but now they're there. We are getting reinforcements here too, and we are going to move up aggressively. I am going to try to jam the enemy up at the bridge. These archers are already positioned well. I have the C division still following me, consisting of two guys, and eight guys in the second division that I can use as a wall. We have infantry reinforcements coming, and we will start getting militia in this battle if we suffer too many losses. The battle could turn ugly in a hurry if we start sending in militia, just weak little shields and sad, sad little weapons.
Loose form attack! In fact, I already see scrub troops. Look at these scrubby archers; there are guys in Halloween costumes that look like they are wearing some pathetic sheet from a Walmart costume. This is the stage of the battle we're in. A lot of times in our campaign, we don't have to rely on our tier 2 and tier 3 troops, but in this war of attrition to save our capital, we do. Look at this guy being chased to the death and killed. In this battle, we will win however we have to. If I've got to send in our 15-year-old children to win this battle, that's what we'll do. Obviously, that's not an actual option, but you understand what I mean. Our capital holds all of our top gear, best equipment, huge amounts of food stocks, and horses. We have to save our capital; otherwise, this campaign is over.
We are going to wade in here behind a line of shields and try to bore into this enemy force. I don't have a lot of health yet, but the RTS mod gives me a little bit more courage. The enemy is starting to peel back. I'd run too if some guy was chopping people apart with an axe. There is another line of reinforcements coming to the other side of the bridge. It looks like the enemy is starting to try to reform towards the bridge. We are going to cut that off. I have an archer here, the fourth is here, and I can send infantry in to bottle it up. We are going to cork this bottle and then consume the contents with violence.
They have a bunch of weak horse archers running through here, but that does not concern me. We can jump on a horse and remove the honor of a few of these horse archers. Some of their troops look like they are routing. Either they are repositioning way over to our right flank, or they are routing. We are going to kill as many of these guys as we can. We are basically going to farm these guys. I have all these recruits and low-level archers who need kills to level up. We are going to need experienced warriors, no doubt. There are more armies already forming to come after us. If this is the first episode you are watching on our channel, we are fighting the entire map. It's a self-imposed death match against the whole map. Our kingdom is now small; it was pretty big when I started this challenge, but now we are down to two or three cities and a couple of castles. It's a difficult campaign by choice, effectively a contrived campaign, but we are having a fun time trying to fight back these enemy hordes with nothing but ingenuity and grit.
The bottom line here is our capital is saved. There is a huge militia force here. Unfortunately, we lost some militia in this battle and before this battle, but they will recover quickly. My capital has an enormous amount of prosperity. I have been food stocking it for a long time. Something I have talked about in other episodes is that you can effectively overfeed the population. Besides everybody getting obese, the effect of that is...
Turning the tide with strategy and grit, our capital thrives amidst relentless battles!
We are now down to two or three cities and a couple of castles, making this a difficult campaign by choice. This is effectively a contrived campaign, but we are having a fun time trying to fight back these enemy hordes with nothing but ingenuity and grit. Our Capital is saved, and there's a huge militia force here. Unfortunately, we lost some militia in this battle and before this battle, but they will recover quickly. My Capital has an enormous amount of prosperity as I have been food stocking it for a long time. Something I've talked about in other episodes is that you can overfeed the population. Besides everybody getting obese, the effect of that is the population soars, the prosperity bar soars, and with that, there are more reinforcements coming out.
I don't think these guys are going to amount to anything. Actually, I hope they charge because all of our low-level troops can gain some experience. Please come right at us. Look at all our low-level peasants bringing up their little weak shields. Attack, boys! Ultimately, the prosperity of our capital is far beyond what you would typically see in vanilla Banner Lord, and we have effectively created that manually by dumping food on it. Look at all these low-level archer peasants and get these guys some experience. They can get some fairly low-risk kills here as the enemy charges us with low-level infantry. This is actually kind of optimal for the leveling of these troops. We're probably not going to lose very many, and the enemy is bottled up here for our low-level archers to basically farm some experience.
What we did, of course, is we just saved food. We saved a lot of food, and ultimately, as it became clear that I needed the capital, that I needed a home base to support our army, to put all our best gear, and to use as a safe house against these enemy assaults, we now have this Capital overstocked with food. Prosperity goes way up. Look at all the guys just going crazy. They're loving it. My troops are like, "Yeah, this is easy. We were getting routed until you guys got here." All that food eventually increased the prosperity. Right now, you need a lot of food to feed a highly prosperous city, but we have something like 40 or 50,000 food here. That's accumulated over many years of gameplay. You're not going to have that in the first 5 or 10 years of gameplay, but if you play a long campaign, in my case, the campaign's almost 7 years, just non-stop fighting, you will also be able to build a similar capital city.
Because of that, we have a huge militia there. It generates a massive amount of income. I think at this stage, we're actually making several thousand gold every day just because we have so many profitable cities or castles. We have a small garrison now, right? I think the garrison here is like 100, just because of losses and we've had to steal from it. This is strange. My troops are all cheering, and yet there are still enemy forces coming at us here. Half the guys are over there cheering, putting their hands up in the air like they're doing jumping jacks, and the other guys here are getting attacked by the enemy. We don't need to suffer a lot of losses at the end of this, but this also might be some more good farmed experience for our characters. I'm going to play this out. I think I could probably just hit the tab button or whatever and it would say, "You've won this battle, congrats," but we're going to farm these guys to the max. These insolent peasants trying to take over our Capital are going to get a beat down.
It was messy, and I'll have to go back and look when I edit this. I'll try to tally up how many forces we defeated to finally defend our Capital here. I've never had an experience like that in Bannerlord. It seemed like seven or eight different armies, and that might have been over 10,000 troops that just attacked us in the last week and a half. It's been three days of actual play, but that was an absolutely non-stop assault by the enemy on our Capital. Of course, that's probably going to continue. We're fighting the whole map. If you think about it, we're down to two or three cities and two or three castles. If there are eight enemies, that means you have more than one enemy attacking each castle and each city. They simply don't have enough targets to send their armies to attack, so this is going to continue. It's going to continue to get harder, but that's the way we like it here.
We got some nice loot here, a couple of legendary pieces. At this stage, it doesn't really matter. We've got super elite gear, but we'll take it. We've got a few new characters that we can drop that on, but the struggle continues here. You can see Epicrosia has 666 people there, which is ominous. We're almost certainly going to lose Varg Castle. I can't even begin to head in that direction. The garrison is starved there, which sucks. The one benefit is I might be able to go down there and rescue those troops if they're taken prisoner. I got to ransom a few characters here. They wanted a ton of gold for that character, but we soldier on. This is, again, our death match campaign. You can see it's years in, 1151 into the game. Our people here are starving, and just like all the Roman demagogues and other leaders throughout history, when the people are unhappy, we're going to send them a stimulus check. We're going to give them some olives, some beer, some fish, all this good stuff. We'll have a couple of arenas, execute some of our rivals, and the people will be happy as pigs in mud. Everybody gets to eat. They're no longer starving. Their beneficent leader rescues them from the savage Kaze. We're just going to dump all this on the city and all live happily ever after, or we're going to be besieged to the point where we lose, and the campaign will be over. Either way, we're going to have a lot of fun doing it.
I hope those watching have enjoyed it. It's certainly been enjoyable to play. Vanilla Bannerlord can be kind of easy once you start to snowball the game, but this has been both grueling, difficult, and a lot of fun. It's forced me to create tactics that I came up with from scratch to deal with huge enemy forces or horse archers. It's been a lot of fun. Thanks for joining me on this adventure. There will be more to come, I'm sure, and I will see you next time.