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I'm just getting into WH from 40k, and I bought myself the rulebook and the Brettonian codex. I have a few questions regarding some tactics and general rules.

How many knights should be in a unit?

Are men at arms or archers worth taking? I want to have an all cavalry force if possible/ practical.

Are the trebuchets any good?

Are Questing knights as bad as i keep reading they are? It seems like they would be a good compliment to Knights of the Realm because they don't lose their strength bonus.

Which rule prevails, the attack first when charging or the always attacks last rule?

I dont really want to include magic in my army. Should I reconsider? Are Damsels worth having?

How many units of each knight should I bring in 2250? Is there a general ratio i should follow?

Are Pegasus Knights as awesome as they look?

Thanks.

Knights of the Realm and the lesser ones (can't remember the name) should be in units of 10 (not sure, I'm not a Bretonnian player) from what I have understood. Other Knights should be in units of 5 or 6 (again, not a Bretonnian player).
Looking at the book, Bowmen seem to be not necessary, but pretty OK for their points.
Men-At-Arms don't seem to be so good to my eye.
Always Attack First takes prevail.
Damsels should be only taken as Scroll Caddys (maxium number of Dispel Scrolls) as they have pretty sucky Lores.
And Pegasus Knights are at least said to be VERY good for their points, as Trebuche.

Knight units (at the 2250 you were talking about) should be around 9 bodies (that includes heroes joining the unit). That's enough for 2 ranks (before casualties) and still short enough to maneuver. 10-12 is doable but starts to get unwieldy.

I like Men@Arms and archers and think they are worth taking but your men@arms benefit a lot from a foot paladin. They aren't mandatory though. You should really consider a couple min unit size archer units (1 or them skirmished) to help deal with flankers, flyers and just to drag out your deployment.

Trebuchets are alright, if you are playing all cav, I wouldn't bother as you won't be near it and it'll die or the peasents will run away.

Questing knights got nerfed hard by the 7th ed change to mtd GW str. They are overpriced now. They can be used like you said, but in all cav army, you don't plan on being in combat after the charge.

ASF beats charge.

magic is annoying but you have to take magic defense. 2 damsels on horses (lvl 1) with 3 dispel scrolls and the chalice of malfleur will shut down most enemy magic. You park the 2 damsels in your 2 most important lances and you then have MR in those units too. The damsels go in the middle of the lance pushing the knights (who do the killing) to the outside where they can do what they do (killing). And generally, just skip your magic phase (may sound like a waste of points, but your lores suck, you won't have line of sight, and miscasts and the chalice are more likely to kill your damsel than anything else)

How many knights? As many as you want

Peg knights = must have/broken. They are probably the best unit in the army. They are expensive to waste though, so don't get them too close to nasty stuff. (fanatics, hellblaster...)

Last point, Mounted Yeomen. Especially if you are going all cav, you need SOMEONE to pull fanatics, screen charges, bait enemy units and hold of enemy fast cavalry. Mounted Yeomen aren't the greatest but they do the job. And hey, they're peasents, who cares if they all get wiped out by the fanatics, or shot to bits from a warmachine, at least it wasn't some knights.

Men-at-arms pull the same duty in the Bretonnian army that Slaves do in the Skaven army. They are cheap bait/tarpit/supporting units that don't hurt when they break and flee, or get wiped out. Use them and abuse them at will - after all, they're only peasants, not anyone important.

The optimum number of knights in a unit is 12. As the unit apporaches 12, you suffer diminishing returns on the points per model. Beyond 12 the diminishing returns begins to be far too extreme. Mostly because you can't achieve any more static res.

Trebuchets are fine, just remember they are there for support, and best suited in armies that rely on peasants and not armies that rely on knights.

All Cavalry forces are possible, but not as practical as I would like. Around 20 archers are needed to soften up light cavalry (a Brettonian generals bane) and I liked to have 60 Men @ Arms in units of 20 following behind my cavalry force. The reason is because big nasty fliers can land in the flank/rear of your knights and roll you. A good sized unit of M@A can save you from that.

Damsels are 100% worth having. MR of 1 in a typically light magic army is SICK.

In 2250 I was typically able to have 1 unit of Knight Errant, with the Errantry Banner, 1 unit of Knights of the Realm (always put your lord here if you have one, they best benefit from his LD), 1 unit of Questing Knights, and 1 unit of Pegasus knights. It seems like I have so few units because I swear bye support units. I would always have 60 M@Arms, I would always have 40 archers, I would always have 2 units of light cav, and I typically had 1 lord, one pally, one bsb, and 2 damsels. One damsel ALWAYS had the chalice. The lord always had the Questing Sword too.. which is pound for pound the best sword available in that book. (probably the best weapon too)

Thanks for all the tips. How many Pegasus Knights should I put in a squad?

3 as they are really points heavy. (For the cost of 3 you can hav 2 units of 5 mounted yeomen) If you just use them to hunt warmachines and stuff, 3 is lots and don't fork out 30 points for the command. Just 2 vanilla pegs and the free champion

Kaepora wrote:Thanks for all the tips. How many Pegasus Knights should I put in a squad?

It depends on how you intend to use them.

5-6 with full command in the flank or rear of a unit is pretty bombastic, or 3 with no command are just absoultely killer magehunters/warmachine hunters/light cav killers/flee stoppers.

There are other ways of running Brets than have been described.

I consider the optimal unit size for Knights of any kind to be 9 or 6. That being said i mostly use units of 6. It gives +1 rank, 6 attacks (+5 from Horses) and keeps point costs down. In my "Power" Lances of Questing, Grail and Errantry Banner Knights I will sometimes use 7 or 8 Knights and fill the rest up to 9 with chars. Big Lances are cumbersome to move, have vunerable flanks and cost a ton of points. If I play well I should be able to attack with 2 lances of 6 and maybe even get a flank with one being better than "only" charging with one 12 man Lance. It's called the MSU or Multiple Small Unit Tactic and it works well for Brets. The result of one Lance fleeing is also smaller if you have more of them on the feild.

I agree with most of the other statements, 1-2 Scroll Caddy Damsels is right, units of 3 Peg knights (one in a normal army, 3-4 in a RAF army) is awsome but 4 works too, Treb is good, Questing Knights got nerfed but against a lot of those units that we can't break (or should have broken but didn't) the str5 on the second round is a lot better than our other Knights S3.

I don't use Yeomen anymore but a lot of people swear by them. Another option that has been gaining support is a 5 man (5 wide, no lance formation) unit of Errant Knights. 100pts, heavy armored so no shooting the crap out of it, throwaway redirector/flanker/baiter. They don't have the fast cav rule so can't always do what Yeomans do but are a lot more powerful for only 13 points more.

All mounted is good with Brets, use your speed and hitting power to hit where you want, when you want. It does sometimes help to have a little shooting to compliment your Knights though. As was said the Treb is good and the Skimishing Bowmen with their 30" range are also good. Personaly I take 1 Treb and 20 Skirmishing Bowmen and the rest Mounted.

Read all you can/want on the net but don't forget to test (even if only by using Proxys) everything out yourself. What works best for your playstyle is something only you can decide.

Another advantage of the knight errant 'fast cavalry'... it doesn't take up a special slot, leaving it free for questing knights and pegasus knights.

Has anyone done anything with the Grail Reliquae? Granted they are only WS 2, but being stubborn and potentially getting the Blessing ward save, I would think they make a decent tarpit.

I used a grail reliquae pretty extensively right before I sold my Brettonians off. (no-one liked playing me, and would tell me not to bring my Brett armies to tournaments or I would be barred etc etc. They are waaaay too good against every army but Undead, and even then they are scary)

Anyway. The final iteration of my army had 100 peasants in blocks of 25, along with a 30 man grail reliquae Pally BSB with the Helm and the virtue of being on foot and joining with cheapo units. 2 Trebuchets, the obligatory unit of 6 knights of the realm, and some light cav made for a silly army that was horrendously tough to beat.

Ragnar4 wrote:I used a grail reliquae pretty extensively right before I sold my Brettonians off. (no-one liked playing me, and would tell me not to bring my Brett armies to tournaments or I would be barred etc etc. They are waaaay too good against every army but Undead, and even then they are scary)

Anyway. The final iteration of my army had 100 peasants in blocks of 25, along with a 30 man grail reliquae Pally BSB with the Helm and the virtue of being on foot and joining with cheapo units. 2 Trebuchets, the obligatory unit of 6 knights of the realm, and some light cav made for a silly army that was horrendously tough to beat.

Skaven tactics using Bretonnian! I can hear past kings rolling over in their graves...

What was the proportion of Men-at-Arms to Bowmen in that force? I might have to run that sort of army list just for fun.

The list looked something like

1 Grail Reliquae at 30 strong
4 units of 25 Men @ Arms
2 units of 20 Archers (I flirted with the idea of the 300 strong skirmishing bowmen unit too. lol. there's no upper cap on that unit which is dumb.)
1 unit of knights,
and 1 big unit (5)of pegasus knights
and a couple of damsels
and the clincher was to have the paladin bsb be on foot in the grail reliquae unit and have it be in the exact center of the board with 2 units on the left and 2 units on the right pressing a battle line down. Re-rollable 8 ld is sexy.

It was a good fun list

If I press my 28mm Romans into service, I can actually field that army... I might just have to try that sometime, it looks like a blast!

Good luck with it. It's good old fashioned clean fun. Double points if you play against orcs and gobbos horde list!

Kaepora wrote:I'm just getting into WH from 40k, and I bought myself the rulebook and the Brettonian codex. I have a few questions regarding some tactics and general rules.

How many knights should be in a unit?

Are men at arms or archers worth taking? I want to have an all cavalry force if possible/ practical.

Are the trebuchets any good?

Are Questing knights as bad as i keep reading they are? It seems like they would be a good compliment to Knights of the Realm because they don't lose their strength bonus.

Which rule prevails, the attack first when charging or the always attacks last rule?

I dont really want to include magic in my army. Should I reconsider? Are Damsels worth having?

How many units of each knight should I bring in 2250? Is there a general ratio i should follow?

Are Pegasus Knights as awesome as they look?

Thanks.

You have a lot of loaded questions here. A lot depends on what army you are playing against, points level, what kind of army you like to play yourself, etc.. Bottom line is, you need to decide for yourself what your optimal list looks like based on your play style.

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I will start with the knights - I have found that the optimal number varies depending on purpose. For me, in a 2250 point game, I typically have 1 unit of 8 Knights of the Realm, and 1 unit of 8 Knights Errant. My General goes with the KE and the BSB goes with the KotR, so that I get a 3x9 unit of knights. Having 18 knights lead an attack up the center of an enemy's line is usually pretty effective, with the KEs charging at anything that causes fear or terror. This is important, because this means your General also gets itp on the charge as well.

I will usually support these two with 1-2 units of 5-6 KEs, depending on their desired role. If I am using them for flanking purposes, then I will bring a unit of 6 with full command. 141 points for one of these units isn't bad, and they can wreak a lot of devastation. If their purpose is solely to hunt warmachines or archers, then units of 5 with musicians only is the way to go - 107 points is well worth it.

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Men at arms have their purpose in life, mainly to stave off warmachine / bowmen hunters (for me anyway), like fast cav and swarms. They also protect flanks well, and can add some serious CR (+4) to questionable battles. I don't take units less than 20, unless there are special rules for table quarters or objective securing - then I might take a unit or two of 10.

I always take at least one unit of bowmen - usually as skirmishers. In larger games, I usually take 15 skirmishers - they shoot 360° and are harder to be shot. They help take out flyers and fast cav, and can sometimes get lucky and drop a lone character from time to time.

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Trebuchets can win or lose a game for you, straight up. What do I mean by that? NEVER count on a treb to win you the game. If you find yourself saying, "if I can just land a stone on that dragon's head and drop him, this game is mine" then you've already lost. However - if you do happen to get lucky and drop a stone on that dragon's head, then roll a 6 for wounds, then you probably will win the game.

The treb though, I have found, is more of a mental thing for your opponent. They will sometimes alter their tactics and deployment because of a trebuchet. They will deploy things to specifically take it out, or to be out of line of sight - use this to your advantage.

And nothing beats dropping a stone dead nuts center on a unit of tooled up WoC and effectively reducing their numbers almost in half.

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Questing Knights aren't as bad as people seem to be making them out to be. You get two opportunities to pass a psychology test (which will save your hide more than once) and they are Str 5 all the time. Sure, they don't get Str 6 on the charge, or +2 for the great weapon, but Str 5 3+ armor save isn't exactly something to laugh at.

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In 2250, I almost always take at least 1 damsel - if nothing else she will provide an extra dispel dice, maybe a scroll (or two) and will give whatever unit she is in (for me, Grail Knights) magic resistance. Plus she may get off a lucky spell here and there that may be effective from time to time.

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Pegasus knights can be worth their weight in points (though I do like gold better), if utilized correctly. If done incorrectly, they would be a wasted 200(ish) points. Their biggest advantage - 360° charge. I use them to hunt fast cav in the early rounds, maybe the occasional warmachine or wizard in mid rounds, and flank / rear charges starting in round 4. Unless you are coming in from the rear or side (to limit stand and shoot) I wouldn't recommend using them to hunt bowmen / crossbowmen / gunners. A 3+ save isn't bad, but at 2 wounds, if you lose 1 it could be critical. 4 Str 5 and 6 Str 4 attacks on the charge is pretty nice, but I take a banner always - just in case. I also take a musician, because US6 tends to get outnumbered, and if you fluff attacks, having the musician to rally with is helpful (it will happen, trust me).

Don't be afraid to be aggressive with them, just don't be careless.

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At the end of the day though, coming up with tactics that are best for you will come with some experience, and with a few games under your belt. I would start with some slightly smaller games to get an idea of how the army works.

Kaepora wrote:I'm just getting into WH from 40k, and I bought myself the rulebook and the Brettonian codex. I have a few questions regarding some tactics and general rules.

How many knights should be in a unit?
If we're talking about the cheaper variety (KotR and Errants), the main combat units should have 9 or 12, altough I'd rather have 4 units of 9 than 3 units of 12. t You may want to factor in if you're planning placing characters on these units. Good size for the smaller support knight units is 6.


Are men at arms or archers worth taking? I want to have an all cavalry force if possible/ practical.
Men-at-arms aren't too bad, but they suffer alot from the fact that when knights gallop to melee, they are left behind and rarely accomplish anything. Archers are more useful as they have good range and they can get flaming arrows which could be useful nowadays (due to few big monsters regenerating). The bread and butter of bretts are knights, though, better not go overboard with peasants.

Are the trebuchets any good?
They are okay, 1 is often worth having (for the threat value mostly).

Are Questing knights as bad as i keep reading they are? It seems like they would be a good compliment to Knights of the Realm because they don't lose their strength bonus.
They aren't too bad, altough their main benefit in comparison to KotR is the the rerolls to psychology tests (and the option to have valorious standard). In any case I'd have 1 unit of either these or grail knights in the army so you can keep characters here, where they are relatively safe from panic checks if need be.

Which rule prevails, the attack first when charging or the always attacks last rule?
If you're wondering about great weapons, the charging strike first overrides the gw's strike last.

I dont really want to include magic in my army. Should I reconsider? Are Damsels worth having?
You'd better off using just 1 or 2 damsels as scroll caddies/magic defense and forget heavily investing in magic. The Bretts really need their fighty lord and ld9 instead of the prophetess (imho).

How many units of each knight should I bring in 2250? Is there a general ratio i should follow?
I'd probably go for 1 treb, 2 units of 10 archers and the rest knights/characters (of many sorts). Depending how you kit your characters, sample list could be:

Fighty Brett Lord (general) - 250
Paladin BSB - 150
Scroll caddy - 140
2x9 KotR with full command - 500
9 QK with full command - 300
2 units of 6 Knights Errant - 200
3 Peg Knights - 165
2x10 Archers - 150
6 GK with full command - 300
Treb - 90
2250ish

Are Pegasus Knights as awesome as they look?
Yes, they are very good (barring psychology issues). I'd always take them in some capacity.

Thought I would chime in here for a bit. I have played a couple games with the brets (mocked a friend and he made me put my money where my mouth was).

this is the list I came up with
Fighty lord (geared to kill chars in a challenge)
Fighty hero (geared to kill rank and file)
BSB hero (dont remember)
scroll caddy
scroll caddy

6 knights of the realm, musician
6 knights of the realm, musician
6 erantry knights, musician
6 erantry knights, musician

9 questing knights, full cmd
9 grail knights, full cmd
5 fast cav guys, muaisican

4 peg knights, musician

I believe that was the list, I have no points handy so I may have added something that wasnt there. You can add some trebuches, archers, or more knight blocks to fill it out for fun. Erantry knights are there because they can charge UD without fearing them.

The heroes all go in the larger blocks. The small blocks divert, threaten flanks, and just run in and hold guys in place (6 knights of the realm usually win on the charge and lose in later turns). Used the questing knights for the reroll psych tests. You dont want 500 points hanging arround because they missed a fear test.

The peg knights hunt things that threaten your knights like war machines. They are VERY good at it.

The two big blocks just hammer into things. On the charge they will kill dam near anything out there. If there is something particularly powerful such as a grave guard death star you can throw both at it and handily destroy it.

The list hits hard, fast, and where you want without being hit to hard in return due to the blockers.

The list is fine, it certainly won't earn you any friends.

One thing I discovered when playing Brett lists, size matters.

The bigger lances give up fewer points per model when destroyed, and while it may not seem like it while math-hammering, the Banner is just about manditory on your units.

I've never enjoyed the all cav lists, but to each his own, this is an effective list.

You're going to struggle with undead, and anything that has a big nasty flyer that gets into the flank of your Questing or Grail knights and picks them off.

cypher wrote:Thought I would chime in here for a bit. I have played a couple games with the brets (mocked a friend and he made me put my money where my mouth was).

this is the list I came up with
Fighty lord (geared to kill chars in a challenge)
Fighty hero (geared to kill rank and file)
BSB hero (dont remember)
scroll caddy
scroll caddy

6 knights of the realm, musician
6 knights of the realm, musician
6 erantry knights, musician
6 erantry knights, musician

9 questing knights, full cmd
9 grail knights, full cmd
5 fast cav guys, muaisican

4 peg knights, musician

Your list definitely coincides with the idea of Bretonnians, that's for sure. I would get banners for all units, that's for sure. Even if you have to drop a unit of errants. It really helps in combat res.

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What?! No blocks of 30+ men-at-arms?!! This list doesn't have a chance...at sucking. Solid list. Banners will help. But as pointed out VC will probably have your number.