How to couch a lance for newbies!

Learn to couch a lance or learn why your lance doesnt work.

Introduction

Ho there,m'lord! If you are like me and came from Warband or you are new to the M&B series, then welcome! You might be wondering: "How do I use this lance?" or "How do I get a lance?" or "Am I doing something wrong?". If so, then you have come to the right place! If not, go find another guide to answer your question. Lets get to it!

Purchasing your first Lance

You can't couch a lance if you don't have one! Lance's are incredibly powerful and if used right, even the weakest one can kill a mount with one couched attack. The best starter lance that I can recommend (because it was the one I began with) is the Imperial Light Lance. It costs about 200 denars and can be found in Phycaon (or at least thats where I found it)Great! Now you have a lance! An important thing to note as that in the image, the stats you can see consist of "One Handed Polearm" "Two handed polearm" and "Couch Lance". Make sure a lance has the Couch Lance stat on it, or else you won't be able to perform the Couched Lance attack. It speaks for itself, but I have seen at some big city's and markets that there are weapons that end with Lance, but don't actually have the Couch Lance attack stat.

Purchasing a suitable horse for a Lance

Something that a lot of guides or videos leave out is that the Default Sumpter horse can NOT reach a speed fast enough to couch a lance. This guide is assuming you have NOT purchased a sufficient horse because you are new, hence the title. A good horse that is fast, can couch a lance, is cheap, AND increases map travel speed is the Desert Horse.It costs about 140 denars and can be found at most settlements iirc. Great, you now have a horse capable of cavalry-ing. Now, time to put that lance to good use

Using your lance

Great! Now that you have a lance and fast horse, you are ready to become the first cavalry soldier in your unit (if you don't have any already, they take time and denars to get, so lets assume you are the first) Initiate combat with some bandits or the like, and you can use your new lance and horse!
1. Start by going full speed towards your enemy. You need to be going fast to couch the lance, and so it can actually do something to your opponent. IMPORTANT NOTE: Maintaining a fast and constant speed is CRUCIAL to doing high damage to your opponents
2. Once you are going fast enough you will see this icon on the bottom right, just above your health
bar:
3. Press the X key by default, or whatever key you have bound to "Switch Weapon Mode"
4. Once your X key is pressed, your player will lower the lance and the icon should change to look like this (bottom right, above health bar) 5. Ram your lance into your opponent.
IMPORTANT NOTE AGAIN: Ram your lance, NOT your horse. This is also crucial to actually hitting and killing the target. Look within the logical bounds of where your lance is supposed to go and keep your view in the general area of the target.
6. Profit

What am I doing wrong?/ Conclusion

"Im not going fast enough!" The lance icon will appear when you reach a certain speed, not immediately. The only other thing you could have done wrong is disregarded or ignored the second step, saying "I aLrEaDy HaVe A hOrSe, I dOnT nEeD a NeW oNe" Yeah, I addressed that the default horse can't be used with a lance, but you were too impatient to read it. Scroll back up and read it, im not a parrot.

If you have any questions, comment on this guide and I will address you as quick as I can.
I hope you learned something from this. I hope you have a great summer, and I hope you stay safe. See ya! :D

[Gangfreak]

Yes you can smith one yourself, but you have to use the right parts, not every staff is useable for couching.

[Pathfinder]

is it possible to SMITH one yourself????

[Otto von bonk]

This helped me so much ty

[catbox99]

The lances have changed since Warband. TBH, given the hideous spear mechanics, I find it better not to worry too much about couching. Just get the longest stick you can find, with the most damage, and use it as a regular spear. No need to line up, no need to worry about "x" (which used to be my "f"), just hold the sucker over your head in an angle a human hand can't possibly duplicate comfortably (and likely would result in hand damage and loss of spear), because no developer was thinking at all. Aim at their head, and charge. Odds are good whoever your target is, is either coming off their horse, or is shish kebab, with the vegetables separate, because that's how the Turks do it. A longer lance will keep you clear of the utterly stupid spear AoE that is attached to even short spears.

[Neurosys]

pressing X is still the most cryptic part, I remembered how to do it as soon as I saw 'then press x'

thats the only part I've ever had to go find out and once known, couching all day.

thanks for the refresh, I've got some looters to shishkabob now.

[TheOriginalJealot]

Awesome! They should hire you to put a condensed version of this in their game.

[FISHY]

i dident know this befor thx for the info

[Zachary Gamble]

"im not a parrot" had me laughing way to hard..

[Crusader469]

yes steven thats how you do it!

[Van Bro]

No steven
that's not how you do it