Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey guys

Some friends and I are starting up Warhammer fantasy 8th just as its going outta style. We kinda like the old school battle lines that mimic historical warfare as opposed to the Skirmish style of AoS

My question is Are Bretonnians any good in the latest edition of the game? I have seen some Bat Reps online and they always seem to loose and it seems their Army Book was never updated. There was a fan made book https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_Redi9cZJ5iS3JheVpnUXRkSU0/edit?pref=2&pli=1 Are the stats in here better than the offical but outdated GW one? I am super new to fantasy so I really wouldn't know at this point.

I was considering Undead or Bretonnians but I like the Idea of a cavalry army... But constantly having my ass handed to me sounds really lame haha.

Anyway, if any of you Fantasy both former and current can let me know your thoughts on either the army or the fan made book that would be awesome!

Thanks

They take a lot more skill to use than other armies, and they were always one of the weaker armies. They could do well with the ETC comps but straight out of the box fantasy they had issues competing with some armies. But they are fun to play and if you are all only starting than the tiers of your armies won't be as relevant

Brets are great in 8E, largely because of the way their lance rules combine with 8E's unit rules, but they can also push 8E character rules pretty hard - wall of unkillable characters backed up by great CR - and have access to solid magic, also trebs. I have personally witnessed Bret armies annihilate GTs, and feel like the folks who always say Brets are so weak don't really see Brets in action much

- Salvage

Both Undead and Brettonians can run effective cavalry armies. Bretts have more choice on how they want to do this, multiple lances, MSU, Deathstar. Undead only have one way, the deathstar with small Blood Knight support units. Only Bretts can do an all chav army, as undead have no cav in core.

The reason you will play VC is obviously for the Vampire and this is never more true then with the Deathstar build which is almost entirely centered about getting your Redfury vamp (or vamps) into combat with...anything. They will win. A Blender Vampire Lord will cleave through 8 or 9 models a turn regularly and Blood Dragons are the hittiest (if most expensive) cav in the game and Hex Wraiths are...different. Black Knights will form the deathstar, but they are underwhelming. What matters is that they have a 2+ Sv, T4 and can be resserected so they make great albative wounds.

Brettonians have a similar feel in the fact it's all about the Heroes. Brettonian Heroes and Lords are cheap and effective and have access to their own magic items book and different blessings. This is your biggest advantage, no one knows what the hell your heroes do. A paladin can pick up a glove that forces the opponent to accept your challange with who you choose, which makes him a great mage hunter. You can have 2 heroes with 1+ re-rollables due to the one in your own book along with the dawn stone. A good tactic is to fill a lance with 3 heroes (a Lord, a BSB and a Paladin) all tanked out, this means the opponent will have a hard time wounding you because they have to allocate. This also allows you to include a Damsel of the Lady in your second rank, safe and sound. Stand out units are Grail Knights (second best Cav in the game), Trebuchets (best stone thrower in the game, helps soften hordes for your lances) and your Heroes. Knights of the realm are a bit underwhelming, so keep a beast mage near by to add some much needed punch to the unit if the combat lasts longer then 1 phase, as without lances your just an Empire Swordsmen with a 2+ sv.

Brettonians are solid, if a little limited.

As mentioned they can really abuse the character and their own lance rules to the max(in a similar fashion to Ogres actually).


Because when making melee attacks, if you are only in contact with characters then you can only allocate to characters(champions count as characters).

So what you can do is have 2 heroes(like paladins) in a unit of knights with full command. This way, in combat your unit's front rank will be the two paladins and the unit champion. Your opponent will have to split his attacks between them. Which limits the number of wounds(and thus combat resolution) that you can suffer since excess wounds on characters don't bleed over to the unit or cause combat resolution. On top of the characters being more durable than the regular knights.

Meanwhile, the knights in the subsequent ranks can still make their attacks.

This maximizes the probability that you will be able to win a combat in the first round and break the enemy, since if you stick around your knights become str3 wimps.

The Lance formation also gives Brettonians a bigger rank bonus than most cavalry will usually have, meaning you have greater likelihood of breaking steadfast(especially if you caused a lot of wounds and didn't receive many.

They are a decent army.

But before you make your decision to get anything just know that the entire Bretonnian model range is going to be discontinued in a month or two just like the Tomb Kings were this week.

Yeah, but fortunately there are tons of companies out there who make Knight models which work just fine as Brettonian stand-ins.

I voted No.

What I would have liked to say is 'No, but...'

Bretonnians are underpowered in 8th, mainly because they have unit size limits which means most opponents can easily ensure steadfast. therefore the Bretonnian player has to offset this with deep rank men at arms, trebuchet or Dwellers to counter steadfast and get back in the game. This can and does work but limits effective build.

Bretonnian's are actually quite competitve in 8th. I've seen many Bretonnian armies win grand tournaments here in Toronto over the last few years. That is until Age of Sigmar ruined everything.

Yeah Brets are actually pretty good, just limited in what they can do.

They can have five ranks quite easily, so are capable of breaking steadfast. And their characters can be a little tough to kill, they need to be seeing as they will need to challenge anything they come across, be it weakling goblin or tanked out daemon prince.

Plus, peasant archers are pretty cool, and you can have units of peasants with 5+ ward off the bat. And then buff them with lore of beasts.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Both Undead and Brettonians can run effective cavalry armies. Bretts have more choice on how they want to do this, multiple lances, MSU, Deathstar. Undead only have one way, the deathstar with small Blood Knight support units. Only Bretts can do an all chav army, as undead have no cav in core.

The reason you will play VC is obviously for the Vampire and this is never more true then with the Deathstar build which is almost entirely centered about getting your Redfury vamp (or vamps) into combat with...anything. They will win. A Blender Vampire Lord will cleave through 8 or 9 models a turn regularly and Blood Dragons are the hittiest (if most expensive) cav in the game and Hex Wraiths are...different. Black Knights will form the deathstar, but they are underwhelming. What matters is that they have a 2+ Sv, T4 and can be resserected so they make great albative wounds.

Brettonians have a similar feel in the fact it's all about the Heroes. Brettonian Heroes and Lords are cheap and effective and have access to their own magic items book and different blessings. This is your biggest advantage, no one knows what the hell your heroes do. A paladin can pick up a glove that forces the opponent to accept your challange with who you choose, which makes him a great mage hunter. You can have 2 heroes with 1+ re-rollables due to the one in your own book along with the dawn stone. A good tactic is to fill a lance with 3 heroes (a Lord, a BSB and a Paladin) all tanked out, this means the opponent will have a hard time wounding you because they have to allocate. This also allows you to include a Damsel of the Lady in your second rank, safe and sound. Stand out units are Grail Knights (second best Cav in the game), Trebuchets (best stone thrower in the game, helps soften hordes for your lances) and your Heroes. Knights of the realm are a bit underwhelming, so keep a beast mage near by to add some much needed punch to the unit if the combat lasts longer then 1 phase, as without lances your just an Empire Swordsmen with a 2+ sv.

Tomb kings can come to the field entirely as cavalry, granted those forces are pretty easy to destroy (they are actually better in AoS than they are in WHFB) but I have faced ( and utterly demolished) a fully mounted tomb king force with bretts in 8th edition.

There are few races that cant list an entirely mounted army. Playing against Brettonia with them is playing to your opponents strengths, and not a good idea.

High Elf mounted armies can match Brets, the rest have an uphill struggle.

I like Bretonnia, there is a bit of a learning curve as the army tends to be very fragile, you will win on the turn your knights charge by crippling the enemy, or you will be defeated if you fail to do so. Two decent sized lances of knights with characters will blow through most units except massed chaff then end up behind the enemy, where they can avoid a further fight they don't want.

They are easy to defeat if you are ready for them, but an all comers list can have a few problems, 8th hurt and helped them nicely, they are fun and very easy to proxy with 3rd party models.

Overall an interesting force that takes practice, but is well worth the effort and can well in an environment where people are not expecting some of the tricks they have.

Plus a knight with a flame thrower.. whats not to like?

They received a well deserved indirect nerf when we moved on to 8th edition and Cavalry Hammer was no longer the thing - before that they where just too powerful.
I cant comment really on the 8th edition mechanics as shortly after it dropped the local Brettonian players dropped their armies and picked up High Elf Elryon Reaver armies.

I can't comment on 8th edition, but in previous editions Bretonnians were a great army.

The strength of their army is heroes, and they are weak on monsters and war machines. So generally, you counter-balance enemy monsters and war machines with your heroes. So don't let your opponent restrict your heroes if he is bringing war machines or monsters.

The Green Knight, The Lady of the Lake, the various knightly orders, the Robin Hood, Friar Tuck and Little John equivalent special characters, etc. Lots of cool stuff in the Bretonnian army.

Im not sure about there game play. But I heard they are getting discontinued. If they aren't they are a pain to paint and they seem to be once expensive army to build.

Maybe there is just no room for Brets in the Age of Sigmarines. they have Empire as their IG.

Stupid stupid decision, they have the tools they can make them mail order only easily enough.

Warhammer Total War might rescue them, might not, it all depends on how willing GW corporate are to admit they made a mistake.

Note the mistake isn't as much making Age of Sigmar, the mistake is killing WHFB in doing so.

My hope is after the success of WH: Total War they'll roll out proper 9th edition and be all "sorry guyz! Have your game back"

I don't think Total War will make any difference to GW's plans. If Total War is awesome it'd take GW too long to capitalise on it (to turn around and write 9th edition, print it and get it to stores. It's not something they can do over night).

As for Bretonnians in 8th. I never really got much of a chance to try them in 8th, they were good in previous editions. The typical tactic of choosing a target and making sure enough Knights charge it to wipe it off was usually the way to go. I imagine in 8th that might be harder to do.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah, but fortunately there are tons of companies out there who make Knight models which work just fine as Brettonian stand-ins.

Out of laziness, can I get some links?

Perry Miniatures are the best I know.

https://www.perry-miniatures.com/

They actually used to sculpt for GW, so its actually possible they made the original Brettonians.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Perry Miniatures are the best I know.

https://www.perry-miniatures.com/

They actually used to sculpt for GW, so its actually possible they made the original Brettonians.

I'm not sure about the more recent ones but all the older Bretonnians (5th edition?) were done by the Perrys except for a couple of characters which were done by others. I always preferred the 5th edition Bretonnians anyway. The more recent ones are really chunky, don't rank up properly and IMO have an excessive amount of detail.

For sources of Bretonnian alternatives, there's also Fireforge.

http://fireforge-games.com/webstore?productsublayout=0