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Post by KevinC on Aug 26, 2015 15:48:13 GMT
See the final army list here: THE GRAND ARMY OF BRETONNIAPlease read through the list carefully, in addition to new units and new designs for special rules, there are also minor tweaks throughout the list, different from the first draft. I'm very pleased with this draft and I think the list is starting to shape up nicely! Looking forward to hearing comments, opinions and playtest results!
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Post by wilsonthenarc on Aug 26, 2015 16:25:59 GMT
The Virtue of the Joust is the real deal. Simple, but good.
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Post by vazalaar on Aug 26, 2015 18:43:17 GMT
Firstly, I really like this type of armylist. I wish you could re-do all the armies. Please, redo the Empire. The Virtue of the Joust is imo perfect. I also like the Pauper knight and the Master-of-Arms. The name is perfect and the unit as whole sounds great. Why do Grail Knights cost so much? 10 Dread Knights will probably win against 5 Grail knights I like the inclusion of pavises, but I think it should be removed from the bowmen and added to the sellsword mercenaries. For sellswords I think you should move the crossbow to the list 'may be equipped with one of the following weapons' and also when crossbows are taken pavises can be taken as a upgrade. I would change the pavise to 4+ armour save against shooting. So with light armour it has a 3+ save against shooting and with heavy armour a 2+ save against shooting. No option for great weapon mounted knights? The only thing I don't like is the combined profile. A more elegant solution would be imo the monstrous cavalry approach. Merged toughness, wounds, armour saved, but all the rest is seperated. So mount and rider have different weapon skill and attacks. This approach works much better with magic weapons.
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Post by KevinC on Aug 27, 2015 1:54:09 GMT
--------------Thanks for the reply! Grail Knights have 2 Wounds, that's why they are a bit expensive, I want to see how they do playtest wise. 65 pts might be a bit much.
As for the pavise, I should write in their rules that the armour save provided by the pavise cannot be combined with other armour (i.e. it's a 3+ save regardless of armour). I think you're right about leaving Bowmen as simply bowmen, and leaving crossbows and pavise for the mercenaries...
Note, Knights of the Realm have the option of exchanging their lances for great weapons.
I really like the combined profile for monsters. I'm trying to balance it right. For example, allowing only 50 points worth of magic items for the lord, not allowing the armour save to increase, and making them a hefty amount of points. We'll see how it goes.
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Post by germanviking on Aug 27, 2015 19:36:02 GMT
Hi new to the forum. Anyway I like the majority of what was done. What I don't like is the loss of virtues and the magic items list and the loss of questing knights.
Part of the fun of Brets was customizing your hero's. I would miss that.
Most army books have 10-12 magic items we only have 8 and most of them are just rehashed from the old book. I would like to see at least 5-6 new magic items.
Here are a couple of ideas. 1. Shield of Heros- 40 pts 5+ shield that offers a 3+ ward vs magical attacks
2. Banner of Bretonnia- 100 pts Grants the unit devastating charge.
3. Vorpal Blade- +1 attacks with + 2 strength 55 pts
4. Ring of Mists- 30 Bound item (4) When successfully cast a mist forms around the unit granting hard cover to missles and war machines must roll a 4+ to shoot at unit.
Something like that.
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Post by KevinC on Aug 27, 2015 20:33:23 GMT
Hi new to the forum. Anyway I like the majority of what was done. What I don't like is the loss of virtues and the magic items list and the loss of questing knights. Part of the fun of Brets was customizing your hero's. I would miss that. Most army books have 10-12 magic items we only have 8 and most of them are just rehashed from the old book. I would like to see at least 5-6 new magic items. Here are a couple of ideas. 1. Shield of Heros- 40 pts 5+ shield that offers a 3+ ward vs magical attacks 2. Banner of Bretonnia- 100 pts Grants the unit devastating charge. 3. Vorpal Blade- +1 attacks with + 2 strength 55 pts 4. Ring of Mists- 30 Bound item (4) When successfully cast a mist forms around the unit granting hard cover to missles and war machines must roll a 4+ to shoot at unit. Something like that. Germanviking, Welcome to the forum and thank you for the feedback!! There will def be a few more magic items, I have not completed the magic item list, and thank you for you suggestions...I'll take them in consideration. As for virtues, my feeling was that they are not really needed, however I am completely open to including them. You are the first person to ask about them. How do others feel about virtues? Though Questing Knights are not a separate unit. They are still an option. Knights of the Realm have the option to exchange their lances for great weapons. Please keep up comments and post playtest results if you can! Thanks!
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Post by vazalaar on Aug 28, 2015 19:13:43 GMT
Your Grail knight is statwise exactly the same as the vanilla Grail knight. Only yours have a +1 wound for 27 points increase and have a plain 5+ ward save instead of 6+ Ward save and a 5+ ward save against Strength 5 or higher attacks. Imo this is not worth 27 points. A Putrid Blightking has +1 WS, +1 toughness, +1 wound, +1 attack, Chaos Armour, Shield, the Mark of Nurgle for only 40 points (Special choice), They would slaughter the Grail Knights. Demigryphs would also butcher those grail knights. I think there should be option for Questing Knights, because the journey from Knight of the Realm to Grail Knight is an important part of the fluff. Don't know if it should be a unit or character choice. The reason I don't like the combined profile is that fluffwise it makes no sense. I.e a Duke on Hyppogriph, can't have magic items that cost more than 50 points and have acces to only 50 points of magic items in total, while a Duke on a Pegasus or horse, which fluffwise would be poorer or of lesser standing can be equiped with better magic weapons and can have more magic items as their allowance is higher. Seperating WS, Attacks, Initiative would solve this problem. Exactly the same way as how monstrous cavalry works. I would also allow better armour saves than 3+. If a Skylord is equiped with heavy armour, shield, Dragon Helm. It's armour save would be 2+. With magic items the best armour save a Bretonnian lord mounted on a pegasus/hyppogriph is a 2+. Just add a rule that when the Skylords armour save is better than 3+, the cost is increased with 40 points. I also think that if you name Bretonnian lords Dukes, you also should add Barons. Also a Duke shouldn't have the Grail vow as default. Virtues should return and should be seperated from the magic item allowance. I think that virtues add more personality to characters.
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Post by KevinC on Aug 28, 2015 19:44:01 GMT
vazalaar,
Thanks for the comments. One reason the Grail Knights went as high as they did was because of their power in playtesting, everyone was complaining about them, though in draft I they did have a 4+ ward plus impact hits, I agree they are overpriced at this point. I am trying to encourage more playtesting.
Questing Knight are technically an option, Knight of the Realm can exchange their lances for great weapons. When I get to writing more fluff, I'm going to write about when a Knight takes up the Quest, they take on the quest bearing a great sword. I am def going to keep them in the fluff, and the army list still allows them (Knights of the Realm with great weapons), but I don't think they need additional special rules.
Perhaps all knight characters should just come with the Knightly Chivalry special rule with the option to upgrade to Knight of the Grail. FYI, I'm very familiar with Bretonnia background and both of the previous army books, as I write the fluff I will be tying everything together.
I understand the issues of the combined monster profile, let's see what happens with playtesting. I may very well end up changing it to more tradition rules.
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Post by dannytee on Aug 30, 2015 1:01:59 GMT
Here are my comments so far, I have only made it through the special rules, lords and heroes so far so more will follow once I review the remainder.
With The Lady's Boon special rule one of the conditions is "The Bretonnian army includes more war machines than it does units of Errantry Knights, Knights of the Realm and/or Grail Knights." I believe that this should be worded a little differently just to make the intent totally clear. I believe you intend this to be the sum all units of Errantry Knights, Knights of the Realm and Grail Knights but I think someone could take this to mean each unit type separately compared to the number of war machines.
I know I made this comment in the last draft, I am not trying to sound like a broken record but since this is a new draft/thread I figured I would bring it up again. For Louen Leoncoeur I believe that the -2 to hit penalty from The Armour of Brilliance is excessive. I think -1 to hit is fine.
With the Protect the Dame! special rule for the Matrons/Damsels don't the basic rules already allow what you have wrote here? In fact I believe that per the base rules the spell caster in the second rank could potentially cast a magic missile so this is being taken away with this special rule.
I really like the feel of Bertrand the Brigand. This looks like it would be a real fun character to field.
With the Field Warden, I know he isn't very powerful but 20 points seems a bit light to me for any character. Isn't a goblin big boss 35 points? I could see someone spamming these simply because they are so cheap.
I know most people who have commented feel differently but I personally like the use of the combined monster and rider profile. I believe this approach makes monsters a more viable option. This is very much due to cannons. With the traditional approach both monster and rider getting hit by the cannon ball was devastating. With the new combined approach monsters have more than 6 wounds making it impossible for a single cannon ball to take them out of action.
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Post by vazalaar on Aug 30, 2015 7:24:38 GMT
dannytee. Combined profiles are a must, but weapon skill, ballestic skill, strength, initiative and attacks should be seperated. A Skylord would look like this: | M | WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A | LD | Duke | - | 6 | 3 | 4 | - | - | 6 | 4 | 9 | Hyppogriph | 8 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 4 | - |
This increase survivability and allows the Duke to have a 100 magic item allowance, because the attacks are seperated. Now a Duke on a Hyppogriph can use the sword of Bloodshed (+3 attacks), while with the Skylord combined profile he can't. Which imo kills immersion. A toughness of 5, 7 wounds, an armour save of 2+ (enchanted shield), equiped with lance (4 strength 6 attacks on the charge) + 4 strength 5 attacks (hippo) and thunderstomp is a scary opponent. Edit:About the field warden. I would add it as a unit upgrade for Man-at-Arms, Bowmen and Squires. Thus a champion can be upgraded to a Field Warden. The Field Warden cannot leave it's starting unit. I know the Bretonnian armybook has man-at-arms, but I think Sergeants is a better name. Man-at-arms is a higher class of soldiers. You changed Mounted Yeoman to Squires, but imo these are two different things. Yeoman are mounted sergeants, while Squires are nobility that serves a knight until he becomes an Errant Knight. Thus mabye add Yeoman back and change the rules so it reflect their status? Tonight I will add comments about the Special characters.
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Post by KevinC on Aug 30, 2015 13:26:36 GMT
Thanks for the comments.
Vazalaar, my thoughts for the squires is that in addition to serving their knight, in battle they actually ban together and gain experience in war. Hence they are a fast cav unit. This is how they worked in the 5th edition list as well.
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Post by dannytee on Aug 30, 2015 13:31:09 GMT
Ok, I think I initially misunderstood what you were getting at vazalaar. I like this approach that you show above for the monsters. You still get the 7 wounds and would now be able to get 100 points in magic items and a 2+ or 1+ armor save.
I also like the idea of a field warden being a unit champ. Alternately, they could stay a character but have a rule requiring them to start the game in a selected unit and cannot leave that unit.
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Post by KevinC on Aug 30, 2015 13:44:49 GMT
But would spamming a Field Warden do anything useful? So what if your opponent has say 5 or 6 Field Wardens? What is the concern? Some reason he is a separate character: 1. You could field a Peasant army. I know a rare thing, but people like to do unusual armies (myself included, ever hear of a Gnoblar army? ) 2. You could place him near a war machine or several war machines and boost the crew's LD. 3. Place him around several infantry to boost LD too. Actually, I am considering getting rid of "the Peasants Duty" special rule...
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Post by vazalaar on Aug 30, 2015 14:42:54 GMT
As Squires are sons of nobility and eventually will become errant knights. It seems a bit strange that the unit has the commoners duty and their older brothers (Errant Knights) not. It also seems a bit strange fluffwise that they only become impeteous when they are elevated to the ranks of the Errant knights.
Also squires and Errant knights have the same leadership, but squires can use the leader Knights of the Realm, while Errant knights not.
I would give squires the Impeteous rule, remove the commoners duty (because they are nobility) and add Mounted Yeoman as the basic light armoured fast cav unit.
Edit: I would also add that there never can be more squire units than Knights of the realm units. As like you said that the squires band together as the knights do when preparing for battle.
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Post by dannytee on Aug 30, 2015 14:49:58 GMT
Here are the remainder of my comments. Good work as always Kevin. I hope to get a playtest game in sometime so I can give comments based on that instead of just theory/my gut feel.
Looking at Errantry Knights vs. Knights of the Realm I am not sure that the points difference is enough. At only 5 points more for the Knight of the Realm I don't think I would ever bother taking the Errantry Knights. Any comment on this from the Brett players on here? The Knights of the Realm get the ward save, +1 WS, +1 S, +1 LD, the unit can have a magic standard and the Errantry Knights have the non-extra attack frenzy to deal with.
On the bowmen "The pavises provide models with a 3+ armour save against all ranged attacks (including spells)." I think the including spells part should be including magic missiles.
I know on the last draft several commented that the grail knights were too cheap at 45 points but I think the current cost of 65 points is too much. This is more than most monstrous cav.
Is the green knight really intended to have only 1 wound? Also, why did you decide to make him rare instead of a character? Just curious on this one. With him as a rare unit someone could take 2. Maybe you need to add a rule where you can only take one.
On The Lance of the Perilous Knight I think you could come down some on the points value.
I'm not sure what you would move around or what additional unit could be added but I think the army could use some more special choices. With the current choices (3 units that all fall into the support category) I don't see anyone ever coming close to 50% special. Maybe this isn't an issue but I am just thinking of my other armies where with certain builds I need to make a decision on what special unit to cut out because I am over the 50%.
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