Minor Clans Guide: Benefits, Unit Ranking, & Locations for Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord 

UPDATED VIDEO HERE: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-V6EJgv4IUeU.html

I love when they get killed by looters and when you kill those looters you get a Piñata of new troops

It would be a cool feature if the minor factions had a stronghold somewhere. Like one castle per faction where you could go interact with them.

Imagine being able to customise your own troop trees

Also remember that the mercenaries can end their contract with you at amazingly inopportune times. I was in a siege of some importance and half of my siege force just got up and left, the leader of the faction was faster on map than my army so I couldn't even reason with him!

About the jawaal, their best unit is actually their recruit. 250 athletics and little to no armor means that they can chase down some horsemen. They're surprisingly good against horse archers where they can subdue the horse with a javelin and then race down the unhorsed archer. But against other factions with heavier armor they need a numbers advantage to win and right now they don't come in high enough numbers to be a significant threat. Still bad but they are a fun minor faction if you want a challenge.

Wolfskins: on all levels except physical i am a wolf, WOOF.

"Sturgian mercenary with shock cav from a distant and mysterious land" does sound cool - not sure those camels would do well in the cold Sturian cold though...they should take notes from Hannibal's elephant riders...

Me 68 hours later: There are minor clans?

I laughed harder than I should have looking at the Sprout. I thought the Sprout would be some kind of spritely young lad, but it was a old haggard looking dude haha.

I'm new to the mount and blade games and your guides have been really helpful, thanks for all the informative videos!

This was a very well put together video, and super informative. I have mostly been ignoring the minor clans in my playthroughs, not any more. Thanks

Fantastic presentation, both from the lore and practical side, Thank you!

Nice guide. It took me a few new starts to realise that attacking the minor factions early doors was a good idea!

I guess the minor faction units might be able to be recruited in random taverns in the future. It would make them easier to access and they are mercenaries after all.

Pretty good breakdown of the units. I think some are properly placed in what they are meant to be good at and i remember something about a gang war idea that was in development. Maybe units like the hidden hand will have the special ability to follow you into towns during these events. One pet peeve: Eleftheroi is pronounced = el-Ef-the-ree. It does translate to free men.

Love this! Keep these informative video's coming! Thumbs up.

Didn't think about this early game. Thanks for the tips

I needed his video as I'm stuck in my game on what to do next before trying to get my first settlement

Yet another great informational Bannerlord video! I always learn something that I had no clue of while watching your videos. I'd love to hear your break-down of the noble line of troops.

Crossbows may not have as much damage as an archer but the fact that dudes got good armor a good shield and a good sword compared to archers means when the inevitable fighting starts they can hold their own

I appreciate the content ! Keep them coming

Love these!

You should have definately mentioned to never ever give a minor faction lands. They will run away with it. Minor factions do not stick with you!

Great content!

Great video. Thanks

my mans deserve more subs :)) this really helped my campaign

Ohhh man, lots have changed in the stats of the Troops and Tier level. Mayby you should make an updated Video about them, copy the first part and rank them again

Thank you. Good video full of info.

if you take on a couple of companions with 100+ in roguery, you'll start seeing those t5 drops in the first month or so.

Importantly for the Karakhergit as an alternative to the Khan's Guard, you don't need War Horses even when upgrading from lower tier, which is a huge constraint on mass high tier cav

this video just made this game much better for me.

Superb video!

I farm these guys in my current game. I'm at war with all minor factions. They're a great source of money and troops.

I'm curious, how do these minor clan mercenaries recruit their clan specific units when they're depleted after battles? I'm assuming they recruit from villages or towns like other NPCs, but from some invisble pool not privy to us the player? Either that or they somehow magically spawn them?

I just realized I've made the exact same armor than triarii for my character. This helmet looks so stunning !

This was an excellent video. Thank you for posting this.

I had a great battle with the brotherhood. I didn't have many shields so I hid my troops behind a hill for coverand charged when the enemy got close :)

I love the sabling-aboreal troops, vlandian longbow men, having an english army feel

I like your videos, but you should take into account the weapon load out of the troops when comparing them too. The game is very sneaky when it comes to troop equipment since they only show their skills in the encyclopedia. For example, the Khan's guards, despite the high stats, are armed only with the Steppe Recurve Bow with 62 damage, while the Aserai Mamelukes, despite being a tier 5 cavalry archer, come equipped with the far superior Noble Bow with 80 damage on far more heavily armored and faster warhorses. Likewise the reason Fian Champions are so overpowered is because they are the only troop in the game armed with Noble Longbow with 98 damage, compared to most other ranged troops (including the Aboreal) which are armed with the (relatively) weak Steppe Recurve Bow. And that's just the weapon, their armor loadouts are also drastically different, and for cavalry, their steeds and armor should be considered too. This game is way way more complicated than it is showing the players.

Those jawal recruits are insanely fast.

I love the ben zilal horse archers

Good video. Can you do one for mercs\others?

Really wish that backstory for the clans actually translated into how they act on the campaign map. There's really no motivation to go after any of these clans because it seems they're not really doing anything other than being stooges for the main kingdoms.

I've mostly been avoiding guides since I'd rather slowly unfold the game than race to "break it" before other players do; however, this is something I wasn't really aware of

vid was excellent

enjoyed this thank you...

Question: does it matter which warhorse a unit uses to upgrade with? Like if my cataphract is upgraded with a steppe horse, does it actually retain that horse and specs in battle until the unit dies? Or does the game just take a warhorse out of my inventory and convert it into the horse of that unit's culture, i.e. no matter the warhorse used from inventory my cataphract/s will always use a Imperial charger on the battlefield?

For those puppeteers, add some poison (bleed damage) to the throwing daggers just to make their 200 throwing useful. Obviously still a low tier unit but maybe for easy recruitment early game and poison was definitely used on weaponry.

Triarii has a pilla witch is a throwable polerarme and that is what they ran in old Rome

An extra point in favour for attacking the hidden hand is that if you have access to cheap hardwood, their throwing knives can be smelted down to great materials to sell

There have been some great tests on best melee troop on the forum, would be great if you could test some of these troops out and make a video on it. Ie top sturgia beserker is worse than the 4 option.

Hi ItalianSpartacus, in regards to the best ranged units in the game. Have you seen the Sword Sister? The one I found had 300 bow, 150 Athletics, and 150 to all melee. They do seem to be extremely rare, but they are in the encyclopedia.

I found that mixing Crossbows with high per-shot damage with Champion Fians for range and high per-shot damage and better RoF then crossbows with Imperial Bucellarii who have great armor and a high RoF makes for an archer section in your army that can kill an opponent army of about 400 to 500 for 95%, with a spread of 40/40/40 on your own archers section.

I had a brotva in my company for ages. Dude never got wounded or killed in battle until I was completely and utterly overwhelmed

I tend to train crossbows like the boars/empire and deposit them as garrison troops. I find that they perform really well in sieges due to their armour, and armaments and because they duck behind ramparts to reload. I always tend to have archers on the field battles, more mobility, more firepower. I'd like to see crossbows get a bit of love. Maybe in the form of the Bolts having really high armour piercing and have additional Bolt types like we see with Arrows. I definitely think xbows with really high pierce would fit logically. Slow to fire but pack a solid punch.

yes, you did it, thanks! one question: if I'm already a mercenary/vassal, can I still fight minor clans? because everyone I found so far say's something like: "are you mad?" when I want to fight them and just leaves...

2:22 I'd set Duwain free just to see that look on his face. 🤣

I hope in the future we can establish some sort of relation with these minor faction to recieve their units or even ( i may be wrong here and we could already do that ) recruit them as an official clan in our faction.

I have 50+ something Lake rat wreckers in my army atm and getting more all the time :) they seem to always join whoever I'm fighting. I fucking love them! Such a good unit.

Are there any infantry, or units types at all for that matter, that use two handed swords? I've been messing with crafting lately, and it seems odd all these cool two handed sword models are going unused. Maybe the mobster guys could get greatswords, or another mercenary company

Exilent video

Eager to see these minor clans becoming a full part of the politics and recruitement system, just like your own clan is. Since they can join bigger factions, and their clan become part of said faction's power, it would make sense for these minor clans to become a part of the politics, influence and relations as well. They recruit their own special units, so once they got a thief, it means you'd be able to recruit them in their clan capital as long as your relation with them is high enough (like how you have to improve your relation with a lord to unlock recruitement slots in it's properties). I could be wrong, but if the devs are truly planning this it'll just be amazing

Curious, how does the analysis apply to auto-resolve? You say the efelftheroi units are garbage, but I thought autoresolve only cared about the level and if they are cav/horses? If my info is correct about autoresolve (?), then efelftheroi units are one of the best for auto-resolve. They are horse/cav (10% bonus) and they only have 3 levels of upgrades - 1,3,5; also they could be the fastest/easiest to get to tier top level.

Is it more worth it to make them mercenary or just straight incorporate them into your kingdom like u would for any other clan?

This is awesome! The cost to maintain these troops is totally worth it! I'm just annoyed by their troop classification and how it resets every time you leave the game (or have they fixed it?).

Triarii tend to spawn without javelins as intended. Italian Spartacus (or anyone seemingly interested in Roman warfare) should know this. As it's a reflection of the actual old Roman Republic troops. Hastati and Principes used pila, but the Triarii were spear and shield troops, sans pila. Hence the flavour in the game too. Not by ANY means a bug.

The hidden hand is usually the first asshats that get the axe. Fu** those flying knifes!!! Also I once managed to get some Lake rat Homewreckers. Those guys are absolute BEASTS! Seriously they have some skills in the 200's!

Is it possible to exterminate a minor clan? I keep executing enemy minor clan members but new ones keep spawning in. They’ve cost me a bit of denars by capturing my caravans. In the clan encyclopedia, there’s also a filter for extinct clans but so far it doesn’t seem possible?

So if I minor clan has a city or castle can I still hire or bribe him to fight for me and claim his land? I've had it happen plenty of times to myself

It s possible to convert those minor clan into regular vassals. As a vassal myself, i talk to their leader while he was at war wis my faction. And i persuade him to betray. They're not a mercenary anymore, and they were given a town.

How do you go about recruiting the minor faction units for your own army?

I thought that the Beni Zilal (?) were horse archers, were they updated to be skirmish cav?

I always find it hilarious how to deal worlds gives these troops stats that they don't even have any sort of weapons for. Like a large majority of sturgeon and britannian recruits have both dads and yet the only Bowman they have are the fiends while the fans are absolutely amazing they still only have feelings for their recruitable archers. And it almost every other single unit they have has some level of archery skill which will benefit them at all

Unit stat balancing is still weird. Like, why does a unit of archers from a minor clan have a better crossbow skill than the best crossbowmen you can get from the recruit line, in spite of not being able to use crossbows? I also feel like they really need to change the crossbowmens overall behavior so they can make some use of their shields. They could either have them deploy those shields like a historical pavese and basically use them like merlons, or they could keep them on the back but have the crossbowmen turn around when reloading, so that their shield faces the enemy.

I have a strong suspicion that the Ghulams get a huge advantage over other cav because how they sit higher on those camels. I repeatedly lost elite cathaphracs and banner knights to them in battles even though we outnumbered them 2 to 1. They are my second most hated troop to meet on the field after the Khuzait horse archer spam.

Gonna build Rome with a big bunch of Triarii

was looking for a video on the minor clans for a while. thanks for doing this!... just a few things i've noticed. the Ghulam seems great, but the camels seem really lackluster to me. when i fight them they are extremely easy to chase down and have zero armor. maybe they seige better than normal cav units do to their great armor though? also the Veteran Forester and the Abhoreal seem really similar to me, minus the rework they did to the Veteran Forester to reduce their armor. is it that bad to where there is that much of a gap in viability between the 2? the Vet Forester still has 200 bow

a pila (used by the Triarii and Legionary) is a thrown weapon irl, but a polearm in game. The bug is in the pila, not in the troops that use it ,imho.

adding prisoners to your army costs 1 morale per solider, is it still worth it to recruit them?

Pity you can not recruit the units of any minor clan who has joined you, I love the legion of the betrayed and the early roman feel of their units but to get them I have to fight them! Or am I missing something?

you can't sustain replenishment with those minor faction troops has cool has they are,i tried to get principes and triarii and i had like maybe a dozen at most and after a few big battles and siege then what

The Triarii and imperial t5 inits use the pila, is a trowing weapon and a short spear, but they carry only one but most of the time is hit kill

I attacked a Hidden Hand member and some near by looters joined with him. Why is that and how can i become friendly with bandits?

Do minor clans get eliminated when all of their lords died from old age or battle or do they add new lords, it seems like they dont marry anyone

Is there still a honor system in place like in Warband?

For some reason my Brotherhood of the Woods minor clan in my campaign right now is hanging out in the Aserai lands. Weird place for the ronbin hood bros to hang out lol.

I would love a timestamp cheat sheet to click on each factions breakdown!

I don't think you can engage in combat with minor factions anymore as of 1.5.4. I engaged the lake rats with neutral relation and not at war and the deliver my demands option resulted in a chat box of me apologizing and leaving the conflict. Note: I am currently a mercenary for Vlandia

The legion of thee betrayed units are actually named after Roman Legion units, although if memory serves principes(pronounced princheepaes) should be the most advanced. Triarii were Rome's version of heavy spear infantry. The hastati were mid to late Roman light infantry(they couldn't afford more) and were armed with the staple Roman legion shield with a gladius and a spear.

Obviously a lot has changed since pre-access when I think this came out, or even since 1.0 full release. But present day (March 2024) all minor clan unique units range from pretty bad to complete garbage. They max out at tier 4 and often have weird, nonsense equipment setups that make them fairly useless such as The Hand having what is basically a skirmisher but with throwing knives instead of javelins making them trash on a battlefield, or the Embers of the Flame being infantry with poor armor, no shield and only a short 1 handed sword, Jawaal Bedouin or the Ghilman's Ghulams are something akin to a weak light cavalry unit, except on slow camels with sub-par weapons (even for T4 troops) that can't even be couched, same with Eleftheroi except they have a horse and instead are as squishy as an archer and have neither shield or thrown weapons, and Arboreals are archers with mid bows, almost no armor and only one quiver of 20 arrows. Kherakergit elder isn't AS bad but is just a worse version of Khuzait heavy horse archers which are already just a worse version of the Khan's guard, same can be said of the Wolf archers and Veteran Foresters being straight up worse versions of Battanian archers and Triarii are just Imperial trained infantry without throwing weapons and the ability to upgrade. Beni Zilal Royal Guard, Boar Champion, Skolder Veteran Broda, and Lakerat Wreckers are probably the closest to useable of the bunch but they are still lower end T4 troops that cannot be upgraded but if you just needed bodies in your army ASAP I could at least see a way to use those 4 until you get something better. The others I wouldn't even bother with unless you just wanted them for some RP reason or simply for the novelty of it.

Kinda hope they add more minor clans to the cultures that only have one or two, and make the weaker ones more viable and distinct would love to do a game trying to just us minor clans

I hired 3 of them for my new kingdom. I cannot hire 4th one. Is there a cap for hiring minor clans?

If we have nothing but recruits, what sort of unit size ratio should we shoot for?

I really like those wolves and foresters, for defending my castles etc, they shoot a ton of arrows due to their high archer skill, and if they are behind the walls shooting people they usually survive fine. The skolderbrotva are awesome, so are the boar champions. karakhuzait elders are very good too but I find playing with horse archers boring. The triari are also good, ghulams and faris are ok ish, but the rest are just frankly trash. they need to balance those a bit, since like the oath keeper are even with decent stats not great, unless they go the berserker style of fighting. I think the crossbows should do better vs heavy armor and archers be better vs low tier or light armor, that should make them way more viable and archers less op.

I wished this video was up 2 days ago. In my campaign Western empire had one settlement left so i wanted it to start my own kingdom. But the dude had lots of minor clans in his services and they kept respawning in droves after i released them after each defeat to get charm up. So i thought off with their heads them silly buggers. Now many of the minor clans are extinct or down to one member. I regret that now. Feels like a loss to the game when the unique units are gone. Hopefully next patches start adding more of the kid raising stuff so that they can have offspring to keep them clans going.

Which unit is the ghoulman?

What version of the game is this? I've been playing "e1.5.6" and the Triarii are garbage on this version with lower stats than even Imperial Veteran Infantrymen

yeah but how do you go to war with minor clans? Does it just happen automatically?

Maybe a dumb question but where do you see how good an armor of a unit is?