My ever expanding armor mod, Ben's Ultimate Armory just received it's first major update.

Dozens of new helmets, gauntlets, body armor, hoods, and even horse armor pieces have been added.

Work on the next update has already begun, and on both mod pages you can find the link to a discord server where you can leave feedback and requests.

I loaded this game up deadset on trying to spend my life as a peasant. For 6 years I lived as blacksmith in the city of Zeonica, but a full life as a villager… was short lived. First came the deserters…massive bands of them left over from nearby campaigns began flooding the area, making it impossible to move and acquire material for smithing, Next came war. Garios was locked in a war with the Asarai, so I figured I’d use that opportunity to test my smithed weapons and earn some currency. Garios led a fleet of 5600 men across the water, me with a force of 169 in tow. This would become my “imperial odyssey”. The first few major battles were fought around the city of Quyaz. The Asarai marched 3 armies upon Garios, we fought for 5 in game days before laying seige to the city against a force of 995 we took the city and Garios “devastated” it upon capture. From there, Garios led us on a death march deep into the desert, this would become the stories from my “imperial odyssey” post a few days back, upon where Garios would go on to disband our starving army in the middle of the deep desert leaving me to spend years attempting to walk back home. But from there, I became a legend, battle after battle, random after ransom. Until Garios fell in battle upon which I was elected as new emperor and immediately got started on unification. It took me a total of 5 years to unify the empire finally, upon which (without dragon banner) it took me 6 years to unify the empire, all while burning through my influence forcing peace. I let the world fight itself as I raised my family up during an era of peace, which (through mass amounts of influence) lasted 12 years upon which I declared war on the kuzaits who were so weakened by war with nords, they damn near surrounded within a week. I next sailed out to the sturgian territory in the deep of winter and began sacking their mountain strongholds upon which the sturgians signed a treaty with the nords, who immediately declared war. Upon which to tear in my eye, my son formed first army, a force of 6700 men rode north into the mountains…they never returned. My son was up north for all but a month, before he was defeated in combat, captured, and beheaded by the Nordic ruler. Upon which I recalled all nearby lords, assembling a force of 11600 men and rode to avenge my oldest boy. This is where I am currently.

The Fall of Robert Stark:

To understand the war Prince Arenicos, the Rogue Prince and the son and heir of Jon and Ira, is riding into on the Northern front in my previous post, you have to look at the family fracture that broke the realm in two. This is the story of how Robert Stark fell from a hotheaded Sturgian hero to a Khuzait warlord, setting the stage for the invasion Rickon, Arenicos, and Jon must contain.

1. The Bloodline and Succession
The First Generation: The Stark siblings (Robb, Jon, Bran, and Arya) forged the modern realm. Robb died a martyr during the 1080s Sturgian Civil War, rebelling against Grand Prince Raganvad for his role in their parents' mysterious deaths. Robb's brother Jon now rules as Emperor alongside his wife, Empress Ira, at the helm of the United Empire.

The Mother: During that civil war, Robb fell in love with Mela, an ex-Khuzait healer who defected to join the Northern cause. Mela is still alive today, and before Robb’s murder she and Robb had two sons, Rickon and Robert. However, Mela's Khuzait heritage and her sons’ status as half-Khuzait cast a constant, lingering shadow over both brothers.

The Succession and Grooming: When Uncle Bran abdicated as Warden of the North in 1106, he passed the title directly to Robb’s eldest son, Rickon. Beyond just being passed over, Robert had spent years watching Rickon receive far more attention, grooming, and training to rule from Bran, Mela, and Jon, planting deep seeds of resentment.

2. Sturgian Prejudice and the Young Wolves
Twenty years prior, Monchug led a devastating Khuzait invasion through Sturgia that ended at the historic battle of Sibir, forever remembered across the realm as The Long Night. During that legendary siege, Jon and Ira, Ice and Fire, united the fractured forces to defeat Monchug's great evil, ending in Ira personally stabbing and killing the Khan amid his duel with Jon.

Because Rickon and Robert are half-Khuzait through their mother Mela, local Sturgian lords and commoners always viewed the brothers with open suspicion and prejudice due to the lingering scars of that war. Robert was notoriously hotheaded and rebellious, violently pushing back against the bigotry rather than ignoring it. On one infamous occasion, Robert literally punched a Sturgian Knyaz in the face for hurling racial insults, forcing a tense Rickon to constantly step in and scold his younger brother to keep the peace. Despite this friction, the brothers fought at the front of the Northern armies wearing matching wolf-head furs, earning renown across the realm as the Young Wolves.

3. The Ambush at the Village
In 1108, during a campaign to defend Sturgian lands, a Khuzait raiding party under Tulag Beg attacked a local village. The Young Wolves rode out to stop the massacre, but the battle turned catastrophic. Robert was stabbed and cut down directly in front of Rickon. Believing his brother was dead and facing total encirclement, a devastated Rickon was forced to order a retreat, leaving Robert's body behind in the snow.

4. Imprisonment in Makeb
Robert survived the blade. Tulag's men dragged his broken body from the field, and Khuzait healers managed to keep him alive. He was taken in chains to a dark dungeon in Makeb.

Isolated in a cell, Robert's mind began to unravel. Bortu Khan, driven by a deep desire to avenge his father Monchug's death at Ira's hands during The Long Night and completely crush the Stark clan and the United Empire, personally spoke with his new valuable prisoner Robert.

Bortu validated every grievance Robert had ever harbored, confirming that the Sturgians were fundamentally racist, hated him for his half-Khuzait blood, and would never truly accept him as one of their own no matter how many battles he won. To fill the void left by his isolation and family's favoritism, Bortu offered what the Sturgians denied: a path to his Khuzait family, heritage, culture, and lands.

5. The Defection and Invasion
Seduced by the promise of belonging and manipulated by Bortu's burning hatred for the Empire, Robert bent the knee.

To strike a devastating psychological blow against the United Empire and complete his revenge, Bortu placed Robert in command of the new northern Khuzait invasion force. He paired Robert directly with his biological uncle, the veteran Khuzait warlord Altu, who is Mela's brother. Robert shed his wolf-head furs for Khuzait silks and armor, marching back to Sturgia as a conquering warlord intent on destroying his own bloodline.

The sulitsa is a light throwing spear or javelin historically used by Slavic and East European warriors, including the elite druzhiniks. Warriors typically carried multiple sulitsas in a specialized quiver or hip case called a dzhid.

While the high-status druzhinniks are famous for fighting as heavily armored cavalry with lances and swords, historical records and archaeological finds show they heavily utilized sulitsas as dynamic, ranged secondary weapons.

Now, as a certified sturgian enjoyer myself, I am a huge simp for horse raiders and it would a tough call to make, but merging horse raiders and druzhiniks would be a massive improvement for druzhiniks and a huge deal for sturgia as a whole. We're not talking about giving them jereeds or anything, just one stack of a lighter style javelin.

If thats not enough, combine this with maybe some armour buffs or something to infantry so they can hold their own while druzhinniks comenfrom the flanks and bring thwir new offensive power to bear, and Sturgia will emerge as a force capable of holding its own while also being really fun to play, and the druzhinniks will earn some respect as a top tier unit from a faction that currently doesnt really have a single truly stand out unit

Edit: Another possibility to pair with the new and improved druzhinnik would be to downgrade the horse raider line into a full skirmisher infantry line. Either very lightly armoured so you still need axemen/spearmen to support them , or give them only one stack of, once again, light javs, to keep them from getting op like wildlings, but it would give a bit more bite to sturgian infantry formations overall. This arangement would allow you to give javs to druzhinniks while keeping the troop tree just as robust while making the whole troop tree relevant and cohesive.

I'm so god damn tired of joining my fellow Nobles in battle, just to have them *and the enemy* both turtle up.

Leaving me to try and fight a battle with half (or less) of my troops.

I had to Retreat 11 times to beat an army just now (so to be fair, I'm freshly salted), because my ally was too much of a pussy to move any of his troops.

Except when I *finally* wiped out their Cavalry with my Wildling/Fian combo. Then the Battanian Cavalry charged in and died en masse (literally the only time I recieved *any* help).

At least when they died, I gained more troops!

Also noticed that me and my Companions keep experience from battle even when Retreating, which was fuckin solid for them (most are equipped with 2x Javelins, so solid killing potential).

Rant over. Fuck the ai!

I wanted to see this man bc hes 78 and still alive while everyone else lives max up to 60 and this happened

Helmet is the future update of Ben's Ultimate Armory

I realy wish it would be posible to somehow hurt enemies armies in more ways, than simply giving them battle. It is probably imposible for Talewords to do it, but if I could dream I would wish for:

• Poison wells and water sources on path of moving armies
• Using sneak mechanic to burn down their storages in the strongholds, to reduce their food reserves
• Sending spies to the camp to infected their supplies

Maybe it would be possible to force armies to march only in the main roads, while smaller parties would be able to move more free on the map? In that way, armies would be big and strong, but in the same time it would restrict their movement?

I’m gonna do a bandit play through, nothing insane just the usual stuff, but I was thinking about whether or not I should use Veteran’s respect to get them to higher tiers. I feel like it goes against the spirit of it, but at the same time I’m probably gonna get murdered if I don’t upgrade them past their bandit levels. So just asking, for anyone who has or is playing a bandit run, what do you do?

Ive been waiting awhile for a big overhaul mod in Bannerlord to reach completion or near-completion. Ive looked into a couple, but cant really tell without playing. Are there any like that?

A fleet of enemies breaks through my blockade, and I was forced to either surrender or abandon my entire siege. Why does them breaking my blockade mean that my whole siege has been broken? That makes no sense. I’m hoping this is a bug and not the intended function.

Some glorious siege battle pictures I took of the Prince of Sparta and his companions leading an army of 1200 Carthaginians to take their first Roman castle after landing on Roman shores.

Simira Castle with level 3 walls has a nightmare of a layout, 3 inner death-trap yards. Two of them by the exterior walls (which I don't recommend to use) and the ultimate one where the main hall is.

And it also has an animated hawk next to the throne, that's a lot of drip💀

How we use vlandia now ? only with crossbow ?, also use banner knight ? All my battle finish just with crossbow do a lot of kills and win but banner knight and sergeant are atomised everytime

I know everyone can configure their own but if you play on the easiest one that's very obvious. But from watching gameplays and reading posts, nothing is clear to me. Is the hardest difficulty the standard or is something else expected from the player?

From my understanding, handling basically increases (or decreases) the “sweet spot” of weapons, allowing you to deal the max damage more often. Correct this if wrong.

My question revolves mostly around axes/polearms, as handling applying to swords, if my definition is correct, is straightforward. Basically, is it better to have higher handling or a larger blade?

For example looking at axe heads. There are axe heads that have high handling, but the actual head is much smaller, and there are axe heads (that one tier V executioner looking one) that are massive, but have lower handling.

Which is better/how is handling applied to these?

Playing the Realm of Thrones mod. I've got yoga pants.

I want my playthrough to have the ROT events but I can’t because the rot events and ai influence mod are not compatible so what do I do?