In terms of general advice, I would pick up another Battle Force. You really want 2 with bretonnia. 2 Battle Forces + a Pegasus Knight Blister will do a lot to get you good units on the table. One lance of knights is just too few, having a second battle force lets you squeeze in another Lance, which is huge. Also 20 Men at Arms are largely useless, you won't be "Pinning anybody in place" unless you have 40+ Men at Arms as well as a Damsel with the Prayer Icon (to give them a Ward Save) a Second Battle Force will give you a useable amount of peasants, and put you 1 pegasus short of a Peg Knight Squad, which is excellent.
a few quick things I notice,
1) Legally you need a
BSB, It is a requirement of the Bretonnian Book to take one, and in any event the leadership bubble they provide may very well prove invaluable to keeping your army on the table and not doing anything silly.
Also on the legal topic, you are limited to 50 points of magic gear on your Paladins, and 100 on your Lord. THIS INCLUDES VIRTUES. So make sure you keep yourself under!
2) You have no Magic. This is less of a huge deal in games of 1000 or below, but as you start to approach 1500 and beyond, you will put yourself at a HUGE disadvantage if you have no magical presence.
Damsels and Prophetess' don't just cast spells, they also help defend against them by being able to add thier wizard level to dispel rolls, access to arcane items like Dispel Scrolls or the Silver Mirror, and even occassionally channeling. Also consider that the Damsel Kit gives you two models, one mounted and one on foot, which is more bang for your buck.
3) Some of your Builds are somewhat Schizophrenic.
a) For your Lord the Locket which limits him to 1 non magic wound per phase, pairs best with the Morning Star of Fracasse and a potion of speed (this gives you a high initiative way to destroy enemy magic weapons, thus limiting you to 1 wound per phase tops). Furthermore this build is somewhat worthless without a Prophetess nearby spamming life magic spells. Life magic is so helpful to this build because the lore attribute "life bloom" allows you to restore wounds to nearby characters on a successful spell cast, which means not only is your lord limited to taking around 1 wound per
cc phase, you are also healing him just by casting magic!
b) As I mentioned before, you need a
BSB. My favorite build is Barded Warhorse, Armour of Agilulf, Sword of Might, Luckstone. That gives you ws10, s5 and 1 re-roll for some added killyness. The most popular build though is Sword of Might + Gromril Great Helm, for a 2+ re-rolling armour, and s5 for offence. Builds with the Enchanted Shield + Dawnstone are also effective, but they do not allow enough points for a good magic weapon- although a 1+ re-rolling armour save is excellent.
c) Pegasus Paladin... God I love them. Tons of fun. But not practical at 1250. Namely because they are expensive, cost a bunch of points, on a slot where you already need a
BSB, and you would really be better served by a level 2 Damsel or something. Peg Pallys are great, Shield, Wyrmlance, Virtue of Audacity is a fun combination, but you just should not be spending that many points on this unit.
4) 20 Men at Arms will not actually accomplish anything. Not enough ranks to reliably deny steadfast for long, terrible armour (they cannot use their shields and halbreds at the same time) meaning they only have a 6+ armour save in close combat. What you need from Men at Arms are tons of them (they are cheap in points), and the Prayer Icon, which gives them access to the Blessing of the Lady ward save, which helps quite a bit because it pretty much always gives them a saving throw. I would either drop them entirely, or get another 20+.
5) Full Command is kind of wortheless on Peasant Archers. Unless you do soemthing Crazy like run a Horde of 40 of them, use volley fire, and use them as a light combat unit... but that is kind of silly. For small squads you should probably just go for Braizers for flaming arrows, and MAYBE a musician. Peasant Archers are primarly what is called chaff or deployment fodder, dirt cheap, disposable units, which can be placed on the board early, committing very few of your points to the table, while trying to force your opponents hand to see where he delopoys his important units. think 2 squads of 10 archers with flaming arrows for 65 points each.
6) strategically speaking, you will never charge anything in the flanks with just a single unit of knights, unless you spend at least 4+ turns positioning, and even then there is nothing stopping your opponent from simply reforming to face your knights! Especially if all your good
CC is in that single squad. Your Men at Arms are just not threatening enough to do much damage in the flank, or to warrent the opponent continue facing them. You really need another unit of knights, so you can threaten 2 different angels simultaniously. That will help you get a flank charge more than anything else.
7) Trebuchets are by far the most broken unit in the bretonnian Codex, and is one of the things in our book that lets us keep up with the big boys, who you know have had books released in the last 10 years
... But the game will still usually be won or lost in close combat, and while Trebuchets can go a long way to softening the enemy up, don't be overly reliant on them. You will still need
CC units, and several
CC units since positioning is so important to Bretonnia.
8) Get a Squad of Pegasus Knights, 3 Peg Knights will generally do more than a single Peg Pally, as well as be substantially harder to kill.
So in conclusion, you should look into picking up 2 battle forces, which contains really no bad models, and will get you a core for your army that will last your bretonnian Career (2 Knight Lances, a Horde of Men at Arms, 2 Peasant Archer Chaff Squads, and most of the way towards a Peg Knight Unit). Also look into getting a Damsel Kit, so that you can get 2 heroes for the price of 1, as well as getting some play in one of the most important phases in Fantasy.
Black Templars 2500 points - 12/3/5
Tau: Es'run Sept 1800 points - 9/3/4
