Your class,favorite weapon and playstyle

[Spartanizer]

   As the title states,post your way of playing Blood and Steel here.
   I play a peasant revolutionary on mommy difficulty,my usual army composition in the early game is me,me,and i think i forgot something...ah yes,ME.I love riding fast horses and soloing bandit armies with a two handed sword.(although the 140 armies with angry shooting bandits can result in a fail and a ragequit)My favorite weapon is any weapon that is two handed(I like the Holy Sword in particular).I also like getting headshotted by a pile of angry looters  Apart from that i use cannon weapons because getting up a hill and bombarding with the nest of bees or the handcannon is entertaining and gets rid of stress. 
    I haven't yet fought any lords because I just started raising my army(currently have 150 people,and i edited the xp values so that they are back to native,yes,i like fighting a lot and i found that i was leveling too fast).I am usually the scout,the bait and the killing machine of my army,i enjoy rushing the enemy lines,slaughtering them mercilessly and getting out alive with the song of trolololo in the background. 

  I will be posting stories of my adventures in the near future,probably after the new build gets released.

[Epicrules]

Typically... Merc archer, mommy, "Infantry of the Line" style army, with VERY little emphasis on cavalry, and most of my army consisting of mercenary ranged troops such as Grenadiers and cannoneers. Works pretty well.

[Hallegra]

I prefer rolling around with the barbarian on mommy and stacking as many sarranid snipers and other ranged elites as possible with just a few infantry to cover them. I'm never sure about what kind of weapon to use, but 2handed swords always seem the most effective. I love the shield bash though.

[Steffenximus]

I prefer rolling around with the barbarian on mommy and stacking as many sarranid snipers and other ranged elites as possible with just a few infantry to cover them. I'm never sure about what kind of weapon to use, but 2handed swords always seem the most effective. I love the shield bash though.

Use the 2-H axes, those who have around 150c dmg, 120 speed and 90 range. Here's a footage of them in action - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2psqUHxWMcY - it gets better towards the half

[Spartanizer]

 Nice slaughter,I liked that  charge.120 speed is a really high value for an axe,too bad they are shorter,which makes 2h swords safer to use.Heh,zweihanders have 140 reach,too bad they have a 70 speed rating  .A pretty fair trade though.

[Steffenximus]

Nice slaughter,I liked that  charge.120 speed is a really high value for an axe,too bad they are shorter,which makes 2h swords safer to use.Heh,zweihanders have 140 reach,too bad they have a 70 speed rating  .A pretty fair trade though.

I don't have a mounted combat video with that axe, but I can tell you it's deadly and has enough range to easily kill both infantry and cavalry.

[elkillo]

i go heavy armored sergeant , bastard sword and shield with mostly a infantry army with one line of melee with another line of halbadiers behind em with, a last line of archers and cannoneers. works MOST of the time

[Spartanizer]

  What's awesome is that you can be a jack of all trades with a bastard sword,a strong shield,a bag of throwing weapons and a polearm.
  Something weird which i encountered during my adventures:
 

(click to show/hide)

[Steffenximus]

  What's awesome is that you can be a jack of all trades with a bastard sword,a strong shield,a bag of throwing weapons and a polearm.

Bastard swords are fine against lightly armored troops. But remember, the shown weapon values are for 2-H. 1-H mode is much weaker. And as 2-H, it fails compared to regular 2-H swords.

I personally like swords more, but in this game axes are much more efficient. Once you get used to them you'll like them
As for 1-H, I still say the best weap is MSP.

[Spartanizer]

  Just bought this Great Darksword:170c,95 speed rating and 139 reach.Most satisfying so far,highest damage output and the reach makes it great for killing all kinds of foes efficiently.If only there was a better armor in terms of protection than the Dark Milanese one...
  I only used the bastard sword in the beginning,its stats are mediocre indeed.The 35% speed and damage penalty for 2H on horseback is still here,right?

[Steffenximus]

  Just bought this Great Darksword:170c,95 speed rating and 139 reach.Most satisfying so far,highest damage output and the reach makes it great for killing all kinds of foes efficiently.If only there was a better armor in terms of protection than the Dark Milanese one...
  I only used the bastard sword in the beginning,its stats are mediocre indeed.The 35% speed and damage penalty for 2H on horseback is still here,right?

I don't see why you're not satisfied with armor. I have Templar Mail (155) plus everything else best and I rarely receive any damage. Invest in Toughness(personal skill) and Defensive Tactics (party skill), both reduce the damage you receive. Also high Dodge will allow you to evade most enemy hits.

I'm not sure what penalty is for Bastard Swords but it is there, you can certainly feel it. Continue using 2-H, also buy a 1-H weap. When you see the enemy has lots of ranged units just leave the 2-H in inventory and take the 1-H + shield with you in battle. Or take both if you don't use ranged weapon.

[xenoargh]

Bear in mind, Steff, that non-barbs can rarely get higher than 6-7 in Toughness.   It's hard to afford that and still have enough points left for INT / CHR.

That and IIRC Spartanizer turned the fast leveling off, so he's grinding along with really low skills.

With low Toughness / Defensive Tactics / Dodge, 180 armor is OK but really won't stop a lot of things; high Pierce attacks will still go through it with a lot of damage per strike, and occasionally someone will crit with a 2H and that's all she wrote. 

However, it's much more important in most cases to get points into Heroism, because damage output for your armies is such a big deal in later play.  There's no point in fighting the Death Knights if you don't have at least 5-6 Heroism, preferably 10+; your troops simply won't do enough 1-hit kills.  That's getting even harder in the next version, given that I've revamped how Cannons work so that they're finally realistic.

It's not until you hit high levels of all three that you get to near invulnerability, basically; it was structured that way to keep non-barbs realistic and worried about suddenly just getting killed so that they don't just Rambo a lot.  It's the big perk of playing a Barbarian, in the long run; you can go Rambo and have an army that can dish out damage like nobody else can.

[Spartanizer]

  Actually i have 10 in Toughness,i maxed out strength as soon as possible,currently lvl 37,aiming to max agi for dodge,looting and riding.I also have 4 points in Defensive Tactics and 3 in Heroism,I can't complain about taking much damage,and I'm generally good at avoiding getting hit.The problem is...companions,who are generally fragile.I can survive a couched lance by jumping with my horse,they can't...and once they are low on hp they dont offer those important perks like pathfinding and scouting,or even more,party healing.Sure,you can protect them,but they are still vulnerable(heh,Marnid was getting knocked uncounscious by stones when i first got him,hilarious).And if I die,autoresolve is painful and kills them.I'm not saying that this shouldn't happen,but can be a win or lose situation late-game when sieging castles.
  I don't use shields,I dodge the missiles on foot while charging with my 2H.I sometimes fail,but its very rewarding when I reach their ranks  (i have around 40 profficiencies and a bit more in one-handed,and thats mainly because of the tournaments--I don't use the bonus points that are offered when leveling up).However,I have almost 360 in 2H(I have weapon master 3,and I'm not gonna invest any further in it,the only reason why I did put some points in it was for the early quick profficiency gain,and it's a pretty useless skill,since I will be fighting A LOT).

[xenoargh]

Companions are just as dumb as everybody else is, but being Heroes, they get the same benefits of high Toughness / Dodge that you do.  In the end, the party's score on Defensive Tactics and Heroism matters a lot, though; if you can't get your own INT/CHR to 30, strongly consider doing so for a Companion.

Maxed-out with Toughness / Dodge 10 and Defensive Tactics 10+, you'll find that Companions survive everything except for freak events; they become, in effect, an army-within-an-army. 

It just takes a while, and you need to send them out to get themselves smashed up a lot, preferably vs. opponents they can kill enough of to level up rapidly without dying a lot.  I like to send them solo against Mountain Bandits as soon as they can ride anything with armor; in the current build, sending them against The Undead won't work very well, they've gotten tougher to attack that way.

[Spartanizer]

  By the time I'll have a reasonable agility,leveling will become really difficult.Borcha already has 22 INT,and Firentis has around 18 CHA.I rely on them for the protection,map speed and persuasion.
  By the way,AGI now gives 0.5% attack speed/point,not movement speed,right?I read somewhere that the tooltip was broken in Warband and that it got changed to give movement speed.