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Hi. I figure this fits in this board so here goes...

I am a 40k player, slowly getting interested in Warhammer. I always liked how the bretonians looked, and liked their background and all. But I heard stories that they suck. Any advice on this? Pro's and Cons on the bretonians? Keep in mind, I have never played a game of WHFB, nor have I taken a look in the rulebook.

Hi Scrazza,

Im new to WHFB too, bit I did play vs Brets last night at 1k.

Chatting to the fellow he said they are generally weaker at low points as they rely on the lore of beasts/life to buff their stats line, namely toughness. The basic cav costs 20pts each without upgrades so yeh quite expensive, unless you field peasants :/

Theyre sort of like pineapples good armour saves and a nice ward of 5+ vs high strength attacks, but only humans underneath. Rely on charging to hit hard with strength buffs. And of course manoeverability, which is where people say the game is won by.

I was Chaos and won convincingly, but the other week I saw a Bret in a 2v2 facing off Chaos and wiping him out (at 2.5k each).

I mean I believe they have heavy armour & shield with barded steed meaning +2 armour saves, so a S5 hit meaning you have to roll a 4+, and then you get a 5+ ward! tasty.

Practical use of a bretonnian armiy is demonstrated here.

From what I can tell from reading the rulebook and being somewhat versed in WFB (been getting into Brets myself of late):

They are heavily focused on Cavalry which means that for the most part, they're pretty quick (8" movement is nice) and they're pretty well armored (most units will have a 2+ Armor Save). On the charge, they're quite devastating since you get the strength bonuses from lances. Additionally, the Lance Formation Special rules makes large Cavalry units quite viable and threatening to enemy infantry blocks. However, as KSpen mentions, it does come at the price of 21+points/model, meaning that generally speaking, you'll be outnumbered in most engagements, and for the most part, you are still only T3.

This is somewhat mitigated by being able to take cheap blocks of Peasant Archers and Men-at-Arms, which (while not stellar), are at least good as tarpits for enemy units.

They're not terribly great at shooting (since for the most part, Bret's disdain missile weapons), but have arguably one of the best Stone Throwers in the game at the moment. Sure the Field Trebuchet can't move, but unlike all other Stone Throwers in the game, they hit with Strength 5 (10 at the center of the template....all other ST's hit at S3(10).

Magic is a bit limited, but not as bad as it used to be.

For the most part, the Blessing of the Lady provides all your knights with a 6+(5+ vs. S5+) Ward Save which gives everyone an extra bit of survivability.


Overall, the biggest hinderance to the army is that they have not had an update since 6th Edition. As such, the power creep of Army Books is noticeable. Also, given the nature of the army, you're left tactically somewhat limited as knights will inevitably be the focus of the army. Still, the Lance Formation gives their cavalry a bit of an edge given that they can 'easily' get rank bonuses from their Knights units that other cavalry in the game cannot. However, relative to a lot of newer books, some of the units and much of the Magic Items certainly come off a bit over-priced.

Still relatively new to bretts but I played a 2500 point game with them the other day and (only just) won against ogres using a fully mounted army.
Something I learned the hard way is whatever you do make sure you have a unit ready to counter charge. I charged all my knights forward 1st turn and did a lot of damage but then he charged me and I lost all momentum. Also large units in a lance formation can really hurt but are hard to maneuverer.
Idk about others but I run 2 lvl 2 wizards and I find all of my magic is buffs, when rolling for my spells I actually laughed when I rolled a 6, looked it up and thought 'big damage spell ey, screw that signature spell is a buff'. Lore of life is great for this.
Questing knights are great, while they have a slightly worse save than the others getting the charge is nowhere near as important to them so if they don't break the enemy 1st round then they can continue fighting. I use a Lord or Paladin at the head of every unit and if anything i think i need more of them, give them a powerful weapon and a nice virtue, heroism is the best by far imo (the army book lies, don't trust it, the FAQ says heroism kicks @##).
Banners are some of the best magic items you can possibly get (re-rolling charge distances or moment 9 is great, so is stopping the enemy making stand and shoot reactions).

I had been thinking of them too, and watching a lot of Once Bitten's battle reports on YouTube. The trick, such as it is, seems to be getting a good multi-charge in with 2 lances of knights while keeping some stuff in reserve for a counter charge the next turn. Being able to attack at Str5 for the front 2 ranks and every model on the outside of a rank behind them is pretty nasty, especially when you are only offering 3 or 6 models in base, thus limiting the attacks back pretty sharply.

Looking at it, I am not certain it is a good starter army (Oncebitten seems to know what he is doing, but still has a hard time it seems) but it looks like it can work when you know what you are doing. It doesn't have the variety of the newer armies though in terms of units, which to me suggests against it.


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Oh, and I was going to say, it looks to me like they work a bit like Dark Eldar did before their new codex: very powerful if you know what you are doing and can handle the alpha strike/maneuver game.