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Kiwidru wrote:@Grey: I bring up your post count to draw focus to your Diarrhea of the Mouth, as we call it in Texas. I'm sorry if it seemed sad, to me it was simple mental math (2.5years*350days is a bit under a grand, and 14000 divided by a bit under a grand is 15. But more to the point, I wonder if you put any thought into your posts, or just shoot from the hip with whatever pops into your head. Let me give you a detailed example:.

Again you resort to a personal attack for no reason.

Knights of the Realm:
We both agree that although they preform well on the charge, they need a boost elsewhere.
My Proposition: +1 S
Your counter proposal: Morningstars (+1S in first round) or Maces (rules don't exist)

Your proposal has a single positive effect, it gives the EXACT same bonus that my proposition does on a turn that the knights are charged. In EVERY other situation you are having no effect (still str 3 in subsequent rounds) or makes them worse (drop from str 5 to str 4 on the charge). So you are not actually improving the KotR in any way, except to give them what I proposed. Your justification is that the fictional god that the cheese-eaters believe in is somehow inferior to the fictional humans across the border because, and I wanna quote so I don't misrepresent you, "Inner Circle Knights have undergone some sort of baroque ritual or something."

This makes it seem like you just wanna argue. And I have been witness to many other threads where you displayed the same tendencies.

You claim that KotR should remain weaker than Inner circle and the others because they are core instead of special, and then 180 and Adamantly argue that grail knights (the only rare Calvary in the game that I am aware of) should be weaker or on par with the Special choice calvary of the rest of the world.

Those are contradicting viewpoints. Again it seems you began to argue and got so carried away that you didn't even know what constructive point you were trying to make.
Assuming their was one at all.

Now to me, Hero level characters (and especially Lords) should have slightly better stats than their contemporaries. Since Grail Knights would be 4S/4T under the new proposal I wanted to give the heros a small boost: chaos fighty heros are 5S/4T, which seemed like a good template for a bonus. Brets are known for stabbing things to death in combat, and the extra str would make the lord a bit more feared by the large baddies he will inevitably end up fighting.

There is a big difference between a weapon that gives you +1Str and having a static +1str all the time, namely Str tests from magic.

and of course KotR should be a normal human statline, because thats what they are.

That will keep them at a more human level and give them the killyness that they could use. its a more acceptable fix to give them a new type of weapon then give them a rediclous stat boost. Morning Stars actually arn't a downgrade from lances as they give +1Str in the first round of any combat, unlike lances which only work when you are charging. That would give them some additional oomph in more situations. Then there could be Maces, obviously this would be a Brettonian specific type of wargear so its current non-existance is not a problem.

And I never said that Grail Knights should be weaker, I even agreed that T4 wouldn't be unreasonable in addition to their current Str4.

I wasn't in the S4 school until somebody mentioned prayer.
I'm not opposed to the idea of re-working the prayer.
Any unit with the blessing gets +1 strength, and adds 1 to any ward save it has (or gains a 6+ ward in the event it does not have a save).

Blessing is lost if the unit does not answer a challenge when it could, when the unit flees for any reason, or when the unit loses a round of combat.

If you pray, you roll twice for determining 1st turn and take the lower result. You may not take the initiative if you pray.

IMO, that's make the blessing slightly better, but also a bit easier to lose (lost when combat is lost).


Then add in knights on foot as an option, men at arms with hand weapon and shield, peasant rabble (2 weapons and flaming attacks/pitchfork and torch), and let mounted yeomen scout.
I'd make errant knights quite a bit cheaper, but without the blessing, for a real variety in units.

-Matt

I think honestly the easiest way to bring them into line with other 8th armies would be to reduce the point cost of knights drastically and remove the unit size restrictions.

Am I the only one who thinks the idea of a horde of 30 or so knights would look cool as hell?

Also create some new form of foot knights maybe going with some kind fluff along the line of knights who have messed up and have to fight on foot as part of there penance.

What about changing grail knight to fighting on foot? As part of their quest for the grail they leave their Lance and Horse behind as a sign of penance.

Then you could give them Plate Armor (4+ save) as their horse no longer needs to carry them. I think that just Heavy armor would not be enough for them. Men at Arms would get a better save with Hand weapon and shield then they would, which is not right. What about a choice of weapons either 2 HW, Halberd, or GW, depending on the knights preferred fighting style. (No HW+Shield though, as they get a ward save from the blessing)


This issue with adding the +1 Strength to the Blessing is that the Prayer icon would give it the Men at Arms. That is the only issue that I see.


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Jubear wrote:I think honestly the easiest way to bring them into line with other 8th armies would be to reduce the point cost of knights drastically and remove the unit size restrictions.

I think that part of the unit size restriction is the Lance Formation. If you have more than 5 ranks of cavalry, they become Longer then 12" which makes them very hard to deploy in many cases. I think they could get larger units, but any unit over 15 models can't be in a lance formation.

Penitent Knights (New Unit)

Sometimes a knight dishonors himself. Perhaps he fled from battle or refused to fight in a just cause. When this happens he becomes a penitent knight until he regains his honor.

Penitent knights are always Knights of the Realm or Pegasus Knights. Other knights have different ways of dealing with dishonor. Grail knights would meditate in their cells, questing knights would revert back to knights of the realm and knights errant are demoted back to squires or suffer some lesser punishment.

Penitent knights always fight on foot. They do not receive the blessing. They wear heavy armor and carry shields. They have hand weapons. They may be equipped with great weapons for +2 points each. They may have standards, musicians and champions.

Penitent Knights would be a RARE choice as there are never going to be many of them at any one time. Also they are not designed to replace the men at arms.

svendrex wrote:
This issue with adding the +1 Strength to the Blessing is that the Prayer icon would give it the Men at Arms. That is the only issue that I see.


I think that part of the unit size restriction is the Lance Formation. If you have more than 5 ranks of cavalry, they become Longer then 12" which makes them very hard to deploy in many cases. I think they could get larger units, but any unit over 15 models can't be in a lance formation.

Easiest solution is to remove the prayer icon. Items should be cut down to ~8-10 items anyway.
Removing size limits makes sense, but deployment becomes an issues. Simple fix is that knights lose 'lance' and instead only need to be 3 wide for ranks, and 6 wide for horde. That would allow units of 18 with everyone fighting.

-Matt

Instead of changing knight strength, what if you focused on the infantry and gave the men at arms something like frenzy or unbreakable if within X inches of a knight unit. They fight better when the knights are around. Im not sure about the current Army Book, but Men at Arms had some sort of rule like that before, like a leadership boost or something.

Maybe give one unit Unbreakable cause they're the Lord's personal troops.

HawaiiMatt wrote:

svendrex wrote:
This issue with adding the +1 Strength to the Blessing is that the Prayer icon would give it the Men at Arms. That is the only issue that I see.

Only KOTR, Pegasus Knights & Questing Knights would get the +1 Strength from the blessing. Questing Knights would be reduced to strength 3 like KOTRs but would be strength 4 from the blessing. Grails already get strength 4 (from the grail) so they are unaffected.

Knights Errant, peasants, squires, etc do not get the bonus strength. KEs cause they are unproven and the rest cause they are not knights.


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Also the Penitent Knights (new proposed unit) would not get the strength bonus as they can't have the blessing.

@ Duke Corvin: An elegant compromise, this is the idea I wish I had. It allows the Bretts to emphasize their unique army feature, and gives some fluffy justification to the stat increase they need to compete with the systemic changes the game has undergone since their creation.

Kenshin mentioned Blood Knights as the other rare cavalry, I don't recall their stats exactly since I havnt seen them on the table ever (insert GW marketing bash here). I believe it's something in the range of S5/T4/A2 with frenzy and lances. This makes the Grail Knights S4/T3/A2 and lances seem quite sad in compairison. I know their is a bias among the community that "humans" should fill a certain stat range, but if the humans blessed by the dark gods of chaos can regularly exceede those limits, why shouldn't those blessed by the benevolent gods as well? The Fantasy genre, and heroic epics in general are always based on superhuman good guys fighting endless numbers of baddies. These characters are often described as 'having the strength of 10 men' or being able to go toe to toe with the best evil has and emerge victorious where no other could. Perhaps thinking of Grail Knights as Avatars of the Lady, no longer human but superhuman. This could justify Stats along the lines of Blood Knights.

I also feel strongly that the hero/lord fighty chars Need to have a stat increase to keep up with the rest of the characters in other army books/monsters that have been released, and furthermore that an additional strength is the most fitting. However this is not a popular view, so I will concede that my knowledge of vows and magic weapons is average and dated, and perhaps it is not needed afterall.

HawaiiMatt's idea of losing the blessing when you lose combat is also very pertinant, since most units win combat but get gimped by steadfast. If you can't break the unit there is still have hope of grinding them as long as you engage in favorable combats.

Having knight units rank up like monstrous things is also a great idea, and effortlessly transitions the lance rule to 8th. Part of me wonders if implementing a special rule along the lines of "bret knights know how to get the most combat potential out of any steed they mount, as such they are counted as monstrous cavalry despite being on cavalry bases" To my knowledge this would only bestow the stomp ability, which also helps vs infantry. I'm not familiar enough with the differences to really know if that's a good idea though.

I also like the idea of rare choice foot knights, perhaps something along the lines of black orcs with greatweapon or hw/s option, since those are the weapons of the mounted knight varieties? Perhaps with a purchse option on the infantry specific (ahwhalbred) options

Kiwidru, I always thought that a lot more could be done with the blessing. Bestowing a stat increase to honorable knights or forcing the knights to give up their horses (and losing the blessing) if they dishonor themselves would make the blessing more than just a ward save generator.

Originally the blessing only worked against shooting attacks than it evolved into a general ward save. I think it is now time for it to do other things too. Lets see if the GW designers agree.

You're spot on the stats of the blood knights.
But blood knights have a huge weakness. Frenzy forces over-run, and crumble means that a ranked charge into the flank can obliterate the whole unit.
At 50 points each, you just can't afford to have a lot of "spare" wounds.

I'd be very worried about balance with grail knights with blood-dragon style stats.
I guess the thing with grail knights is balance how good they are with how cheap you think they should be.
Do you want grail knights to show up limited to smaller units of 3 to 6, or do you want to see big units of grail knights, 9-15?

IMO, I'd like to see grail knights expensive and good, and not affordable in large numbers.

-Matt

I think a knight on foot should have -1 Movement .

What about the addition of rules, rather than stat changes? Whilst yes, they can be blessed by the gods of law, the dark gods offer mutations and insanities that alter stats....extra arms...or being undead!

Also, what about an additional unit?

I think rules could something like the 'Charge through' mentioned before, or impact hits = to ranks (rather than d6) (which would benefit brets a lot with 3men per rank).

Alternatively we can look at adding the other unit: what happens to Bretonnian male magic users? And what about a baggage train/war wagon type thing...?

Of course bring back the bowmen of bergerac, jules le jongleuy,

Or, what I am thinking...is a return of a saracen regiment....

Or...you could have a regiment of dualists (like the 3 musketeers)...pun intended for medieval french historians...

Just thoughts....

Check out my thread should Bretonnia give up the lance formation for more on blessing based powers. The idea is to give devastating charge to knights that have the blessing and remove the lance formation.

Is it time for the Bretonnians to give up the Lance Formation?

Duke_Corwin wrote:Check out my thread should Bretonnia give up the lance formation for more on blessing based powers. The idea is to give devastating charge to knights that have the blessing and remove the lance formation.

Is it time for the Bretonnians to give up the Lance Formation?

Don't have a rulebook in the office: what is the Devasting Charge again?


Something came up in a ambush by Beastmen last night - Primal Fury - which allows rerolls of failed to hits. What about 'Righteous Fury' that allows re rolls of failed to hits for all Knight class units that have prayed?

manoknok wrote:I also think Bowmen are underpowered - the Longbow was a devastating weapon and could go through plate armour pretty easily (depending upon the head). So, a S4 for that would make up for week humans elsewhere. Bear in mind the strength of the weapon comes from terminal velocity and not of pulling power of bowmen.

Exactly how, from a physics point of view, could you loose an arrow so that it flies so high in the air that on gaining terminal velocity on the return it's going faster than when fired? I mean, the force needed to launch the arrow will always be greater than the force it gains returning to Earth.

In other news, longbows are exagerated in terms of their killing power. They were an effective weapon in the right conditions, but nowhere near as amazing as geeklore has made them out to be.


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Grey Templar wrote:No, just not. They are regular humans, Str4 is the same Str as Ogres and Chaos Warriors.

Prissy inbred nobles should NEVER be in the same catagory as the above monsters.

Inner Circle Knights in the Empire list?

That said, I'm not much of a fan of giving a stat boost to improve a unit. It just feels like a lazy option, more than anything.

sebster wrote:

manoknok wrote:I also think Bowmen are underpowered - the Longbow was a devastating weapon and could go through plate armour pretty easily (depending upon the head). So, a S4 for that would make up for week humans elsewhere. Bear in mind the strength of the weapon comes from terminal velocity and not of pulling power of bowmen.

Exactly how, from a physics point of view, could you loose an arrow so that it flies so high in the air that on gaining terminal velocity on the return it's going faster than when fired? I mean, the force needed to launch the arrow will always be greater than the force it gains returning to Earth.

In other news, longbows are exagerated in terms of their killing power. They were an effective weapon in the right conditions, but nowhere near as amazing as geeklore has made them out to be.

It could be carried by an African swallow.

manoknok wrote:

Duke_Corwin wrote:Check out my thread should Bretonnia give up the lance formation for more on blessing based powers. The idea is to give devastating charge to knights that have the blessing and remove the lance formation.

Is it time for the Bretonnians to give up the Lance Formation?

Don't have a rulebook in the office: what is the Devasting Charge again?


Something came up in a ambush by Beastmen last night - Primal Fury - which allows rerolls of failed to hits. What about 'Righteous Fury' that allows re rolls of failed to hits for all Knight class units that have prayed?

Devastating Charge grants an extra attack when charging.

I think that in general there just simply needs to be more stuff in the Brettonian book, or rather more different things.


Right now there are 4 types of heavy cavalry, which basically fill 2 roles.

You have the Errants, KotR, and the Grail Knights who all do heavy damage on the charge (at different levels of eliteness).
Then you have the questing knights, who apppear to be more suited to longer combats with their great weapons (but due to cost and less armor in combat are actually just bad)


Personally I think that there are too many mounted knight units, and they could be separated and have their roles changed up slightly. If you have a bunch of units that all fill a very similar role on the battlefield, it becomes very hard to balance them. often, one unit will end up being "the best" at that particular role, and the other units will not be used. By specializing the different types of knights, it makes them easier to balance.


Make the price difference between Errants and KotR a bigger deal. Maybe give them a lot less armor (like take away their barding and shield), so they deal a lot of damage when they charge, but are expendable (both in price and survivability)

KotR could probably stay the same, with whatever buffs or bonuses to the blessing are made

I think Questing knights can go on foot with great weapons. This gives the Brets a heavy infantry block with some power to grind out other blocks.

I think that Grail Knights could be made a little more specialized, Maybe giving their attacks D3 multiple wounds. make them the knights that fight dragons/heros or something like that? (and of course raise the price as needed. ) basically give them a role on the battlefield other than "KotR but BETTER"

Yeomen should always be fast cavalry with bows, as the cheap spear cavalry slot is taken up by the Errants



There are a lot of unit types that the Brets could have that are not there currently.

What about elite skirmishers in the special slot? (think a "Robbin Hood and his merry men" type unit, good shooting, decent combat ability)

What about a Swarm unit? (maybe peasant rabble with flaming attacks as a swarm instead of a horde unit. A mob of peasants are not likely to be in perfect ranks)

What about a War Altar type thing (maybe the Grail Relique becomes its own thing with Area buffs, OR it becomes a Hero Choice you can add to units)




What will make the Brettonians different from other Army books would be the Blessing. Your Knight units are very good when they are winning combats, but once they start to loose, the whole army would collapse.

svendrex wrote: There are a lot of unit types that the Brets could have that are not there currently.

What about elite skirmishers in the special slot? (think a "Robbin Hood and his merry men" type unit, good shooting, decent combat ability)

What about a Swarm unit? (maybe peasant rabble with flaming attacks as a swarm instead of a horde unit. A mob of peasants are not likely to be in perfect ranks)

What about a War Altar type thing (maybe the Grail Relique becomes its own thing with Area buffs, OR it becomes a Hero Choice you can add to units).

Agree with all of this:

Would suggest (as I said above): the return of the Bowmen of Bergerac (Robin Hood Type Men...perhaps led byt he Damsel Marian).
Swarm unit: If you have foot knights why not make MAA this? As the are only WS 2
War Altar: Baggage Train?

What about this: Knights of the Round Table Rare Choice - must be led by a Character (either a Galahad or Lancelot type with differenent benefits/cost). Two units may be taken if you take the King...must be led by seperate characters...and will suffer animosity against each other...


War dogs I think would also be really good...or falconers....a special unit that use birds...thinking basically like a warmachine, that can move freely, has a range of 48+ and has a D6 attack type (D1: Doesn't fly, 2-5 does 1S3 hit, 6Blinds opponent)....or something.






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@Svendrex...also agree with your stuff on the knights/yeomen.

What about yeomen as a foot unit?

I still think something could be done with male magic users...perhaps that could be the swarm unit? insane, starved, penetant, ghoul type 'creatures': a sort of human gorger from the OK...?

The yeomen work as a cavalry unit, and I do think that the Brettonians should be cavalry heavy, just as long as each type of Cavalry has a different role.


The yeomen fill the role of Fast cavalry that can shoot. As fast Cav, they are great at march blocking, getting behind units, and using feigned light to their advantage. You already have Archers on foot, and Pikemen on Foot, What role would the Yeomen have as infantry that is not filled yet?


Again, you can have multiple Ranked infantry units as long as they each fill a role. I think that Fluff wise, the Men at Arms would be fielded in blocks. Game wise, they are there as a Anvil units that are run deep so they can strip Steadfast when the cavalry hits. Game wise, the Foot Grail Knights are there as a Hammer unit. Heavy Damage, decent armor, but too expensive to get a ton of ranks in order to strip steadfast.

Fluff wise, an Angry Mob of peasants would not be in perfect ranks, and would probably be "unstable" as well. Game wise, they are there as a way to get flaming attacks in a combat to strip regen, and to tarpit things with a ton of cheap wounds.

Also, the current Men at Arms models are not on swarm bases. I would rather not force people to re-base a lot of stuff.


As for the Knights of the Round Table thing, That is what the Grail Knights are for. They are your Rare, super elite Cavalry. That being said, I do like the idea that you can customize them to a certain extent depending on what character you take. What about this: Any Character who is a Grail Knight (whatever the thing that lets you join the grail knight unit) has access to couple vows that Buff any unit of grail knights he is with. Why the animosity thing?


I like the idea of the falconers as a shooting unit, BUT you need to do something that makes them not just "Bowmen BUT with BIRDS!" What about focusing on making them a shooting unit that applies debuffs rather then a lot of damage. What about movement penalties? (Hard to march with a Bird in your face)



What is the Fluff behind Brettonian Male Magic users? Are they just shunned by society, are they executed on sight, or are they never born for some reason? Depending, you could make them into a unit similar to Pink Horrors. (the unit is a caster, that larger the unit the higher the level and has access to better bound spells)

What about just giving Knight units a specail rule/ability that strips steadfast?

And maybe a Bretonian lore of Magic? Every other army has their own specail lore.....

1) Actually yeoman on foot: I was thinking of something like the Beefeater (a bodyguard unit). but I have a feeling that all yeoman - aside from beefeaters - were cavalry anyway....so my idea doesn't stand

2) Ah yes...swarm bases. Good point.

3) Yes the virtue thing would work. Animosity was because - as Bretonnia is based on Arthurian somewhat, and Gallahad and Lancelot did not get on. But yes, I think that alternate virtues/unit would work well.

4) Stopping movement could be extremely deadly in the right circumstances...or perhaps trained to tear up standards ? (or am i getting silly?)...

5) Bretonnian male magic users get taken by the lady (possibly a wood elf high sorceress) at a young age and are never seen again. So....they could become your swarm....or whatever you wish! A human non chaotic pink horror/blue horror type would be good.


Um. Are we also missing a treat with other things? Like for instance? Allowing Bret to take a unit of wood elves...or some one from mousillon?

I am not a huge fan of just adding a unit from another book into another one. The Wood Elves are not terribly friendly with other races, much less being a permanent part of their army. If you want to join forces for a battle or two, then that is what team games and the allies table are for.

I would rather just give the Brettonians their own things and let the wood elves keep their units.

Well you could be right with the WE but they are supposed to be extremely close fluffwise.

However, I am now intrigued by having a unit from Mousillon fighting. A vampire knight with virtues? Hmmmm


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I would also like to see the return of the Saracen.

What about an inquisitor type unit? Afterall this is based on medieval france? Perhaps this is where the male magic users go? Into a arco-flagelant type unit led by a damsel type lady.