Bannerlord Aserai Troop Tree: Wages and Upgrades

Short answer: the Aserai tree splits into shielded infantry with throwing weapons, an archer line, and a Mamluke cavalry line that turns into horse archers at tier 4, while every noble unit from Aserai Youth (T2) up is cavalry. There is also a second way into the noble line: capture Bedouin Rovers, raise them to Harami, and use the Leadership perk the wiki calls Veteran's Respect to upgrade a Harami into an Aserai Veteran Faris (T5 noble cavalry). ★How quickly that route works, and how many bandits there are to convert, is not something the sources state, so this article does not compare it with waiting for a village spawn.

This is written for stable v1.4.8, released 10 August 2026. Checking Steam's announcements today, the only newer entry is the v1.5.0 beta notice of 19 August 2026, so v1.4.8 is still the stable build. ★However, not one of the wiki pages this article draws on states that it was checked against v1.4.8. Read the wages and skills as a guide, not as measured v1.4.8 values. The last section sets out which versions the pages do cite.

The full Aserai troop tree: wages, sources and upgrade costs

The community wiki's Aserai tree has 23 nodes, and 22 of them have pages. The remaining one, Aserai Veteran Sailor, is a red link from the wiki's own tree, so no figures could be checked for it.

Where the wiki records a value as "?", this article says "not listed" rather than filling it in. "Aserai villages" is as specific as the wiki gets about where a unit can be recruited.

Wages follow the tier closely. T1 is 2, T2 is 3, T3 is 5, T4 is 8 (the Aserai Archer alone is 7), T5 is 12 and T6 is 17 denars/day. ★Where the wage could be checked, noble units cost the same as the regular unit of their tier. The T4 Faris is 8, the same as Infantry and Mamluke Guard, and the T5 Veteran Faris is 12, like the other T5 units. The T2 Youth and T3 Tribal Horseman have "?" in the wiki's wage field, so they cannot be compared.

Regular upgrade costs rise 15 → 25 → 50 → 100 denars. ★The "1 Mount + N denars" costs that appeared in the Sturgian table are not written on any of the Fandom wiki's Aserai troop pages. The wiki does warn that Aserai cavalry effectively needs war horses, so the lack of a horse cost in the table above means "the wiki does not say", not "it is free".

Four lines to keep straight

1. Infantry: Tribesman → Footman → Infantry → Veteran Infantry. Shield plus spear, blade and javelins
2. Archers: Tribesman → Light Archer → Archer → Master Archer (or Bahriyyah)
3. Mamluke: from the Mamluke Soldier it splits into an infantry side (Axeman → Guard → Palace Guard) and a cavalry side (Regular → Cavalry → Heavy Cavalry)
4. Noble cavalry: Youth → Tribal Horseman → Faris → Veteran Faris → Vanguard Faris. The way in is a rare village spawn

★Noble troops being cavalry at every step is a big difference from Sturgia. Sturgian nobles are infantry up to T4 and become cavalry only at T5. The wiki's Aserai pages call the Youth (T2), Tribal Horseman (T3) and Faris (T4) "noble cavalry". Since every noble entry point is only a rare village spawn, a noble unit picked up at a low tier is something you raise as cavalry.

The Mamluke cavalry line becomes archers at T4

The wiki's Aserai page says that when a Mamluke Regular is upgraded to Mamluke Cavalry it equips a bow and arrows and its default formation changes to horse archer. The skills show the change too (both sets are values the wiki labels v1.5.3 beta).

Bow jumps from 30 to 100 while Throwing drops from 70 to 60. The T3 Regular has only 30 in Bow; the line becomes a bow-using one from the T4 Cavalry on. The wiki rates Regulars and Youths as "light cavalry at best", ill prepared against mid-tier threats until they have war horses.

Comparing the six tier-5 units

The six T5 units. All values are what the wiki gives as v1.3.13 (Veteran Faris: "WS v1.1.1 / BL v1.3.13"), a different point in time from the v1.5.3 beta values for T4 and below.

• Veteran Infantry: the shielded all-rounder. 1H 160, Polearm 130, Athletics 130, with sword, spear, javelins and shield all together, so it carries a full front-line kit
• Mamluke Palace Guard: the shieldless charger. Two-handed 140, Throwing 130, Athletics 140, armed with a two-handed axe and throwing axes. Without a shield, it is the attack-leaning build
• Master Archer: Bow 160, the highest of the six. No shield
• Bahriyyah: Bow 140 with a shield. The wiki calls it a "mariner archer" but does not explain when to use it
• Mamluke Heavy Cavalry: Bow 130, Riding 130, shield. It is the only T5 unit with a bow, a shield and a mount
• Veteran Faris: Riding 160, Polearm 130. Riding is the highest of the six, and it also carries Jereed javelins

★Where the wiki contradicts itself

Several Aserai pages disagree with each other. Where I cannot tell which is right, I say so.

• Where the Mamluke Axeman upgrades to. The Axeman's own page lists "Upgrades To: Mamluke Cavalry". But the tree, the Mamluke Guard page (acquired from: Axeman) and the Mamluke Cavalry page (acquired from: Regular only) all agree on Axeman → Guard. This article treats it as Axeman → Guard
• Whether an Archer can become a Bahriyyah. The Bahriyyah page lists "Archer" as a source, but the Archer page lists only the Master Archer. The tree's layout can be read as allowing both, but this cannot be confirmed, and the Veteran Sailor page is a red link so it cannot settle the question
• The price of war horses. The Aserai page lists "mounts are expensive in Aserai territory" as a weakness while listing horses among the faction's main goods. This article says nothing about horse prices

★A second way into the noble line: capturing Bedouin Rovers

The Aserai also have a route from a desert bandit culture ("Bandits") straight into Aserai troops. The wiki marks all three steps as needing the Leadership perk "Veteran's Respect". The routes below match in both directions: the bandit unit's "Upgrades To" and the Aserai unit's "Acquired From".

1. Bedouin Rovers come from prisoners. The wiki's only listed source is "Prisoners"
2. Raise a Nomad Bandit and use the perk to move to Mamluke Cavalry and you are in the Mamluke horse-archer line
3. Raise a Harami and use the perk to move to the Veteran Faris. That is a T5 noble cavalryman reached without the rare T2 to T4 village spawns
4. A Veteran Faris can then be upgraded to a Vanguard Faris (T6)

★There is a condition. The Fandom wiki has no page explaining this perk, so the skill level it needs could not be confirmed there. The Japanese wiki (atwiki) says it is a "Leadership 150 perk", but I could not verify that number. The same Japanese wiki also says that moving desert bandits into cavalry needs a riding horse for the T3 step and a war horse for the T4 step (also unverified). Check the Leadership perk list in-game before planning around it. Also, the three bandit pages give v1.5.7 beta values, a different point in time from stable v1.4.8. The sources give no figures for how many bandits spawn or how fast they train, so this is not compared with waiting for a village noble.

Tier 6: the Vanguard Faris

The Vanguard Faris costs 17 denars/day, the same as the T6 noble unit of all six cultures. The wiki's figures (v1.3.13) are 1H 170, 2H 60, Polearm 200, Bow 65, Throwing 140, Riding 170 and Athletics 90. It lists a Mamluke Lance, Fine Steel Long Kaskara and Jereed, an Ornate Adarga shield, and an Askarat mount.

Set beside the T6 comparison table in the Sturgia article, it sits like this.

• Throwing 140 is the highest of the six T6 noble units. Next is the Sturgian Druzhinnik Champion at 90, and the other four are 30 to 45
• Polearm 200 is below the Vlandian Banner Knight and Imperial Elite Cataphract (260 each) and equal to the Khuzait Khan's Guard (200)
• Riding 170 equals the Druzhinnik Champion and is below the Banner Knight, Cataphract and Khan's Guard (200)

The wiki's Aserai page lists as a strength that the Faris units carry Jareeds, "the most powerful throwing weapon in the game", which makes them deadly in sieges. The Vanguard Faris page gives the Jareed 121 (pierce) and 5 per stack (this weapon table alone is labelled v1.5.4 beta). "Most powerful" is the wiki's claim, not something checked here against every throwing weapon.

Aserai strengths and weaknesses (as the wiki describes them)

• Strength: infantry and lancers use throwing weapons and horse archers carry shields, so unit roles are less rigid
• Strength: low-tier units carry polearms, which helps against cavalry
• Strength: Mamluke units are tanky and useful in sieges
• Strength: archers get top-tier weapons and arrows
• Weakness: situationally outmatched by more specialised units. Little reliable heavy infantry to hold a line, and poor helmets
• Weakness: cavalry needs war horses
• Weakness: long distances between castles make Faris (the noble troops) hard to recruit

On economy the wiki gives the Aserai 8 towns, 9 castles and 40 villages, with dates (the only producer), grain, horses and salt as main goods.

★Sources and version caveats (please read this)

The wages, skills and equipment here are the values the community wiki (Fandom) gives. It is run by volunteers and is not an official wiki.

★By "stated version" I mean the version tag on each page's Skills section. Not one of the 22 pages says v1.4.8. The infobox that carries wages, sources and upgrade costs has no version tag, and the Equipment section of the T1 to T4 pages says only "v1.x.x". So the wages and upgrade costs cannot be tied to any particular build. The Skills-section breakdown:

• v1.5.3 beta (14 pages): Recruit, Tribesman, Mamluke Soldier, Youth, Footman, Light Archer, Axeman, Regular, Tribal Horseman, Archer, Infantry, Guard, Cavalry, Faris
• v1.3.13 (6 pages): Master Archer, Bahriyyah, Veteran Infantry, Palace Guard, Heavy Cavalry, Vanguard Faris
• WS v1.1.1 / BL v1.3.13 (1 page): Veteran Faris
• no specific version stated (1 page, just "v1.x.x"): Peasant
• The three bandit pages (Bedouin Rover, Nomad Bandit, Harami) give v1.5.7 beta

So the T1 to T4 skill figures come from a beta newer than the stable build and the T5 to T6 figures from v1.3 values older than it; even within one line they are not from the same point in time. The v1.5.3 and v1.5.7 betas do not appear in Steam's announcement list (I went back through 60 entries today). Developers sometimes ship betas only through the forum, so I cannot say they do not exist, but I could not confirm them. Read beta-derived values as possibly different in the stable build.

On the other hand, tier structure, sources and upgrade costs are not things patches change often. Skill numbers move more. The Battanian Fian Champion's and Khuzait Khan's Guard's Bow skills fell from 260 to 200 in v1.3.8, and only the Fian was raised back to 220 in v1.3.13. This article can settle how to build a force, but check the in-game encyclopedia for fine skill comparisons.

Summary

• Four lines: infantry, archers, Mamluke and noble cavalry. The Mamluke cavalry line turns into horse archers at T4 Cavalry
• ★Noble units are cavalry from Youth (T2) up. Every entry point is a rare village spawn
• T5 roles are clearly split: the shielded Veteran Infantry, the shieldless Palace Guard, the Bow 160 Master Archer and the Riding 160 Veteran Faris
• ★Bedouin Rover to Nomad Bandit to Harami reaches the Veteran Faris (T5 noble cavalry). It needs the Leadership perk Veteran's Respect, whose required level I could not verify (the Japanese wiki says Leadership 150)
• The T6 Vanguard Faris has Throwing 140, the highest of the T6 noble units. Its Polearm trails the Vlandian and Imperial units, and its Riding trails the Vlandian, Imperial and Khuzait units
• ★None of the source pages is stated as checked against v1.4.8. Skills are v1.5.3 beta for T1 to T4 and v1.3 for T5 to T6, and wages and upgrade costs carry no version tag at all

Sources: the Aserai page on the community wiki (Fandom), the wiki's Aserai troop tree, the bandit pages for Bedouin Rover, Nomad Bandit and Harami, each unit's own page, and Steam's official v1.4.8 announcement.