Spear vs Menaulaton vs Lances while on horseback

[Oedipus's Stepdad]

The couching lance bonus in bannerlord seems less significant compared to previous games due to the difference in tactics employed (shieldwalls being more common), so I'm wondering if spears or menaulatoi are good replacements?

[Ri0Rdian]

That is a bad idea. Even at high speed with best spear/polearm you might hit for up to 100 damage (very roughly). A couch is usually 500+. Nothing deals more damage than couched lance ( I still have to witness it here) and if it is like Warband than couching into a shield will destroy it as well as possibly hurt the enemy.

I am talking about piercing hits here ofc.

[gachi is manly]

Originally posted by Ri0Rdian:

That is a bad idea. Even at high speed with best spear/polearm you might hit for up to 100 damage (very roughly).

SUPER roughly. Fine Steel Menavlion swings while riding at high speeds are like 140-220 damage which instakills most targets anyways. Even without much momentum they'll do 80-120 damage.

[Ri0Rdian]

I said piercing hits, just to be sure. Swing is always cut, which is much worse against heavy armour, though often enough at high enough speed with good weapon and aiming right.

From my experience, long cutting polearms are op now, but in bigger cavalry melee you might not be able to use it because you cannot swing properly, while pierce is easier to use in such case.
I think this is highly personal, my luck with couching against enemy lancers is better than using normal spear or anything not pointy :D

Edit:
I probably don't need to mention this but couchable lances can still be used normally, while normal ones can rarely be couched. More flexibility is always good. Still have memories of voulge that was couchable xD

[TaterDave]

I've had better luck with polearms like the menavliaton or voulge. Couching is very situational and not as flexible as horizontal swings.

[gachi is manly]

Originally posted by Ri0Rdian:

I said piercing hits, just to be sure. Swing is always cut, which is much worse against heavy armour, though often enough at high enough speed with good weapon and aiming right.

From my experience, long cutting polearms are op now, but in bigger cavalry melee you might not be able to use it because you cannot swing properly, while pierce is easier to use in such case.
I think this is highly personal, my luck with couching against enemy lancers is better than using normal spear or anything not pointy :D

Whoops sorry, I didn't see the last part. Definitely agree about the big melee thing too, it can be hard to make a long polearm like Menavlion work well when you've got a lot of your own cavalry around you.

[Ri0Rdian]

My experience might be skewed a bit because all I was fighting lately were Khuzait, which means LOTS of horse archers, horses and on top of that spear infantry. So couching was really useful, as well as thrusting attacks (in some fights I could not use my 1h/2h sword because there was no way for horizontal slashes.

Now I fight empire so we will see :P

[Fryskar]

I always go for singable polearms. Some have really nice range combined with insane dmg and decent speed (~75ish).

[Oedipus's Stepdad]

Originally posted by Ri0Rdian:

That is a bad idea. Even at high speed with best spear/polearm you might hit for up to 100 damage (very roughly). A couch is usually 500+. Nothing deals more damage than couched lance ( I still have to witness it here) and if it is like Warband than couching into a shield will destroy it as well as possibly hurt the enemy.

I am talking about piercing hits here ofc.

Western units in Bannerlord tend to form much more compact formations compared to in warband where they just basically charge you. In essence cavalry tend to get stuck in infantry formations a lot more often, because of that, which makes lances pretty useless because they can't reach the necessary speed IMO.

[Ri0Rdian]

Originally posted by Oedipus's Stepdad:

Originally posted by Ri0Rdian:

That is a bad idea. Even at high speed with best spear/polearm you might hit for up to 100 damage (very roughly). A couch is usually 500+. Nothing deals more damage than couched lance ( I still have to witness it here) and if it is like Warband than couching into a shield will destroy it as well as possibly hurt the enemy.

I am talking about piercing hits here ofc.

Western units in Bannerlord tend to form much more compact formations compared to in warband where they just basically charge you. In essence cavalry tend to get stuck in infantry formations a lot more often, which makes lances pretty useless because they can't reach the necessary speed IMO.

Good point, though I hope at least the aiming fixed in the beta patch help. I have to try playing with cav formations more, see if I can get them be more dense.

[Oedipus's Stepdad]

Originally posted by Ri0Rdian:

Originally posted by Oedipus's Stepdad:

Western units in Bannerlord tend to form much more compact formations compared to in warband where they just basically charge you. In essence cavalry tend to get stuck in infantry formations a lot more often, which makes lances pretty useless because they can't reach the necessary speed IMO.

Good point, though I hope at least the aiming fixed in the beta patch help. I have to try playing with cav formations more, see if I can get them be more dense.

Horse archers are very useful too though; simply make two formations out of them and place them on the enemy cluster's flanks. They'll thoroughly destroy the infantry with arrows.

[MrMurLock]

My playstyle at the moment revolves around my Rhomphalia and Recurve bow on a fast horse.
The Rhompalia's massive length and high damage, plus relatively cheap price absolutely cuts through anything and being on a horse negates its negatives of low swing speed and poor handling.

Even on 1000 vs 1000 battles, I have no problems with swinging the 200+ length polearm so long as I avoid the main battle lines.
It makes cavalry battles (even against dense formations of Cataphracts and banner knights) SO easy as the speed of one's horse + enemy horse makes cutting damage effective even against such high armor. All I need to do is stay to the peripheries or behind them and start reaping away.

[Fryskar]

Originally posted by Mr. MurLock:

My playstyle at the moment revolves around my Rhomphalia and Recurve bow on a fast horse.
The Rhompalia's massive length and high damage, plus relatively cheap price absolutely cuts through anything and being on a horse negates its negatives of low swing speed and poor handling.

Even on 1000 vs 1000 battles, I have no problems with swinging the 200+ length polearm so long as I avoid the main battle lines.
It makes cavalry battles (even against dense formations of Cataphracts and banner knights) SO easy as the speed of one's horse + enemy horse makes cutting damage effective even against such high armor. All I need to do is stay to the peripheries or behind them and start reaping away.

Imo romph gets outmatched by a fine steel menavlion or a crafted glaive.