Got a bit of a long review in store the tldr version is that the core of the mount and blade games the combat has been greatly improved in bannerlord so as long as you enjoyed the combat in warband you're going to love bannerlord.

To best show how bannerlords combat is I think it best to describe a recent battle I had leading a khuzait army against an aserai army, we fought along the main path, I had a hill on my right and they had a hill on their left, our cavalry fought on the main path and my cavalry won, in response they sent their infantry down to meet them and i sent my own infantry to stop them, i then lured their infantry into a little trap by having my cavalry line up in a wedge on the left flank of their infantry, and had my infantry move away from their infantry by moving them to the right flank just at the base of their hill where their archers were sitting, I wanted to hide my infantry from the archers by keeping them at the bottom of their hill so the archers couldnt see them, and I had the infantry form up in a square to prevent the archers from firing at the ends of the infantry line. As their infantry marched down into the valley i had my cavalry run through their line and my square march into the other side while my archers fired from the front. This whole time i sent my horse archers around the right of their hill to harass their archers.

What I like so much about this is that all of these decisions were made on the fly and the ability to use formations allowed me to do little things like hide my infantry from archers and micromanage my cavalry runs and horse archer runs while i sat on my little hilltop with my archers, but in warband its pretty much just lines so I may not have been able to make those kinds of calls in battle. You can even do circles and columns for formations I think in general the formations add an entirely new level of depth to the battles that definitely improved on warbands combat. Obviously of course sieges are much better with multiple entry points and somewhat destructible environments and siege weapons.

There are some things however that I think warband did better, just little things here are there. In warband if you wanted to find a character you had to go find someone from the same realm and ask them, then when you got to the location the character said by that point the person may have gone so you may have to repeat the process unless you have good tracking. if you were a female you could insult male lords and duel them also it was harder to do certain events in the game like become a vassal. In arena normal fights (not tournaments) everyone actually used wooden weapons. you could 1v1 members of your army to train them individually (or 1v3 if you felt like it). If you participated in big battles with lords when you spoke to them next they would comment on it, "i wont forget how we stormed the walls of dhirim".

There are more little things that warband had i dont remember all of them, in warband i felt as if the world of calradia was a little better established it felt more like a living breathing world (however i have only put in around 100 hours in bannerlord compared to 700 in warband), but at the end of the day the actual core of the game is no doubt better in bannerlord which i think is a pleasant fact because normally games ignore their core gameplay for the sake of all the little things. Bannerlord is a great game the combat is awesome the only thing warband does better imo are small details to set up the world, but thats not why i play M&B

Got a bit of a long review in store the tldr version is that the core of the mount and blade games the combat has been greatly improved in bannerlord so as long as you enjoyed the combat in warband you're going to love bannerlord. To best show how bannerlords combat is I think it best to describe a recent battle I had leading a khuzait army against an aserai army, we fought along the main path, I had a hill on my right and they had a hill on their left, our cavalry fought on the main path and my cavalry won, in response they sent their infantry down to meet them and i sent my own infantry to stop them, i then lured their infantry into a little trap by having my cavalry line up in a wedge on the left flank of their infantry, and had my infantry move away from their infantry by moving them to the right flank just at the base of their hill where their archers were sitting, I wanted to hide my infantry from the archers by keeping them at the bottom of their hill so the archers couldnt see them, and I had the infantry form up in a square to prevent the archers from firing at the ends of the infantry line. As their infantry marched down into the valley i had my cavalry run through their line and my square march into the other side while my archers fired from the front. This whole time i sent my horse archers around the right of their hill to harass their archers. What I like so much about this is that all of these decisions were made on the fly and the ability to use formations allowed me to do little things like hide my infantry from archers and micromanage my cavalry runs and horse archer runs while i sat on my little hilltop with my archers, but in warband its pretty much just lines so I may not have been able to make those kinds of calls in battle. You can even do circles and columns for formations I think in general the formations add an entirely new level of depth to the battles that definitely improved on warbands combat. Obviously of course sieges are much better with multiple entry points and somewhat destructible environments and siege weapons. There are some things however that I think warband did better, just little things here are there. In warband if you wanted to find a character you had to go find someone from the same realm and ask them, then when you got to the location the character said by that point the person may have gone so you may have to repeat the process unless you have good tracking. if you were a female you could insult male lords and duel them also it was harder to do certain events in the game like become a vassal. In arena normal fights (not tournaments) everyone actually used wooden weapons. you could 1v1 members of your army to train them individually (or 1v3 if you felt like it). If you participated in big battles with lords when you spoke to them next they would comment on it, "i wont forget how we stormed the walls of dhirim". There are more little things that warband had i dont remember all of them, in warband i felt as if the world of calradia was a little better established it felt more like a living breathing world (however i have only put in around 100 hours in bannerlord compared to 700 in warband), but at the end of the day the actual core of the game is no doubt better in bannerlord which i think is a pleasant fact because normally games ignore their core gameplay for the sake of all the little things. Bannerlord is a great game the combat is awesome the only thing warband does better imo are small details to set up the world, but thats not why i play M&B