Knights of Bretonnia

I started Mordheim back in 97 or 98 and played as by beloved Bretonnian Knights exclusivly for many years and would get stomped regularly because I just could not see how I could do them justice with out taking armor and a trusty stead. Now that I'm older I do not have such "needs" to play them and well I still notice they are broken.
I have expanded to play Amazons and Reiklanders most resent. Amazons have the opposit problem of Bretonnians in that they are really good against armor (a lot of armor negating weapons). Any way I'm getting off topic. My goal here is to write a set of rules that fix the Knights of Bretonnia to make them work in an offical context with out a major over haul; at least not one that is exclusive (the armor over haul has been talked about much and I am taking that into account).
on and forward. It's a bit long and not in any kind of "offical format" but rather talks about the rules changes and why.

Knights of Bretonnia is almost official and is not because it is under powered from everything I can see.
They have 1 glaring problem and that is that Knights ware armor and ride horses but here in Mordheim this is not viable. Armor sucks (too easy to negate) and is too expensive (a 4+ AS for 55 gold; you’re much better off with 2 henchmen to walk in front of the knight). So we need to address this first.
Simple fix is universal and addressed a lot in the Duel Wielding problem, that is cut the cost of armor, remove from the Critical Hit chart armor negating, give armor almost universally a +1 AS above what it has, and raise from 4 to 5 the armor negating bonus. This all should make armor more effective and able to put your Knights in shinning armor. With that said that is how I am addressing that problem for our Knights.
Horses, these are also a problem for our knights as we all want them on them but they are just too expensive for there draw backs. 16 inch move is hard to beat, but consider that it makes you a large target and in order to enter buildings you have to dismount for half your move (2 inches left) and you leave your warband behind your not going to be vary happy. So my fix to this is follow the armor fix of cost, if all armor is reduced roughly 40-50% in cost then horses should as well as should barding. Also as barding and horses don’t get an armor buff (that would be insane) but they retain a high move a simple roughly 50% cost drop in horses should be a good way to fix this. Your knights will be in there armor and on horse back with the Blessing of the Lady so should be able to get the job done safe and sound.

Now I am looking at a few other changes that are more subtle but I think fit the fluff of the Knights better and work better rule wise.

Lady of the Lake's Curse: Before entering the battlefield, the Questing Knight's and his entourage will pledge their lives in the fight for honor and justice. If the Lady of the Lake is pleased with the Bretonnian Knights, she will curse the warband's enemies. Before the game, roll a Leadership test against the warband's leader. If successful, any model in the opposing warband who wishes to fire a black powder weapon must roll a 4+ on a D6, or may not fire the weapon on that turn. The opposing player must test each time they wish to fire such a weapon. Models armed with other shooting weapons do not have to make this roll, unless they target the Questing Knight or the Knight Errants (only.)


Changed
Lady of the Lake's Blessing: Before entering the battlefield, the Questing Knight's and his entourage will pledge their lives in the fight for honor and justice. If the Lady of the Lake is pleased with the Bretonnian Knights, she will coiffure here blessing on the warband. The heroes of the warband all gain a 6+ Wardsave for all attacks on them unless it is a Strength 4+ Attack then it is a 5+ Wardsave. The Warband will if they chose to take the blessing automaticly go last regardless of any dice rolls or other rules that mean they would go first. If fired on by the enemy when praying the Warband will still be effected by the Ward Save.

The reason for these changes I will cover each.
1: Leadership to Automatic. I can’t think of any warband that has a rule that effects them on chance at the start of the game; and considering only humans (Amazons and Bretonnians) are the only ones with this rule and they max out at an 9 leadership they get at best (and with advancement) a 25% chance to fail (ok it’s slightly lower due to 2d6 and 1 not being an option but still it’s close). With that they can start a game at a huge disadvantage that could cripple them before the game starts. This way they still take a draw back (go last) to gain there advantage. Also consider that this is in line with the more balanced 6th edition of the Bretonnians Lady of the Lake Blessing.
2: The change from Blackpowder and other missile weapons (knights only) is that it restricts to only effect a small amount of warbands (with guns) and for those others that shoot with out guns it restricts it to only effect 3 of your models. In short it restricts there protection to only be a strength against some warbands but not others; and those that are it’s primary target are not the “evil” warbands by and large but more Bretonnian “allies” and “friends” (Elves, Empire & Dwarfs) and yet Chaos, undead, Orcs/Gobos (ok they get some), and Skaven (again they do get protection) are mostly un effected. Seams to not be the right fit before, where now it protects the valiant knights from all foes equally.
3: Knights to all heroes; this is for two reasons.
3a- Squires are effectively knights in training and as such would also be pious above the filthy peasants but also they would be of noble birth. A Squire who is just a few steps away from being a Knight them selves I see no reason to exclude. Though LGT would apply to them I see them as becoming Squires them selves in a way so would fill the role.
3b- Amazons don’t have Knights so it eliminates confusion for them.



Now for the rest of the Knights of Bretonnia’s changes.

Bretonnia is the “Land of Heroes” and as such they have a great advantage of 6 heroes to start the game; granted 3 are Young Blood stats (Squires) so it’s not game changing; just means they get more gold. I see no reason to change this basic premises, But I do think that a hike of +1 Hero for them with a change to Squires I’m suggesting. That means they can have up to 7 heroes… more then any other warband.
You will have to remember this when you get to Squires and remember here that “Bretonnia is the Land of Heroes” and so fluff wise it logically means they have more heroes then others. Note they can only start with 6 heroes.

12 guys, this also as half are heroes I still don’t see a reason to change this as you can get your 3 knights into armor faster and be good to go.

Changes I see are more in the rules on the units.

Questing Knight:
For comparison to a Mercenary Captain we pay +20 gold for +1 Strength and to not be effected by “All Alone”
Over all not a good trade off. So the Questing Knight needs a price cut or a buff. My take is to look to 6th edition WHFB’s rules for Questing knights and say give the guy the Questing Vow (and replace “Knights Virtue”). The Questing Vow would read.
Questing Vow: A Questing Knight is a chivalrous warrior who is superior to ordinary warriors. He will never panic and break from combat and so does not have to pass a Leadership test for being alone. He also is able to roll 3d6 for all leadership test and discard any dice; This can not be used for a Rout Test.
End result is he will stand and fight all alone like before but will also do better against those that cause fear and any other times he may need it.
The need to change cost I don’t think would be needed any more. But I would float the idea of 75 gold instead of 80 as +15 gold for +1 strength and the Questing Vow isn’t bad, but may be too good. Play testing would be needed.

Knights Errant:
Only changes for them would be to change Knights Virtue to Knights Vow. Rule change would not be needed.
And
Impetus: Knights Errant are eager to prove there mantel in battle and will rush head long into battle regardless of the dangers. If they can charge they will charge. Make measurement after charge is declared. When doing so a Knight Errant is immune to all Fear test for that round of combat, but will act as normal after that.

Squires:
Squires are going to get the larges overhaul and I think this is a good one or two.
1: Noble Birth; a Squire is training to be a knight so at the point that they gain 6+ Experience they can be knighted becoming a “Knights Errant” and there skill table, equipment list, and special rules change to be those of a Knight Errant. All skills and stats gained previously do not change. This means you can now have more Knights Errant in your war band (max out at 7 if you promote Squires a lot and lose your Questing Knight)
2: Knights Aid: As an aid to a Knight the Squire is not going to trail far from his knight ever. As such he will try is best to stay with in 6” of his Knight (each squire must be declared at hire who’s knight they are the aid of) in a game, if he falls out of that range at any time he will suffer a -1 to all dice rolls.
3: Learning to be a Knight: In addition to staying with his knight in a battle he also stays with him between battles. A Squire will not go off and search for treasure or rare items on his own as he is learning still. As such his extra set of eyes help but he can not direct the search. As such a Squire allows for up to +/-2 for Treasures or Rare items rolls by Knights; they do not get there own dice.

*notes:
1: this is meant to make Squires go from not so great heroes into major heroes in there own right still some what early. With this they can gain 3 Advancements with access to “Strength” skills and then keep them and though lose access to them but gain access to “Speed” skills. They also can get better armor, mount, and weapons (2+ knights with “Strong man” now instead of only your Questing Knight).
But the more important thing is one weakness of Bretonnians is if you lose a Knight after a battle and you can not replace him then your going to have to lose a Squire due to the “No more Squires then Knights” rule… this means even worse if your Questing Knight dies then well you max out at 2 Squires and never again gain another. This replaces this.
2: This fits fluff wise and is a counter to #3, though a weak counter I know compared to what you lose.
3: This is also a fluff disadvantage. The advantage of 7 heroes is lost and reduced to a really good search by 3 heroes. But as you gain Experience for your Squires and promote them you can hire more Squires to fill there ranks. Think after your 6th battle you jump to 6 dice rolls (could be sooner if Squires kill stuff or do other things) and can still hire another Squire to fill in. late game you could have 7 full fledged Heroes gaining full treasure hunts.


Henchmen:
Henchmen I would add for both units these rules.
Not a Noble: If a roll of LGT is made the Henchmen is promoted to “Squire” and maintains all Experience and has all Special rules of a Squire.
Peasants Vow: Peasants are not a brave lot as such are prone to break and run. There vassal lord holds this in check and as such they can use the leadership of any Knight with in 6 Inches of them for any leadership roll so long as the knight is not Knocked down, stunned, or OoA.

With this all Peasants stats for leadership would be reduced to 4.
Cost would also be reduced by -5 GC for each unit.


That’s about it. It respects the core of the Bretonnian Warband, keeps the fluff of them in tact well actually expanding on the fluff of it some. It also is small changes over all.
The Squires rules other then the promoting to a Knight and the move from 6 to 7 heroes could be removed and still keep them balanced so I would not see a reason to play with out those rules. I just found them to be unique and quite in line with the fluff of Bretonnians. The becoming a Knight though I think is a needed rule for the Bretonnians.

Some interesting ideas there, but overall I think they do consist of a "major overhaul"!

I don't think armor is broken... it is just expensive for limited benefits. We introduced the (fairly popular) minor tweak of making shields grant a 5+ save in hand to hand, which has made not only shields more popular, but other types of armor as well. Instead of messing dramatically with the armor rules, I'd go with cheaper armor for the knights (and maybe the squires), if purchased when the warband is created (just as dwarves can buy cheap gromril armor, elves cheap ithilmar armor, etc. when those warbands are first created). I think that is a simple fix... and I could never figure why it wasn't there in the first place.

Horses are a bigger problem, because it is the horse rules that are the problem, not the Bretonnians themselves. Again, you could make horses cheaper for starting Bretonnians - although frankly unless you are giving them away I probably still wouldn't take one!

I really don't like the idea of allowing them a seventh hero. On principle. Also, I really think the original rules left them only slightly underpowered, which cheaper starting armor would fix by itself.

I have a rewrite of the Bretonnians about 80% done, which I started with a similar goal to yours (get them on horses and get them in armor). But mine is a much more radical change than your approach and Strofoamking's interesting take on the problem. One of these days I need to make time to finish it... (I was hoping someone would be interested in Bretonnians for the campaign we plan on starting in November, but nobody picked them).

-Michael

on armor: that is where it is broken; is cost. that and the bonus is too small with how easy it is to negate (crit chart). remove the negates armor and make it cheaper and also the +1 for shield and hand weapon is the biggest
also I think Buckalers should get a +1 AS standard (at least in H2H) to help with duel wielding balance

Horses, cheaper is the basic of the change i'm saying. not better armor bonus or anything.

7 heroes, it was due to Squires sucking as heroes on the search table. if that were removed then no reason for 7.
though i do think Squires getting promtoed to Knights (even with out skill area changes but just getting Knights vow) is a must, the loss of a knight is too much with out it.

Questing Vow I think is a nice add on to make the Questing Knight more price reasonable, other wise he sucks for his cost. 20 extra gold to get +1 strength and can fight all alone (seldom a good option any way unless a beast) is not a great trade off.

Last I think the Curse of the Lady of the Lake sucks. it's effects are fine, but it is far too unreliable. you run nearly a 25% chance of having the game be heavally altered against you before the game starts. a static and no dice rolled bonus is much better.

The rest is just fluff that fits them better then they are now, like Animosity for O&G, it fits them fluff wise even if a pain to deal with in the rules.

Problems with armor: The flaw is this- if you See armor as being better ONE way, you can definitely play it that way with your group. However, if you want to publish it for others, you have to reset it to default rules.

This is why the Bret Chapel Guard I wrote has "The Lord's Boon" Rule- that they can start with armor or horse at half cost. Likewise, shields suck, so I added the "Kite Shield"- +2 bonus for 10gc. If your group already plays with +2 Armor for shields, then you don't need to use the kite shields.

A random player can convince his gaming group to accept your warband... but it's a lot harder to get them to accept your warband AND the house rules that make it better off than other players.


7 Heroes is out of the question. Heroes = money, money = power. Unless you're writing a snotling warband or something ridiculously weak, 7 is too many.

Squires aren't terrible, although I'd have the Squires learn Combat & Speed, while the Errants learn Comb, Stren, Speed.

(To be honest, that was another reason I wrote the Chapel Guard... because after so many little tweaks, it was almost easier to write a new bret warband.)

The 7 heroes was with Squires being only a +/- 2 to there vesal Knights role, so for probably the first 4-6 games your rolling only 3 dice on your exploration and you Rarity searches.
But as I said it was writen with in mind of the fluff of Squires to knights as Squires would not do any searching them selves as they would be tied to there knight. In the FAQ the search dice tied to heroes represents the heroes searching and directing the other members of the war band; thus the squire would only help search and be better at it then normal henchmen giving a bonus but not there own direction (search dice).
but after time when you reach 7 heroes (would be after the first Squire is knighted and you buy a new Squire) you are well into the game so the bonus of extra dice would be only there for after 8 games if your first Squire to reach 6 exp does so fast due to "extra" experiance and so does your last squire hired.
Remember look at the 7 heroes idea in context of the whole, not as 7 heroes = OP automaticly. other wise any warband starting with 5 heroes is automaticly UP to a warband starting with 6 and thus the Bretonnian's are probably the most OP warband there is.


as a whole this is part of a whole debate of Mordheim needing some balancing with armor.
but in lue of needing to re write the rules then I would say just have armor and horses be cheaper (-50%) to starting equipment list.

my goal though in all of this is to not make a "new" warband but rather to make changes to the one there is already and have it be balanced. I think this as a whole is more desireable as maybe (i know a long shot) that GW would notice balanced warbands being promoted by the fan base and add them to there "offical" roster.

I know I changed a bit above. so I will rework it to be less radical changes and re introduce it.

As horses are deamed even with a 50% cut to cost I will address that as well in the Skills section (expand it).

I love the idea of a Brert warband and am somewhat.... underwhelmed with the official list. I allways thought you could play a more viable warband using the Middenheimers list and changing the names of the people.
Captain=Knight
Champion=Seargent
Youngblood= squire
and get a HS warlock= Damsel
etc...

I'm not convinced there is a quick tweek to "fix" the official list. It doesn't have enough flavour of bretonia ( where's the damsel? ) ( no more squires than knights? ) , I find the skill list flawed ( squires with combat , str and special... which they are unable to choose from?!?) knights erant with no acces to the str list? Whats that about. No chance of a squire being knighted? I'm also fairly unimpressedwith the special skill list, things like shield bash and bulging muscles would wok better......

..... sorry I could go on. I'm glad someone wrote it because I enjoyed using it to make a warband but it does lack flavour.

I'm afraid I'm with these guys, 7 heros seems too much. With a warband limit of 12 and 7 heros you could rake in the money and get plenty of doubles/triples etc. Yes skaven do get 6 to start with but I've found that they usually have a bigger warband size and end up taking home less GC than other warbands after a battle because of this.

On another point I agree with Mweaver.. the blazing saddles/ riding rules are so broken that if they were a horse than they would be put down...it's just not worth the risk of getting on a horse.
I quite like Styros Chapel guard list. I think it adresses a lot of issues but as he says it's not a rewrite but a different Bret list.

Pervavita, why don't you turn your hand to a major re write or a new list entirely? GW will never recognise anything that the fans do so write it for us to have fun with.

edit... using the advanced crit tables lets you use armour saves more often than in the basic crit table.

I don't see where the blazing sadles rules them self are broken; granted they do have there draw backs and I think the major points of them being broken are 2 fold.
horses are too expencive for what they give and the lack of skill support to encourage it.
first can be fixed by making horses cheaper, 2nd by making some unique balanced but good skills for when mounted.

I don't see the lack of a Damsel as bad, Bretonnians are not known for being magic heavy and I think this reflects it. but allowing them to hire a Damsel (a unique hired sword or converted existing hired sword) is fine. They would not be the only Warband with out magic, and the Bretonnians are not strong in magic to start so it works.

as for the 7 heroes; I'll consead that on my rewrite I am omiting that. I think the rules I put up for it were fine but could use adjusting but it seams to much a radical concept for people to look at. And as I said I'm not trying to make a new warband but balance out the one that is already here. Granted GW may not take it as "offical" because I do feel GW has left Mordheim to the side of the road. But I do feel that the over all desire should be for the larger community to fine tune the Unoffical list (and rules too) to balance them to give the game a uniformed feel and balance.

and here is my rework of the list. It has less changes with some new Skills.



Knights of Bretonnia is almost official and is not because it is under powered from everything I can see.
They have 1 glaring problem and that is that Knights ware armor and ride horses but here in Mordheim this is not viable. Armor sucks (too easy to negate) and is too expensive (a 4+ AS for 55 gold; you’re much better off with 2 henchmen to walk in front of the knight). So we need to address this first.
As many people do not always go for house rules and at the same time go with a newly created warband I am looking at doing this now in such a way that removes house rules from the equation.

Equipment List:
*Changes:
Light Armor cost to 10 GC
Heavy armor cost to 25 GC
Horse cost to 20 GC
Warhorse cost to 40 GC
Barding cost to 15 GC
Double Handed Weapon: Questing Knight only (in Knights section)
Lance: Knights Errant only

**Add on:
Kite Shield (Knights only) Cost 5 GC: +1 AS; when on foot armed with a hand weapon in h2h combat +1 AS
-Common if purchased after the start of game 10 GC
*hat tip to StyrofoamKing for Kite Shield.

Equipment changes are due to fluff for reasons in game (likely that a knight would come with it regardless).

Now I am looking at a few other changes that are more subtle but I think fit the fluff of the Knights better and work better rule wise.

Lady of the Lake's Curse: Before entering the battlefield, the Questing Knight's and his entourage will pledge their lives in the fight for honor and justice. If the Lady of the Lake is pleased with the Bretonnian Knights, she will curse the warband's enemies. Before the game, roll a Leadership test against the warband's leader. If successful, any model in the opposing warband who wishes to fire a black powder weapon must roll a 4+ on a D6, or may not fire the weapon on that turn. The opposing player must test each time they wish to fire such a weapon. Models armed with other shooting weapons do not have to make this roll, unless they target the Questing Knight or the Knight Errants (only.)


Changed
Blessing of the Lady: Before entering the battlefield, the Questing Knight's and his entourage will pledge their lives in the fight for honor and justice. If the Lady of the Lake is pleased with the Bretonnian Knights, she will coiffure here blessing on the warband. The heroes of the warband all gain a 6+ Wardsave for all attacks on them unless it is a Strength 4+ Attack then it is a 5+ Wardsave. The Warband will if they chose to take the blessing automaticly go last regardless of any dice rolls or other rules that mean they would go first. If fired on by the enemy when praying the Warband will still be effected by the Ward Save.

The reason for these changes I will cover each.
1: Leadership to Automatic. I can’t think of any warband that has a rule that effects them on chance at the start of the game; and considering only humans (Amazons and Bretonnians) are the only ones with this rule and they max out at an 9 leadership they get at best (and with advancement) a 25% chance to fail (ok it’s slightly lower due to 2d6 and 1 not being an option but still it’s close). With that they can start a game at a huge disadvantage that could cripple them before the game starts. This way they still take a draw back (go last) to gain there advantage. Also consider that this is in line with the more balanced 6th edition of the Bretonnians Lady of the Lake Blessing.
2: The change from Blackpowder and other missile weapons (knights only) is that it restricts to only effect a small amount of warbands (with guns) and for those others that shoot with out guns it restricts it to only effect 3 of your models. In short it restricts there protection to only be a strength against some warbands but not others; and those that are it’s primary target are not the “evil” warbands by and large but more Bretonnian “allies” and “friends” (Elves, Empire & Dwarfs) and yet Chaos, undead, Orcs/Gobos (ok they get some), and Skaven (again they do get protection) are mostly un effected. Seams to not be the right fit before, where now it protects the valiant knights from all foes equally.
3: Knights to all heroes; this is for two reasons.
3a- Squires are effectively knights in training and as such would also be pious above the filthy peasants but also they would be of noble birth. A Squire who is just a few steps away from being a Knight them selves I see no reason to exclude. Though LGT would apply to them I see them as becoming Squires them selves in a way so would fill the role.
3b- Amazons don’t have Knights so it eliminates confusion for them.



Now for the rest of the Knights of Bretonnia’s changes.

Bretonnia is the “Land of Heroes” and as such they have a great advantage of 6 heroes to start the game; granted 3 are Young Blood stats (Squires) so it’s not game changing; just means they get more gold. I see no reason to change this basic premises.

12 guys, this also as half are heroes I still don’t see a reason to change this as you can get your 3 knights into armor faster and be good to go.

Changes I see are more in the rules on the units.

Questing Knight:
For comparison to a Mercenary Captain we pay +20 gold for +1 Strength and to not be effected by “All Alone”
Over all not a good trade off. So the Questing Knight needs a price cut or a buff. My take is to look to 6th edition WHFB’s rules for Questing knights and say give the guy the Questing Vow (and replace “Knights Virtue”). The Questing Vow would read.
Questing Vow: A Questing Knight is a chivalrous warrior who is superior to ordinary warriors. He will never panic and break from combat and so does not have to pass a Leadership test for being alone. He also is able to roll 3d6 for all leadership test and discard any dice; This can not be used for a Rout Test.
End result is he will stand and fight all alone like before but will also do better against those that cause fear and any other times he may need it.
The need to change cost I don’t think would be needed any more. But I would float the idea of 75 gold instead of 80 as +15 gold for +1 strength and the Questing Vow isn’t bad, but may be too good.

Knights Errant:
First change for them would be to change Knights Virtue to Knights Vow. Rule change would not be needed; this is to remove confusion with Virtues in the skills table.

Impetus: Knights Errant are eager to prove there mantel in battle and will rush head long into battle regardless of the dangers. If they can charge they will charge. Make measurement after charge is declared. When doing so a Knight Errant is immune to all Fear test for that round of combat, but will act as normal after that.

The last thing I see here as a problem is for +15 GC you lose 1 WS but gain the Knights Vow over a Champion in the Mercenary Warbands. Adding “Impetus” I think balances this out.

Squires:
Squires are going to get the larges overhaul and I think this is a good one or two.
1: Noble Birth; a Squire is training to be a knight so at the point that they gain 6+ Experience they can be knighted becoming a “Knights Errant” and there skill table, equipment list, and special rules change to be those of a Knight Errant. All skills and stats gained previously do not change. This means you can now have more Knights Errant in your war band. This raises your Knights Errant allotment, but you still may not hire more Knights Errant if you already have 2 or more.

*notes:
This is meant to make Squires go from not so great heroes into major heroes in there own right still some what early. With this they can gain 3 Advancements with access to “Strength” skills and then keep them and though lose access to them but gain access to “Speed” skills. They also can get better armor, mount, and weapons (2+ knights with “Strong man” now instead of only your Questing Knight).
But the more important thing is one weakness of Bretonnians is if you lose a Knight after a battle and you can not replace him then your going to have to lose a Squire due to the “No more Squires then Knights” rule… this means even worse if your Questing Knight dies then well you max out at 2 Squires and never again gain another. This fixes this problem.


Henchmen:
Both Henchmen groups get this.
Not a Noble: If a roll of LGT is made the Henchmen is promoted to “Squire” and maintains all Experience and has all Special rules of a Squire. If not enough Knights are present in the warband to support the new Squire then ignore the LGT role and reroll on the henchmen Advancement chart.
Peasants Vow: Peasants are not a brave lot as such are prone to break and run. There vassal lord holds this in check and as such they can use the leadership of any Knight with in 6 Inches of them for any leadership roll so long as the knight is not Knocked down, stunned, or OoA.

With this all Peasants stats for leadership would be reduced to 4.
Cost would also be reduced by -5 GC for each unit.

New Special Skills:
As the Bretonnians only have 5 special skills and they are known to be excellent fighters on horse back and to promote horse back ridding I am looking at adding a few special Bretonnian mounted skills.
Virtues already in the rules:
I added one line to Virtue of the Impetuous to include mounted knights.
Virtue of Purity: Any spell cast against the Knight will be dispelled on the D6 roll of a 4+.
Virtue of Valor: The Knight may re-roll any missed to hit rolls against an enemy with a higher strength.
Virtue of Discipline: Once per game, if the Knight is not Out Of Action, Stunned or Knocked Down, you may re-roll a failed Rout Test.
Virtue of Noble Disdain: The Knight is subject to Hatred of all enemies armed with shooting weapons.
Virtue of the Impetuous: The Knight gains an additional +D3" to his move when charging, Mounted or on foot. Roll the dice each time you wish to charge and before moving the model.
New Virtues.
Virtue of Empathy: Knights with this skill can inspire the peasants around them; Peasants may re roll there leadership if with in the range as is stated by the Peasants Vow rule.
*or role 3d6 and dump one dice?
Virtue of the Joust: Knights on horseback are experts in combat and nothing more then the Joust. Knights with this Virtue and armed with a lance may reroll all to hit roles with the lance when they charge.
Virtue of Knightly Temper: Knights with this virtue have mastered the art of combat on horseback. When mounted on horseback the Knight gains +1 attack for every hit scored. This may only apply to the weapon in there primary hand.


That’s about it. It respects the core of the Bretonnian Warband, keeps the fluff of them in tact well actually expanding on the fluff of it some. It also is small changes over all.

Knightly Temper is really good, maybe too good. Three things I would suggest: make sure you mention those attacks are for that turn only (if that is the intent); wrong kind of 'there'; and I would suggest only allowing the skill to be used on the charge and maybe even not allow it to be used with lances.

It seems a good way to have a knight on horseback to charge in and really use the momentum of his horse to destroy his foe. If it is still too good you could limit the extra attacks to -1 S to represent his not being able to put his full weight behind the blows?

What about a skill that allows a Knight on horseback to shrug off a man on foot trying to intercept his charge. Maybe the knight attacks the intercepting model with 1 attack that if hits instead of damaging just causes the interception to fail, if the model on foot has a spear or pike or boathook give the knight a -1 to hit with this?

I like the idea of a Knight charging through a group of weak enemies in order to get to the leader in the back. Leaving the peasants to deal with the rabble.

I was working with the Virtues in the WHFB. I like the idea also of the knight charging through. Maybe replace the Virtue of the Impetuous or Virtue of Valor with it? Both are not great IMHO as is.
Valor I think would fit more too as he would be eager for the valor.

Virtue of Knightly Templar, ya i think it's too good too but can't think of how to limit it right. On the charge does help it. maybe not allow to gain extra attacks on the extra attacks?
no lance, i can roll with that too; this way it can't combined with Virtue of Joust.

I was always under the impression that Bretonnian's were never official because the list was written by Tom Merrigan, and not by someone from GW, and there is a comment about "historical accuracy" at the bottom of the original list, but I digress.

I use a similar "Blessing" rule for Brettonian's, but with a slight variation.

I like a lot of the things I see (squires become knights, which makes sense), I have to agree with the others who said 7 Hero's is too many. Too much of an advantage. I put a list of quick fixes not to long ago on Warseer. We do not play with mounted rules. It just never seemed "Mordheimy" to us, so we don't use them.

I would say the best way to limit knghtly temper would be the way GW usually limits similar rules: something like "every time
the knight rolls a 6 to hit while on horseback, he gains an additional attack"