When you start a new game in Manor Lords, one of the hardest things to overcome early on is a Bandit Raid. This will usually happen in your second or third year, depending on your choices regarding them in the settings. The game will alert you that the bandits are on their way, and it’ll give you around a year to prepare for the attack, which is taxing on you as a player as you won’t have much of a production line at this point. In short, to defeat the bandits, you’ll need an army, but you won’t have the time to get anything decent. Read on to find out how you can build a decent enough army to take care of the bandits early on in the game.

Building an Early Army¶

So, now that you know that you require an army to deal with the bandits, you need to acquire one as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, building an army in Manor Lords is a complex task as you’ll need the materials and resources to craft their weapons and armor, and then you’ll need citizens to fill it. As you’ll be going against an army of 54 bandits split into three groups of 18, you’ll want an army near those numbers, although your army will have better equipment, so it can be a bit lower. When you start a new game, follow these steps to put you in good shape against the impending battle against the bandits.

Armor Production¶

1. Flax Farm: Immediately build a farmhouse with at least a 1.0 morgan-sized field for Flax. This is important as that’ll be the materials for your gambesons. Ideally, you’d build a wheat farm of the same size next to it, but have it as a lower priority. Make sure you put the fields in areas with high fertility (Flax for Flax, Emmer for Wheat).

2. Burgage Plot Level 2: Increase your approval rating so that you can upgrade burgage plots to level 2 as soon as possible. This will require a Church, a Well, and a few market supply stalls. Read our in-depth Burgage Plot Guide to understand it better. This is essential because to have a tailor, you’ll need the extension that turns the house into a tailor. Note that this will remove the people from the worker pool, as they’ll be dedicated to tailoring.

3. Weaver’s Workshop: Not to be confused by the tailor, this is a shop that can be found under industry. This will convert all Flax into Linen, which is needed for the gambesons. You don’t need this straight away but you will need it as soon as the Flax is about to be harvested. The farm you created above will have enough flax to create 36 linen, and it’s one linen for one gambeson.

4. Tailor Extension: Finally, convert one of the level 2 burgage plots into a Tailor. This will use the linen provided by the Weaver’s Workshop into gambesons. When you create this extension, head over to the general tab, and make sure you select the gambesons to make the tailor focus on them.

This will give you enough “armor” to fit an army of 36 Spear or Footmen Militia. That’s a third of the job done, now they’ll need some weapons.

Weapon Production¶

1. Iron Ore: Before you can make weapons, you’ll need Iron Ore. Fortunately, the game gives you a deposit relatively near your settlement. Create a Mining Pit found under the Mining section on top of the deposit and have someone mine it. You’ll need 96 Iron Ore to craft what you need, which should be the majority of that deposit.

2. Bloomery: The Bloomery will convert the ore into Iron Slabs that are needed for the weapons. You’ll need this up as soon as you start mining the ore, as time is of the essence.

3. Blacksmith: Convert another level 2 burgage plot into a Blacksmith, head to the general tab, and then have them make either spears or sidearms. The former is for Spear Militia, while the latter is for Footmen. You can create Footmen if you want, and they’ll be enough to deal with the bandit attack, but the Spear Militia will be sturdier, while also doing the job. In the Short term, the choice doesn’t matter, but long-term it makes more sense to create a larger Spear Militia squad as the game will give you enough equipment for 20 of them anyway, so you may as well have one squad of 56 Spear Militia than 20 Spear and 36 Footmen.

4. Sawpit: This goes for Logging Camp too. We assume you have a logging camp, as you’ll need timber for most of the things listed above. If you haven’t built one yet, do so. For the Sawpit, place it near the logging camp for logistics, and have them cut the timber into planks.

5. Joiner’s Shop: Now that you have wooden planks, you need a Joiner’s Shop to turn them into shields. Convert another burgage plot into level 2 and select a joinery. It costs two planks for each large shield, and you’ll want 36 of them, which will cost you 64 planks. When you create the Joiner’s Shop, make sure you select Large Shields in the general tab.

That’s the shield and weapons sorted out, all you require now is the citizens to fill the army.

Gathering Recruits¶

There’s nothing special you can do for this part. It’s as simple as creating more burgage plots (level 1) with extensions for more people. Each level 1 burgage plot can house one family that consists of three people. If the house has an extension, it’ll house another family, meaning you can get six people per house. This means you’ll want around nine houses, give or take, to fill the army. Don’t do this all at once though as you’ll need to fulfill their needs such as food and fuel, so make sure you have that covered first.

Defeating the Bandits¶

By now, you should have an army of 56 Spear Militia all equipped with a spear, a large shield, and a gambeson. This shouldn’t take longer than a year to get this, or at least by the time the bandits are at your doorstep. When the bandits begin making their way toward your settlement, place your army to meet them at the edge of your region, preferably on top of a hill if there is one. This will also keep the corpses far away from your settlement, which means you won’t have to deal with them later.

The bandits will come at you with three squads of 18 people. Meet them head-on, select the “Stand your Ground” stance, and slowly lower their numbers. It is unlikely that you will sustain significant damage here, as your equipment is superior to theirs. When you’ve taken out the equivalent of one squad (18 bandits), you can select “Push Forward” to make quicker work of them.

This army should have no problems whatsoever in defeating this group of bandits, but you will encounter more down the line, so make sure you keep slowly building your army over time, although you won’t need to do it immediately. Once you’ve dealt with the bandits, you can break up your army, and they’ll go back to work until you need them again. By this point, you should be able to get a Manor as well as the Retinue that comes with it to strengthen the army tenfold. If you require combat tips, read our Combat Tutorial Guide.

More Manor Lords Army Guides¶

If you want more help regarding the combat and army in Manor Lords, check out the guides below.

• Armaments System Explained
• Army & Combat Tutorial Guide
• Getting Mail and Plate Armor
• Clothing Stalls Explained
• Getting Weapons & Armor