Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord – How to Get Best Units

How to reliably and regularly recruit as many elite, noble unit types that with some time and looter blood you can upgrade to tier 6.

Guide to Getting Best Units

All credit goes to Antares!

Introduction

• Since noble units available to each faction upgrade up to tier 6 at which they have skill levels reaching up to 280, they’re much better than ‘regulars’. Battanian Fian Champion with 280 Bow skill is a significantly better archer than Aserai Master Archer with 130 Bow skill, for example.
• Unfortunately, they’re also harder to recruit.
• That being said, there’s a way of acquiring them somewhat regularly from villages, provided you know where to look for.

Recruitment Requirements

In order for a village, or more specifically a character in a village, to be eligible for offering elite noble units, they must meet 2 requirements:

• They must be ‘Powerful’.
• They must be a landowner.

You can see a character’s power and type by hovering mouse over their portrait, as highlighted here:

When those 2 conditions are met, the character has a CHANCE of offering rare units instead of regulars. The chance seems to increase on further slots that require more relations to unlock. That being said, all slots have at least some chance of offering elites:

Here, Culharn of Lindorn is offering 6 troops from Battoniam Fian Champion line, at various upgrade levels.

And here Urios of Nideon is offering 6 troops from Imperial Elite Cataphract line

Usually only the last 2-3 slots will have elite troops however.

Optimising

Since meeting the mentioned conditions only creates the possibility of landowners offering elites, we want to increase the odds in our favour.

We can do this in multiple ways:

• If the character meeting the requirements is only offering standard troops, you can buy them out (you can disband them right away) to force them to “refresh” their troops inventory. They’ll replenish 1 troop daily.
• You can also create more ‘Powerful’ landowners. By doing quest for them, their power rating will gradually increase – typically by 5 per quest. For the character to be considered ‘Powerful’ they need at least 200 power rating. Doing quest will also unlock more recruitment slots.
• Mark the villages that have Powerful landowners and revisit them whenever you’re in the area

Disadvantages

While much more consistent than recruiting those units from among prisoners that you’ve taken or rescued from the enemy, this method still has some problems:

• Requires running back and forth between settlements.
• Power rating on characters isn’t fully in your control.
• Getting a unit to tier 6 takes quite a bit of experience.
• Losing them hurts.

Summary

In short, in order to recruit troops from the noble upgrade lines that upgrade to tier 6:

• Look for villages with powerful landowners.
• Do quests for them, clear out nearby bandit hideouts if possible.
• Buy out the non-noble troops they’re offering, if you’ve money to spare.
• Track them on the map and revisit them whenever you’re near.