The Kingdom of Swadia feature - A New Dawn mod for Mount & Blade: Warband

The Kingdom of Swadia has one of the most balanced forces in Calradia, relying on a mix of infantry, archery and cavalry, with a focus on heavy cavalry. Most troops are more specialized than those of other factions and a Swadian Lord will have to combine his 3 main forces (infantry, archery and cavalry) in order to achieve victory.

Swadia is a feudal society and therefore the peasants are required to fight in their lord's wars. As expected, they are neither well trained nor well equipped and thus shouldn't be relied on as anything other than meat shields. Its militia level troops are barely more trained and are usually inferior to those of more warlike cultures, like Nords or Khergits.

The bulk of a Swadian army (tiers 4 and 5) is divided in 6 different troops :

1. Defenders : These are the main defensive infantry troops. They are rather tough and are the only unmounted troops with a shield - they should therefore also be used to protect other troops (especially the offensive infantry) from ranged fire. Consider them as the anvil.
2. Shock troopers : The main offensive infantry troops, these guys can easily cut through most opposition with their two handed swords. They're still rather vulnerable to arrow fire.
3. Demi-lancers : These are the hammer. Heavy cavalrymen with a lance, their charge is devastating, especially if the enemy is already engaged with your infantry and they're able to attack from the flanks or the rear. Don't hesitate to make them retreat and charge again.
4. Men-at-arms : These are the heaviest cavalry unit in the game and use heavier armor than demi-lancers as well as 2 handed weapons, mostly morningstars. They are much more durable in melee than demi-lancers and are especially good at fighting other horsemen (most of which will still use a lance in melee). However, the slower speed of their horse and the lack of shield makes them quite vulnerable to archers, especially mounted ones.
5. Longbowmen : They bring the much needed ranged support for situations where cavalry isn't as effective, for example mountaineous terrain or sieges and to soften up enemy formations. They are lightly armored and equipped and shouldn't be expected to do much in melee.
6. Guards : These hybrid troops are a mix between a halberdier and an archer. They aren't as good archers as longbowmen, but make up for that with heavier armor, better melee skills and decent polearms. This makes these troops particularly effective in situations where your archers are likely to be engaged by enemy cavalry, for example when fighting Khergits, or if you need archers that can actually fight in melee as well.

Most strategies will revolve around combining these 6 types of troops with relatively standard strategies - infantry acting as the anvil and cavalry as the hammer. Higher tiers, and especially cavalry (royal knights), are very durable and should be used as shock troops to break the enemy formation.

• Slowness
• Bad low tier troops
• Low skills (weapon proficiencies)