So I have been playing with Bretonnia a lot lately and I'm going to run the Plaque of Dominion, because as a standard he runs 2 damsels in his big blocks of knights for the MR. So if he fails his stupidity check what happens? Is the whole unit stupid or would she leave the unit and acts as moving through the unit and stops them both for the turn?
Well it just so happens I own the bretonnian book and there is an easy answer to this question... Page 41 Paragraph 1 Line 5... "However, a Damsel or Prophetess that is not in the front rank obviously has no line of sight..." So when a damsel or prophetess is in a unit of knights keeping them safe and getting the magic resistance they don't have line of sight to cast most spells (which sucks for him) but they also don't have sight to the banner, therefore you couldn't cause her to become stupid... Also if you could make her stupid it would play out the same as a scar-vet in a block of saurus that becomes stupid from his Cold One or the "Hide of the Cold Ones", the entire unit is now only able to go forward as far as him. I'm not sure if they have to or if they can let him leave the unit, but I think they all suffer the stupidity effects...
Note: I missed where it says the damsel or prophetess MAY be placed in the second rank... Meaning he doesn't have to...If he does, then my post above is pretty accurate. If he chosoes to put them in the front rank, then your banner will effect them, and etc... But it would be pretty easy to charge with some Terradons and use the "hit and run" rule to charge the knights allocate all attacks to the damsel or prophetess, and then fall back. Of course you would get counter charged, unless the damsel or prophetess is on the outside of the 3 wide lance formation, then you can "hit and run" the flank and kill her, and be safe to charge again, or re-position...
The whole block would be stupid haha. But for this to work you would need to put the plaque either on a large target (skink BSB on an ancient/non-ancient stegadon) or keep the unit (temple guard presumably) on a hill so that the damsel (which is placed in the second rank of his knights and has no LOS out of the unit) can see the plaque. edit: the damsel is only Ld7 as well
Remember also that plaque has an 18" range, so that the turn he has to take the tests is the turn he'll be wanting to make those vital charges. With Ld 7 he has a 58.3% chance of passing each stupidity test I think.
Thats why you try and get doom and darkness off beforehand. -3 on leadership brings her down to ld 4. not a very happy bret player. Of course the challenge would be to get the spell off, considering the Damsels MR of 1 if believe it is possible to succeed if you cast smartly and throw some other really nasty spells out, like drain life and steal soul followed by wind of death then dark hand of death, and then Doom and Darkness. combined with skink priests spells you should be able to force D&D through.
Correct, he doesn't count as a large target for trying to use the banner on him to affect the damsels...