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I was planning on making Bretons out of the conquest games plastic Normans, but I need to know what made them different.

Is it as simple as just using the round shields? Any guidelines on what shield designs and colors they preferred?

I'm making them for SAGA, would the warriors be armored or just the hearthguard? (If warriors wore armor than I could make the whole warband out of 2 or 3 boxes)

Very similar to the Normans, the Norman army at Hastings had a very large Breton contingent.

Javelin armed cavalry rather then lance.

The Bretons were renowned for their javelin-armed light cavalry and tactics of harassing and withdrawing. On a number of occasions they inflicted heavy defeats upon the Frankish kings.

At some point, probably in the 10th century, there was a changeover towards the Norman way of fighting. By 1066 they probably were identical to the Normans into whose military system they were pretty much fully integrated.

I recently did a unit of Breton cavalry from the plastic set - http://www.greatescapegames.co.uk/clash-of-empires/stu-blog/breton