Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord - The Sturgian Front

The Spoils of War

We begin today's episode embroiled in war, and war... well, war is profit.

Immediately out of the gate we snag a new castle. It's honestly not a castle we want but hey, beggars can't be choosers.

Literally, we can't choose not to have this.

We tried.

But even at 100 Influence, we don't come close to making this a split decision.

So we take our lumps and get a castle.

First-world problems, I know, I hear ya.

Next up it's time to deal with some of the armies sliding into our lands, which means we get to snag some prisoners and some sweet sweet loot.

We also discuss some of the upcoming 1.1 features that are in the pipes, which include my favourite option - the ability to voluntarily retire a character! Super cool. I've definitely made characters that I was deep into the endgame with before I realized I wanted a different build... so there are definitely cases where I can see being able to simply switch to an heir being super useful.

We continue the patrol for a while before running into a fairly evenly-matched battle that we really want in on. This kind of large army battle is SO MUCH FUN, and the stakes are honestly pretty high. A loss here would take out a bunch of generals with >100 unit armies, which would leave our North sparsely defended.

It's an... interesting spawn. We begin on either side of a hill next to a bridge. No easy choke on this map, and no super great terrain advantages. Our archers are either going to be on the front line getting chopped up like nuts in a Slap-Chop, or they're going to be firing arrows uphill.

Neither is super great for us, but we do have some pretty strong cavalry to throw at them - and the Sturgians rarely field much for actually good heavy cav... so as long as they're not suddenly rocking pikes - we've got a chance.

We meet at the bridge, their mediocre cavalry smashing into our east cavalry wing. Behind, their infantry - the real threat - turtles up with a fairly tight shield wall.

We're going to need to bust it if we want to keep our paltry line of infantry alive, and thereby keep our slightly better line of archers alive. So, I dive in like a madman.

After all, I wouldn't ask my men to do anything I wasn't willing to do!

Which is how I come to find myself staring at the backs of my enemies. This is...good? In a way?

Every archer and infantry unit turned to face me - and gods there are a bladder-voiding lot of them - is one more that isn't chewing through MY army.

C'mon un-named horse, if you survive this I swear I'll consider giving you a name. Don't make this a swamp of sadness.

We take a minor hit or two pushing our way back to our side of the battle lines, but in the end we're able to get back into the relative safety that our cavalry and infantry is dying for.

And, yeah, I'm sorry about the image quality here. At this time I was having some major issues with OBS-to-Youtube recording and my labour of love was looking a little like a shaken baby. Jesus that's awful.

Ironically, I think in the video at the same point this screenshot is taken, I'm literally talking about how I just tweaked some settings and it should be looking better.

Anyhow, back to the battle! Back on our side of the battle-line, we help to clean up the few remaining cavalry the enemy has that are harrying our archers and keeping our own cavalry busy getting kited around.

And then it's right back into the thick of it!

Things at this point aren't going super well for us. We've lost a LOT of men, compared to them.

This isn't the worst I've been able to pull back a victory from, but damn it ain't looking good. Plus, I keep getting freaking stabbed! What the heck guys, it's like we're at war or something. Cool it.

As the minutes tick by, we continue to stay relatively evenly matched. They take a unit, we take a unit... we're getting down to the wire and my forces are scattered, fighting pitched battles in tiny knots all over the place. Unity is how we're going to win - if we keep up with these little skirmishes we're going to get bled dry... so it's time to form back up!

And once everyone's back... it's time to charge!

It's hard to tell, but we're fielding a worrying number of recruits right now - which is definitely not what I like to be bringing into the battle this late.

That said, they're holding the line and doing well enough... so, hopefully we can squeeze a victory out of this mess. A lot of blood is going to pay for the win, if we do.