History YMMV / MountAndBlade

** As of the 1.153 patch for Mount and Blade Warband, daily waves of indicted Lords. At around 300-600 days, Kings from all factions will constantly indict their Vassals for treason at the drop of a hat each day. This causes wide swathes of their territory to remain unclaimed, which means smaller armies to fight in the endless wars. Even if they start granting territory to one, it is no guarantee that they will remain at all. A player is often the sole vassal who actually sticks around for more than a week, meaning they are the only one who can actually fight enemies off.

** Gunwielding enemies in general in WF&S. This is especially the case for those who have quality firearms and know how to use them like Swedish troops, but even the humble [[ButtMonkey low grade outlaw]] with a Shur Fine Homemade Gun can give you grief. They pack an amazing punch against everything, capable of OHKOing an unarmored target (including a starting player); and can even significantly wound a player with the ArmorOfInvincibility ; they're very accurate since [[EasyLogistics nobody has to worry about things like not seeing through gun smoke]], and they reload at a rapid clip. They make early game hard (unbearable for some) and in numbers can be a serious danger into late game.

* ContestedSequel: The political model and multiplayer are long-requested and popular features, but the changes to combat are a BaseBreaker, and the "balancing" of cavalry and infantry for multiplayer purposes is ''very'' much hated.

* StopHelpingMe: When a friendly lord sieges a fort/town, most likely they're attempting to wait out the defenders to run out of food, rather than building a siege weapon to assault the castle with. Unfortunately this also means you can't siege it yourself during that time, and can be particularly frustrating if it's the last one owned by an enemy faction. Fortunately, in Warband if you have decent relations with the sieging lord, you can ask him to attack immediately.

%%** [[GameMod "Where's the 'rape' button?"]]

* GoodBadBugs: The ammo respawn bug, which reappeared several times during the development and is still present in the final version. Things like arrows or javelins come in stacks which replenish after each battle, but the bug causes them to replenish every time the inventory screen is opened (which can be done mid-battle by accessing the baggage chest at the spawn point), thus saving a few inventory slots that would otherwise have to be dedicated to carrying spare stacks.

* GoodBadBugs:
** The ammo respawn bug, which reappeared several times during the development and is still present in the final version. Things like arrows or javelins come in stacks which replenish after each battle, but the bug causes them to replenish every time the inventory screen is opened (which can be done mid-battle by accessing the baggage chest at the spawn point), thus saving a few inventory slots that would otherwise have to be dedicated to carrying spare stacks.

* GoodBadBugs: The ammo respawn bug, which reappeared several times during the development and is still present in the final version. Things like arrows or javelins come in stacks which replenish after each battle, but the bug causes them to replenish every time the inventory screen is opened (which can be done mid-battle by accessing the baggage chest at the spawn point), thus saving a few inventory slots that would otherwise have to be dedicated to carrying spare stacks.

* StopHelpingMe: When a friendly lord sieges a fort/town, most likely they're attempting to wait out the defenders to run out of food, rather than building a siege weapon to assault the castle with. Unfortunately this also means you can't siege it yourself during that time, and can be particularly frustrating if it's the last one owned by an enemy faction.

* CurbStompBattle: Player can easily pull this off during normal gameplay but the tutorial/introduction quest is a prime example of this trope. In this quest you are tasked with training 10 peasants to recapture merchants wife/brother from robbers... "Problem" is that this quest is not timed and player can easily amass huge army and get high end gear before finishing the quest which results in robbers getting completely roflstomped. [[ {{UpToEleven}} Oh, and a second part of this quest pits PC and several high end faction troops ( that serve as city guards with every faction ) against few unarmoured looters..]]

* CurbStompBattle: Player can easily pull this off during normal gameplay but the tutorial/introduction quest if a prime example of this trope. In this quest you are tasked with training 10 peasants to recapture merchants wife/brother from robbers... "Problem" is that this quest is not timed and player can easily amass huge army and get high end gear before finishing the quest which results in robbers getting completely roflstomped. [[ UpToEleven Oh, and a second part of this quest pits PC and several high end faction troops ( that serve as city guards with every faction ) against few unarmoured looters..]]

** Khergit horse archers, which is to say, all Khergit cavalry, which is to say, [[PlanetOfHats all Khergit troops]]. Their horses are fast, so fast they may forever elude you at first, their arrows are omnipresent and will interrupt your attacks, and they come in [[TheHorde hordes]]. As you progress and your party grows, they may be downgraded to GoddamnBats or even to {{Mooks}}.

* ComplacentGameplaySyndrome: Getting [[MasterOfAll Swadian Knights, Rhodok Sharpshooters, and Nordic Huscarls]], all 3 of which are on the same side of the map. Not only are all of them very good at their roles, the Sharpshooters and Knights also double as even ''more'' heavy infantry in a pinch and Huscarls have throwing axes.

* SpiritualLicensee: Because of the gritty third-or-first-person ground-level view of medieval battles and skirmishes, the absence of magic, monsters or other overt fantasy elements, and the {{Fantasy Counterpart Culture}}s, ''Mount & Blade''/''Warband'' can feel like a licensed game for HistoricalFiction novels - especially action-packed works by Creator/BernardCornwell and other authors. Playing as the Vaegirs, Rhodoks and Swadians with their knights, archers and crossbowmen can feel like Cornwell's ''Literature/TheGrailQuest'', about the HundredYearsWar. Playing as the [[DarkAgeEurope slightly retro]] Nords can remind one of Cornwell's ''Literature/TheSaxonStories'' about the Dark Ages English and Vikings/Danes. Playing as the Khergits can evoke Conn iggulden's ''Literature/{{Conqueror}}'' series about the rise of the Mongols as a world power. The lead developer actually {{Squee}}d when presented with one of the Grail Quest books by an interviewer, and acknowledged Cornwell as an influence.

* FridgeBrilliance: For most of the original game's development, Marnid and Borcha were the only recruitable companion NPCs. '''M'''arnid and '''B'''orcha, '''M'''ount & '''B'''lade.

** The Surgery skill. A 4% per point doesn't sound like much, but one must take into account that soldiers that live longer get more experience, which makes them stronger and much harder to kill. Strong soldiers make it easier to win battles, and gather more experience for themselves and new recruits thanks to LeakedExperience, which become harder to kill... Such snowball effect becomes noticeable as low as level 3 or 4 in the skill. (keep in mind, that 4% per rank is added to the passive 25% chance to be wounded you already had, ending up at 85%, if you manage to hit the full 15 possible party skill score (requires the use of the surgery reference book (+1 while in the inventory) and the PC with 10 surgery, since the PC gets an extra +4 bonus to skill checks on party skills they know themselves at rank 10, contrary to some other sources you do NOT need other NPCs with the skill for this to happen and it works even if completely solo and for any party skill that has a reference manual (or 14 if a skill lacks a reference manual like first-aid (which in the unmodded game they added 2 copies of Wound management instead of 1 of each medical skill...the WM books do not stack)).

* FridgeBrilliance: For most of the original game's development, Marnid and Borcha were the only recruitable companions. '''M'''arnid and '''B'''orcha = '''M''' & '''B''' = '''M'''ount & '''B'''lade.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Bunduk seems to have a lot of fans.

* BrokenBase: Before ''VideoGame/MountAndBlade'' was picked up by a publisher, they were operating on a buy now get a fleshed out version later without added cost deal. Similar to Minecraft and Terraria. Howeve,r once a publisher picked up the game, the promised improvements were never made to the original Mount and Blade. The improvements were to include better combat, multiplayer, and improvements to sieges and management. Instead they were made into addons that had to be purchased. A segment of the original fandom who had pre-purchased the game then were less then pleased. There were vows to never buy or instead pirate the sequels as they felt they were cheated by the deal. As the game and sequels became cheaper, members of the fandom who felt this way changed their minds and just purchased the now notably cheaper sequels.

** Top-tier armor, specially the heaviest kinds like heavy plate, etc. You are slower (on foot) than a pregnant whale, of course, but how is that an inconvenience when 5 out of 6 times you are hit you won't take a single point of damage[[note]]Even under full-damage rules[[/note]]? There's a reason why they are the most expensive items in the game by a huge margin. Second best armors are way cheaper, and while they won't make your character effectively inmortal, they improve survivability tenfold.
*** Playing without the handicap, both the player and their heavy infantry/cavalry in the game suddenly become MUCH more squishy, since the damage reduction handicap is applied BEFORE armor calculations which makes heavy armors MUCH more effective then they're supposed to be. In battles where 20 Huskys or Swadian knights could crush a 100+ man armor without a single loss, they'll suddenly find themselves being completely wiped out with usually 2 to 1 death odds in the enemy's favor. A no handicap game does require actually paying attention and using strategy, either by working around a factions weakness if you're playing straight faction or seeking out troops from other nations to cover those weaknesses (aka Huskys, swadian knights, and rhodok sharpshooter as the only units in your army).

** Anyone on horseback, from a foot-soldier's perspective. And Heavy Calvary from ANYONE'S perspective. Justified in that, as a medieval combat simulator, heavily armored, mounted troops really ''were'' the ultimate combat units and that mounted troops really ''did'' have a ridiculous advantage over non-mounted troops.

** The Surgery skill. A 4% per point doesn't sound like much, but one must take into account that soldiers that live longer get more experience, which makes them stronger and much harder to kill. Strong soldiers make it easier to win battles, and gather more experience for themselves and new recruits thanks to LeakedExperience, which become harder to kill... Such snowball effect becomes noticeable as low as level 3 or 4 in the skill.

* GoddamnedBats: In ''With Fire and Sword'', at early levels, just about anyone with a firearm, which is almost every bandit in the game. It'll be a loooong time until you can survive a musket shot, so you either spend several minutes just dodging until you exhaust all their ammo, or risk being blasted off your horse by a lucky shot from some filthy brigand who can barely aim his makeshift gun.