Sword Sisters: Some Observations

[JohnathanStrange]

Greetings. Great game.

You've all heard of the Sword Sisters, of course. A peasant woman rescued from pirates or bandit, who joined your party and fought with hatchet and knife, learned to fire a crossbow, scavenged shield and armor and finally was reborn a well-equipped warrior maiden "Sword Sister." So how do you make her acquaintance and enlist her aid?

Rescue a peasant woman from the bad guys - preferably several peasant women because there's a high casualty rate for ill-armed troops like them - and keep her alive through training, healing, and selected fights against low-level pirate bands.

If luck is with you - and you do need luck because replacing Sword Sisters is difficult, anyway more difficult than replacing a knight - you can have a warband with several Sisters.

Despite having riding skills of 6, they're on foot but that keeps them out of trouble. They're actually decent fighters in a group.

My level 22 Sword Sisters have Strength 11 and Agility 12 and
one handed weapon skills of 149, polearms 147, crossbows 146, and throwing 127. (I'm not saying they're superheroes, obviously one can point out that other elite units have similar or better stats.)

They carry kite shields, wear chain mail armor and heavy duty helmets so they're well-protected also.

I don't think they're practical because they're hard to replace and they have no upgrade that allows for having horses, but I've had success with them. Just don't expect to be leading 30 Sword Sister warbands. Expect lots of double-entendres from the crowd.

 

[akiro]

I was running hired blades and sword sisters but I'm fazing the hired blades out, sword sisters are much better. Why? the crossbow... Best units I know of who wield one.

ps: I have 42 sword sister warband.

 

[JohnathanStrange]

Wow, and I thought my 15 Sword Sisters party was a rare achievement. Espcecially since so many candidates never survive their initiation.

 

[Ancientwanker]

I prefer the hired blades.. All my troops, borcha, marnid and my pc have two handed swords. I think the computer is very effective with them and as long as we charge en masse, its a slaughter.

If I was into defensive sniping though, id go sword sister. The problem with them in large numbers is that you move too slowly on the game map.

 

[Sir Saladin]

I upgraded a peasant woman to a follower woman once, she ran faster than me and killed about ten river pirates with that big scythe of hers, I was laughing my ass off. Poor thing got double teamed though and I was on foot.

 

[nightrunn3r]

if you're looking for large numbers of peasent women to rescue, get a "kill the raiders" quest. They almost always have peasent women in large numbers. The last group of raiders i took down was a party of 43, and they had 29 peasent women captive.

 

[akiro]

that's exactly what i did.

 

[Whitmire]

You can also level up your troops rather safely by telling them to Hold and then riding off to kill the enemy on your own.

 

[Nairagorn]

Also, if you have other troops in your party, you can move your ladies to the bottom of the troop list. That way other troops'll go into battle first, and your ladies will still gain experienace without the danger.

 

[DoomedOne]

If ever I have a large group I'm hoping to nurture into ful fledge fighters they stay at the bottom until at leas ttheir first upgrade. I think the msot I've ever had was 6 peasant women, which eventually transformed into 3 sword sisters, and that was like a week ago and since I play so damned often I've gone through almost 40 guys, but I still have one sword sister. She's lasted longer than any other unit, save the heroes and my character. I know a week doesn't sound like much.

I think, though hard to raise, once they've acheived sword sistery, they're very versatile and helpful units. I remember, as I describe in the story thread, she and I were both cornered by around six guys, barely blocking, 1/4th of my shield left, I turned to the side to face tow guys alone, and they're dogging me so hard I can't get a move in. Finally, I see her attack to distract one so I coould get a move in and slay one then the other, and I turn to see bodies surounding her.

 

[Worbah]

You can't really hire most of the troop types in the gam easily.

Townsmen: So far, I've only encountered them in Zendar. the caravan guards tha they become are usefull, although few townsmen survive that long, and I rarely go to zendar.

Peasant women: Why can't you hire any from taverns? I know that most of you love the realism aspect and all that, but what if every tavern had a few for hire?

Manhunters: I don't know much about them, other than they are hard to come by.

 

[Sabotai]

Manhunters upgrade to Swadian Militia. They're harder to come across, so it's easier to just get Swadian Peasants.

 

[Sir Saladin]

Come on Worbah, tavern girls aren't fighters they are lovers

 

[Vinz Klortho]

Come on Worbah, tavern girls aren't fighters they are lovers

Unless it's formulaic fantasy fiction. In which case they shall start off as naive lovers, but end up getting rescued by the party of heroes and eventually become the most badass member of the group.

Just sayin', is all.

 

[JohnathanStrange]

Also, if you have other troops in your party, you can move your ladies to the bottom of the troop list. That way other troops'll go into battle first, and your ladies will still gain experienace without the danger.

That's a very good point that I had neglected. Thanks.

Whitmire An excellent way to get peasant women (or any new recruit) onto the path.

nightrunn3r Thanks for the help on meeting the ladies!

DoomedOne That sounds like my first party in which I had a single Sword Sister who I probably should have disbanded as it would've freed up space for 6 Vaegir horsemen to be upgraded to knights but after all she'd been through how could I just say Thanks. Write if you get work?

It would be great if one could ask some non-heroes to wait at the Four Ways Inn or local city until you needed them. With pay of course.

Ancientwanker Sword Sisters don't have horses, but do have high Riding Skills! Ironic, isn't it. I've suggested they be given stubborn steppe horses but...

Does having horses in your inventory speed up your party over the strategic map? You know, as if your troops were riding them?

Worbah I was going to suggest hiring peasant women at the tavern also but I knew where that would lead...

I like the Sisters but it's easier to recruit Vaegir footmen (for example) at a local tavern and to have a reliable known source of replacements as they upgrade. It's somewhat more difficult to replace the 5 hunter women you lost in your last encounter. However, if it was too easy, it wouldn't be any fun, eh?

 

[akiro]

I just don't let my troops die, I tell them all to hold position and dismount at a strategic location and then lure the enemies away from them so I can ride them down.

Then I occasionally let one or two enemies slip towards my troops to get cutdown by the massive group. Mix that in with the sword sisters crossbows to peg them off while they are chasing me and hardly any of my troops ever die.

 

[Tiedye]

The fun part about getting a decent number of sword sisters is that you can't hire them in the tavern, at least when you stumble upon them on your own. "Hmm... I wonder if these peasant women turn into anything". Eh, I'm very tired. Not exactly coherent, I know.

Anyway, don't make them hireable in taverns. In fact, I'd like more of these "hidden" units.

That sentence felt familiar... I think I made a very similar post a few weeks ago.

 

[OddjobXL]

Absolutely. More hidden units and troop types. I was thrilled when I discovered this unit just on a whim. I'd like to see other rare or unusual types. They don't have to be godlike just cool, unexpected, and relatively useful. There's really no point to M&B so far other than just making up goals for yourself and creating specialty units for fun is certainly one of those unique goals.

 

[Lhorkan]

Are hired blades trained out of townsmen?

On topic, some nice sword sister information here. I never really got into training these, even though I did some pathetic attempts on getting them. I did put my hunter women on the bottom of the list, but with maximum battle size they usually did appear on the field, and were slaughtered.

 

[OddjobXL]

Neutral Townsmen like you can get in the starting city train up into Watchmen (also recruitable in the starting city), then Caravan Guards, then Mercenaries, and lastly they become Hired Blades.