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A lot of players are having trouble clearing hideouts in Bannerlord, especially the forest bandit hideouts. Forest bandits have insane accuracy and range with their bows making it easy for them to turn your small group of troops into a bunch of pincushions each time. There are a few things you can do in Bannerlord to make the hideouts easier if you find that they are too hard to clear. Here are some tips and tricks to keep in mind the next time you find yourself raiding a hideout.

Waiting It Out Till There Are Fewer Bandits

One clever way is to simply lie in wait near the hideout or come back to it after a day and check the number of troops inside. Under the hideout’s name on the map, there will be a bunch of yellow squares with arrows indicating how many bandit groups are in the base. If you approach it and there are 3 or 4 of those icons, just leave and come back in a day and there may be less. The fewer bandits there are, the higher your chance of successfully clearing the encampment! Note that bandits do not leave the hideout if you are nearby. You need to fully leave the area and come back for some of the bandit units to leave.

You could also do a series of raids over the course of a few days. If you attack the hideout and go from fire to fire taking out enemies and then leaving when it gets too hard, you’ll slowly dwindle their numbers over time and be able to take it in one shot in the end.

Set Your Archers to Fire at Will

When you enter a hideout, your archers will be set to hold their fire automatically so that you can sneak in and take them by surprise rather than having the AI alert the whole hideout to your presence. However, don’t immediately set them to fire at will. Get them into position around one of the campfires and then press the F4 key to have them switch to fire at will and unleash their arrows at the enemy all at once. After they’ve finished that camp, press F4 again and move them into position for the next. Do this one by one until you’ve cleared the whole hideout!

Choose Who to Bring with You

You can change who comes with you into the hideout by organizing your troops in the party menu. The game pulls units from whoever is directly below you in the menu. Want a bunch of Imperial Legionaries to come with you? Put them under you. Trying to raid a hideout with your companions? Make them directly under you in the stack. It is that simple. If you were bringing in a bunch of recruits before, check where they are in the party hierarchy.

Bring Your Whole Army with You into the Hideout

If you’d rather just bring your whole army than do any of the other solutions, there’s a way to do that. The modding community for Mount and Blade has been improving upon the base games since the first one was ever released over a decade ago. It seems that they are more dedicated to Bannerlord than any of the others with tons of mods already available for download that improve Bannerlord immensely. One such mod lets you bring your whole party with you into the hideout.

Let’s face it, if you had an army of 150 and there were 20 bandits in a valley, you’d have all 150 men charging in and not just bring 5 of your troops with you. This mod will make every bandit camp a piece of cake. The mod comes with a few different versions available for download, but be warned that if you use the ‘no troop limit’ version armies of a 100 or bigger may cause your game to crash. We suggest getting the 90 or 50 troop version as that should be more than enough.

We hope that this guide turned hideouts in Bannerlord from being too hard to a walk in the park. If you follow the above tips you’ll never lose a unit again! Okay, maybe just not as many. Those pesky forest bandits are a pain for everyone! If you’re looking for more Bannerlord content, check out our other guides.