Playing with Bretonians

Still pretty much going for witch hunters but...

bretonians as a Warband... pros and cons... Discuss.

Pro: I would say Bretonians is one of the, fluffwise, "rightest" warband to go to M-heim! And, speaking without knowing, arent their heros rock hard??

in warhammer they're pretty beasty. Well they were, till the new rules made infantry stubborn... now my cavalry army is crap, and I might have o get some peasants...

But yes the heroes always had good base stats but more importantly the bretonian armoury was Immense... Honestly it enabled me to destroy any unit in combat.

But sadly none of this applies in mordheim and I have to have people on foot... so... yeh..

Need to read the fluff on them... someone link me?

In the article I've got printed off somewhere it just mentions that fluffwise they never went to Mordheim.

Although I do like the idea of a Questing Knight travelling to Mordheim on some righteous quest for the Lady.

We had a guy playing Bretonians in our last Mordheim league but things didn't work out well for him.

They have great equipment and have what you would expect knights to have, but that is sometimes the problem. Our Bret player would charge his knights in on horseback, try to kill as many enemies as possible, and then have his horses killed by daggers and clubs causing them to fall on his knights and kill them. More than likely just bad luck on his part, but having all that armor and weaponry go to waste falling off a horse sucks.

They have cheap heroes for what they are... 15g for a squaire... but then why would you want a weak hero... their henchmen are pretty dire too.

Nothing like the actual army.

Mordheim is no place for horsies really is it?

You'd want the cheap heroes to get Wyrdstone, meat shield and to add to the number of bows in the warband.

Not seeing what is so bad with the henchmen either... cheaper bowmen (OK, with a lower BS granted) than mercenaries and a warrior equivalent.

And the Lady of the Lake Curse would annoy the hell out of my Handgun heavy Dwarf warband!

The Bretonians Knights are great for Mordheim. I’ve done well with them in the past. First, don’t get horses. Strategically, a waste of gold. You’ll spend a fortune buying a War Horse, a Knight, and full armor for both; then you’ll have little gold for the rest of the supporting warband. (I’ve seen this happen too much) You then start out with 1 tank (Knight and Horse). This Fighter is dashed across the table, and gets a good hit on an enemy model. Then the Enemy Band charges the knight, and Good Bye, Knight.

I’ve had good success with Knights running them as standard style Merc Band, without horses, is more successful. It’s difficult the run horses and troops through ruins, buildings, and hindering terrain. Plus, a mounted warrior counts as “Large” and enemy shooters get a +1 to hit and can choose the shoot it even if it’s not the closest model.

The mounted rules for Mordheim make mounts a bad bargain for their expense.

The Bretonninans are a notoriously underpowered warband.

Consider the Questing Knight vs a Middenheimer Captain
Movement: same (4)
Weapons Skill: same (4)
Ballistic Skill: the Middenheimer is one better. (4 to 3). The QK cannot use missile weapons
Strength: same (4)
Toughness: same (3)
Wounds: same (1)
Initiative: same (4)
Attacks: same (1)
Leadership: same (

The only thing to balance the fact that the Middenheimer Captain can use missile weapons and has an above-average ballistic skill, the Questing Knight has the Knights Virtue skill, which says "He will never panic and break from combat and so does not have to pass a Leadership test for being all alone." I have never had anyone panic and break from combat, and almost never seen anyone who has to make an "all alone" test. Knights Virtue or missile weapons? Crossbow, please!

Not only does the Middenheimer have an edge (and an important one in terms at earning experience), but compare the costs of the two captains: Middenheimer - 60 g.c. Questing Knight - 80 g.c. That's 33% more for the weaker captain...

Witchunters (the warband I'm probably gonna go with) would just mass the squires though with the witch hunters and captain, and I'd let my flagellents deal with the questing knights.

Seems like you're paying a lot of a meat shield and then spending money on what seems to be cheap (then armouring them up) so their good for something that is just their to collect wyrdstone =/

Am I wrong?

I said they were underpowered.... probably should have said they are over-costed. The stats for the questing knight are not unreasonable, but the extra 20 g.c. is close to another henchman.

They do start with six heroes, which is unusual and certainly a good thing, But three of those heroes are squires/youngbloods, which is not so good. Also, you cannot have more squires than knights - so if you lose a knight, technically you have to drop a squire too (we generally have played that if you hire a replacement knight immediately, you can keep the squire. But if you lose the questing knight, unless you have a house rule about replacing captains you have lost a squire as well).

Yeah I've been making a Bretonian warband for a while now and finally got round to playing with them this weekend.

In three matches my leader was taken out twice and had to sit the last battle out due to an "Old war wound". He actually died in the second match but we all agreed to a reroll since it was the start of the campaign. I'm not sure if I just had a run of bad luck but all three of us playing agreed that the Bretonians rules were pretty badly written.

One thing the rules weren't clear on was if the squire could use the virtue skills. In part of the rule book it says they can but on the actual skills page it says only questing knights can?!

The author does contradict himself, literally from one sentence to the next:

"Bretonnian Heroes may use the following Skill table instead of any of the standard Skill tables available to them."

Next sentence (after a header): "Bretonnian Questing Knights may use the following skill list instead of the standard skill lists."

And then the actual spell descriptions just say "The knight", which implies the knights errant can take them.

Whoever was editing this one did a fairly sloppy job (these types of mistakes are what editors are for). I don't remember seeing errata on Bretonnians, but I don't run them much and may just not remember it. Hopefully if there is some, a forum member will come by and tell us where it is.

In the meantime, it seems to me a good compromise that is in keeping with the spirit of the warband would be to allow all knights (the questing knight and knights errant) to take the virtues - but not squires.

Speckie wrote:

Witchunters (the warband I'm probably gonna go with) would just mass the squires though with the witch hunters and captain, and I'd let my flagellents deal with the questing knights.

Seems like you're paying a lot of a meat shield and then spending money on what seems to be cheap (then armouring them up) so their good for something that is just their to collect wyrdstone =/

Am I wrong?

I dunno, 15gc for the squire, 10gc for a bow (or 15gc for a longbow) and you are good to go - means you have a wyrdstone hunting hero for 25gc (minimum - although I'd throw in a club/mace). That's cheaper than anything else (with minimum equipment) available on the list. Still cheap, but has lots of scope for advancement and improves chances of income generation in the post-game procedure. Sure it's not a game winner, but it's not horrible - it's on a par with other youngblood level characters in my opinion (which is the point after all).

mweaver wrote:

In the meantime, it seems to me a good compromise that is in keeping with the spirit of the warband would be to allow all knights (the questing knight and knights errant) to take the virtues - but not squires.

I completely agree with this suggestion.

It seems it wouldn't take too much to tighten the Bretonnian warband rules up really, just proof-read and change a couple of costs.

5pointer wrote:

Still cheap, but has lots of scope for advancement and improves chances of income generation in the post-game procedure. Sure it's not a game winner, but it's not horrible - it's on a par with other youngblood level characters in my opinion (which is the point after all).

I'm going to be playing against a bloodknight army. I don't like the idea that my heroes are as bad as skellies

and as the opponent will literally be just having a blood knight, necromancer and skellies, the curse isn't that useful either.

It seems they are rather role specific. Even with advancement they cant go beyond max human stats right?

Speckie wrote:

It seems they are rather role specific. Even with advancement they cant go beyond max human stats right?

True, but skills ftw!

I didn't want to post again because I had 69 posts.... Yes I'm immature.

But what about the skills? I couldn't find the sheet with it on in the updated rules book...

Mordheimer Master Skill List

Now admittedly, it would be better if Squires could take Shooting skills (rather than the Special ones - keep them sub-Knight in my view)... but skills are just too cool anyway!

Hey - a Brummie! Hi 5pointer.

I always think os squires as young knights-in-training. Consequently, it never made sense to me, in either Mordheim or Warhammer, to have bow-armed squires if knights cannot use bows.

mweaver wrote:

Hey - a Brummie! Hi 5pointer.

Oh yeh leave the kid from Wolverhampton out why don't you. You cheap whore.

bretonians suck. Topic resolved XD

If I was to play a Bretonnian warband I'd be temtped to proxy the ruels for another human warband. The Bretonnians are overpriced and not outstanding in any way that I can see. I'd use the Reiklander rule set if I wanted to have shooty peasant bowmen or Middheim if i wanted strong knights.

That is a simple, balanced solution that lets you use all the nifty Bretonnian and Medieval models out there.

A very good point, I think that actually a lot of human types could be used just through using the ordinary mercenary rules...

but my preference would be to add minor rules for each province/country/etc - so rather than nick the Reiklander/Middenheimer/Marienburger special rules sub in something suitably chivalrous! (and a ban on black powder weapons ). I'd also be interested in working out similar elements for other provinces - would add a bit more variety (and excuses to make more warbands) with minimal effort/difficulties in balancing.

That said, I use (or, rather, plan to use - miniatures/bits bought but not assembled):-

Nippon - Reiklander
Outlaws of Stirland - Reiklander
Pirates - Marienburger

All without any planned rule changes, so I guess I'm just waffling now...

PS I'm actually Black Country (but within walking distance of the Birmingham border), just figured Birmingham would be better known than my actual town! I bay a brummie, I'm a Black Country mon etc etc Bostin'!

Close enough. A fair few years ago I earned a M.A, degree from the University of Birmingham, and I still visit friends living there (King's Heath area).

The last couple of days I have been working on a Bretonnian revision, which I'll have my brother Jim post on his blog once I am finished, for everyone's feedback. I thought about them a few months back when my brother and the gang he plays with had just finished a long campaign, which included a Bretonnian warband Jim ran.

I think we all done that part about fluff changing a warbands to fit the models we want or have to use. I remember a long time ago I wanted to play Sister’s of Sigmar, but didn’t have the models. I did have a bunch of male and Priestly models. They became “The Brother Hood of Sigmar”, and used the Sister’s rules with different fluff to reflect the difference. Or the Chaos Human box set and the rules for Middenheimers. They became “The Horde”. I remember a girl playing who didn’t like Rats, but a company out there made Cat models (like lions and tigers). She used those models and played the Skaven rules. Nobody questioned it. So easily, Bretonian models could be used following the rules of a different Warband. Granted you still have to follow the rules of the Band you chose. For instance, you couldn’t just buy horses when playing the rules for Middenheimers. You’d have to find the horses as the Middenheimer warband would. If you wish to use the specialty stuff for the Bretonian Warband, you’d have to play those warband rules.