Bretonnian Chapel Guard

We play with a lot of terrain very often with several floors with a lot of gangways between buildings.

It is normal that also close combat fighter move at higher levels. In such an environment the knights errants would be useless because my opponents would put some of his fighters under a bridge every time a knights errant is near. In consequence the knights errant would play on the same levels as animals (those can not climb ladders) because it is too risky to put them on higher levels. I see them falling of buildings and gangways like lemmings. There is a need to tighten the rule to below 4" diving charges, because then the chance of succes would be 50%, which is quite low already. Yeah the knights have grit but they are not stupid. Otherwise the knights errant are broken in an enviroment with several levels.

Maybe just rewrite the rules that they have to attack like they were in frenzy (without the extra attacks of course), than every gaming group can decide how they will work out these charging issues. The advantage would be that you do not need to write such a detailed rule clarification and it doesn' complicate the game more.

Diving Charges - Well, he can take a LD test to prevent it. I recommend you keep your leader close. Personally, I think young knights WOULD do stupid stuff- it's part of their completely reckless nature.

Well play with them. Play in an environment where you have to play on several levels and you will see this will bug you.

Yeah rules need to be fluffy, but you need fun while playing with them. And a 50% chance that your knight have to take a jump up to 6" will not help the playing fun.

Don't understand me wrong, this is just a playtesting feedback. In the end we modify the rules a is suits us.

But i think new players won't like such extreme mali and may not use these rules.

In the end it is your call. I will give you feedback from my next games nevertheless.

Thanks, friend. I think I'll take out the reference to "diving charges" all together, and let each group decide whether or not diving charges apply. That way, if it's very multileveled, you can ignore it, or if you're very flat, you can keep it.

Sorry, but the 4" rule is a little awkward in my opinion.

I will be giving these valiant Knights a test run in the next day or so. Warband nearly done.
With the changes made are you planning to update the PDF any time soon?
Such as the Spears for the Damsel and lower WS higher I?

will let you know the results of the band.

Done!

Added one more change in there:

Lady's favor - if the model already has a lucky charm, it instead grants a reroll instead of a 2+ charm save.

Why? Because some day down the line, I still want to make that Athel Loren Campaign- if I do, it'll include an ARRAY of different Lucky Charms, each with different specialties.

Here were some of the rough versions.

Amber Charm- Charm. Any time your hero is successfully wounded, the Charm grants a Ward save of 6+. May not be used with any other Charms.

Ruby Charm- Charm. Once per game, you may decide to use the Ruby Charm at any given time. For the rest of the phase, any Wounds against your hero gain a Ward Save of 4+. May not be used with any other Charms.

Charm of the Lake- Charm. The first time the Hero is hit in battle, the hit is ignored on a roll of 2+. This item may be used once per game. (Alt: grants 5+ save against first hit if it's a HTH hit, a 2+ save if the first hit is a missile.)

Charm of Elven Cleansing- Charm. Same as a Lucky Charm. Also, the bearer now causes fear to Goblins & Hobgoblins.

Test 1 went great.
I had full heroes and 5 Squires
All knights were in full Plate (heavy), sword, shield and Lucky Charms on my QK, Damsel, and 1 KE.
Squires were with daggers and 1 had a hammer
As a note we play with the house rule that all armor is -50% cost already, the only Crit that negates armor is the 5/6 and armor provides a +1 save over normal armor stats (IE Kite shield is the standard Shield.. Shield cost unchanged).
The end result was I paid 13 gold for Heavy armor rather then the 25 from the lords boom.

The results were good, I was against Shadow Elves (My son) and they were a bit more experienced then me (starting vs a warband with about 6-7 games already). Over all I was quite happy considering. I lost on a rout test. My Damsel got a little far from my QK for the rout test (as she had Floodgate of Courage) so my rout was a rout. My knights did there job well and were able to deal damage to soft elves.
I do like them so will be playing them again soon.

Awesome! Glad to hear it! Please keep the feedback coming.

Pervavita wrote:

Test 1 went great.
I had full heroes and 5 Squires
All knights were in full Plate (heavy), sword, shield and Lucky Charms on my QK, Damsel, and 1 KE.
Squires were with daggers and 1 had a hammer
As a note we play with the house rule that all armor is -50% cost already, the only Crit that negates armor is the 5/6 and armor provides a +1 save over normal armor stats (IE Kite shield is the standard Shield.. Shield cost unchanged).
The end result was I paid 13 gold for Heavy armor rather then the 25 from the lords boom.

The results were good, I was against Shadow Elves (My son) and they were a bit more experienced then me (starting vs a warband with about 6-7 games already). Over all I was quite happy considering. I lost on a rout test. My Damsel got a little far from my QK for the rout test (as she had Floodgate of Courage) so my rout was a rout. My knights did there job well and were able to deal damage to soft elves.
I do like them so will be playing them again soon.

I also thought to only field heavy armour and shield knights, but the problem is that you slow down to dwarf speed. This is evil because you need to get into cc fast, and can only run and cjarge 6". Was this a problem for you?

Luckily, unlike the Dwarves, you have squires to do the running for you- have them running about grabbing stuff, providing a nice screen for the heavy hitters. Or, leave one "penniless knight errant" in light armor, to move about a hair quicker.

In later games, you also got speed skills, and maybe even a warhorse (although it makes you a big target.)

Yeah thst's clear. You also gave them an excellent skill to choose during a level up.

The problem is as opponent i would try to not attack those walking safes. Instead shoot them into pieces especially the weak targets. As dwarf you have fine range combat options with crossbows and handguns.

With the chapel guard it is more difficult to not forget the range combat department. And it is a little bit weaker than the range combat from the dwaves.

I run a combination of light armour shield broadsword knights with a couple of heavy armour and two handed weapon guys. They are faster but their armour is also not so good.

So i hope that i can play them soon again.

Speed was an issue but I figured/hoped to get my Squires some gear for the next game and then get them into CC fast so my Knights can get in to finish the enemy off. Thats my long term goal at least.

good news/bad news.

Good news: I have now got to run 3 games with this warband and am quite happy with there game play/balance so far. I got me a squire promoted to Knight (can't see any real reason not to make him a knight but I like that I don't have to make him one) and hired some bowmen and Pillgrams.

Bad news: my luck has been bad with them. First game and 3rd game I managed to get 1 of my Knights taken to the grave... yes after an OOA I managed to roll a "Dead". So my growth has been seriously slowed down by this need to replace Knights. The only consolation is that in both cases it was not my QK!

Not sure when I will play them again but I will keep you posted.
I will be playing again as Bretonnians I am in no shortage of as they are my WHFB army so got tons of bits for them and have been busy making foot knights and pillgrams (I could never justify buying the metal ones).

Squire vs. Knight: Well, I think it's a matter of tactics:

Squires have a more versatile range of weapons, especially in regards to missiles. If you're lucky, you can have a Squire with BS6 and a Longbow, doing his best to pick off opponents. No shooting skills, but it still provides SOME range support. And unlike the peasant bowmen, he still has some good equipment should he wind up in combat.

A Squire-turned-knight gives you access to more POWERFUL equipment, better armor, and some decent skills. If you want a combat heavy warband, and have money, this is the better rout.

Than again, you've played them, so you might know better than me.

Sorry to hear you're having luck. For me, it's kinda good luck- if it was super easy, I doubt the warband would be fair to play with. Hope the Lady shines on you soon enough.

Pervavita wrote:

good news/bad news.

Good news: I have now got to run 3 games with this warband and am quite happy with there game play/balance so far. I got me a squire promoted to Knight (can't see any real reason not to make him a knight but I like that I don't have to make him one) and hired some bowmen and Pillgrams.

Bad news: my luck has been bad with them. First game and 3rd game I managed to get 1 of my Knights taken to the grave... yes after an OOA I managed to roll a "Dead". So my growth has been seriously slowed down by this need to replace Knights. The only consolation is that in both cases it was not my QK!

Not sure when I will play them again but I will keep you posted.
I will be playing again as Bretonnians I am in no shortage of as they are my WHFB army so got tons of bits for them and have been busy making foot knights and pillgrams (I could never justify buying the metal ones).

Yeah this Mordheim, if you really win or loose you see after the battle.

Another advantage to keep a squire as squire hero. As range combat hero he won't be OOA so fast, therefore the risk for your talent to die and to fall down to a 5 hero warband is smaller.

By the way, which critical hits table are you using? We use one from mordheimers homepage, because armour saves are not automatically negated every time.

we use our own.

1-2= 1 wound = 2
3-4= 1 wound =2 +1 To wound roll
5-6= 1 wound =2 +2 to wound roll, no armour
basically we nerfed the "3-4" in favor of armour. We also give all armour another +1 so Shields are a 5+ and Heavy Armour is a 3+ so my tin cans are walking around in a 1+ (a roll of 1 fails for me) armour save and with the 5-6 being the only armour negating Crit I still suffered major losses to my knights.

Geez, no wonder you took the knights... they're frickin' Terminator Space Marines! I wouldn't be surprised if you find a lot of blackpowder & axe wielders in your future.

Wow you really improved your armour so intense?

We improved shield to 5+ in close combat and we nerfed the critical hits tables too.

So my knights have a 4+ save as light armour and shield or 5+ as heavy armour knights.
This is pretty strong too for half of the costs.

Do you also use the broad sword with your shield knights?

This is really the first warband in our group to bring armour to the table in any sizable amount (My Amazons use Buckalars on most and the Vampire in our group uses Heavy Armour on him). So we will see how valid our Armour bumps are with these guys... so far it has not looked good

I have not used the Broad Sword yet. Though as these guys are tanks I can see no reason that going last is nearly as much a problem as it is for most. It should not be a problem. I will be making that as an investment soon to see how it fairs now that I made a Knight model to carry it.

Another question.

Heavy Armour does have a 4+ save in your setting, not a3+ save like mentioned above, right?

If you pump the Heavy Armor to 3+ without raising the cost, you might consider removing the Lord's Boon rule (or make it apply only to warhorses). The reason for the Lord's boon was to take worthless heavy armor and make the price match it's worth.

Broadsword - not the greatest weapon in the world, I admit, but I knew that amongst the many reasons not to take shields, one of them was the fact that there were very few weapons with the "can only use with shield" weapons. Part of the reason I made the Broadsword and used the morning star (with the Bulging Muscles skills.) If you can get +1S each turn, either first round or strike last, then good for them.

To me, a shield just FEELS "knightly."

ya sorry it's a 4+ not 3+
so with heavy armour and shield i'm looking at a 2+ in h2h. I miss stated the armour bonus but knew a "1" was a fail and i seam to have rolled that a few times

as to the armour cost and Lords Boon I can see the removal of this from the rules as it stands. I was just playing it as writen into our house rules.
weapon and shield is indeed just knightly. all mine have shields as a must. looking to get shield bash too just to have it!

two more games and two more losses.
Knights did just fine and in our house rules armour did it's job just fine in both of them. my losses came from attrition via archers on my fodder.
I had bad luck with pillgrams, i took both my pillgrams as OOA followed by rolls of 1/2 on them from the first game and then the 2nd game i tried another one and he followed the others to there grave.
This would not bother me but the bloody things were useless!
I will try them again in latter games but for now i'm going to pass on them for some time.

Floodgate of courage is quite a great spell when dealing with losses so i'm happy with that spell.
Just got a new spell too. Guiding Vision, this spell i'm excited to test out and think I will enjoy quite a bit and lets hope turns my knights lossing streak into some wins.

I also played one more game.

I strongly focussed on two handed weapons and broadswords.

But the strike last rule is really bad if you are unlucky.

One ogre did really own me in close combat although i had the guiding vision spell on my knights.

My bowmen did not hit much and after my knights went OOA they ran away.

The arabian nomads list was not so much stronger, but the ogre made the difference.

The bowmen are not really useful now, but Bs3 plus a bow for 25 gc is a cheap price.

Maybe i just did not have much luck.

ironicly my bowmen have been doing great in my games. Even managed to get them BS advances by now (2 bowmen with BS4 and a squire with BS4).
Bowmen I think are going to work well as a fodder filler. going to try them in CC now that i got more of them. might help things for me. Worth a try to help swarm the enemy.