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I've been padding out my Bretonnians, and while I like the look of the model, it's a) expensive and b) not really sure it's worth the investment, what is it's purpose?

Make your own, it is a relic that is being caried.

Its an oddity, had WHFB persistyed we would have had a new Reliquae by now, and like the Altar of Khaine might not resemble the original in scale.

I have half a mind to cheat and convert one up from a Screaming Bell.

The Reliquae is a companion model to a block of infantry and provides unit augments. It is useful because it stiffens peasants, most notably you get a ward save from prayer.

It is ultimately a character piece, there are other ways to give peasants the Blessing, and in either case they can lose it easily enough you have to consider if it is worthwhile. Peasants die, peasants flee. Just accept that and carry on. You are almost always better off spending points used to stiffen peasant units with more expendable peasant units. They are disposable populace.

 Orlanth wrote:
Peasants die, peasants flee. Just accept that and carry on. You are almost always better off spending points used to stiffen peasant units with more expendable peasant units. They are disposable populace.

Spoken like a true Bretonnian lord!

LiveWaaaaagh wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Peasants die, peasants flee. Just accept that and carry on. You are almost always better off spending points used to stiffen peasant units with more expendable peasant units. They are disposable populace.

Spoken like a true Bretonnian lord!

Indeed, but lets not be dogmatic about it. You can make headway with a large infantry block relying on static combat resolution with reliquae and/or a foot paladin with virtue of empathy and the correct item loadout to keep them dug in like a tick. Sometimes it is what you want to do,


I am tempted to bolster peasants because I get to use one of my excellent and characterful 5th edition Bretonnian foot knight models which includes a very nice grail knight armed with a Hussite hammer and shield. 5th had more openness in these regards, backed by crisp clean miniatures design.

http://solegends.com/citcat1998/1998P010-02.htm

This above page and following is the range of miniatures I use for my Brets. I love the old minis, I have nearly everything on the above list bar the special characters, of which I only have the 5th ed King and the 5th ed Fae Enchantress. I have some exceptions of later miniatures, I have one or two more 6th edition release Brets, including six Pegasus knights, the BSB, a single box worth of newer knights blended in and MOM Miniaturas Trebuchet. I dont actually have a reliquae.

I have a mix of 5th and 6th models to give mine more variance since every knight is supposed to be unique. I also mimicked a few of the knight's colours for the bowmen to signify them belonging to them. Actually scored a nice deal yesterday on eight pegasus knights, six more 5th edition KotR, 20 men at arms, and another 40 bowmen that i probably won't bother with. Missed the Made to Order Fey Enchantress unfortunately, but otherwise I'm pretty pleased with it so far. Sorry about the subpar pics, but this is my current Bret army. Everything 5th edition is from my buddy's army when we used to play back in high school

Ok, I kind of understand the point of the Reliquae now. Thanks, basically to keep the Men at Arms and the peasants with it from running as often and give them a ward save, more of a flavor piece if I'm running predominantly knights.

Nice to see how others Bretonnia.

I use lots of those 5th archers, I like them for their simplicity, though I head swap and torso swap a portion for added variety.

I use mine with the bows facing forward and arrange them in a staggered formation, 7 in the front rank, 8 in the second, with the front corners having braziers. I think it looks better as for battle it counts as two ranks of eight missing one man. Got three units this way, all with the old metal commands sold at the time.

 Orlanth wrote:
Nice to see how others Bretonnia.

I use lots of those 5th archers, I like them for their simplicity, though I head swap and torso swap a portion for added variety.

I use mine with the bows facing forward and arrange them in a staggered formation, 7 in the front rank, 8 in the second, with the front corners having braziers. I think it looks better as for battle it counts as two ranks of eight missing one man. Got three units this way, all with the old metal commands sold at the time.

Nice, I'm hoping the lot I got comes with the command as I had to build my own this time, used a horn from a tomb king's skeleton regiment and trimmed it down to look not undead, and a skaven banner cleaned up to look unripped. My plan for the new list I wrote is a pair of 15s for unit size. I use them in skirmish right now since I don't have to worry about formation lol. They're pretty effective. If I wasn't sick of painting brets, I'd probably do more of them. Maybe later, Trying a unit of men at arms this time since they're painted already. But I would guess I'll be swapping them for more knights or bowmen in the future.

One of my favourite games since restarting was playing a game with my friend who used to own those 5th models this summer, he showed up right after I finished painting 99% of the army, I haven't seen him for 18-20 years back when I was playing fifth Vampire Counts or 4th Undead. Pulled out an undead army (Tomb Kings) and made an afternoon of it. Was a longer game with him actually playing the Bretonnians properly and using the flaming arrows etc to his advantage. It was a very carefully played game, and a ton of fun

 brr-icy wrote:

Ok, I kind of understand the point of the Reliquae now. Thanks, basically to keep the Men at Arms and the peasants with it from running as often and give them a ward save, more of a flavor piece if I'm running predominantly knights.

20 Man at Arms is enough to run the reliquae because stubborn doesnt requires numbers per se. But you still need to upgrade them to pilgrims which cost 9pts rather than 5pts and you lose the halberd/spear.

One of the nice things about Men At Arms is that they cost as much as clanrats and your thinking should be channeled accordingly. Get more and dont waste points on a ward save.

Ok, so basically good flavor and display piece, not so practical in action. Thanks for the help. I like the look of it, and i'll snag one when I see a deal, but otherwise, pass

One of the ways to play Bretonnians is 'peasant heavy'. Because focus will always be on the superior knight units and these need to advance you will require Virtue of Empathy support for trailing infantry. Infantry then become the second line advancing after and supporting knights once they get bogged down post charge.
However as tactics go it is barely adequate and the army still fails to synergise properly leading people to abandon infantry bar some cheap supporting archers to deal with chaff and trebuchet.

One way to keep a workable combined arms Bretonnia army is to go against the face doctrine and play defensively rather than offensively. Bretonnia has decent artillery and long range cheap anti-chaff shooting, were it not for the forced focus on heavy lancers the Brets have what it takes to make a defensive army.
The key is to use your knights as a countercharge defence, interspercing lances of knights with long 'clanrat' columns of men at arms. Steadfast plus testing on the knights leadership is good enough. Virtue of Empathy is still a good stopgap somewhere to have a second bubble, and a foot knight can help when the knight countercharge and try to make open play. But it isnt necessary. The grail reliquae less so.

LiveWaaaaagh wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Peasants die, peasants flee. Just accept that and carry on. You are almost always better off spending points used to stiffen peasant units with more expendable peasant units. They are disposable populace.

Spoken like a true Bretonnian lord!

One of the few things about 6th that I detest was how they skewed the Knights and commoners in the fluff. Camelot Bretonnia from 5th will always be the best Bretonnia.

It was a grimdark cliche dialed up to eleven on class oppression. Very crass, symptomic of GW at the time.

Bretonnia was handled a lot better in the novels.

Got a lot in with 19 Men at arms from 6th, 39 5th bowmen including one set of metal command, 6 5th edition knights, and 8 Pegasus knights. Going to work on getting them painted up this week, hopefully can pound out the pegasai at least.

One of the pegasus knights is the same colourscheme as the men at arms, pleased with that since he can be their "lord" and he is painted half decently, I'll just have to fix up the horse's mane and body, add transfers, and shade/highlight the armour and he's set.

Painted most of one of them last night and swapped the knight's heads for helmeted ones instead of the men at arms ones they had.

Nice haul. Though that is an extravagent number of Pegasus knights. You will need a Lord on Royal Pegasus with that, which unlocks the much vaunted 'Bretonnian RAF' list.

Before doing too much conversion work on the pegasus to make a character try and find the metal Bretonnian pegasus kit. It will be worth it, and if you cant find one go here:

https://www.norbaminiatures.com/en/kingdom-of-equitaine/50-duque-en-pegaso.html

Nice, thanks. I have them in a big unit mostly to kill points, one of them is off the table. They've been working good this battle, but i don't think they're going to last another turn. But they already helped decimate a unit of tomb kings chariots and a bone giant, so they're not doing badly lol

Trouble with large units of pegasus knights is that they become a spell magnet and you cant protect them with anti magic items or a ward save because you cant add characters.

You are better off with RAF: a lord and multiple units of pegasus knights.

They took a beating, but ended up helping finish the tomb kings off with their charge on the king's final unit. they were a spell magnet though. I could just put another large unit of KotR in there and tone down the Pegasai a bit, I think I have nine more knights that are still in the shelves when I finished this list. or a second mass of bowmen. We will see, with this last lot, I got many more options to build with than I was expecting.

Yes, make options.

Knight heavy (standard build)
Men at arms with knights for countercharge
RAF
Errantry
Shooting heavy, archers and trebuchet plus countercharge.

A lot of those are more viable than others, and many overlap. For competitive play there are few ways to go Bretonnian, for casual play there are several more. with no current meta and a dead faction you need to go all out for variety to breath life into it. But its a rewarding army if you do.

 Orlanth wrote:

Errantry

What is this build?

Lots of small units of Knights Errant, rely on flanking and psychology bonus to make play.

Its also how to take more knights for less.

Now for earlier editions there was a specific errantry wars list which had some privileges to go with it. Errantry armies are survivors of that.

6th has that errantry wars list. I seen it recently. I have enough for options now, only thing i think i want is a reliquae for flavor and maybe hugo etc.

Yep, Errantry War list was from Storm of Chaos, and was one of the more balanced lists from that campaign book.

I'm not too concerned about balance as much as just being able to use models I own, that's where storm of chaos comes in with the Goblin Hewer, Hellcannon, etc. Bringing in some more models since I tend to buy "by the army" instead of singular pieces.

A lot of those extra items were technicaly overpowered but they were compensated for by thematic limitations.

An army made entirely of slayers is interesting but rather limited, who cares if the goblin hewer was toom good, there were no options to take the rest of the artillery.

IIRC Errantry wars armies could give peasants crossbows.

What about bertrand and co? Any rules for them in 6th?

 brr-icy wrote:
What about bertrand and co? Any rules for them in 6th?

Not to my knowledge.

Use allies rules and count them as not-wood elves. Give them a banner and claim its a magic banner that boosts initiative to account for the stats.

I would have zero problems with porting them in from 5th, but I cant speak for your play group.

I think the only 5th Ed. characters that got ported to 6th officially were Morgana, Leon, The Green Knight, and Tristan le Troubadour. I thought they had Bertrand, but a google search turned up zilch.

There's a few others, 99% of them I could find. But since Bertrand counts as a unit, it might be why. I'll just use skirmishing archers for them. They can inhabit the table, but not actually be them. I seen one with them counted as a rare unit, but unsure whether it's fan made or not

Figured I would share this here since I finished it finally, not getting why it's blurry here when it's perfectly clear on my Flickr, but whatever