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I'll cut to the chase, my associates. I am finally seriously starting to play fantasy, with Bretonnia, and am already at my first hurdle. I have a friend/opponent that prefers his doombull to any of the other lord choices simply because its a beatstick. He kits it out as well as he can at 1500, which comes down to sword of swift slaying, scaly skin, ramhorn helm, talisman of 4+. So he basically, at least it is my own theory, places a lot of his army's chance of victory on this single model (and to a noob why wouldn't he with its 1+ armor, 4+ ward, and ridiculous damage output.) I've been trying to create my own combat lord to beat this thing, but nothing seems really advantageous, only just marginal. Horde units don't seem smart either since he'll just tear 10 models up a turn and i'll lose to combat res. I'd really like to not depend on magic here, but if its all I really have so be it. This kinda challenge makes me wish I had started OK .

Not sure but can you get heroic killing blow on someone with good armour and ward?

What type of list do you tend to bring?
Would it be possible to avoid it long enough to get points by taking apart the rest of his army?

Standard list, prolly heavier focus on peasants than knights, but I'm open to ideas of all types.

Force it to try and frenzy charge peasant bowmen or yeomen and flee when it charges, chaffing combat monsters to death works well. However simple answer for Brettonia, drop some rocks on its head, sure he has a 4+ ward, but he will fail one, and he will eventually get pasted. If anything it will force your opponent to get some Ungor raiders or harpies to counter the treb... and the beautiful evolution of two friends armies will continue.

 sandant wrote:
Force it to try and frenzy charge peasant bowmen or yeomen and flee when it charges, chaffing combat monsters to death works well. However simple answer for Brettonia, drop some rocks on its head, sure he has a 4+ ward, but he will fail one, and he will eventually get pasted. If anything it will force your opponent to get some Ungor raiders or harpies to counter the treb... and the beautiful evolution of two friends armies will continue.

Except that the doombull has 5 wounds. You have to hit him, then he has to fail the look out roll (if he has one) then you have wound (2+ isn't tough) then he's got the ward, then you need to roll a 5 or 6 to kill outright.

Try this.
Lord, Virtue of Heroic Killing Blow, Virtue of the Confidence (re-roll to hit and wound in challenges). Barded steed, shield. Sword of Swiftness, gauntlet of the duel.
That gives you a 2+/5++ save, ASF with 4 attacks that re-roll to hit and wound, with heroic killing blow, and he cannot decline challenges.

On average, you'll land 1 normal wound, and a heroic killing blow each turn. 50/50 he dies.
He'll get 6 attacks, hit with 3 (no re-rolls for him since you both ASF), wound on 2's (S6). You'll save on 5's (2+ armor at a -3) and 5's (5+ blessing).
That means you're taking ~1 wound a turn.

Now, if you take a damsel with lore of life, you could be healing your lord with the lore attribute.
You could also drop the gauntlet in favor of the dragon helm for a 1+ armor and blessing save, but personally, I like the gauntlet. Nothing says kick in the junk like saying, I challenge and you must accept with somebody.
The only trick is to not run away. This is best achieved by giving the damsel in the 2nd rank the crown of command.


-Matt

You want to put 1+ AS with re-rolls on your fighty characters in Bretonnia, it's cheap and easy to do
GromrilHelm on the Lord
Enchanted Shield + Dawnstone on the BSB
DragonHelm + Luckstone (only 1 re-roll I know) on the next fighty character ...

a 1+ with re-roll followed by a 5++ is stupidly resilient, and yes the Heroic Killing Blow is a good idea (and take a cheap potion of foolhardiness for +1A on the charge)
If you are tight on points, you can take the Sword of Striking instead of the Swift Slaying, not as good but close enough
You can only take 1 Virtue per character, so stick to the VoHeroism on the Lord

TanKoL wrote:
You want to put 1+ AS with re-rolls on your fighty characters in Bretonnia, it's cheap and easy to do
GromrilHelm on the Lord
Enchanted Shield + Dawnstone on the BSB
DragonHelm + Luckstone (only 1 re-roll I know) on the next fighty character ...

a 1+ with re-roll followed by a 5++ is stupidly resilient, and yes the Heroic Killing Blow is a good idea (and take a cheap potion of foolhardiness for +1A on the charge)
If you are tight on points, you can take the Sword of Striking instead of the Swift Slaying, not as good but close enough
You can only take 1 Virtue per character, so stick to the VoHeroism on the Lord

My bad, I forgot it was 1 virtue per character.
Then I'd go Gromril Helm, Sword of Anti-heroes and heroic killing blow.
You're packing the 1+ armor with re-rolls then the bless, and you're dishing out 5 or more heroic killing blow attacks.
Let a paladin with 1+ rerolls soak the challenge and whack on rank and file for combat res.

Yea Bretonnia can come out with some mean fighty characters.

Lord- Barded Warhorse, Shield, Virtue of Heroism, Sword of Swift Slaying, Dawnstone (Gromril Great Helm) , Gauntlet of the Duel (Foolhardiness)
- ASF, Heroic Killing Blow, 2+ re-rolling armour, and the enemy must accept your challenges. whee! No hero enjoys fighting that. The more popular build is Gromril Great Helm, for a 1+ re-roll, but I think the Gauntlet of the Duel may be worth it.


Lord- Barded Warhorse, Lance, Shield, Virtue of the Knightly Temper, Cuirass of Fortune, Tress of Isolude, Mantle of the Damsel Elena
- KT gives you a free attack on the charge each time you hit and wound before saves. Tress of Isolude can be popped to make sure you are hitting on a 2+, and the Cuirass of Fortune lets you re-roll any 1 to wound, all at s6. This probably won't have the muscle to get through both his armour, ward and 5 wounds. But it sure will put a dent in his BSB.


The re-roll lord might also be worth considering
Bretonnian Lord- Barded Warhorse, Shield, Virtue of Confidence, Birthsword, Gromril Great Helm, Gauntlet of the Duel
- Get in a challenge, re-roll to hit, re-roll to wound, force your opponent to re-roll successful armour saves, and re-roll your own 1+ armour.


Finally. Just ignore him. You are Bretonnia one of the fastest armies in the game. If somebody can pick their fights it is you. Maybe feed him some Peasant Archers to keep him busy or something.

Or stall him with Mounted Yeomen. So basically Put MY in charge range and force him to try to charge with his Lord's unit. Then Feigned Flight Back towards a Knight Unit. He'll stumble forward 4-5 inches instead of marching, which is huge. Meanwhile your Yeomen cause no panic checks at all in any of your Knights units (Knights Vow) and furthermore are testing to regroup on the Knight's leadership +1 from the musician (Peasant's Duty)- So generally leadership 9-10. Then for added Hilarity, they move back into position to force the Doom Bull to try to charge them again and rince and repeat until your opponent rage quits as your Knights beat the snot out of the rest of the list. Fantasy is about Tactics. You don't need to face everything head on to win. But if you feel the need to, Bretonnian Lords properly equiped can stand against just about anybody.

Just a side note, it's not worth it to take Ward saves on Bretonnian characters as you'll have a 5++ against everything that hits hard due to the benediction anyway

What's useful is to have a Prophetess (with innate MR2) and a MR2/3 in the other big Knight unit to protect from Searing Doom with a 4++

I swear there's something Bret characters can take that gives them HKB. If you want to fight fire with fire, that'll be your best bet.

Otherwise, I'd just either ignore him or feed him chaff. If you can kill off everything else in his army, then you've got the game pretty much won, no matter how much the doombull's chewed up your units. Your knights will, I imagine, be much faster than him, which helps you avoid him. If you can't, then just try to feed him units of peasant bowmen all game.

Virtue of Heroism, basically does that.

Nice thread, Bret characters sound pretty scary actually! With HKB you've got a decent shot at pasting that Doombull, too.

But better to redirect it with forced frenzy charges against fleeing chaff units first

Don't forget lore of beasts, it has good character buff spells, savage beast of horrors is the one to look out for especially


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Or take two units of MY and double flee him every turn

Redirect him with chaff or tie him up with a deep block of peasants. Can Brett's take lore of death? He is only LD 8.

I play beastmen and he can be a bit fragile. A pair of rocks on his head each turn will kill him. I also ran him with the dawnstone instead of the +4 ward for more ram attacks.

The tactic normally used against me was to force him to charge a chaff unit, wipe it out and overrun, and then charge in the flank or rear with another unit with full ranks. Champion challenges and I do normally 4 - 5 wounds, but they have flank (+1), charge (+1), standard (+1), and ranks (+3). I would be testing on a 5 or 6 normally and ran a lot and got run down a couple times.

One of my favorite builds is a Lord Gail Val, with Virtue of Heroism, Armor of Agilulf , Sword of swift Slaying, potion of Speed, Luck stone, you end of with a guy who is Immune to Psychic, HKB, WS 10, ASF. Generally hitting on threes with a reroll, then one or 2 6’s will Kill anything,

Another good option is Lord Gail Val, with Virtue of Heroism, Armor of Agilulf , Heartwood Lance.