I Used Robert The Bruce's Tactics To Dominate The Battlefield! 

Wow. This makes me want to play the commander role more in battles than the usual Elite warrior role I usually play.

I kinda laughed when I first saw the thumbnail describing it as a Schiltron. Because in the Total war games, this formation is also used and is lovingly called the "Noob box"

i love this concept of reproducing historic battles in bannerlord, this game is so realistic and has so much tactical depth with the different units and terrain

Small nitpick, schiltrons are more ovular than square, sometimes circular. Which is where it gets its name, "schiltron" is a hedgehog. Small, circular formations of large spears (kinda JUST on the cusp of becoming pikes) began to be used in Scotland maybe as early as the 12th, Robert Bruis made them far more effective and by that point pikes were beginning to show up. He figured out a way to drill his men effectively in moving the schiltron to reposition it. Prior to Bannockburn, they had been used to guard flanks, or as static position defense. In fact, it was probably the inability to move the schiltron that cost Wallace his battle at Falkirk; they got shot to shit and then charged as they broke from the arrows. The history of the schiltron is interesting. There are currently two primary theories, that the Scots either learned it from the Swiss or the Brabantines. Both were early adopters of pike formations. This is a Hollow Square formation, used by Romans and Chinese. The Romans made use of it famously at Carrae to keep themselves from being shot and charged on flanks. Didn't save Crassus. Or poor Publius.

The battle of Falkirk showed the glaring flaws with the schiltrons. Yes, it's fearsome against calvary and infantry, but when Wallace's calvary deserted the field, King Edward I sent forth his archer force and the archers, crossbowmen and slingers began raining projectiles on the inexperienced and poorly-armoured Scottish spearmen. The schiltrons were an easy target; they had no defence and nowhere to hide. If the force isn't heavily armored, they'll get cut to pieces and run down by calvary.

I hope they add bigger battle maps, and better AI tactics. I love this tactic videos

You know mount and blade has come a long way when these real life tactics really work.

You are by far my favourite Bannerlord youtuber. You're videos are consistently top quality and really interesting. Keep up the awesome work!

please do more of this. historical battles emulated in M&B is what should've been done a long time ago

The tactical part of this game is so satisfying. Just last night I fought a vicious campaign to take the remains of the northern empire. It was only one town and a castle, so I thought it would be relatively easy, but they had a massive amount of units. The biggest challenge was that I am not a kingdom, instead I sieged both as a clan with less than 200 units and defeated wave after wave of anywhere from 400-950 units while I was building up my siege camps! I thought I might lose every single time, but by using careful positioning of units and feints, and flanking attacks, I destroyed them all. So worth the huge amount of time it took. It’s probably about time to start my kingdom though. I’m just nervous that everyone will go on the attack against me. I think my character has earned his rest from war. Lol

One of Robert the Bruce's best friends was chivalry- the fact that other people had it. He murdered John Comyn, the other claimant to the throne..... IN A CHURCH. When they defeated the English at Bannockburn, he had a spectacular duel with an English Knight. Knowing the knight as the lesser was bound to run at him headlong or be considered a coward, he sat still as the knight charged at him, dodged at the last second and split his skull with his axe, complaining that it damaged the best haft he had. Giles d'Artengan, an English retainer of Norman blood, considered the third greatest knight in Christendom (behind the Holy Roman Emperor and Robert himself, because royalty) carried the English king from battle and then, because he would not disrespect his code and be known a coward who fled, turned around after leading the king away to rush back into the Scots alone and die. One of the best warriors in the world who trained for over 30 years, with the ability to make men fight far beyond their normal resolve with his legendary status.... dead because "muh reputation." Needless to say, Robert was a great warrior and leader, but he got helped along by just how caught up in superstitious character development people were.

Robert the Bruce. The First man to use the noob box

Love seeing all the different factions he plays as in these, was not expecting to see the Rodoks

interesting fact: the English were well famed for their powerful longbows able to shoot farther than any other bow at that time period, when William Wallace tried using a schiltron to fight against the King of England with this strategy in an open field the longbowmen simply shot from afar before the English knights swept up the last of the remaining Scottish peasants who were rebelling and captured William Wallace, not long after this event William Wallace was tortured and executed

Fun fact, if your outnumbered by a lot of cavalry, the ai npc will actually tell you to surround the archers with the infantry to keep the cavalry from getting to them. It was super effective for me.

Seeing the effectiveness of real world tactics in banner lord is pretty dope, hope you do more of these

I just recently discovered these videos and they’ve helped my Bannerlord performance SO much! I’m by no means as good as you, but even basic tactics are amazing against the AI. So THANK YOU!🎉

Loving this kind of videos, hope you get the support you deserve!

When you first leap over your soldiers was pretty badass. I could already tell you were gonna win

Love how you have the AI comparison at the end, really shows how well the tactics work.

Don't you love it when a plan comes together

I'm really enjoying this series of testing historic formations. A lot of games real world tactics don't often translate well to them, so it's a beautiful relief to see them work as they should do. Mirroring what someone else said, these videos have made me want to be more of a commander and less of an elite warrior in battles. It sure gives you a lot more time to make decisions and observe the battle properly... until you get an arrow to the face :'D

I appreciate the effort and creativity you do making the videos!!! Thank you for sharing and please keep up the fantastic work!!

That was really cool! Been messing around with formations more in battles and it's been a game changer for sure. Been able to go into battles against more numerous foes and minimal losses.

Loving these tactic videos, they are my favorite and I watch every single one!

Loving these tactics. Good video!

Great vid Strat. This is the meat of tactics that I enjoy most. I particularly liked how you regrouped when they reinforced, something I have a lot of trouble with (probably need RTS camera to see better as well).

What I'd love to see is some kind of choke point tactics. There are some maps in Bannerlord where you can defend on multiple choke points like the oasis village in southeast aserai territory or the riverplains north of epicrotea with it's many bridges. And in history there probably were more than enough of such battles. That is, assuming you didn't already do something like that, i just recently found your channel.

"Just an unstoppable shield wall. Now, there's gonna be a few that get through. You can see a few of them streakin' through right here... not a problem. You can't stop everybody." 1:08

Hey man! I've been watching your work for a while now, and you always produce high quality videos. Please keep it up!

great gameplay man! feels like a real battle really could have been

Effective against just cavalry too. I've been using this formation on a much smaller scale(50-70 infantry, mostly tier 2 and 3) to do caravan ambush and escort missions. I'm using RBM and DRM so I'm going up against about 40 tier 4 melee cavalry instead of the much weaker and more annoying combination of lower tier melee and horse archers.

Absolute annihilation, but I'm still in early stages of the game and only have an army of about 150. I'd love to see smaller army tactics!

Good job dude. GOOD. JOB. dude. Its awesome to see channels like these. Ive been doing modern small unit tactics and survival tactics in games for a long time, and its a shame theres not many who actually try to (casually) implement real life tactics in a way that they WORK, instead of awkwardly cosplaying/LARPing them. Theres absolutely NO reason NOT to use real life tactics in games as they only help to reduce random deaths, frustration, and lost time. Really good to see these tactics being used, and absolutely awesome that bannerlord is realistic enough to support it. Looking forward for more.

Your content has always been very good, but you are still stepping it up. I hope this kind of video gets the views it deserves!

The infamous Total War noob squares :D.

Would be really cool to see you do a feigned retreat tactic

Had huge struggles with defending started watching you and learnt a lot I’ve been able to take outnumbered matches without getting curb stomped

Awesome video I really like the "history meet bannerlord" approach Keep it up man! 👍

Because I play on console it’s quite a bit harder to make complex formations so to counter that I tend to use tedious commands and feint attack I use cavalry to flank with myself at their side I tend to take a more cautious approach to any battle I go into and when I have superior troops I’m able to take on massive armies with my own personal warband of around 130 warriors

Funnily enough I’m in the middle of a Robert the Bruce campaign right now. Guess I’ll have to incorporate this in a few battles for the fun of it. I’ll try for an outnumbered bridge battle as well, a la William Wallace at the Battle of Stirling Bridge

love this game, and watching these. that shot to the face at the end lmao

Bruuuh this is soo good and such a cool concept please make more of these videos

It would be so cool and fun if they added an option to let us start with FULL level 330 in any ONE of the skill trees in the character menu in every new campaign/sandbox. As a reward for conquering all of Calradia at least once. Either with or without helping another official kingdom. That way, we could skip some of the grind and just have fun!

Yah know... there's a certain wealthy individual named Crassus who did the same exact thing in Carhae around 2000 years ago... except he got utterly slaughtered by an army half his size consisting of purely horse archers. Crassus was captured and had molten gold poured down his throat ending his life. They then cut off his head and shipped it to the leader of the Parthians.. who then had his own general Surena executed because he was jealous of his glorious victory over Crassus. I guess nobody really does win in war..

This style of video is awesome! Excited for Cannae

this just turned into a whole different game you are great dude love your video

feel like this tactic would be REALLY strong with a death unit in the middle, ppl with greatswords/two handed axes/glaives that can reach around the shield wall and or get stragglers. or in real life tactics they could create a shield wall with the idea of letting the enemy create a triangle in the line and the point of the triangle will purposely give in for the death squad to go wild. wonder if you can do that in bannerlord

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿scottish approved!

Always look forward to your videos! Thank you!!

Your video has made me a better player hands down. I just won a battle against The Empire 1800 to my 1000 by doing this strategy. We literally had exactly 69 soldiers left at the end, but we completely wiped them out. Unfortunately there was an army of 500 coming right up on us after, but I escaped, by disbanding the army, and letting my fellow vassals get chewed through. Still, we did far more damage to them.

Robert the Bruce used the shiltron as a mobile fortress that pushed in on the English. Effectively using it as a Pike square

vlandian

Awesome video. You control your troops in a handsome and brutally realistic way. I'm waiting for Cannae.

Best bannerlord RU-vidr. You've been super helpful in my campaigns too

Solid video, liking this short formation tactics videos

Legend has it, this game is the entance test to West point academy

Definitely going to give this a try. It's good to see you down there with the troops in this video too! I've been playing on the PS5 a lot lately and i'm always down with the boys on the field now (I spoke too soon. 😅)

could have sworn you were at 77k subs like, 1-2 days ago, some solid growth!

Every single video of you is something new and interesting. Amazing job brother

Can't wait for the next one. That will be very cool to see

Think its worthwhile to remember that Robert the Bruce utilized a mobile Schiltron at bannockburn, the major flaw of the schiltron is its immobility, leaving it heavily vulnerable to archer fire as seen in Willy Wallaces's rebellion, a mobile schiltron provides the mobility to get too close for archers to be of threat but it requires alot of coordination from both men and the commanding force. The immobile schilltron was also often seen in a more circular formation whilst the mobile schilltron was always rectangular like the one seen here. Great video though, awesome to see stuff like this in M&B

There are times I spend way too much time in RTS camera just giving orders. There are times I enjoy to give F6 to my army and just go with cav and wreck havoc. Both are great, and seeing what you can do with some tactical approach. It was great to watch 🔥

the amount of control you have is wild ...i cant even imagine doing that on the xbox haha

Great vid! Now I have to watch outlaw king

i cant stop hearing Shield-Tron. like its some power rangers megazord or something, beautiful video :)

That's how total war players chill in mount and blade. Some magnificent epic strategies like this! Great stuff

Really cool video! I love it

*@Strat Gaming Guides* (minor detail) 0:29 I would have put the archer lines as 2 diagonals, like / \ or as \ / (but more angled, about 45* ) depending on where the enemies are expected to attack, and such that they don't shoot themselves. And as a diagonal, they can reach 2 sides even faster to reinforce where needed.

Great video reproducing the formation. It would be great to see how these tactics and formation would fare against to F1+F3 and compare the loses.

this is the first time i've seen a box formation in this game; let alone something work this *GOOD*

Awesome stuff. Now to recreate the Battle of Carrhae and see if you can win as Crassus...

I absolutely love this tactic when using it in battles. I didn't know the formation name so I just called it the infantry square, best formation against calvary in the napoleonic wars, I was Vlandia and had Vlandian Sergeants and Pikemen, I had arboreals as my archers, I made the square just as you did but since the archers didn't have shields they were just bow men. Nether the less the archers fired point blank into the line, regardless enemy or not and it was so much fun getting the better of the enemy by being smarter. I was fighting the Empire, they had Empire Legionaries and Empire Elite Menavliatons. Their calvary was Empire Cataphrats to balance things out. I tried to create a pike and shot scenario (without the shot). By the way I was doing a custom battle to test things out and the RBM mod. It was like out of the movie, calvary attacking all flanks but the square stood their ground and we ended winning the day. Here's to the schiltrons!

fantastic video. not remembering to deactivate Hold Fire is indeed a mood.

I need to watch more of these.

Watching these videos show me just how bad of a commander I am. Gotta step up my thinking!

You seem like the type of guy who repeatedly Smacks it to the Braveheart ''FREEDOM'' scene

More commonly known as the "Noob Box" formation.

Oh, hell yeah. This is that content that gets me to pick up the game again.

Hoots mon! That was epic. Now to get enough pikes or polearms to be able to carry that out

These tactic vids are so good ♥

so many memories of fighting online in Rome Total War, and every so often the infamous Noob Box would appear, hell, I even pulled it out a few times 😁

Love these vids!

One thing I have learned from strategies like this is when u find your enemies charging from one side try to flank them with your other army don't keep them all in a line and this strategy works good with this formation

That jump into the shield wall at the beginnig was slick

I only started playing this game about a week ago so I don't have a big force like this, and I mainly fight bandits right now. But holy crap dude you commanded them like a boss.

Keep up the content loving it

Also known in the Rome Total War multiplayer community as the 'noob box'.

Earned my sub with this content

Realistic battle mod seems fix most of the issues i had with bannerlord battles.. I think its time to reinstall the game! Awesome vid man

"Unstoppable shield wall" "Some will get through"

Love your videos there so helpful

Thanks for this guide, its the most fun I've had playing bannerlord. I've been using my custom swiss pikemen unit in the 1100 Europe mod. Its fun setting up the pike square and easily skewering enemy cavalry while I finish them off when they're dismounted Do you have a playthrough series where you play like this? If not, I wouldn't mind seeing a robert the bruce pikeman playthrough, since I find infantry battles to be more fun than cavalry

i’m learning more from your videos than my history classes lol

this is awesome content!

I love the videos. I hope you will consider doing tactics on other war games like Age of Sigmar a warhammer game.

Hey Strat, great video as always! Did you learn these tactics and strategies by simply studying history books or did you focus on consuming tactics/strategy oriented content (books, videos, etc)? I'm trying to get started on learning war strategies/tactics to play Mount and Blade and Total War games in a smarter way (lol), but I'm not sure how to get started. By the way, this interest of mine is in a big part thanks to your videos, so I would like to thank you for all the effort you put on all of your content! Thank you!

Wow I cannot believe this. If I keep watching your videos I am going to change my job into a historian haha!

Amazing skill you have

KEEP POSTING!!!!