Warhammer Fantasy Battle Reporter Forum

I was wondering if any of the seasoned Bretonnian generals could take a look at this list and critique it any. I know for a fact that my opponent will have a crone on a manticore and atleast two bolt throwers, possibly more, aswell as a large amount of shooting.

-Bretonnian Lord-
Grail Vow
Sirienne's Locket
Morning Star of Francesse
Mantle of Damsel Elena

Basically goes out to hunt the crone. Locket keeps the damage down, the morning star to get rid of her str 10 weapon, the mantle to proctect against the manticores killing blow, and a gryphon so he can get to her first of all.

Paladin- Supports the Bret lord, mostly by dealing with the manticore. Virtue of Audacity helps with that, and aswell he has Guantlet of duel for hunting out heroes in units after the crone dies.

BSB & Grail Knights- Has virtue of Duty for the +1 to CR. Im going to put him in a large group of 11 grail knights with full command who have Banner of defense for protection against the bolt throwers, along with the BSB having banner of the lady to negate rank bonus from the Dark Elves.

Damsels and Escorts- Two level 2 damsels, one with Sacrement of tghe Lady and a potion sacre and the other with 2 dispel scrolls, get put in their own two groups of 9 kotr with full command (each with a Banner of Chalons and Warbanner respectively) until they get close enough to start slinging magic.

2 more Kotr groups- these two groups of six men protect the damsel escorts flanks as well as support them. Both have full command.

Pegasus Knights- Group of five with command for hunting down war machines and later supporting other units.

Mounted Yeomen- Group of 8 with a warden for a small amount of support fire, but mostly drawing out his cold one knights and any other units from the batlle line and setting them up for a counter charge.

Basic idea is to have a castle formation with the Grail knights and BSB in the center with the damsel escorts on each of its flanks about a cavalry base and a half back. Grail knights hit the big units, have there flanks safe by the escorts, which have their own flank guards. Damsels throw around a bit of magic here and there, mostly defensive, and the General and his assistant go hunt down the crone and then perform mop up duty along with the Pegasus knight groups.

my main question would be why use banner of the lady. I really dont see many dark elves rank up alot. Mabe one unit or so. This is a play style, so mabe ur opponent will but i wouild be surprised if he did. I would take the banner of chalons or something else. Chalon would keep those repeaters from standing and shooting. Rest of your list looks good. I would look into 20 skirmishing archers to place in a woods to take out warmachines or lone characters.

I see your point about Dark Elves and ranking up, but the BotL is mostly just so I can take away the 1 or 2 points he would get to CR and further my chances of breaking him. You might call it improving my strengths.

And as for the archers and the forest, we doing terrain placement by rolling on 6th(?) edition Battle Book chart, as well as rolling scatter and artillery dices. This makes terrain placement pretty close to random, therefore there may not even be a forest on the map, and if it is, it could be on his side.

I may be confusing two items since I don't have my book with me, but if Sacrement is what I think it is, it was broken by the changes to the magic phase. If its the one where she gives up her casting to generate double power dice- its broken. She now generates double power dice, but only she can use her power dice, and she can't do anything else in the magic phase (aside from MAYBE dispel I'd have to double check the wording) So she may generate 2 (or 4 with the level up) power dice, but you can't use them.

As for the BotL. Go War Banner. Warbanner + VoD is 2CR. Always 2CR. BotL is - (0-3) CR. Almost always less useful. So your 11+1 knight unit will be 1(outnumbering), 1 (VoD), 1 (warbanner), 1 (standard), 1 (BSB), 3(rank bonus) or a total of 8 static combat res. Versus their ranked up unit average- 3 rank, 1 standard- that's 4 knights they have to kill just to break even. And if you lose four grail knights you weren't winning that combat anyway.

If you want my advice, drop to 6 knights. Put your general on a horse. Make that unit of grail knights your hammer. 6 GK, 1 Damsel (with the Holy Icon for MR3), the standard bearer will have the Banner of Defense, a BSB with Duty and the warbanner. Now let him charge that unit with his general on the 'core. Challenge with any standard grail knight. Then watch him lose horribly on standard CR. Monstrous Mounts should be, and the smart ones are DEATHLY afraid of ranked up units.

I don't see a Grail Reliqaue in your list either. This is frankly tied for, or is the single best peasant unit in the list. As for the skirmishing peasant bowmen? Who cares if you have a forest or not. Its still -1 to hit them. If you get a forest great, if not rocks etc will do just as well.

20-25 skirmishing peasant bowmen will kill the manticore in two or so rounds of shooting. They will kill a reapeater crew in a turn or two. In fact lets do the math-hammer. Long range vs the Repeater thrower. We'll say you have 24 for easy math. 24 shoot, 8 hit- randomize- 3 hit crew, 5 hit Bolt thrower. Who cares if the BT hits wound. One probably will, of the three that hit the crew- 1.5 will wound. Bye bye bolt thrower.

Now vs the Manticore. 24 shoot. 12 hit if its a large target. 8 hit the manticore, 4 hit the rider. probably 2 wound, he armor saves at least 1. That's the frosting. Your cake is the 8 hits that just whalloped the Manticore. Its what, T5? You'll wound on 6's. with 8 rolls, you should get 1, maybe 2. No armor saves. Next round, or stand and shoot if he's smart enough to go after them first- stand and shoot, kill the manticore, and probably kill off his chances to complete the charge, being out of range.

Your monstrous mount fares little, if any, better. While your monstrous mount gets the blessing's ward save, he has a LOT more fire, and more accurate fire. To put it simply, your monstrous mount is dead on turn 1. Turn 2 if you hid him behind a hill or forest. The first turn he's out in the open and finally useful if you keep hiding him. Two bolt throwers firing the big bolt will both hit your mount. Your average isn't going to make two ward saves for your mount in one turn.

Further thoughts on the damsels. First you're facing dark elves. They're more likely to have more dispel dice than you have power dice. Second- they're damsels. While they can sit in the middle of the lance formation and count as fully in play, they still can't see. Which means you can't use more than 2/3 of the damaging spells in their lores. They're used solely for their Magic Resist. And, if you get really lucky the 2 spells they MIGHT get that are always useful and the two spells they MIGHT get that MIGHT be useful. That's one useful and one maybe useful spell in each lore by the way. Don't make plans for your damsels to cast. Never think they're going to get something off. Its a gravy train bonus if they do. Not something to generate tactics for.

5 is too many PK. 4 At most. 3 is ideal. I forget the wording agian, but I believe at 4 you can't rally the last one? At 5 you definitely can't. They don't deny ranks, they can't take anything R&F on their own. To be honest, I think PK are good at what they do, but are vastly vastly overrated outside that area. 8 MY is also a strange number. Either 5, or two groups of 5. I wouldn't rank them up. And 8 doesn't even give you a rank bonus, now, its groups of 5.

I also think you're vastly underappreciating Knights Errant. Impetuous is a good ability. I think the benefits outweight the drawbacks. Swap a unit or two of KoTR for peasants- a Grail Reliquae nice size.. say total Unit Strength 25 or so, and some skirmishing bowmen. 20-25. Swap another unit for KE.

FIY...your Lord has 2 talismans hence illegal (locket, mantle)

He will be playing against my brother who uses a ranked unit of Cold One Knights. He likes to sit on his back line with a War Hydra anchoring one side, those !@#$%^ Repeater Bolt Throwers backing Repeater Crossbowmen, and usually a tough mounted General on Manticore at the other...though for this game he is going the Crone for something new.

So the ranked thing actually makes sense against Fixed Dice. Between his Cold Ones (with Malus and some item that wipes out their <i> Stupidity /i>) and Black Ark Corsairs, they have some troubling ranked units. Probably not a typical build, but since we have yet to see Magic have any real impact...it makes sense.

My first reaction would be never play dark elves, because, as I own them, I know how hard they hit. People hate me for them. But moving on, your best bet is to stack out your cavalry units and make a beeline across the field, tooling up your Commander for fighting Lords and/or Monsters so you can wipe out his big hitters. Then focus on slaughtering the rest of his army.