Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord - 10 Best Tactics Perks (2024)

Tactics is one of the most challenging skills in to level up and utilize but simultaneously one of the most essential skills to have at your disposal in the late game.

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With a high level of this skill and the right perk choices along the way, you can safely send your troops to fight the smaller battles for you without heavy casualties and pick and choose the more important fights that you want to participate in.

10 Tight Formations

The first perks in the Tactics skill tree are between Loose Formations and Tight Formations. Their primary effects are relatively similar, as the former reduces the damage your troops take in auto-resolve battles, and the latter increases it.

What makes Tight Formations the better choice is that shield wall and square formations are the best formations for your infantry and cavalry, and they will benefit more from the secondary benefit of this perk. If you are playing an archer-heavy style, you should consider the alternative as line and loose formations are better choices for your ranged troops.

9 Decisive Battle

There are some perks in tactics and scouting trees that affect your troops' performance either in open fields or forest terrains and your choice of playstyle and troops can affect these perks. Archer-heavy playstyles shine in heavily wooded battlefields for extra cover, but most other armies prefer an open field for freedom of movement and sight.

While Extended Skirmish is a superb perk choice for the aforementioned style, Decisive Battle is the better option for most players. It's much easier to command your army in open-field battles, and most of the terrain in the game's world map falls under this category, so the extra damage helps your troops more consistently.

8 Horde Leader

Like with any other perk, party size is extremely valuable for any character, and Horde Leader is a great tactics perk that offers a medium increase to your party size, in addition to prolonging your ability to command large armies.

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Small Units Tactics is not an optimal perk in most situations. If you are having a hard time clearing bandit hideouts in the early game, you can choose this perk to help you and switch back to Horde Leader later on when you have better combat skills.

7 Coaching

There are a handful of perks in the game, such as Law Keeper, that help you against bandit parties. While these perks can be useful in the early game, they lose their value towards the later stages of the game where you won't be fighting against bandit parties as often.

Coaching is a better perk for empowering your party against any enemies, by increasing their damage when they are sent to auto-resolve the battle. While the damage increase is small, it can add up to a considerable advantage over long campaigns.

6 Improviser

The fifth perk choice in the tactics tree is very dependent on the stage of the game and your overall power. Improviser helps you break into and out of sieges with fewer casualties, and reduce the impact of a disorganized state on your troops' performance.

Swift Regroup allows you to escape unwanted battles with fewer casualties and reduces the duration of the disorganized state overall. Swift Regroup is the better choice if you are underpowered compared to your enemies, but Improviser can help you complete your world conquest.

5 Call To Arms

On The March is a decent perk at this level if you declare your own kingdom and have few settlements to defend against multiple waves of attacks, or if you have a large enough army that you are willing to auto-resolve siege battles. The perk reduces the enemy fortification bonus and increases your own while defending a settlement.

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But Call To Arms has a wider use case across your game, as it allows you to gather armies more quickly and cheaply. This perk can come in handy if you are surprised by another kingdom declaring war on you while you're not prepared.

4 Make Them Pay

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Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord - 10 Best One-Handed Perks

The later stages of the game are mostly large siege battles as you try to conquer the world, and while having a good engineer or high skill yourself can help you immensely at that point, there are perks such as Make Them Pay and Pick Them Off The Walls that can help you as well.

The difference between the two perks is that Make Them Pay can make you win your siege battles quicker, but Pick Them Off The Walls can help you face fewer enemy troops once the battle begins. Make Them Pay becomes better as you become stronger, making it the optimal choice for the long run.

3 Elite Reserves

Encirclement is a great perk for leveling up your tactics skill and quickly dispatching smaller enemy parties. It increases your party's damage when you send them against enemy parties with smaller numbers, making you take fewer casualties while leveling up your tactics' skill.

But once you reach max levels in the skill, Elite Reserves becomes the superior choice as it protects your higher tier troops when you send your army to confront the enemy. The perk can save you a lot of casualties in the long run, and help you keep your party intact.

2 Pre Battle Maneuvers

Besieged is a great defensive perk when you want to defend a particularly important settlement, and it might even be worth it to visit the arena and switch to this perk when you know there is an enemy army coming to besiege your town.

But other than such scenarios, Pre Battle Maneuvers is the better option across most of your battles, giving you an edge the higher your tactics skill is compared to the enemy commander. The extra influence from this perk can also be very useful when you are the leader of your kingdom and have to turn down bad policies and war declarations.

1 Counter Offensive

While Gens d'armes is a decent governor perk and can help cavalry-heavy armies, once you reach this high level of tactics skill, you want something more impactful from your final perks. Counter Offensive while not perfect, is the more effective choice at this level.

This perk will help you immensely when you are caught off guard and attacked by larger armies. Combined with previous perks, you can overcome larger armies with ease, especially if your party is made up of high-tier troops.

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