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I played in a mini tournament a few weeks back with my Bretonnians. I did quite well considering, winning two games out of four.
I lost one of my games partly because of terrible tactics but mostly because of my opponents ability to out deploy me with units of dire
wolves and spirit hosts.
I've been thinking about it loads since it happened and was wondering what the Bretonnian equivalent would be? small cheap units.
I was thinking small units of 6 knight errant. would this work?

Most people tend to drop a few units of bowmen as chaff.

You also have mounted yeoman. Power to the peasants!

The primary purpose of chaff units is to block in deathstar melee units and redirect charges to open up flank/rear charges. The best folks at doing this are fast (to get in the way), manoeuvrable (to get the funny angles necessary to redirect charges), and inexpensive (because these are sacrificial at the end of the day); within Bretonnia small unarmoured Mounted Yeomen units are pretty solid for the role.

Yup, use Mounted Yeomen.

I would suggest min units of peasants, but they're too slow to get ahead of the Knights to do actual chaff work.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Most people tend to drop a few units of bowmen as chaff.

You also have mounted yeoman. Power to the peasants!

Mounted Yeomen aren't good.

5 knights fill the same role, are cheaper and more durable.

5 Yeomen are almost the cost of 3 peg knights.


Bret chaff staples are units of 3 peg knights and units of 5 KoTR.

What you're looking for isn't so much "chaff" as it is extra drops.

I say this because Brets have a great chaff tool that won't help you with drops: paladins. You can build a mounted "solodin" for quite cheap, and use him for all sorts of things that other armies would use chaff for. Charging him out of a unit to clear up small units of chaff, for instance, without putting your lances in harm's way. Pulling him out of a unit to chaff something up so that you can fly in next turn. Using wound allocation to mitigate damage on the unit.

However this doesn't help you with your issue: drops.

Though it's hard to say without seeing your list, I think something you should simply consider is that you simply WON'T be able to out-deploy certain armies. VC have 40 point units of dogs, 45 point units of spirit hosts, and 32 point units of fellbats. In a chaff race against VC, you lose. Other armies have similarly cheap chaff.

More importantly, since you're going second anyways the benefits of out-deploying your opponent are somewhat muted since he'll automatically have a whole turn to adapt to this. I'm not saying it's not worth considering, but don't sacrifice your army's effectiveness on the altar of getting more drops.


That said, there are a few things you can do:

1) archers. They're cheap, get flaming attacks for 5 points, and come with a free fence. May not seem like much, but that a) gives enemies -1 to hit you (fence is an obstacle),b) blocks cannonballs for a turn (fences block the first cannonball that hits/destroys them), and c) makes them immune to fear-casing cavalry (flaming causes fear against cavalry).

2) Peg knights: they're awesome, fly 20", hunt warmachines, are fast cav so have feigned flight, and are skirmishers so they're stubborn in forests. They also have vanguard, so can move 12" to mitigate poor placement from being dropped first.

3) Trebuchets: many Bret players get bent out of shape about you eating their trebuchets, but for 90 points each it's honestly worth it to keep whatever is hunting them out of the game for a few turns. It means you get 2 or so turns of shooting in before they die, and effectively become counter-chaff. People are also much more likely to be influenced by your dropping powerful warmachines than a VC player dropping 40-point chaff.

4) Mounted Yeoman. Honestly I think these guys are way too expensive for what you get. However they're the cheapest fast cav Brets have access to, and you can't take more than 1 unit of peg knights without putting a lord on a peg.

5) multiple smaller lances, vs. a few big ones. 4 smaller lances doesn't just give you more drops, it also gives you more flexibility.

6) Sit back. Everyone expects Brets to be in your face turn 2, but with Trebuchets and Heavens magic you really don't have to. Why charge into a bad deployment trap when you have M8 and a significant range arsenal? Just dance around them, pummel away at them, and charge in turn 4-5 instead of 2-3.

I never leave home without Pegasus knights. They're just too good not to take

I have 7 mounted yeomen models, so I can make one unit of 5 to test them out and I have 80 archers, I lots of small units is fine.

When you say small lance units, how small? I run two units; one in 9 (with heroes) and one in 12.

units of 5 errant knights with a musician nothing else.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
Most people tend to drop a few units of bowmen as chaff.

You also have mounted yeoman. Power to the peasants!

Mounted Yeomen aren't good.

5 knights fill the same role, are cheaper and more durable.

5 Yeomen are almost the cost of 3 peg knights.


Bret chaff staples are units of 3 peg knights and units of 5 KoTR.

Really?

They're cheaper? Baffeling.

Well, they arent, as mounted yeomen come in at 7.5 slaves, and KotR are 12 slaves. Meaning 75pts for a naked yeoman squad, and 130 for 5 Knights with musician (to get even a fraction of the maneouverability of fast cav)

That, and 3 pegasi are 165pts...

 japehlio wrote:
Well, they arent, as mounted yeomen come in at 7.5 slaves, and KotR are 12 slaves. Meaning 75pts for a naked yeoman squad, and 130 for 5 Knights with musician (to get even a fraction of the maneouverability of fast cav)

That, and 3 pegasi are 165pts...

Oh. Fair enough.

Mounted Yeomen are 83 for a functioning unit with no ward, and a 6+ armour save. To get them to a 5+ armour, you go up to 88.

For 120. You go up to a 2+ save, a 5+ ward, and the ability to hold up a character for a round. For cost-effectiveness, knights are far cheaper.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 japehlio wrote:
Well, they arent, as mounted yeomen come in at 7.5 slaves, and KotR are 12 slaves. Meaning 75pts for a naked yeoman squad, and 130 for 5 Knights with musician (to get even a fraction of the maneouverability of fast cav)

That, and 3 pegasi are 165pts...

Oh. Fair enough.

Mounted Yeomen are 83 for a functioning unit with no ward, and a 6+ armour save. To get them to a 5+ armour, you go up to 88.

For 120. You go up to a 2+ save, a 5+ ward, and the ability to hold up a character for a round. For cost-effectiveness, knights are far cheaper.

True, but knights don't have the fast cav rules, they also can't flee without losing the lady's blessing. And your knightly units won't be tempted to run away if the chaff is turned into red mush.

 welshhoppo wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 japehlio wrote:
Well, they arent, as mounted yeomen come in at 7.5 slaves, and KotR are 12 slaves. Meaning 75pts for a naked yeoman squad, and 130 for 5 Knights with musician (to get even a fraction of the maneouverability of fast cav)

That, and 3 pegasi are 165pts...

Oh. Fair enough.

Mounted Yeomen are 83 for a functioning unit with no ward, and a 6+ armour save. To get them to a 5+ armour, you go up to 88.

For 120. You go up to a 2+ save, a 5+ ward, and the ability to hold up a character for a round. For cost-effectiveness, knights are far cheaper.

True, but knights don't have the fast cav rules, they also can't flee without losing the lady's blessing. And your knightly units won't be tempted to run away if the chaff is turned into red mush.

On the other hand, you don't have to keep them within 12" of another unit of knights, worry about LD, or worry about chaff clearing.

If I do run Knight errant over mounted yeomen, would it be worth adding an extra man for 20 points and getting the rank bonus?

Not really. Killing two in a single phase still amounts to a panic check. And they are there to support and be drops, not to win combats.

I really don't see the sense in taking 5-man knight squads as chaff. Solodins are cheaper, are multi-functional, and can create favourable overrun angles on frenzied units (i.e. skullcrushers) much more easily.

The only thing they don't do is add drops. But you've got 10-man archer squads, the mandatory peg knight unit, trebuchets, and potentially yeoman as drops already. Just mix and match a bit.

Also don't focus on drops too much. It's important for Brets to add a few, but after too many you're getting diminishing returns. It's not like you're playing VC with their access to 40 point direwolf packs and 45 point solo spirit hosts.

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:
I really don't see the sense in taking 5-man knight squads as chaff. Solodins are cheaper, are multi-functional, and can create favourable overrun angles on frenzied units (i.e. skullcrushers) much more easily.

The only thing they don't do is add drops. But you've got 10-man archer squads, the mandatory peg knight unit, trebuchets, and potentially yeoman as drops already. Just mix and match a bit.

Also don't focus on drops too much. It's important for Brets to add a few, but after too many you're getting diminishing returns. It's not like you're playing VC with their access to 40 point direwolf packs and 45 point solo spirit hosts.

50 points for 10 men at arms is a pretty good drop if you want to go MSU. Using knights LD and not panicking knights is a solid bonus.
Unlike the VC unit spam, men at arms can flee a charge. 55 points for a unit that rallies on a 9 (knight LD with musician) can give death star armies headaches.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:
I really don't see the sense in taking 5-man knight squads as chaff. Solodins are cheaper, are multi-functional, and can create favourable overrun angles on frenzied units (i.e. skullcrushers) much more easily.

The only thing they don't do is add drops. But you've got 10-man archer squads, the mandatory peg knight unit, trebuchets, and potentially yeoman as drops already. Just mix and match a bit.

Also don't focus on drops too much. It's important for Brets to add a few, but after too many you're getting diminishing returns. It's not like you're playing VC with their access to 40 point direwolf packs and 45 point solo spirit hosts.

50 points for 10 men at arms is a pretty good drop if you want to go MSU. Using knights LD and not panicking knights is a solid bonus.
Unlike the VC unit spam, men at arms can flee a charge. 55 points for a unit that rallies on a 9 (knight LD with musician) can give death star armies headaches.

Also unlike VC spam, M@A are M4 (vs m9) and don't have vanguard. Good luck running interference for M8 knights with that.

What they are decent for is protecting trebuchets from cannonballs. I wouldn't take more than 2 though. Brets need to spend their points efficiently.

If you're going to drop a unit of 10 to protect a Treb, use archers. They bring a cannonball-proof fence with them.