Warhammer Fantasy Battle Reporter Forum

The 2K list I've been running recently:

9 Knights of the Realm

(fairly) cheap core knight unit. Hits hard, has a 2+ armor save, 5/6+ ward. 8WS4 S5 attacks on the charge, and static CR of 2-3.

8 Knights Errant + 1 basic paladin w Virtue of the Ideal and Errantry Banner

Even cheaper core unit, with a combat character. They're WS3, S4 + lances. The paladin will make 4 attacks, with the Impetuous special rule, the Errantry Banner, and the Virtue of the Ideal they'll be charging anything in range you weren't sure enough to declare a charge with on a LD roll of 6+. Inmune to Psychology on the charge- and dishing out 7 WS3 S6, and 4 WS 6ish (not 100% sure of starting and ending stats on the pally after Ideal mods) S6 attacks for a total of 11 S6 attacks + 2-3 CR

20 Skirmishing Peasant Bowmen. No armor, but with woods most ranged counter-fire will be hitting them on 6, or even 7 IF they're in range compared to their superb long bows. Not effective vs massed heavy armor, but absolutely vicious vs lone mages, war machine crew that's too far forward etc.

3 Pegasus Knights. Destroy Warmachines. Period. The best warmachine hunter in the game. Then freed up to assist with rear/flank charges on Turn 3.

5 Mounted Yeomen. Fast cav, bows- good for Feigned Flighting frenzy troops, backup warmachine hunting, march blocking the unit you're not ready to deal with quite yet, etc. More utility than power, but oh what the utility.

Grail Reliqaue. Total US of 25, basically 5x5 ranks. Stubborn Hatred. Great anvil for the opponent's heavy hitter.


And the point of that list is this: That's about 1250 of my 2K points, and I have one unit left.

This 750ish point unit is 3 characters, and 6 grail knights.

A lord with a duellist build. Must challenge, opponents must accept, Re-rolls hits and wounds in challenges, 1+ rerollable armor save and either flaming attacks or Killing Blow.

A BSB Paladin with his own personal static Combat res of 3

A Damsel with Magic Resist 3.

6 Grail Knights with Musician, and Standard giving the entire unit a 4+ ward save vs missiles, including magic missiles.

What this means is my 750 point unit has:

2+ armor save, 4/5/6+ Ward save, MR3, A static combat res of 6-7, move 8, charge 16, and 14 WS5(or better) S6 and 3 WS5 S4 attacks on the charge + 7 static combat res, + immunity to psychology.

Find a hole. Please.

Basically that unit doesn't have a weakness.

You can't shoot it down with war machines with the 4+ Ward.
You can't magic it down with MR3 AND a 4+ ward.
You can't reliably combat it down with its static combat res, maneuverability, and insane attacks on the charge.
You can't scare it off with Immune to Psychology.
You can't avoid it forever with its movement range.

If you focus enough of your army to take it out, that means 1250 points of my army is running rampant through the rest of yours. If you try and avoid it and focus on the rest of my army that one unit by itself can run rampant enough through the rest of yours to make up for the rest of my army.

I call it my roving castle build.

I have so far only run into one thing that puts a real scare into this list... Shagga's Screaming Sword I think it is, that gives the orc character a bonus to his attacks and strength for each character within 12" or something similar.

This is one of those builds you pull out for special occasions. I think a lance formation of 8 Grail Knights with a Damsel is interchangeable with this build just for the sake of giving other units some more punch. I totally see myself using this in the future against Dwarves.

I don't think so. The layered defense in that unit is a big psychological benefit as a place to protect your general. And the BSB's 3 static CR is a key part of its defense in depth.

Edit: The first character I would move is the Ideal paladin. Take him out of the KE unit, and give him one of the cruise missile builds. Pegasus, and some sort of killing blow, or the Knightly Temper virtue etc. Something to make him a fire and forget nuke type of model.

Hi Brett (and Hammerer of the month),

I have advertised this thread on the blog to invite comment on your army list. Let's see what the community out there think.

Gather your shield, lower your visor, unsheath your blade and be prepared for battle

ok brett, what hurts this army more, attacking and whittling down the big grail knight unit or hitting the other 1250 pts of your army and trying to hamper/bog down the grail knight unit?

I haven't found either approach to really work. It takes too much opposing force to take down the GK unit leaving your army too exposed to the other half of my army, and if you take it out, my GK unit hits too hard to ignore.

Shagga's Screaming Sword is one of the few cheap ways to hurt this unit... something like 8 S8 attacks hurts.

If I hit a stubborn unit with a high armor save that can throw a monkey wrench into things but its not "scary"

From a vampires perspective I would probably be looking to bog down the other units with many small units of skeletons/zombies. The Grail Knights would get outnumbered and surrounded with ghouls and cairn wraiths. I'd leave an unengaged lvl 4 vampire with summon ghouls to keep bolstering them.

I'd try to get a large unit of skeletons into the fray for the rank bonus.

I might be able to muster up the Bretonnian force (with some Empire substitutes) and try it out on the field.

I've faced that tactic, and it gave me pause, but it wasn't as effective as I expected. The Grail Knight unit generated enough kills + combat res to actually wipe out the skeleton/zombie/ghoul unit in one round, and with the maneuverability advantage it would be difficult to engage it with multiple units of undead.

Brett

I was looking through the brett book last night, what banner gives them a 4+ ward save against missiles?

Banner of Defence. It's got some restrictions, of course, the unit has to have the Blessing, and only against a certain Strength and up, but it works wonders on cannon and bolt thrower fire. Realistically they're still as vulnerable to 100 long bows as terminators would be vs 50 rapid firing lasguns of course...

I watched 8 grail knights with a BSB go thru 4 daemon jaggernauts as a speed bump except the BSB paladin was killed. It was impressive and I am sure the unit cost a bunch. I use a lord with my grail knights and have done the same including losing on grail knight to the challenge. And that unit is expensive. This unit has also taken a blood thirster out on the charge.

Yeah, I've BEEN Flank charged by a war hydra and won the combat, even losing my rank bonuses.

Adding everything up in my 2250 list that I've been tooling around with in a Mighty Empires ver 2.0 campaign at my local bunker (so its not quite right as I use my gold revenue to fill out my Men At Arms unit)
However, the unit hasn't changed since my 2K list.
The Death Star (its what my mates call the deadly unit w/characters)

comes out to:

Duellist Lord
Warbanner BSB
Damsel with MR3 magic item
6 Grail Knights w/command (no champ, tho they're all effectively champs) and Banner of Defense

Total point cost is: 814 points.

So out of 2K points, 814 of 2000 = ~41% of my army list.

For 12 WS5 S6 attacks, 4 (usually rerollable hit and wound) WS6 S6 attacks, 3 WS5 S4 attacks, and 7 WS3 S3 attacks, as well as 7-8 static CR on the 16" charge. Depending on outnumber.

To put that in perspective, 3 Rank bonus, banner, outnumber is 5 CR Thus, the defensive player needs 3 kills- AND to outnumber my unit- just to get ahead of my static CR, let alone how many of those S6 attacks hit home.