A protip when using the saber is to not slash until the enemy's head is past your saddle. It's easy to miss, but if you're using the approach I outlined above, you're going to be shooting right into their face anyway, and even if you miss you can still charge them with your mount. The starting pistol is just about a guaranteed kill on bandits and looters. You may not knock them to the ground, but you'll still stagger them which means they have to start their reload animation from the beginning, and it won't interrupt whatever you're doing. Even on a sumpter horse with low ride, you're guaranteed to overrun individual gunners. Even if you're using a firearm you want to be close amongst them, mixing it up, because a key part to this ramming whichever handgunner is closest with your horse.

It does require a bit of concentration, insofar as you have to mentally keep track of when each of them have fired, but if you can do that you can basically angle your turns such that you're presenting a deflection shot to the guys who are close to finishing reloading. Even on a sumpter horse, this means you can kill them all, because at any one time only one of them is bound to be actually aiming at you. The enemy AI doesn't volley fire unless they have a good commander and are in a formation, so what usually happens is that they're strung out in a loose column and randomly popping shots as they advance. Well, you can 'weave' between the fire of even a dozen mediocre handgunners if you know what you're doing.

Prophecy of pendor qualis gem