# bretonnia? are they good



## Lord Rahl (Mar 13, 2010)

After getting involved with fantasy alot more, since IoB was released, i have formed a like towards the chivlarous horsemen of Bretonnia. I have some models from way back in the 90s when they did a starter box that featured Bretonnians and lizardmen. 

Not being a fan of the slanns, i have opted to look at the Brettonnians and was wondering if it would be a good idea to start a small force of them. 

The main questions i have are: Are they a viable army to use?
How popular are they?
What sport of price is a small 1500pt army?

Like i said i already have some models and want to expand on that force, the stuff i have are as follows: 12 knights of the realm
24 bowmen

Any advice and tactics would be great, thanx. Oh and i forgot to add that im a little worried about commiting to buying any as the armie book is 6yrs old. You know when you buy somthing and they then re-release that same thing but with updates, i dont want to fall into that bulls**t trap.

Thanx again


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

Bretonnians are one of the lower tiered armies currently but they are viable. There are two main forms of Bret army, The Mounted Knight Army and the Peasant revolt. I'm guessing by what you said you're more of a Mounted Knight army kinda guy. You should't need that much more for a 1500 pt army, some more Knights of the Realm, some more archers and maybe a Trebutchet or 2, I know a good alternate model if your not playing GW tournies for them. 

They're not a massively popular army due to being less competitive than the others. 

Aramoro


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Yup. Cavalry took a massive hit in 8th Edition, as they no longer strike first (with a Mediocre Initiative, that's important), occasionally lack the range (they used to have a 16" range, they now have a 26", meaning that about 1 in 3 charges will be shorter), and can no longer break enemies (because of Step Up and Supporting attacks levelling the playing field, and Steadfast ruining the game full stop) on the charge, leaving them locked in a combat which only gets worse for them (they lose their lances and every model lost after that is often 2 and a half times the points cost of the targetted model.).

Okay, so, good points about the list - 

A Damsel with the Verdant Heart is a damn decent caster of the Lore of Life, which suits all Peasants very well (especially the Grail Reliquae, with their Hatred and Stubborn - rebirth healing dead models allowing the Reliquae to come back even if destroyed, regeneration, and +2/+4 toughness.

A Lord on Pegasus is a Must, as you can then take 3 Units of Pegasus for hunting down opponents Skirmishers, Fast Cavalry (both of which are less useful now, so will be taken in fewer numbers), and War Machines (of which many opponents will max out on) and they have Stomp, so get even better.

Questing Knights, in units of 6 are relatively cheap, and effective flankers for when an enemy is held by a Peasant unit. They strike last and only have a 3+ AS, which is annoying, but they have a Mediocre I value, so isn't too bad a trade off, considering they put out 6 S6 Attacks - which is enough to cause a few wounds to level the playing field.

Men At Arms Halberdiers - you can no longer take HW/Shield option, so you might as well cause the most damage you can. A unit 60 Strong, 10 wide with a Halberd can put out 31 Attacks at S4 - despite the low WS, combining these with a Flanking Questing Knight unit causes some fairly decent damage. Of course, they're over costed compared to equivalents (Clanrats, Goblins, and State Troopers). They do have one strength, though - Ld 8, because you did keep a unit of Knights of the Realm nearby, didn't you? If they do flee, their standards don't give any VP's either

Paladin BSB with the Virtue of Empathy and the Standard of Leadership. Put him in a nice unit of Peasants or the Grail Reliquae, and you'll have yet another 12" Ld9 Bubble with a Reroll, so there's less reliance on a General to stay at home.

Trebuchets - Stone Thrower with S5(10) Autoplace between 12 and 60? What's not to love?

Damsels - as always, do well - and MR1 is a decent investment. But with access to spells like Wildform and Curse of Horros, your peasants aren't as poor. And if all else fails, you can always Comet of Cassandora them into oblivion (combined with Trebuchet's, your opponent won't know whether to split or stay together).

A Damsel/Prophetess with the Verdant Heart in some Wooded Terrain with the aforementioned large (huge?) unit of Peasants and the BSB will be fairly nicely secure for another turn or two.

A Second Damsel/Prophetess with the Prayer Icon can grant that unit the Blessing.

Bowmen - Give them Braziers, and they cause Fear in enemy Cavalry/Beasts etc.

King Louen - He's extremely expensive, yes, and limits you to 3 [email protected] and 3 Bowmen units (you don't really want that many more, to be honest). You want him to die though - to give you Stubborn Knights (and Stubborn [email protected], but they should be large enough to always have that anyway). The Sword of Couronne is very nice weapon as well.

Of those, I'd say that a Prophetess with the Verdant Heart, the BSB, and Trebuchet's are must haves.


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## mynameisgrax (Sep 25, 2009)

I've seen Brets still work quite well at high point levels. The trick is you need to exploit their lance formation with units of around 12 knights, because it enables them to deny blocks of infantry their steadfast bonus. Very large blocks of infantry will still have to be softened up through trebuchets, and peasant archers never hurt, but all in all, they can still work. They just work a lot better at high point levels, otherwise you'll be gambling everything on a single unit, much like Ogre Kingdoms.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

I disagree about the Lord on a Royal Pegasus. It gives you a 200+ point dude dicking about by himself on a weak mount so you can take some very expensive Knights who cannot break units by themselves. In a big game I would always take Pegasus Knights but only 1 unit of them for War Machine hunting. 

If you want small units for flanking then Small units of Knights Errant do the job nicely, 6 Knights Errant will disrupt units and also your [email protected] to win some combats. 

The King is pretty terrible, he's a quarter of your army at 3000 points and only has an effect if people can see him, i.e. he's standing infront of your army. For that number of points I would want more than Stubborn for him dying, I'd want they all become etheral flying death machines or something. 

Aramoro


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

The last 40k tournament I was at (early October) naturally had a WHFB tournament going on too. After the 5 games played a Bretonnian player won the Fantasy tournament, I have no idea how he did it, but apparently they can still kick ass.

I would also guess bigger units of Knights are a key part of it. 9 Knights wont cut it any more.


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## the-graven (Apr 26, 2010)

MaidenManiac said:


> The last 40k tournament I was at (early October) naturally had a WHFB tournament going on too. After the 5 games played a Bretonnian player won the Fantasy tournament, I have no idea how he did it, but apparently they can still kick ass.
> 
> I would also guess bigger units of Knights are a key part of it. 9 Knights wont cut it any more.


A good player can always win if he plays way better, doesn't matter what army if you're way better you can still win.

Also, I'm not sure on this, but I thought I read somewhere on a forum that the new FAQ enables lances to deny steadfast when charging in the flank, but I think it's not true since I couldn't find it in the rulebook FAQ, perhaps the guy meant Lance Formation, I might take a look at the Brettonia FAQ to check if this is true, it would give Brettonia All Cavalry Armies a huge boost.
(Don't think this is true, better check the FAQ's, perhaps the guy was just talking lies)


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

the-graven said:


> A good player can always win if he plays way better, doesn't matter what army if you're way better you can still win.
> 
> Also, I'm not sure on this, but I thought I read somewhere on a forum that the new FAQ enables lances to deny steadfast when charging in the flank, but I think it's not true since I couldn't find it in the rulebook FAQ, perhaps the guy meant Lance Formation, I might take a look at the Brettonia FAQ to check if this is true, it would give Brettonia All Cavalry Armies a huge boost.
> (Don't think this is true, better check the FAQ's, perhaps the guy was just talking lies)


I believe you might be thinking of 3-wide lance formation being counted as ranks to deny steadfast, which would be in the Brettonian FAQ.

Edit: Just checked it, yes lance formation denies steadfast so long as you have 2 ranks of knights.


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## Cheese meister (Jun 5, 2010)

just checked the bretonnian faq no they don't ignore steadfast they can do but need 2 meet the normal criterea


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

The FAQ lets them count ranks of 3 Wide rather than 5 wide for Steadfast and disruption which is the big change. It unnerf'd Bretonnians a lot. 

Aramoro


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## Cheese meister (Jun 5, 2010)

i misread the post sorry i thought he meant that if the lance disrupts a unit the uinit no longer gets steadfast


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