Warband were never the super-troop once people figured out strategies to deal with them. Blades look to have improved, but they still aren't a super-troop. Personally i wouldn't mind seeing the AP cost changed to reflect their improvement, but it is unlikely to happen. They are still vulnerable to mounted as well.
They have +4 against mounted, and they are only vulnerable to elephants only on their own offensive bound. On the defensive bound they can get rear support +1 from Bd or Bw or Ps if allowed on the lists. Some lists with good Bd with plenty of rear support options, like Early Crusader, are going to become lucrative. While they die against El, Kn, Cm(S) and Exp on their defensive bound (enemy turn), they still fight on +4 (vs +3 of Kn and Cm or +4 of El and Exp), +5 if rear rank support. Early Crusader foot knights will have +6 (two ranks Bd and Ps backing) on defensive. Likewise, Norse Leidang will become lucrative as well with Ps support to huscarls.
But, still fully historical - as both armies fought against mounted enemies and fared fairly well against them.
The comment was made that Blade are 'the new warband' - well, if warband are that good, then Kn vs Bd is equally as good (in the Kn Bound) as wb vs Bd. i.e. the Kn only need to roll 2 up to kill. If you deploy 2 ranks blade plus psiloi support then you have a 16 AP per element frontage... you are going to be overlapped somewhere..
Swings and roundabouts, I don't deny Bd are good (improved) but not quite the 'ubertroopers' I don't think.
cheers
Doug
I think it is Cv who is going to be hurt most - they don't have QK against Bd and can get really, really hurt in that match-up. Likewise, LH can easily get spent against Bd - in DBM neither really could get hurt. Knights have improved too - a lot, in fact - and they are nowadays a real threat and not just a nuisance.
True, two ranks of Bd with Ps backing is 16 AP per frontage (Reg Bd(O)) vs 12 AP for Reg Kn(O), but you need actually +3 to kill Bd (+6 vs +4) and it succeeds only on your own bound with Kn - if you are Cv, you're kebab. Then again, only one rank of Bd dies when things go bad. Remember also Kn are 2ME apiece while Bd are 1.
Likewise, the classical match-up warband vs legions is really going to succeed only on exceptional circumstances - the warbands must succeed on their first bound or else they'll be dead soon, as Bd and Wb nowadays have QK on each other. This IMO is pretty realistic outcome. The legions also improve against Wb from Marian period up to Later Imperial, successively.
Phil had a fixation on Wb in DBM. They were a kind of ?ber-troops, especially against mounted in 3.0 and 3.1, where Wb(S) were about as effective against Kn as a pike phalanx (which is utterly unrealistic).
Another troop type, which has gained some edge, are Hordes - especially Hd(S). They no more get pushed back - and impetuous movement can nowadays be straight ahead, preventing traffic jams. So basically 20+ Hd(S) - cheap, expendable self-homing missiles) against enemy camp is a headache - you have to react on them, you usually over-react, and at least they saturate a lot of enemy expensive troops for a long time - and they can fare fairly well against Sp(I) or Bw(I) on their own, as they cannot get pushed back and getting overlaps is difficult.
