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Now, before I begin I relise these:

bretonnians are roughly based on a western version of the knight and feudal system, with men of the grail thrown in. they have one specific deity, and she is very much like the tales of king arthur.

While our cheap, 99C bowmen might have an effective use in the field, and when buffed up to 8 pts a pop, they becomse someting of a useful tool within the army.

thats the problem though. we HAVE archers. but those archers are not trained. they're just peasants.

Bretonnians are also partially of the fey, correct? so then, what is to say that they couldn't have enchanted bowmen, or special infantry like rangers

So, I'm putting forward 'rangers of the grail.'

There is nothing to suggest that the quest for the grail be limited to knightly errants, and it is said that boys whom have simmilar ailments as the girls who become damsels are never seen again.
they could become fey rangers, henceforth, Rangers of the grail.

Thats my argument.

summed up, They're children who are taken with will granted by the fey, and are trained and indoctrinated into the protection of the woods and grail sites.

So:

Rangers of the fay
Pt/model 10 pt/model
3-16 men

WS3 BS4 S3 T3 W1 I3 A1 Ld8

Wargear
Longbow
Hand weapon
Light armour
Cloak of the fey

Special rule
Unbreakable
Grail vow [why not? they are the fey]
protectors of the sacred lands
woodstrider

Options
May take a shield... 2 pt/model [every model needs to take one]

Cloak of the fey:
If the unit is in a wood or a holy place [see: protectors of the sacred land]
they may not be shot at by a unit outside of 18", additionally, chargers must be within 15"

Protectors of the sacred lands
mark one peice of terrain down on a map. do not tell your opponent. they will deploy at the start of the movement phase there, using the rules for reinfocement [except for, of course deploying from the table edge.] if they never manage to come into play, they count as destroyed.

once they have been deployed, they may act normally as if they had entered the terrain for the last turn.

Not even one comment?

Captain Solon wrote:. we HAVE archers. but those archers are not trained. they're just peasants.

Bretonnians are also partially of the fey, correct? so then, what is to say that they couldn't have enchanted bowmen, or special infantry like rangers

So, I'm putting forward 'rangers of the grail.'

There is nothing to suggest that the quest for the grail be limited to knightly errants, and it is said that boys whom have simmilar ailments as the girls who become damsels are never seen again.
they could become fey rangers, henceforth, Rangers of the grail.

Thats my argument.

summed up, They're children who are taken with will granted by the fey, and are trained and indoctrinated into the protection of the woods and grail sites.

It's a bad idea. According to the fluff, children taken by the fey are never seen again. If they became "Fey Rangers", they would be seen again, wouldn't they?

Also, the assumption that peasants aren't trained is incorrect.
Peasants are trained. They spend their whole lives training with the long bow. It's not like a peasant/ranger lives 1,000 of years and has had tons of time for training to make him BS4 (elf).
It's only the life long hardships of tilling a field that gives them the strength to draw the longbow. That's why the empire doesn't have longbows. Empire soldiers don't have the strength or years of training to use it.

On top of that, I'm not fond of the rules either. You might get a warden or two for the local royals, but you won't get whole units of them. Being a peasant (with no rights to ever be anything but a peasant), you don't exactly have much in the way of personal property; let alone 3-15 buddies who all have matching magic capes.

If you wanted to use something like this in large games, it would make more sense to just take a unit of glade guard or way watchers and call them allies. To fit into the fluff of Bretonnia, anything like this would have to exist outside the society.


-Matt

maybe they could be outlaws then - remove the idea of the fey, they could become more like 'robin and his merry men' [which would, of course, lend them BS4. IIRC, Robin hood could shoot a man in a tower 20 M high from 100 M away, which would be at least BS 5 or even 6.]

But they'd still be peasants, and plus much of the characterization of Robin Hood is just a bunch of rumors and heresay due to his semi-mythical status. Plus, Brettonnians view ranged combat as ignoble and with disdain, and it'd be weird for their holy sites to be guarded by men who train almost exclusively with bows. And really, Grail Vow, Cloak of the Fey and Protectors of the Sacred Lands are easily underpriced at 10 points per with BS 4.

Also, there are few men who are BS 4, and those are usually men who practice with ranged weapons and nothing else. Empire Marksmen are BS 4 because they spend most of their professional lives training with their weapon of choice. Trained Elf citizens are BS 4 standard, and Elvish masters of the ranged weapon are usually only 5-6. IMHO the highest BS men should have is 4, and it should be reserved for pure specialists.

I'd agree with Matt, allied Wood Elves makes more sense. If this unit was a band of outlaws, I still don't see BS 4 happening, Empire State Troops are professionals who train for a good amount of time (Much more training than outlaws, at least) and are still only BS 3. Plus, I doubt Brettonnians would bring outlaws along with them, they're already unwilling to bring along honest mercs...

Were there not Robin Hood-esque models for Bretts a while ago. I'm sure I've seen 'Hugo le Petit' and the fat guy with the barrel on his back in WD.

Hugo le Petit and Gui le Gros were some sort of Robin Hood-esque models, but I have no idea on how they worked.

I know sombody who won a tournament using as many bowmen as he could in 2000 points, if anything came within 24", they were dead.

They have 30" range.

Yup, Bertrand le Brigand, Hugo le petit and Gui le Gros + the Bowmen of Bergerac had these rules, if I rememer it right:
BS 4 to all bowmen in the unit
Hugo had S 4 and a great weapon in addition to the longbow.
Gui had beer, so he could make the bowmen immune to psychology or something for a turn.
Bertrand had BS 5 and The Black Arrow - 1 use only, wound automatically

Hugo is little john? [hugo le petit]
Gui le gros [gui the large] is the monk man.
Bertrand is Robin, obviously.

Captain Solon wrote:Hugo is little john? [hugo le petit]
Gui le gros [gui the large] is the monk man.
Bertrand is Robin, obviously.

Exactly. Though the monk man is more exactly Brother Tuck.

Friar tuck. But I forgot his name
I kept thinking baron oh wait. he's a monk. baron. oh wait. he's a monk. xD

Oh. I translated directly from swedish, a bit too directly apparently...

well, no, Brother is correct. but Friar is his title

Well that Robin Hood and his Merry men is a great idea for the army. They would be great scouts and trappers.

I think I posted before about half-elven knights,but what about half-elven archers aswell.
A rare unit. Since most Bretonnians might look down on mixing the royal blood of the knighthood with elves.

Somewhere along the line of armoured archers with fancy bows.

Hate to point it out, but Robin would be stealing from the knights, and giving to the peasants. It doesn't exactly mesh well with a nobility driven army.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:Hate to point it out, but Robin would be stealing from the knights, and giving to the peasants. It doesn't exactly mesh well with a nobility driven army.

-Matt

Lol true

HawaiiMatt wrote:Hate to point it out, but Robin would be stealing from the knights, and giving to the peasants. It doesn't exactly mesh well with a nobility driven army.

-Matt

I tend to agree, however you could make the agument that:
-Robin is infact a noble, and wouldn't shy away from protecting England/Bretonia if war came to the land.
-perhaps Robin would show up to help out the enslaved peasants.

Not knowing how the old character worked, I would suggest that; "Robins" unit should always shoot at the enemy unit closest to a peasants unit, and that the unit he is with should roll a Ld test, if failed the unit fires at the neerest knight unit.
Likewise any knight unit in a position to charge "Robins" unit should roll a Ld test, if failed they must make a charge atempt on the unit.
Or at least something like that.

HawaiiMatt wrote:Hate to point it out, but Robin would be stealing from the knights, and giving to the peasants. It doesn't exactly mesh well with a nobility driven army.

-Matt

I think Robin in the Warhammer world would be able to prioritize well enough to know that there are situations (chaos invasion, necromancer on the rise) where if he doesn't help the nobles, there won't be any nobles left to steal from. Or peasants to give to.

I've seen a lot of ideas with a similar feel to this one's original concept.

Robin Hood was primarily an English thing, yes? Brettonians are very French. Not to say it couldn't work of course. Just saying it might not mesh as seamlessly as the other stuff the writers came up with.

The Lady is, by many theories, a wood elf who ascended to demigod status, or perhaps a more benign manifestation of Athel Loren, which is, all things considered, a slumbering Chaos god.
So I've seen (and am personally working on) a lot of fey-themed Brettonian stuff. The Twilight Hoste. The Wyld Hunt. Etc. My Lord has marble armour, a cloak of leaves, and wooden antlers. My BSB is an awakened stone statue. My "men-at-arms" are spites, trees, and dryads. It fits the more mystical, haunting nature of Brettonian, and pulls away from the gritty, snobby nobles and peasants nature.

One way to justify your first idea is to simply say that these guys are actually fey creatures. Like spirits. Or dryads. Or children whisked away in the night. Or the spirits of fallen knights infused with holy wrath. What-have-you.

That said, here are my suggestions, to keep things balanced and simple:

- why shields? They won't help, and they don't seem to fit.
- The Cloak of the Fey: I see what you're going for, but it's just too good as-is. I'd suggest an additional -1 to hit or a 4+ Ward against ranged attacks (inspired by similar Wood Elf things).
Moreover, I'd suggest they be ethereal instead. Half-real shades. Like the Green Knight.
- Not unbreakable. Unbreakable is...too good. If they were ethereal, they would be unstable, though. Like the Green Knight.
- Protectors of the Scared Lands- I'd make this like the Green Knight's ability. Awaken them. They can teleport, die, come back, etc.
- all in all, the Green Knight has a lot of the tone you've set out to make, it seems. So you could essentially make a unit of guys that feel the way he does. But they should probably be something like elite warriors. 16pts. S4 shooting. Rare, 0-1. Unit size 3-12. Something like that.