Your favorite moments in Warband

With Bannerlord hopefully just around the corner, i decided to reflect on some of my favorite moments while playing Warband, while even if Bannerlord turns out perfectly (which i trust it will) some of this moments i will never relive, because they happened when i was still fresh and green, and learning things.

One such moment i will never forget is when i ended up in Ichamur, i was still very new back then, didn't really know how to make money, so i tried doing missions for lords, delivering messages and stuff (i know, i know) to raise some funds i desperately needed.

So i end up in Ichamur, with my party less then a dozen strong, all recruits and militias (i may have had one single third tier troop) and all on foot except me.

As you know Ichamur is in Khergit territory, and guess what else is in Khergit territory, Steppe bandits, 20+ strong parties of steppe bandits.

Bigger, stronger and mounted, my small party of recruits did not stand a chance, and there was no way in hell i was going to outrun them.

So anyway, in desperation i went to the nearest training ground, barely managing to avoid the bandits, and started training, must have taken me more then 2 hours but eventually i managed to max out my small party to full strength, i don't even remember where i found money for upgrades but that moment when i finally managed to rout a party of Steppe bandits was my dearest victory in my entire Warband career, after that i had many victories but never since was there such a contrast between my troops before and after, and i also learned quite a bit of fighting myself, enough to swing most battles even with low level (and i no longer go to Khergit lands as low level character).

But anyway that was my most memorable victory, not when i defeated lords or kings or taken castles, that's par for course, but a small, seemingly completely insignificant battle against Steppe bandits in the outskirts of Ichamur, which is why to this day i have special affection towards Ichamur.

I like idea of thread, seems interesting. In Warband I live most glorious moments of my gaming career which I not will relive in Bannerlord

Siege of Highcliffe Castle in POP was against 1500 Ravenstern soldiers make me to be surprised how a castle can resist so much to attackers

Battle against Maltise was greatest defeat which I suffers in game despite having Noldors as allies

I remember how I have defeated Third Legion in Perisno

As soon as I declared independence from the Nords by taking Suno, they requested a truce after a day. ONE DAY. This also happened after a while and the Nords declared war again, only to request a truce 5 days later. What happened to the "bravery" of the Nords? I don't know and this amused me a lot XD.

Even the Sarranids put up a better fight. Having Mamlukes in a castle is troublesome for my army to deal with and knocked out all of my men except me. So I had to deal with like...a dozen of Mamlukes and a few Master Archers. It was tough but in the end, Weyyah Castle falls.

There is also the 163 men vs 600+ fight of the Nords. I survived fighting against 3 consecutive waves before I was forced to retreat. They were on a campaign so I thought "let's just hit them all here and immobilize them"

During my POP playthrough, I chased one of the Empire lords down and he soon encountered Noldor forces. I was at the time trying to improve my relations so I helped them.

Nothing is much more amusing to me than fighting the Noldor first time. I thought with my 200+ men is enough to beat an army of 60+. Boy, I was dead wrong.

A few years ago, I was playing a personal mod and had a massive siege defense. The mod was more geared towards combat (no need to worry about economy after the first 5 days or so) and had massive lord army sizes and a battle size of 390!

--Battle of Kelredan Castle (July 30th, 125--
The Rhodoks and the Vaegirs were duking it out over the carcass of Swadia. I was on the Rhodok side, it was at Kelredan Castle, and I had a massive defense there and I was being zergrushed by Vaegirs and Nords. I had a few hundred elite Rhodok troops with a small complement of Swadian knights (~250 in total) (there were also 2 random nord veteran archers there, dunno what they were doing there) versus ~4500 Vaegirs. I had my elite spears hold at the bottom of the stairs and my elite crossbowmen on top of a nearby mound and slowly tore them apart. The entire battle took 1 hour in real time. I won the battle with only 48 deaths, and all the attackers were slaughtered to the last man. The Rhodoks would later go on to conquer all of Calradia in June 1259, with the final battle taking place at Sharwa Castle. That battle was rather one-sided (~4000 Rhodoks steamrolling ~400 Sarranids)

King Harlaus, King Yaroglek, King Ragnar, Sultan Hakim, and Sanjar Khan were all beheaded in the new capital city of Veluca on July 1259. Long live the Rhodok Empire!

no, i didn't make this up. i still have video footage of the 1 hour battle so i know the exact date of when it took place and where

Woyeyeh said:

A few years ago, I was playing a personal mod and had a massive siege defense. The mod was more geared towards combat (no need to worry about economy after the first 5 days or so) and had massive lord army sizes and a battle size of 390!

--Battle of Kelredan Castle (July 30th, 125--
The Rhodoks and the Vaegirs were duking it out over the carcass of Swadia. I was on the Rhodok side, it was at Kelredan Castle, and I had a massive defense there and I was being zergrushed by Vaegirs and Nords. I had a few hundred elite Rhodok troops with a small complement of Swadian knights (~250 in total) (there were also 2 random nord veteran archers there, dunno what they were doing there) versus ~4500 Vaegirs. I had my elite spears hold at the bottom of the stairs and my elite crossbowmen on top of a nearby mound and slowly tore them apart. The entire battle took 1 hour in real time. I won the battle with only 48 deaths, and all the attackers were slaughtered to the last man. The Rhodoks would later go on to conquer all of Calradia in June 1259, with the final battle taking place at Sharwa Castle. That battle was rather one-sided (~4000 Rhodoks steamrolling ~400 Sarranids)

King Harlaus, King Yaroglek, King Ragnar, Sultan Hakim, and Sanjar Khan were all beheaded in the new capital city of Veluca on July 1259. Long live the Rhodok Empire!

no, i didn't make this up. i still have video footage of the 1 hour battle so i know the exact date of when it took place and where

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You wanna see really big battles? Try SOD Warlords, not only do you have 12 factions on a map, but there are so many fiefs in total every lord is rocking 250-300 man squad easy, and you can also create regiments from your own troops, last time i had about 2200 elite soldiers in my army before i went out to conquer the land, there were battles where my 2200 were facing the enemy that was 7500 strong, in the end i think i had something like 100 000 troops in my own army (though most in cities, 2200 was enough to conquer everything, even if it was tight every now and then) with about as many again held by all the vassals. Bandits alone could form groups numbering 3000 or more, especially steppe bandits and desert bandits.

I will give a try at SOD:W but last time when I start a new game loading time takes a lot

Arnulf Floyd said:

I will give a try at SOD:W but last time when I start a new game loading time takes a lot

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Well, yeah, that's true, initial setup takes a long time, it's best to set everything up and then go do something else while the game loads, but later on it won't take any more time to load then other mods.

Oooh SOD: Warlords. One of my favorite mods and there's too many factions to fight xD. At one point I gave up playing because it's too large. But it's still fun.

It's  dozen of various "first time" experiences for me.
First self conquered fief (first Grunwalder and Almeera for sure, too), first time conquered map as king, first frag in MP (I mean one not of kind "I felt from the ladder on nearly dead guy. And that followed by first win in duel, first round when no one tried to vote-kick me for being noob at IG Battlegrounds and so on  ). Also for sure,  first  succes in training 4 peasants at once& first succesfull "fighting my way out". Plus first win in rhodok tournament.
Lately, first time getting whole Europe in 1257 for myself.

samoja said:

there were battles where my 2200 were facing the enemy that was 7500 strong, in the end i think i had something like 100 000 troops in my own army (though most in cities, 2200 was enough to conquer everything, even if it was tight every now and then) with about as many again held by all the vassals. Bandits alone could form groups numbering 3000 or more, especially steppe bandits and desert bandits.

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That's a lot of troops, I'll definitely check it out.

I also remembered another massive battle that took place a few months ago. It was the Independent Towns mod, the version on steam. All the towns are independent (duchy of praven, republic of yalen, ichamur khanate, etc.) and it comes with a few other mods in it (freelancer, diplomacy, etc.) I don't have video footage of this one, so the details may be inaccurate. Also, I modded this one too, so you might not be able to recreate this awesome battle.

The Duchy of Uxkhal and the Duchy of Praven were at war. I was serving under the Duke of Uxkhal's army and the whole Uxkhal army attacked the powerful lord of Suno (a vassal of praven) who had somewhere around 300 elite soldiers in his retinue (praven's military doctrine was sheer quality) comprising of durable swordsmen, deadly halberdiers, and chillingly effective longbowmen. (no, really, the longbowmen killed around a third of them) The Uxkhal army was a spam army comprising of thousands of militia and peasant archers. Strangely, neither army fielded any significant amount of cavalry despite both sides being Swadian in culture. The most I remember were a few squires here and there, but otherwise, no cavalry.

The final matchup came to around 300 elite Praven soldiers vs. around 2500 peasants and militia. I fell in the first minute and got turned into an arrow pincushion trying to charge. That's always fun.

The battle size was still at 390 (too laggy) so like the battle at Kelredan castle, the longbows shot everyone to death from a nearby hill while the infantry effortlessly crushed the militia. However, unlike the battle at Kelredan castle, the militia slowly chipped away at the infantry numbers since they were in an open field and could envelop them. In the end, after about half an hour, only a few dozen elite longbows remained and they were all out of arrows and had to resort to attacking with their swords. After the last Uxkhal peasant was sliced to death, around 200 Praven soldiers were dead. All 2500 Uxkhal zergrush militia were killed.

I love massive battles like these. They're the most fun part of mount and blade, because I'm pretty bored of roflstomping everyone with a few dozen Swadian knights with no casualties whenever I feel like it. Massive enemy stacks give challenge to the game and makes it feel more epic.

I always will remember siege of Marleons in which I fought against 1500 Baccus Empire soldiers, I killed almost 80 with bow but I get knocked out(in POP unlike native battles not ends when you get knocked out

I fought in battle of Bridge of Bones, fight was short but intense in true GOT style

Seeing a caravan with over 100 men and some prisoners leaving Rivacheg... and thinking " well thats somthing you dont see often".

Seeing some villagers... about 9 or so with 4 black kerghit prisoners.

Mars_Mullo said:

Seeing a caravan with over 100 men and some prisoners leaving Rivacheg... and thinking " well thats somthing you dont see often".

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Easy to make, as I found out recently. Been playing for a long time (years) yet never knew that. Help caravan, don't recruit the enemy's prisoners, if there are any. The caravan will hire them


510. One of my caravans. Runs from no one. Absorbs anything that dares to try their luck, lol.

My favorite moment in my entire mount and blade career was when I was a mercenary for the kingdom of Nords. We tried to take Suno from Swadia, but the Swadian armies chased us out and an enormous fight ensued. Now large battles are always fun, but this battle took it to the next level. Each side had almost 1,000 troops because most of the lords still had their larger parties because I had just started the game. However, the main reason I will never forget this battle is: the weather.

Im pretty sure the cloud level was near maximum or something because when we spawned I couldn't see any trees at all until I practically ran into them, and the same went for the enemy. I had a mail shirt, leather boots, warspear, and nordic shield, and NO HORSE. 

So basically we were blindly running into the fog on foot whilst Swadian Knights materialized right in of us.  I luckily found a group of trees to hide behind and I held my ground against anyone who attacked.

I fought and fought and survived each round and the fight was always evenly matched. The Nords would win each time, but Swadia had numbers, so I knew it was going to be close. But what I didn't expect was the final round of the fight would be 70 vs 70 (or something very close to that). So like each time before, the valiant Nords charged into the fog praying not to be lanced by the approaching knights. Again, the fight was mostly even, we were killing all their ground troops, but their Swadian Knights were demolishing everyone.

The fighting began to slow, and I decided to check the mini-map to see who was left and to my horror it was me and a single ally versus 3 Swadians. I couldn't find my friend, so I tried to head towards the red dots instead, and I found two Swadian skirmishers and I took them out. I went around searching for the last guy, but he was on the other side of the map fighting my ally. Then suddenly I saw this pop up on the screen:

Swadian Knight Killed by Nord Recruit 


I will never forget that Nord Recruit. I never even saw him, but he is still my eternal Warband hero. 

Mine is from multiplayer. It was way back in Persistent World, the server I was playing on didn't have many people online, so I rode out with a banner towards an abandoned castle with the intention to take it. Once I arrived I walked into the castle hall and headed to the floor above where the banner room was. I walked in to see another guy standing there with a banner. We couldn't come to an agreement on who is going to own this unclaimed piece of land, so we unsheathed our swords and started dueling eachother. With just greatswords and rags for clothes the fight was tense as it could end in any moment. Suddenly out of nowhere, around four fully armored Nord guys walk into the room, carrying a banner and with full intent on capturing the castle, their shields and battle axes screamed "It's ours!". We all just stood there for a second looking at eachother, as if in a Wild West scenario. I looked at the guy I was fighting just a moment ago and he looked back at me, in that moment we came to an unspoken agreement. The next second we were upon them, one Nord fell after the other as we managed to strike them all down and win the fight. Now being brought close together by mutual blood splitting, this new ally of mine decided to hand over the castle to me. I can't really remember what happened afterwards, I think the faction grew and we formed a resistance faction against organized clan players. I gave a motivating speech against oppression and we gathered our men and mounted our steeds and rode to battle. Then we all died.

This thread is great. A few of my favorite memories:

Defending a castle nearly single handedly against almost 1,000 enemies because my armor was so high they could deal almost no damage. I stood at the top of the ladder and just swung my two-hander until literally everything around me was covered in red or dead enemies. That battle felt like it took literally forever.

In VC, I had just taken Edinburgh and declared myself king. While I was off besieging Dun Breatann, trying to create a bigger kingdom for myself, the entire Northvegr army marched on Edinburgh with ~12-1500 men. I had thought my ~450 man party pretty badass, but when I saw the army ahead of me I was overcome with fear. However, I couldn't let them take the seat of my power, so I joined battle... Several waves later, less than 50 Northvegr men had escaped, and not a single lord remained free. I immediately sailed to their lands and conquered just about everything before they started escaping, leaving no garrisons, just to distract them while I consolidated power in England. Good times...

And possibly my favorite, the first time I realized that you could actually become part of the nobility. I skipped through Character Creation pretty quickly on my first playthrough, not really looking at the choices because I wanted to try the game. Went through the typical early phase, fighting bandits, becoming a mercenary for Swadia, etc. Eventually, the Swadian lords and I, who at this point had an army more powerful than any of theirs, had just about destroyed both the Nords and Rhodoks when suddenly a messenger approached me. King Harlaus wanted to grant me a fief, and not only that, was going to make me a member of the nobility! All of a sudden the game opened up for me, and I fell in love. The rest, as they say, is history.

Momchilo said:

Mine is from multiplayer. It was way back in Persistent World, the server I was playing on didn't have many people online, so I rode out with a banner towards an abandoned castle with the intention to take it. Once I arrived I walked into the castle hall and headed to the floor above where the banner room was. I walked in to see another guy standing there with a banner. We couldn't come to an agreement on who is going to own this unclaimed piece of land, so we unsheathed our swords and started dueling eachother. With just greatswords and rags for clothes the fight was tense as it could end in any moment. Suddenly out of nowhere, around four fully armored Nord guys walk into the room, carrying a banner and with full intent on capturing the castle, their shields and battle axes screamed "It's ours!". We all just stood there for a second looking at eachother, as if in a Wild West scenario. I looked at the guy I was fighting just a moment ago and he looked back at me, in that moment we came to an unspoken agreement. The next second we were upon them, one Nord fell after the other as we managed to strike them all down and win the fight. Now being brought close together by mutual blood splitting, this new ally of mine decided to hand over the castle to me. I can't really remember what happened afterwards, I think the faction grew and we formed a resistance faction against organized clan players. I gave a motivating speech against oppression and we gathered our men and mounted our steeds and rode to battle. Then we all died.

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Take me in your faction please 

My favorite was my stupidest and most heroic way back in 2012. Was taking on a Sarraiand (sp) Lord(s). Should have been an easy fight for me. Think they outnumbered me by I had all elite cavalry. Stacked my horsearchers 1st with plan to run them out of arrows and retreat them. Well, my plan worked well horsearchers circled threw them out of formation, charged with lancers.

Then somehow I made a huge mistake. Not sure how but think I meant to retreat the horsearchers off the field who were out of arrows so more lancers could come on, but ended up SENDING WHOLE ARMY OFF!

Took me a little while to figure it out. Once I did I took stock. There was me outfitted with great armour, sword, shield, bow, arrows & step charger. Most of the enemy was gone, unfortunately what was left was mostly cavalry. I got a pack of Malmalukes to follow me and dropped them one by one with head shots. Once in awhile the lighter cavalry would catch me and I would draw sword & dispatch them. Eventually ran out of arrows and could find no new ones. About 8 enemy left now, half still mounted.

Had a rather desperate 4 on 1 fight in the woods at the edge of the screen, lost my horse and 3/4 of my health points but found a new horse and set off to finish off 4 remaining enemy. 3 were easy, one almost finished me. Ended with less than 10% health and a lame no longer "Campion" Step Charger. But, I survived, think I even gained a level. Oh, and aside from my character no wounded & no dead.

It was fun, but never again.

Oh, those desperate moments of almost no health, running towards the nearest riderless horse hoping for the possibility of riding to safety, only to have the horse run away right when you're about to mount it... Those are the worst 

There are 2 moments that i can remember from playing native expansion it is more or less like floris but it doesnt tend go overboard with the troop tree (mostly)

Both of them are not a tale of heroism but of decption and cheesing (mostly cheesing)

The game has a black knight invasion a faction that can curbstomp all of the other factions  by the time they invaded calradia the kingdom of vaegirs (the one i served) have taken most of the nord and lands and the entire swadian territory so i employed some of their troops to my army that was mostly made of archers i tought that the black knights would be the the swadians 2.0 since they specialized in cavalry. I was completely wrong

during my first battle with them they killed one of swadian paladin like it was nothing think of a swadian knight that uses plate armor with a winged helm that has a one handed sword that deals 40 damage and they killed him like it was nothing the worst part is that he can not be recruited or trained since only Harlaus can have him (i hired mine by rescuing him from a gang of looters by pure coincidence)

After many deaths from my side i had to flee there were mamy battles and sieges that i won and lost but that not what i want to talk about

Now for the decption and cheesing

The queen of the black knights along with some other lords raided my vilage i was tired of their **** ao i decided to attack them

It is know that when you fight someone while they are raiding they dont use horses i knew that so i used to my advantage but i never knew how well it would have worked

My army by that time was made of vaergir druzhinas (cavalry quite good too and cheap) nord thanes (basically huscarls on steroids)and the soldiers that would give me victory the vaergir knyaz and the ivory sentinels like the swadian paladin they are troops that could only be used by the king in this case yaroglek both of them used bows and arrows made out of ivory

The vilage had a mountain that i could climb so i told my cavalry to dismount and make a shield wall with my nordic troops ans vilagersand behind them i put my archers behind them

When the black knights approached i gave my archers the order to fire while they were very good i didnt expect them to kill my enemies in one single battle

Boy i was wrong by the time i gave the order the knights were dropping like flies it was a sight to see the black knights armor being pierced by ivory arrows by the time they managed to reach my shield wall they were easily killed by the thanes and druzhinas due to my archers damage

I defeated the queen and captured her and threw her into the prison and there was no risk of escaping since there is a castle upgrade that makes it impossible for someone to escape i repeated the strategy with other black knight lords and it worked perfectly i throwed them in the same prison with their queen

Without their queen the black knights were easy pickings we managed to take back our main towns and and defeated the rest of them ending their reign of terror

Some of them even joined us so that nice

I'll tell the other story latter gonna watch narcos