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So next week of the league i will more then likely be playing a bret player, and from what i understand he runs a cavalry heavy list. I run a very magic/shooting heavy DE list (exact list can be found in the army forums).

From what i understand he will probly try to charge as early as possible, so im hoping to march block him with the harpies while my units get into position and this will give me time to hit him hard with magic and shooting.

When he can charge, im hoping to have him in a position where he has to charge the black guard, or the hydra, with the witch elves and dark elves ready on the flank (this is if things go well.)

Im also hoping 3 sorcs with lore of metal (thinking this will be the best bet) will hurt him pretty bad before he can even get into charge range.

A typical lance formation (3x3 or sometimes 4x3) will often destroy both a Hydra and Black Guard on the charge, especially if it's from proper Knights and with a character of some sort, usually a Paladin. Throw chaff in their way, not your elites.

Black Guard will get 8 S4 swipes back at them, so figure about 7 hit and 5 wound on average. they still get 3+ armor or better (if you're aiming at a character) and a 6+ Ward. Against a Crimson Death champion they get a 5+ ward. And after that's done with maybe one or two dead Knights, the rest of the entire formation hits and destroys your line. The Champion, Standard and Character are in the front lines, and you probably wouldn't aim at the characters to try to maximize your combat resolution, meaning they are getting 5 hits right off the front from two people you didn't target.

Against the Hydra they often negate your armor save, wound on 3's or 4's depending on the unit type or being a character, and will overwhelm you with combat resolution from having at least two ranks, outnumber and a standard. Yes a Hydra and Beastmasters get a ton of attacks, but Knights get 4+ armor, 5+ ward saves against the Hydra and 3+ armor, 6+ ward against the Beastmasters. Unless the dice are very much in your favor, it's a bad situation to be in.

March blocking with Harpies is VERY good and a huge pain in the butt. Having mobile Sorceresses by having them on Steeds/Pegasus is very handy since most Brets often leave their archers at home or bring so few that you can pick them off early and have free range. Lore of Metal is your friend, that #6 spell can wipe out an entire formation in one shot. Be sure to go Wizard Hunting with your Dark Riders. Their scroll caddies are pretty cheap, but just as unarmored as our own and fall to a couple Dark Rider spears (crossbows if they just leave her hiding in the corner) or a trio of harpies pretty well.

I would also bait and flee with chaff units, luring knights into poor positions and setting up flank charges.

I also want to ensure i have the march blocking right. You want to put yourself what, like 1 inch away from their normal move, so they have to charge or move slowly, if they charge you just flee, and if not you move the next turn 1 inch away again?

ShivanAngel wrote:I also want to ensure i have the march blocking right. You want to put yourself what, like 1 inch away from their normal move, so they have to charge or move slowly, if they charge you just flee, and if not you move the next turn 1 inch away again?

March Blocking and Bait & Flee are very different things. To March Block a unit you simply need to be somewhere within 8" of it; you do not have to be within LoS. This means they cannot march, they can only move up to their movement speed or charge.

Bait & Flee means you put something within charge range in a direction that you want your opponent's unit to go. When they charge, you choose to flee and they fail the charge, moving in that desired direction at half charge distance. This is especially used against Frenzied units since they do not have a choice in the matter and must flee, even if the controlling player knows it's a bad option. Keep in mind that you want to be considerably further away than 1" since your flee distance must be greater than their charge distance or you are simply wiped out. Against Bret Knights who have an 8" movement, 16" charge I'd often put them about 9-12" away. It's clear to your opponent that he could catch them, but there's still enough distance for you to get away.

Kirbinator wrote:

ShivanAngel wrote:I also want to ensure i have the march blocking right. You want to put yourself what, like 1 inch away from their normal move, so they have to charge or move slowly, if they charge you just flee, and if not you move the next turn 1 inch away again?

March Blocking and Bait & Flee are very different things. To March Block a unit you simply need to be somewhere within 8" of it; you do not have to be within LoS. This means they cannot march, they can only move up to their movement speed or charge.

Bait & Flee means you put something within charge range in a direction that you want your opponent's unit to go. When they charge, you choose to flee and they fail the charge, moving in that desired direction at half charge distance. This is especially used against Frenzied units since they do not have a choice in the matter and must flee, even if the controlling player knows it's a bad option. Keep in mind that you want to be considerably further away than 1" since your flee distance must be greater than their charge distance or you are simply wiped out. Against Bret Knights who have an 8" movement, 16" charge I'd often put them about 9-12" away. It's clear to your opponent that he could catch them, but there's still enough distance for you to get away.

ok, but with a unit of harpies it seems like he will just choose to charge them, wipe them out, and then overrun. which could net him quite a bit of distance. I guess you put them in such a position to where if they charge they will have to wheel slightly in a direction they dont want to and possible expose a flank.

Yeah was planning to go wizard hunting with either the harpies, or more likely, the shades with the assassin, as they could very possible be in range to wipe her out on turn 1.

But with a lvl 4 and 2 lvl 2 sorcs all going metal, i have a feeling during the first magic phase i could probably put a huge hurt on his army, especially if more then one rolls spirit of the forge. Even if he has a scroll caddy i should get a spell or two through.

ShivanAngel wrote:

Kirbinator wrote:

ShivanAngel wrote:I also want to ensure i have the march blocking right. You want to put yourself what, like 1 inch away from their normal move, so they have to charge or move slowly, if they charge you just flee, and if not you move the next turn 1 inch away again?

March Blocking and Bait & Flee are very different things. To March Block a unit you simply need to be somewhere within 8" of it; you do not have to be within LoS. This means they cannot march, they can only move up to their movement speed or charge.

Bait & Flee means you put something within charge range in a direction that you want your opponent's unit to go. When they charge, you choose to flee and they fail the charge, moving in that desired direction at half charge distance. This is especially used against Frenzied units since they do not have a choice in the matter and must flee, even if the controlling player knows it's a bad option. Keep in mind that you want to be considerably further away than 1" since your flee distance must be greater than their charge distance or you are simply wiped out. Against Bret Knights who have an 8" movement, 16" charge I'd often put them about 9-12" away. It's clear to your opponent that he could catch them, but there's still enough distance for you to get away.

ok, but with a unit of harpies it seems like he will just choose to charge them, wipe them out, and then overrun. which could net him quite a bit of distance. I guess you put them in such a position to where if they charge they will have to wheel slightly in a direction they dont want to and possible expose a flank.

Yeah was planning to go wizard hunting with either the harpies, or more likely, the shades with the assassin, as they could very possible be in range to wipe her out on turn 1.

But with a lvl 4 and 2 lvl 2 sorcs all going metal, i have a feeling during the first magic phase i could probably put a huge hurt on his army, especially if more then one rolls spirit of the forge. Even if he has a scroll caddy i should get a spell or two through.

Like Kirb said, you will have to decide what you are using your unit for.

If you want to march block, then you don't have to have your unit within his LOS (or charge arc), so land your harpies right behind or to the side of his units of knights. Now they can't charge you and you have reduced them to only moving their 8" (unless they can charge another unit).

If you want to invite him to charge in an unfavorable direction, then land close enough to make it appealing, but far enough away that you should be able to out distance his 16" charge range when you roll 3d6 for fleeing. (with harpies and dark riders) I would guess most good generals will not always take those charges though.

sooo if i land like 4-5 inches away from his flank he cant march... Guess i need to reread the rules on marching and charging ahaha

EDIT: so i epic fail at reading. You cannot march if a unit is within 8" of your unit.....

Guess i missed something my first refresher read through...

Suddenly march blocking and charge bating make a lot more sense to me rofl.

I shall take my lashings now.

There are no lashings. Granted Orcs believe that "where there's a whip 'WHH..TISHH' (lol that is a sound of the whip), there is a way"

The more you play the better you will get and the more you will remember the rules. More than likely, everyone's sagely advice that is given here has come from their own mistakes.

Good luck in your next game.

1) Any Brettonian General worth his salt is going to do a few things that are going to drive you nuts. First off, he's going to have MR all over the place. The Magic Battle is a very tough battle to win, because his 2 most important units could have an MR of 2 AND an MR of 3.

Remember, you're thinking of putting 800+ points into caster characters in hopes of getting 1 spell that will ruin his day. The rest are simply minor annoyances. While the lore of metal is defintely a nice lore, there's a better way. (The problem that this causes, is while he may take a few licks, he's going to resolve to kill your casters as quickly as possible, and that's the exact opposite you want him to resolve to do)

The 2 most important weaknesses that a Brettonian General has to overcome is this:

1) Knights Errant have a "Quasi frenzy" which can REALLY gum up the works and

2) A Bretonian General tends to group his lances into squadrons. He does this for a couple of reasons, flank protection, multiple charge synergy, mitigation against bogging, and the ability to crush an entire flank, instead of one unit at a time.

So how do you take advantage of this situation? The Knights errant, ESPECIALLY if they have the errantry banner, are just about always going to end up romping off after something that's within their charge range. Try to gauge some ugly 15 inch charge that you can flee from, and counter charge The way you force the KE's to take the charge is to also use a unit of harpies to lock the charge. "dual charge coming from somehwere that if the KE's try to run they will get run down by the harpies. Try experimenting with distances and ranges and whatnot.

As to the multiple lance? A fast cavalry sacrifice is in order. The trick to this is: Let your opponent go first! March your super hardcore heavy lifters down one flank, and turn to look at your opponents flank from relatively close to the unit. Then use your light cav to get in the way of all 3 units.. right up in their face. 1 inch away. Head to tail across like a 10 inch frontage.

When your opponent announces he's going to charge... don't flee... just take it.. Then when they kill the light cav and overrun, they'll go, on average 10 inches then you can counter-charge into their flanks with your heavy lifters. If you're lucky, you'll catch 2 units in one go. From there, it's gg.

Bret magic is generally pretty lackluster... but it can be very inconvenient at times. One of the lores (life?)can do a lot of damage by restricting your mobility, rahter than by killing your models. MR on all spellcasters - and the ability to place those spellcasters in the center of units, rather than the front ranks - can be very inconvienent as well. On the other hand, MR doesn't work against template spells...

Brets also have a really nasty unit, the Grail Knigts. These are the true Bret deathstar. A small unit of Grail Knights with no characters is much more dangerous than a large unit of lesser knights with characters. The upside for us is that they are very expensive (38 points each!), so they will only be found in small units. Shoot them first.

No one has mentioned Pegasus Knights yet. They are nasty! Imagine Harpies... with a S6 charge (and 2 S4 attacks to boot). Give them T4 and AS 3+, along with the armywide 6+ ward save. They are hideously expensive (at 55 points per, they are expesnive as a whole Harpy unit!) but well worth the price for a Bret general. Expect to see three of them... maybe up to 5.

Bring your maxiumum number of Reaper Bolt Throwers. They will do you more good than your Hydras. Sure, the Hydras are nasty. If one gets charged by a whole lance of knights, they will probably pop it. RBTs can fire through those over-deep lances and expect to kill two or three per shot. Each.

Played 2 practice games recently vs. Brets. I am using no magic at all, which gave me a little advantage vs. his 2 damsels that he brought for small spells and magic defense.

I was using Dark Riders and Shades to march block and do harassment/lucky kill shooting.

I concur that the KE can be a big weakness for the Brets. If you can bait their charge out, it can really screw up their lines.

Doesn't sound like you use one, but a Manticore or Dragon can get behind their lines and set up some nasty rear charges on any type of Lance that can really screw up their plans.

Expect to win fights via CR, though, as their AS and wards come in pretty handy vs. anything we can throw at them.

I got lucky with some terror tests that went my way on the lower LD Lances and Men at Arms units.

- Blackbone
Greg D.

I don't know a lot about Brettonians, but if you are going to take Magic and you know he will have MR on his important units, why take the Lore of Metal? The Black Horror spell from the Lore of Dark Magic doesn't target a unit, so therefore MR is useless against it. I'd imagine you can get quite a few Knights under the large template.

Quick clarification on march blocking, what is stopping the march blocked unit from wheeling and charging and obliterating whatever you are using to march block?

Or is it because then they would be going in a direction contrary to what they would want?

Razzle wrote:Quick clarification on march blocking, what is stopping the march blocked unit from wheeling and charging and obliterating whatever you are using to march block?

Or is it because then they would be going in a direction contrary to what they would want?

Because anyone leaving a march blocking unit in the unit's Front arc and able to be charged isn't using them properly. Charging the average unit that's march blocking is at best a 2 turn set up(turn to put it in the front arc the first turn, declare charge the second turn), at which point it's too late anyway, as most units for that purpose are fast enough to just move out of the front arc again when the enemy unit turns.

Depending on his list, also beware the Green Knight, he can come out of any natrual terrian on the board, including hills, and trees, and such, causes terror and has a boat load of attacks, also he can come back after you kill him and is immune to normal attacks, can seriously wreck your bolt throwers.

The Green Knight is also a lord choice and more than a bit unreliable - he appears for the first time on a 3+, and it is quite possible that he might never show up during a game. He can also be killed with SCR, as he takes wounds when beaten in combat.

Using him also means the Brets will be Ld 8 (since they will be forced to rely on a Paladin for a general, rather than a Lord).