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2023/01/21 16:02:59
Subject: Re:Thoughts On Bretonnia's Army And Where It Can Go
Foot knights are just knights who aren't risking a valuable horse in this battle; otherwise they're the same as mounted knights. I would propose giving ALL of our knights the option to go on foot (well, not Pegasus Knights...), or mounted for extra cost. So you can have cheap WS 3 foot Knights-Errant, more reliable WS 4 foot KotR, hard-hitting foot Questing Knights, or elite foot Grail Knights.
But that's just me; YMMV.
Having the option to dismount a cavalry unit will lead to an overpriced and understrength infantry unit. Best keep foot knights in seperation.
I mostly agree, but Chaos Knights are also divinely blessed.
And Grail Knights are not?
I used the word 'also', not 'instead'.
Foot 'knights' do not need to be knights per se, if you want infantry that is better than peasants you could do it by either having squires/knights-in-training led by a Knight overseeing them, or something like household troops led by a steward or something like that. After all, Knights need some sort of professional manpower to do things that are not honourable for a knight to deal with, like collecting taxes, dealing with non-noble foreigners, overseeing peasants and so on. The Sheriff of Nothinghams to the brigand's Robin Hood. It fits the theme, and if you want to limit them you can have them be 1 per lord or whatever, because only major holding would have enough of these people to form regiments. Squires is the more boring option, but you could spice them up with a 'lust for glory' rule or something like that.
Considering grail knights, i would prefer to turn them to superheavy cavalry level and use them in units of 1 or more like a lesser monster, to allow for differentiation between knight types. Turn the grail magic aspect to 11, give them options akin to demonic gifts or sth. like that, go wild.
On the new unit front, do something more interesting with the battle pilgrims and their shrine: instead of the mummified knight, have them carry around one of several mummified monsters, and give them a quasi-magic 'aspect' rule depending on what type it is. With a stuffed dragon they get flaming attacks and better armour, with the troll skull they get more resilient and have anti-magic properties and so on.
2023/01/22 15:11:06
Subject: Thoughts On Bretonnia's Army And Where It Can Go
Thus Grail Knights should be able to fight Chaos Knights on even terms, as I said earlier.
Absolutely. My first edition of WHFB was 5th and the Bretonnian armies were pretty one-dimensional but very effective. A wedge of Grail Knights could (and did) win against Chaos Knights.
I think with Bretonnia, the thing is to provide space for both fluff zealots and people who want more variety.
Each army would have to have a professional (full time) infantry unit to secure the castle and its environs with WS 3. Knights on foot would also be defensible, but there should be no more than 1 per X many points (basically the more castles the lord has, the more of these units he is supporting.
Crossbows should be mercenaries because Bretonnians regard the traditional bow as their national weapon. For variety's sake, one could go farther and have professional archers, 1 per just like the men-at-arms and foot knights.
Thus Grail Knights should be able to fight Chaos Knights on even terms, as I said earlier.
Absolutely. My first edition of WHFB was 5th and the Bretonnian armies were pretty one-dimensional but very effective. A wedge of Grail Knights could (and did) win against Chaos Knights.
I do not get the idea how Vulcan is assuming I, or for that matter any other commentator on this thread disagrees with this.
Grail Knights are a form of Chosen.
I think with Bretonnia, the thing is to provide space for both fluff zealots and people who want more variety.
There are two types of 'fluff zealot'. Those who want to follow 6th and those who wanted to follow earlier more nuanced depictions of Bretonnia. I should add a third category of those who want to follow Total War Warhammer, which buffed the faction roster a little.
Each army would have to have a professional (full time) infantry unit to secure the castle and its environs with WS 3. Knights on foot would also be defensible, but there should be no more than 1 per X many points (basically the more castles the lord has, the more of these units he is supporting.
I would move away from hard limiting number of units as a player could make those units disproportionately large anyway making a mockery of the distinction. Instead move everything that you want to limit into special and rare, then you get natural hard choices.
All Men At Arms should be WS3 Ld6, that would support their fluff. They should still be core. Levies should be a different unit, and WS2 BS2 Ld5. They get a useless 6+ save from scraps of armour and the occasional plank shield. Now there has to be an in game reason to take them. How about this. Peasant levies take (not long) bows, slings or spears, they do not officially have shields as a unit. They should be suitably cheap. .
Crossbows should be mercenaries because Bretonnians regard the traditional bow as their national weapon. For variety's sake, one could go farther and have professional archers, 1 per just like the men-at-arms and foot knights.
Mercenaries are an interesting add on, but will likely not just stop at crossbows.
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
2023/01/23 11:57:37
Subject: Re:Thoughts On Bretonnia's Army And Where It Can Go
Orlanth wrote: Levies should be a different unit, and WS2 BS2 Ld5. They get a useless 6+ save from scraps of armour and the occasional plank shield. Now there has to be an in game reason to take them. How about this. Peasant levies take (not long) bows, slings or spears, they do not officially have shields as a unit. They should be suitably cheap. .
[
At that point you can go the last step and make the Levies skirmishers with slings. That fits the image of undiscplined, e.g. unranked, rabble with slings and wooden spears / farm implements. Due to the volume of fire slings can put out they'd still be dangerous enough not to ignore them, and useable for the odd flank charge, area denial and to whittle down enemies that can't spare a unit to crush them.
2023/01/23 12:34:37
Subject: Re:Thoughts On Bretonnia's Army And Where It Can Go
"Unimaginably ancient xenos artefact somewhere on the planet, hive fleet poised above our heads, hidden 'stealer broods making an early start....and now a bloody Chaos cult crawling out of the woodwork just in case we were bored. Welcome to my world, Ciaphas."
Inquisitor Amberley Vail, Ordo Xenos
"I will admit that some Primachs like Russ or Horus could have a chance against an unarmed 12 year old novice but, a full Battle Sister??!! One to one? In close combat? Perhaps three Primarchs fighting together... but just one Primarch?" da001
with the army I have and would dearly love to use again..
1. foot knights, given there was a scenario that the army basically couldn't play as they had no good infantry they need the ability to have knights on foot - however maybe slightly lower leadership on foot, they don't like it after all, perhaps a limit of must have at least one more mounted than foot unit. an option for mounted to dismount would also be nice
2. split the men at arms into actual men at arms, WS3, and peasant rabble WS2 with worse equipment
3. crossbows.. yes but as mercenaries, maybe elite units, good but expensive and not core troops
4. please no monsters..
5. potentially add a cannon, as a siege type weapon, less reliable than the Empire ones, the sort of thing thats useful in some scenarios but less so generally
6. Knightly Orders, we have the Order of the Grail as it is, allow the Questing knights to have a few orders with optional slight benefits, and maybe normal knights having a few orders as colour more than anything.
basically aim for circa 100 years war era, add some mysticism to them, e.g. maybe an ethereal archer unit (as the 8th edition book hinted)
as an army they don't really need all that much, just a bit of flexibility in terms of how the knights can operate
2023/02/21 22:06:08
Subject: Thoughts On Bretonnia's Army And Where It Can Go
IMO there's a huge variety of real world 'equipment options' to draw from to create diversity, and that's before branching off with different themes to push the bar.
Multiple breeds of horse could also differentiate units.
i'm not in a position to discuss rules.. which to be honest, until we know what the revised old world's rules are, we won;t know what is or isn't needed anyway.
i'd say that one of the biggest failings of the faction in the old WFB was how two dimensional it came across as, both in play and in lore. peasants, lots of knights, bowmen, and a bit of grail magic. not really a lot of variety. the various types of knights were largely similar, the differences were lore stuff that rarely impacted the armies proper (or even really required much in the way of special models). and while the lore had lots of stuff about nobles and feudalism and such, it never really impacted the armies being built beyond being a choice for colors.
so to me,there are two main things that the faction needs for a proper update.
first, lean into the feudalism aspect. your army is the household of a landed noble. it is a "retinue of retinues".. your commander is a lesser noble, who is beholding to higher nobles. probably a Baron or maybe slightly higher, a Count, who in turn is the vassal of a dukedom within the kingdom. though personally i'd tweak the lore and instead of going with a simple king, i'd go with a "high king", to add an extra layer of nobles in there, with regional kings controlling groups of dukedoms. this makes it even more arthurian, as well as opens up some extra options for breetonian on breetonian conflict and political infighting.
your army's units are said noble's personal vassals. his knights are the leaders of the main blocks of cavalry and semi-professional, with the men in those units being his personal retinue, his sergeants, armsmen, and mercenary retainers. and the peasant units are the people of the villages those knights oversee.
(this is from an article critiquing the historicity of how Game of Thrones depicts warfare, but it is an excellent breakdown of how feudal armies were structured and formed.)
Army Building for Dummies The phrase I drill into my student’s heads about the structure of medieval armies is that they are a retinue of retinues. What I mean by this is that the way a medieval king raises his armies is that he has a bunch of military aristocrats (read: nobles) who owe him military service (they are his ‘vassals’) – his retinue. When he goes to war, the king calls on all of his vassals to show up. But each of those vassals also have their own bunch of military aristocrats who are their vassals – their retinue. And this repeats down the line, even down to an individual knight, who likely has a handful of non-nobles as his retinue (perhaps a few of his peasants, or maybe he’s hired a mercenary or two on retainer).
If you want to read a really detailed (and rather dry) look at how this functioned, take a look at David Simpkin’s The English Aristocracy at War (2008); he combed surviving English records from c. 1272 to 1314 and he analyses (among other things) average retinue size. The average retinue found was five men although significant lords (like earls) might have hundreds of men in their retinues (which were in turn comprised of the retinues of their own retainers). So the noble’s retinue is the combined retinues of all of his retainers, and the king’s army is the combined total of everyone’s retainer’s retainers, if that make sense. Thus: a retinue of retinues.
This is exactly the system that Game of Thrones claims its armies work on. The high lords – folks like Tywin Lannister – ‘call their banners’ and their bannermen – the Westerosi term for vassals (and presumably a direct take on what was called a ‘knight banneret’ historically – the lowest form of aristocrat who would have his own banner and thus his own military unit) show up with their own retinues, exactly as above. And, at first blush, this seems quite medieval – this is how medieval armies in the High and Late Middle Ages were formed (mostly). The problem is that armies in Westeros never seem to function within the constraints of this system.
First, the obvious: this system, where armies are assembled based on personal relationships and where the smallest units are often very small simply does not have the capacity to scale up forever. There are just only so many retainers a king can keep a personal relationship with – and so on down the line.
Second, those retainers aren’t ‘on retainer’ to serve forever. They are obliged to a certain number of days of military service per year. Specifically, the standard number – which comes out of William the Conqueror’s settlement of his vassals after taking the English throne – was 40 days. The entire point of this system is that the king gives his vassals land and they give him military service so that no one has to pay anyone anything, because medieval kings do not have the kind of revenue to maintain long-term standing armies. It is no accident that the most destructive medieval conflicts were religious wars where the warriors participating were essentially engaged in ‘armed pilgrimage’ and so might stay in the field longer (God having a more unlimited claim on a knight’s time than the king).
Finally, imagine organizing supply for an army like this. Every retinue unit comes in a different size: Lord Tarly might have a few hundred men, Lord Risley a couple dozen, Lord Hastwyck showed up with just his household guard of five and so on (for dozens and dozens of retinues). You – the king’s quartermaster – do not know how large these retinues are, but you must ration and distribute food so that you don’t run into a position where one retinue is starving while the others have surplus. You also need to coordinate the baggage train of excess food…but of course most of the wagons and pack animals belong to all of the minor lords with their small retinues. You begin to see the problem: centralized supply – necessary for keeping a large army fed – is practically impossible.
(If you want to read about the difficulties of keeping even an early modern army (with somewhat more centralized supply and logistics) together at long distance, consider reading Geoffrey Parker’s The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road and keep in mind that, at its peak, the army he describes (and the insurmountable challenges of paying and supplying it) was never more than 90,000 men – smaller than Renly Baratheon’s host – and tended to be on average a bit less than 60,000 strong).
second, this vassalage system of retinues should effect the army..taking a HQ unit should only unlock only so many units of knights and men at arms (which should either have a figure cap per unit, or be required to take multiple unit commander type figures based on total figure count.), and those knights in turn unlocking only so many peasant type units. (which again, should either have a figure a per unit or be required to have multiple unit commander type figures based on size)
this would reflect the fact that the army is not a professional force but rather what amounts to an adhoc affair, where the Baron calls for his knights-bannerets, who gather up their personal retinues (some of which would be cavalry, some of which would be men at arms) and recruits some village peasants/serfs to be bowmen or just warm bodies to pad out the numbers, and march off to a mustering point where they meet up with the other knights, and the baron's own personal retinue of cavalry, men-at-arms, and village peasants.
this means that in order to build a larger army, you have to invest in more HQ units. it also lets you play around with unlocking limitations. a grail knight champion HQ unit for example might be required to unlock a unit of grail knight cavalry and grail pilgrims instead of regular knights and peasants (thus making them feel less tacked on to the army proper.), etc.
this also opens up some options for unit variety. since your army is the household of a noble, you can bring in other parts of his personal court. like the castle's Huntsman leading a unit of hunting hounds for a Baron, or a Sheriff and some constables. etc.
lore wise i'd also expand on the grail cult.. model the grail knights more on the religious military orders of the crusades, instead of just being what happens if a questing knight manages to find the thing. this also would let you play around with upgrades.. you could have two or three orders of grail knights, each following a particular aspect of the lady, giving the knights thematic stat modifiers depending on which order you make them part of. (this should probably be an upgrade taken by the grail Knight champion, and then apply to all the lesser grail knights in the army). questing knights can be the lowest rank of these orders, who quest to gain experience and prove their worth.
2023/02/24 06:18:51
Subject: Re:Thoughts On Bretonnia's Army And Where It Can Go
mithril2098 wrote: i'm not in a position to discuss rules.. which to be honest, until we know what the revised old world's rules are, we won;t know what is or isn't needed anyway.
i'd say that one of the biggest failings of the faction in the old WFB was how two dimensional it came across as, both in play and in lore. peasants, lots of knights, bowmen, and a bit of grail magic. not really a lot of variety. the various types of knights were largely similar, the differences were lore stuff that rarely impacted the armies proper (or even really required much in the way of special models). and while the lore had lots of stuff about nobles and feudalism and such, it never really impacted the armies being built beyond being a choice for colors.
so to me,there are two main things that the faction needs for a proper update.
first, lean into the feudalism aspect. your army is the household of a landed noble. it is a "retinue of retinues".. your commander is a lesser noble, who is beholding to higher nobles. probably a Baron or maybe slightly higher, a Count, who in turn is the vassal of a dukedom within the kingdom. though personally i'd tweak the lore and instead of going with a simple king, i'd go with a "high king", to add an extra layer of nobles in there, with regional kings controlling groups of dukedoms. this makes it even more arthurian, as well as opens up some extra options for breetonian on breetonian conflict and political infighting.
your army's units are said noble's personal vassals. his knights are the leaders of the main blocks of cavalry and semi-professional, with the men in those units being his personal retinue, his sergeants, armsmen, and mercenary retainers. and the peasant units are the people of the villages those knights oversee.
(this is from an article critiquing the historicity of how Game of Thrones depicts warfare, but it is an excellent breakdown of how feudal armies were structured and formed.)
Army Building for Dummies The phrase I drill into my student’s heads about the structure of medieval armies is that they are a retinue of retinues. What I mean by this is that the way a medieval king raises his armies is that he has a bunch of military aristocrats (read: nobles) who owe him military service (they are his ‘vassals’) – his retinue. When he goes to war, the king calls on all of his vassals to show up. But each of those vassals also have their own bunch of military aristocrats who are their vassals – their retinue. And this repeats down the line, even down to an individual knight, who likely has a handful of non-nobles as his retinue (perhaps a few of his peasants, or maybe he’s hired a mercenary or two on retainer).
If you want to read a really detailed (and rather dry) look at how this functioned, take a look at David Simpkin’s The English Aristocracy at War (2008); he combed surviving English records from c. 1272 to 1314 and he analyses (among other things) average retinue size. The average retinue found was five men although significant lords (like earls) might have hundreds of men in their retinues (which were in turn comprised of the retinues of their own retainers). So the noble’s retinue is the combined retinues of all of his retainers, and the king’s army is the combined total of everyone’s retainer’s retainers, if that make sense. Thus: a retinue of retinues.
This is exactly the system that Game of Thrones claims its armies work on. The high lords – folks like Tywin Lannister – ‘call their banners’ and their bannermen – the Westerosi term for vassals (and presumably a direct take on what was called a ‘knight banneret’ historically – the lowest form of aristocrat who would have his own banner and thus his own military unit) show up with their own retinues, exactly as above. And, at first blush, this seems quite medieval – this is how medieval armies in the High and Late Middle Ages were formed (mostly). The problem is that armies in Westeros never seem to function within the constraints of this system.
First, the obvious: this system, where armies are assembled based on personal relationships and where the smallest units are often very small simply does not have the capacity to scale up forever. There are just only so many retainers a king can keep a personal relationship with – and so on down the line.
Second, those retainers aren’t ‘on retainer’ to serve forever. They are obliged to a certain number of days of military service per year. Specifically, the standard number – which comes out of William the Conqueror’s settlement of his vassals after taking the English throne – was 40 days. The entire point of this system is that the king gives his vassals land and they give him military service so that no one has to pay anyone anything, because medieval kings do not have the kind of revenue to maintain long-term standing armies. It is no accident that the most destructive medieval conflicts were religious wars where the warriors participating were essentially engaged in ‘armed pilgrimage’ and so might stay in the field longer (God having a more unlimited claim on a knight’s time than the king).
Finally, imagine organizing supply for an army like this. Every retinue unit comes in a different size: Lord Tarly might have a few hundred men, Lord Risley a couple dozen, Lord Hastwyck showed up with just his household guard of five and so on (for dozens and dozens of retinues). You – the king’s quartermaster – do not know how large these retinues are, but you must ration and distribute food so that you don’t run into a position where one retinue is starving while the others have surplus. You also need to coordinate the baggage train of excess food…but of course most of the wagons and pack animals belong to all of the minor lords with their small retinues. You begin to see the problem: centralized supply – necessary for keeping a large army fed – is practically impossible.
(If you want to read about the difficulties of keeping even an early modern army (with somewhat more centralized supply and logistics) together at long distance, consider reading Geoffrey Parker’s The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road and keep in mind that, at its peak, the army he describes (and the insurmountable challenges of paying and supplying it) was never more than 90,000 men – smaller than Renly Baratheon’s host – and tended to be on average a bit less than 60,000 strong).
second, this vassalage system of retinues should effect the army..taking a HQ unit should only unlock only so many units of knights and men at arms (which should either have a figure cap per unit, or be required to take multiple unit commander type figures based on total figure count.), and those knights in turn unlocking only so many peasant type units. (which again, should either have a figure a per unit or be required to have multiple unit commander type figures based on size)
this would reflect the fact that the army is not a professional force but rather what amounts to an adhoc affair, where the Baron calls for his knights-bannerets, who gather up their personal retinues (some of which would be cavalry, some of which would be men at arms) and recruits some village peasants/serfs to be bowmen or just warm bodies to pad out the numbers, and march off to a mustering point where they meet up with the other knights, and the baron's own personal retinue of cavalry, men-at-arms, and village peasants.
this means that in order to build a larger army, you have to invest in more HQ units. it also lets you play around with unlocking limitations. a grail knight champion HQ unit for example might be required to unlock a unit of grail knight cavalry and grail pilgrims instead of regular knights and peasants (thus making them feel less tacked on to the army proper.), etc.
this also opens up some options for unit variety. since your army is the household of a noble, you can bring in other parts of his personal court. like the castle's Huntsman leading a unit of hunting hounds for a Baron, or a Sheriff and some constables. etc.
lore wise i'd also expand on the grail cult.. model the grail knights more on the religious military orders of the crusades, instead of just being what happens if a questing knight manages to find the thing. this also would let you play around with upgrades.. you could have two or three orders of grail knights, each following a particular aspect of the lady, giving the knights thematic stat modifiers depending on which order you make them part of. (this should probably be an upgrade taken by the grail Knight champion, and then apply to all the lesser grail knights in the army). questing knights can be the lowest rank of these orders, who quest to gain experience and prove their worth.
What you're describing sounds more like the 40K army build mechanism than the WFB army build.... but perhaps that's a good thing. If the Brets have something more like the 40K army build, and the ability/requirement to have multiple unit commanders and/or command groups for large units, that would certainly help make the cheap Bret infantry tougher.
Perhaps even have higher ranking commanders able to take large units without subcommanders, but each commander has to stick with his unit. So a champion might lead a handful of cavalry or a dozen infantry, while a Lord might lead up to 15-20 cavalry or a large infantry block by himself.
A bit complex, perhaps, but it would give Bretonnia a definte flavor different from any other army.
CHAOS! PANIC! DISORDER!
My job here is done.
2023/02/25 00:11:36
Subject: Re:Thoughts On Bretonnia's Army And Where It Can Go
agreed that it is rather different than is usual. but then, so were the armies of medieval feudal states compared to the early modern period armies (such as those which the Empire generally emulates)
it might be easier to flip it around and specify that you have to take so many command figures for every so many regular cavalry or men at arms. and then just make the requirements for the exotic stuff like the grail knights specify they have to be grail cult units, and so on.
either way, i do think that they need to lean more into the medieval/arthurian/crusader order stuff..
units built around parts of a castle/holding staff - the huntsman with hunters and/or dogs. the forester (who oversee's logging and guards the lord's personal forests from poaching) with teams of stealthy bowmen or loggers. perhaps a falconeer with swarms of hunting birds. etc.
foot knights certainly seem a plausible option, though i'd probably try to give them a distinctive name, and make them non-nobles of some sort. perhaps men-at-arms who have elevated themselves in status through battlefield prowess. and set them up so you can take them as a champion-leader of a men-at-arms unit, or take them on their own as a whole unit of heavily armored foot soldiers. (could easily work in some lore here about the practice of ransom regarding noble born knights and lords, as well as the pillaging of dead enemies for their armor and weapons)
i also think some effort needs to be made to give beetonian forces an excuse to appear just about anywhere in the setting. which is where i figure a lot of the crusader type elements can show up. by having the king or one or more of the official religious cults in the region declaring crusades, to the banners of which breetonian nobles flock to, and then march off to distant lands under. thus giving an excuse for baron whatsisname and lord whosit to show up leading an large army in Kislev to fight the chaos invasions, or take ship and sail to the new world to fight the dark elves, etc. there was some hinting that individuals and small groups did this in the WFB fiction, but it was never really supported well in the lore of breetonia itself.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/02/25 00:17:12
2023/02/25 10:39:27
Subject: Thoughts On Bretonnia's Army And Where It Can Go
I have nothing to add except +1 for ACOUP, his historical articles are brilliant and his fantasy world dissections are such fun and enlightening reads.
2023/04/13 15:12:17
Subject: Thoughts On Bretonnia's Army And Where It Can Go
to be honest moving the army creation rules into the army books and allowing different armies to be built in different ways would make sense
Bretonnia, basically middle ages classical European armies, with a few fantasy elements based on mythology. the option for those who want a human army from a few hundred years before the Empire sort of
I like them, all they really needed has been laid out many times, they are the pefect place to add various mythical units, ghostly archers were hinted at in the 8th rulebook for example.
the only real bit that didn't fit was the idea of they, as with every other, faction getting some honking great monster that any questing knight worth the name would have gone for at the first chance.
but they didn't need a monster, they needed to be basically a historical human army option among all the insanity with a helping of mythology added
then go steal the interesting bits from history and file the serial numbers off
