1. New Mount And Blade

Calradian Weaponry

The medieval styling of the land of Calradia in Mount & Blade: Warband extends to the vast array of weaponry on offer. You’ll find weaponsmiths in all the major cities selling a variety of killing tools. You’ll also find weapons as part of the loot after any battle you win. The need to arm yourself and your band of heroes means you will need a lot of weaponry and anything left over can be sold later on for profit. In this Mount & Blade: Warband Weapon Guide we’ll take a closer look at the various weapon classes, suggest a few tactics and highlight some of the best options.

Weapon Classes

All of the weapons in Mount & Blade: Warband fit into six categories. These categories appear under the header Proficiencies on your Character screen and they break down as follows:

• One Handed Weapons
• Two Handed Weapons
• Polearms
• Archery
• Crossbows
• Throwing

In order to wield any weapon effectively you’re going to need to build up your ratings in the relevant Proficiency. Each time you go up a level you will get an Attribute point to spend, some Skill points and some Weapon points. The Weapon points can be spent on building up Proficiencies. You will also find that your Proficiencies grow naturally the more you use a weapon successfully. Pulling off several kills with a Short Sword, for example, will improve your One Handed Weapons rating.

Now we’ll take a look at each Proficiency in turn, explain the advantages and disadvantages and suggest the best weapon in that category for different circumstances.

One Handed Weapons

The weapons in this category have a left swing, right swing and overhead swing attack and for swords you can add a thrust attack.

Advantages – You can have a shield equipped with a one handed weapon but remember it will slow you down! Weapons in this category are also the fastest to swing.

Disadvantages – They may be fast but they also do less damage than other categories and they tend to have a shorter reach.

As a general rule the shorter the sword the faster you can swing it. As well as various types of sword you’ll also find maces, axes and picks in this category. Maces are good for knocking opponents down, axes are great for cutting through shields and picks are best employed to pierce armour. The one handed swords are the most versatile and they can be employed usefully in any circumstance. Remember that you can hit right mouse to change direction with your swipe attack. You need to be careful using the overhead or thrust attacks because they require careful aiming and if you miss you’ll be struck easily.