Warband Mods: Prophecy of Pendor

This is my favorite mod pack for Mount & Blade. Prophecy of Pendor is notoriously known as the most challenging overhaul for Warband. I doubt I'll ever meet anyone with the patience to complete it on hard, it's just too difficult and frustrating. Pendor has a new map, equipment, units, and lore. It's essentially another game using the same engine. Even on the lowest setting, it's a really hard to get a good campaign started.

Cavalry. Lots of Cavalry.

Pendor is mostly trial and error for the first dozen hours. There are new factions and units to deal with and most of them will annihilate you, even if you outnumber them 10 to 1. I've had an army of 100 men get massacred by 10 knights before. This may sound frustrating, but when you can barely kill anything on the map it gives you something to aim for. When you finally get a bunch of companions and higher level equipment it's incredibly satisfying to beat them.

Prophecy of Pendor has such a huge experience curve, that you can put in a solid 50 hours into your campaign and some of the hardest enemies will still be untouchable. Unique armies spawn on the map with up to 1000 troops, roaming and destroying anything stupid enough to get in their way. It's common to see an army of 800 Seers or Jatu with hundreds of prisoners. Which is cool because if you defeat them you can pick and recruit any soldier you want.

This rampaging Jatu army wasn't easy to take out.

When you get to the stage of fighting factions and conquering castles, you will quickly find a few new surprises. Most prominent of which is being able to recruit Pendor troops and create Knighthood chapters. Once you are rolling with some highly trained knights and as much cavalry as you can get your hands on, get Warband Battle Sizer. Battles with over a thousand soldiers are unbelievably epic.

The army commands in Pendor are essentially the same as native Warband. However, it's far more important to maneuver your ranks strategically. Enemy forces can have some dangerous units that you have to counter effectively. For example, if you come up against the rare Noldor bowmen, you have to wipe them out immediately or their arrows will drop a soldier every second. It's still possible to abuse the mechanics to win, taking a large hill or massing cavalry is still overpowered. However, not all opponents will fall to superior mechanics.

I don't quite know why I have the Punisher logo, but I'm okay with it.

Pretty much everything from the original Warband campaign is gone. I honestly would of preferred Pendor to be the original game, I believe it's far more rewarding and addictive. There are a few aesthetic changes to make the game less frustrating to navigate, and each area of the map is scary and unique in its own way. It's not as big as Floris or story based like Light and Darkness; but Pendor has bigger and more diverse battles with a challenging learning curve.

Prophecy of Pendor is a great alternative for those of you looking for something new in Warband. It's difficult, even on the easiest settings. Beginning a new campaign is a struggle. You'll have to save a lot and use trial and error to break past the first few levels. Some of you might not find it worth the time, but it's a very rewarding experience.