How to Recruit & Gear Up Companions in Mount & Blade 2 Bannerlord

Companions are a big part of your military power in Mount & Blade 2 Bannerlord. They’re units that come with particular skills and are of great use in combat. Some people are having trouble finding more companions to recruit into their ranks. Finding them is simple if you know where to look, but the game doesn’t do a particularly good job of explaining this. Another issue people are having is with giving equipment to their companions. We’re going to explain how both of these work in our guide on how to recruit & gear up companions in Mount & Blade 2 Bannerlord.

How to recruit companions?

In order to recruit new companions into your ever-growing army, you just need to visit the closest tavern. And have a lot of money, naturally. Companions are pretty expensive, especially early on. When you get to your nearest watering hole, make sure you talk to every patron you can. At least one of them should be a sellsword, and all you need to do to persuade them to join your cause is jingle your purse.

How to give equipment to companions?

Once you’ve bought the services of one such mercenary, you might want to give them some nicer digs, a sharper sword or a longer pole; both to increase their chances of survival and their destructive potential. You’ll probably want to avoid giving them a horse at this point, even if you have one to spare, since they have the tendency to gallop ahead of the other troops and get themselves into trouble.

Anyway, giving gear to companions works the same way as equipping it onto your character. Open up the inventory screen, then look for two arrows on either side of the character name, at the top of the screen. Use one of these until you get to the companion whose equipment you want to change, then just drag and drop whatever you like into the appropriate slots.