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HI everyone I'm just getting into fantasy, and from what I've seen of the mdoels and such I'm thinking of playing Bretonnia,

however I only really like Bretonia as an army of mounted knights, no on foot troops. Is this possible, and by tht I mean is it winable, or will it just be " look at all the pretty horses" and lose

It may be winnable but you really need to have the Peasants or you'll have a lot of trouble dealing with many army Bowmen are life savers really.

Aristotle wrote:It may be winnable but you really need to have the Peasants or you'll have a lot of trouble dealing with many army Bowmen are life savers really.

SO ranged combat is nessicary huh? thats cool, I'll probably end up going with a different army then, the knights are the only guys i liked

Crazy talk!

Bretonnians do quite well without peasants. The only reason I ever took them was because I had a box with the army kit and wanted to pad my soft scores. Peasant archers are handy, but not essential. Heck, you don't even need peasant fast cavalry.

Stay mobile and expendable with a few small (6man) lance units with only the free champion for command. These units are really quite affordable and more than capable at hunting down fast cavalry, archers, warmachines, skirmisher units and mages. One of the few units I would consider charging at Salamanders with too. If your opponent does not own any of these, then they make excellent flankers (They wheel like snakes and move very far). I have had great sucess with an MSU army, based on as many six-man units as possible. Their maneuverability was the killer, and worked great.

Always take a unit of Pegasus Knights. Take multiples if you really must have the mobility. They hit harder than the knight units mentioned above, move faster, are really tough to kill, and have a 360 degree charge. Gold. Better than sex.

Run a few larger lances. These make up your rank bonus, and provide your real breaking power. They need to be supported as they have large flanks and weigh in some hefty points. Without the above support units you will be march blocked, rerouted by bait units, and they never may engage the real targets. I like to take a damsel in my large lances, as they provide magic resistance on an otherwise tempting unit. I would avoid questing knights with the new GW rules, but other than that all knight units are fantastic.

Go with Keldrin, he's right. I hate it, but he's right

Keldrin has it right. Like many Brett opponents, I hate it, but what he says is correct and to be honest, it's what I'd do with the army if I played it.

Bretonnian knight armies are harsh and beardy, however there is room for peasants. Peasants are very good troops, just overshadowed by the knights. Bowmen are some of the best shooting in the game because of their low cost.

While the classic attitude to Bretonnians is knights-and-more-knights it is actually a bad way to play. Against most opponents your combination of rank bonus, 2+ save, ward save and S5 charge is just annoying, unfair and impossible to win against. One of the addages round here is: 'if you cannot win at Warhammer, play Beardtonnians, then you cannot lose.'
However in tournaments Bretonnian armies often lose against opponents that can outfight and outmanoeuver them. While this refers to a subset of equally beardy lists, chief of which was the now defunct High Elf cavalry list, some Wood Elf builds and summonhorde. The truth is against those armies designed to pick apart knight-only Brets victory comes because the lowly bowmen and men at arms are left behind. The bowmen in particular. If facing HE cavalry/chariot/eagle army - which is possible after two minimum core units are chosen, and can now face two dragons; your chances of victory are much better if you have some humble bowmen along to shoot the chariots and eagles whizzing around your flanks.

In regular play mounted yeomen are also good, not quite as manoeuverable as Pegasus Knights but getting there, much cheaper and a good way to block march moves.

The Reliquae will fight undead blocks and dwarf elite to a standstill if they are big enough.

Men At Arms make an excellent tarpit in large blocks, are well equipped, dirt cheap and very stable if you have a knight nearby. They can act as sacrifice troops in small units to deal with fanatics and such. They have no ladies blessing to lose, won't panic nearby knights and cost less than as minimum Knight Errant unit. Better to charge ten Men At Arms (or forward deployed bowmen) into Night Goblins than your precious knights, just keep them clear of other peasants while doing so.

Be a better Betonnian player and include some rif raff in your army, you will have a far better experience and you can still win, simply because even if all the above units taken in abundance it will only amount to a small portion of your army. There will be plenty of room left for Knights Errant, Knights of the Realm, and Pegasus knights, you won't be lacking anything.

Peasants:
- Don't take them if you want a cheesy army that can beat anyone who hasn't got another beardy list, in an unfair and unfun battle.
- Do take them if you want to give regular opponents a fair game and you want to secure a win in the metagame.

The knight-heavy play style is fairly straightforward and simple to learn, and can net big wins. Brettonians are a strong army, but they can certainly lose. Every tournament player learns how to counter them.

Maneuverable armies focus on getting around their flanks and using terrain to block them (Wood Elves, other cavalry forces). Slower armies usually rely on using sacrificial redirectors or the "flee and flank" technique (horde armies are great at this, but other armies which focus on lots of inexpensive units, like Ogre Kingdoms, can do it too), where you put inexpensive units in the faces of the Bret lances and force them to charge or stand there (or slowly move around); at which point the cheapo units flee, opening the lances to getting flanked or even front-charged by a slower but hard-hitting unit. Many armies (Dwarves, Empire, and now probably some High Elf lists) also use Stubborn units which can absorb a charge without breaking, sticking the lance in place to be flanked. Undead also do this, of course, most of their units are unbreakable, and they can use their cheap core Ghouls and Dire Wolves and redirectors to prevent the brets from ganging up on their blocks with multiple lances and blowing through on the charge.

Knight-heavy Brets aren't nearly as powerful in 7th edition as they used to be, due primarily to two rules changes- the removal of Redirecting Charges, replaced with the much more limited Enemy in the Way, and the weakening of Life and Heavens lores, which used to allow their damsels to contribute very strongly in the magic phase while hiding safely in the middle of a lance of knights.

About the only genuinely cheesy thing in the Bret list is pegasus knights. Their combination of mobility and hitting power is really just sick. As long as you only take one unit you probably won't attract too many complaints, but as soon as you field multiple units you will start getting the accusasions of beard. The lots-of-pegs Bret army is one of the least-liked armies in the game, nicknamed the RAF (for Royal Air Force), and often invoked in the same sentence as other loathed lists like the SAD (Shooty/Skryre Army of Doom) and Tiny Tim (Wood elves with two Treemen AKA two wooden crutches).