Hiya folks, I'm just getting back into playing my Lizzies, haven't touched 'em for a little while. I'm due to play a friend with his Bretonnian army pretty soon. Now, Brets themselves don't really worry me too much... or at least they didn't til he announced he was running four (!) Trebuchets. In my experience, artillery is one of our biggest weaknesses... and four of 'em?! Ow. Any hints and tips? My army as it stands is fairly typical (at least for a 7th ed army, as I've not really upgraded yet to 8e) from what I can see. I'm running 3k, Slaan + Carnie Old Blood. Couple of big blocks of saurus, some TG, bunch of skirmishey skinks, EotG, terradons, the usual. I've got some CoC that I'm hoping to keep using (I know they've taken a hit but I love the models!), and 3 sallies. I'm looking to get a Kroxigor Delivery System (skrox unit) and some chameleons going soon.
minimum of 4 chameleon units (either 5 or 10 strong). from there everything else sounds good. make sure you stay nice and spread out. id recommend the ironcurse item for your TG champ, Life for the slann to keep everyone kicking, use the carni down a flank with the CoC. might not be the best game for skrox unit with all those trebs. then again, should take 1 to 2 rounds of chameleon shooting to drastically reduce those templates. leave the skink skirmishers at home, the chameleons will take care of your harrasing. Also, the more sallies the better . nice thin long ranks of knights are a perfect main course for them. id say run several small units instead of 1 big one. ( 2 x 2 would be perfect ) the terradons can be dropped too
I agree except I'd keep the Terradons. They can charge second turn and tie up at least one Treb. Those pesants are about as good as skinks and the terradons are decent in cc, especially with stomp. Not to mention you can drop rocks on turn one on a unit of fast cav or knights...you might get lucky.
I agree with John, Terradons can get a quick charge to shut down one of the trebs pretty quick. Plus, If his setup is good, you might not be able to place your camo skinks well enough to knock as many trebs out as you would like, and if they have to walk the line *cant march within something of an enemy Im sure?* having the terradons taking up the slack could be life saving. Also, I think life would be a good idea too, Dwellers works well on brets, and T8 sauri is always fun From personal experiance, I love the Blood statuette of spite, if your enemy has the fey enchantress she can mess you up. I managed to kill it outright in turn 1 with this little hunk o' junk. So knock out any mages or shiney things. Good luck and let us know how you get on!
I used to play Brets and hit them with magic. Sallies will work wonders as well. As you mentioned the trebuchets will be a tough nut to crack. The terradons will be great as poision first turn and then charge second. You should be able to take care of the trebuchets. The engine will be good with its shield ability. With the new step up rules the charges will hurt but you'll do some damage back. I would suggest the razor standard as S4 AP is very nice against the pesky blessing. It depends on if there are a lot of knights but arming your SW with spears might not be a bad idea as you'll get more attacks and the more saves he has to make the more that will be lost. Finally if you get the comet spell you can force him to move his forces according to your wishes and free up the trebuchets.
The comet dose work wonders and brings me to my point. If your opponent loves the Pegasus Knights as much as my friends he may well have a unit or two, not to mention Flying heroes/lords. The Lore of Heavens kicker is only useful against fliers making Britonnian’s one of the more venerable targets as they have a cheap flying unit. This makes an extra skink priest or two more viable. More chances to get the Comet, more channeling, more places to cast from for your Slann.
To cast magic missiles from the slann, So if you're a mainly buffing lore *As i would be against brets* You cant walk a Spriest up and keep your slann back and cosy. Also another thing that might help, perhaps a tooled up Old blood, with a potion of strength you're looking at strength 8? Cant remember if its 2 or 3 the potion gives. That might help to chew through some of the bret hero's if you challenge
If you are thinking about challenging a Bret hero or lord be prepared. They can be tooled up very nicely. I tooled up my lord for challenges and he defeated a Chaos general in a challenge and it took only one phase of combat with some luck. A lot of times the hero or paladin will be coming at you with items that will make you accept the challenge, a virtue to reroll all hits and wounds in a challenge, and some good defenses. They can be beaten. With the high toughness of the Oldblood it will help out a bit. The other thing to watch out for is a lance that automatically hits on the charge combined with a virtue that for each wound inflicted another attack is made. In a challenge the Bret will have a ward save of at least 5 maybe 4 if the right banner is taken. A good thing might be an always strike first sword with the potion of strength. As the knight will no longer have a save with a strength of 8.
Cheers folks - sorry I've not replied. It all sounds kinda in line with what I was thinking about, though I'd been considering Lore of Light for I10 ASF saurus against his charges Multiple chammies and terries to take down the trebs, sallies for burnination of lances.. think I might throw in my Sxrox unit for the high strength they can dish. Life.. Light. Both have big upsides/downsides. Light probably just about pips it though. I've long been a fan of ASF swords on Scar-vets, and I suspect that'll kick in again. I'm trying to decide how best to kit out the Carnie Old Blood. I'm considering the 14 attack monster that I've come across... that or the ASF high strength fella. Hmmmm. Battle's on Sat, I'll be sure to let you know how it goes
Skrox units are actually a reall good choice for going agaisnt Bretonnians. Because the knight units tend to be medium to semi large (6-9 models) they won't get many attacks onto your skinks if you charge them in the side or even in the front (as Bretonnian lance formation only works if it charges, not if it's charged). So your Krox will beat down the human tin cans while your skinks add ranks and even a banner!
Went well, until the Fey Enchantress took out my TG and Slann So the bret list was technically illegal at 2k, She costs more that the allowance for lords at this bracket but I allowed it. Running life, she gets +6 to all life spells cast, making my dispels pretty damn hard. I tests on base contact tore right into my TG but not the slann and the fact that they didnt have to pray first turn because she was on the field meant I took chargers a beast Other than that, I was dominating terradons killing the treb really quickly helped a lot and my saurus blocks were awsome, though ward saves throughout and 2+ saves were just so harsh. But tough saurus and a bolt thrower steg helped out. Just unfortunate I suppose, it feels as though brets really rely on powerful characters to fill out resilient but mediocre troops (unless they charge)
I got absolutely rofflestomped. To be fair, the game was out to get me. Firstly, we roll the battle that uses the table lengthways. I've got further to get, he's got an entire table to shell me. I brought two big units of Saurus, Slann in TG, Carnie Oldblood decked out for survival (2+ rerollable save, 4+ ward), EotG for the gungan bubble shield (which saved me so many times), a big unit of Skrox, two squads of chameleons, some terradons, 3 salamanders, 3 units of skirmishers, and a spare priest and a Scar-vet BSB with the ASF sword. He brings: six units of archers. 4 Trebs. 3 giant lances. Four paladins. Some questing knights and the like. Lord on Pegasus. Two level 4 wizards and two level 1s. Firstly, he sets up in his nice narrow deployment zone. There is nowhere for my chameleons. There's nowhere they can even spring through his solid lines. So they're neutered from the word go. My slann is out-magiced. My chameleons are pincushioned, despite him needing sixes. My terradons are pincushioned despite him needing 7s and 8s - 20 archers hit them 12 times! I'm not gonna lie, I had some of the worst dice rolls I've ever rolled, so that certainly contributed. 17 knights covered by two salamander blasts. One kill. Doesn't help of course that all his knights have ward saves. Pegasus Lord charges my survivability Oldblood, Heroic-Killing-Blow in the face. (The ASF scar-vet did at least kill him in revenge later). Treb after Treb on our friend the Stegadon, eventually the wards failed and the poor guy fell over. He even dropped a spare treb onto my lone priest at the back Yeah, that pretty much went as badly as it could have! Combination of the board screwing me, good tactics and positioning, a force pretty much designed to counter me and some terrible dice rolling (and awesome rolling on his part). We both agreed as much, and we'll play again sometime. And this time, I'll be ready...
Also, I'll agree on your assessment there, Leo. 2+ armour saves and ward saves on most of the army are a right pig. The lance charges are devastating, and their characters are really quite tough. Plus trebs. I really hate artillery
Yeah Brets are a tough force if your opponent knows what they are doing. The key is to get on the flanks. Armour is tough, true, but they are T3 and units tend to be small. Charge them in the side, or even in the front so long as they don't have characters. Unless they are Grail Knights you'll only suffer from 3 - 4 attacks back usually. If they have a character (and not to mention the free unit champion) they can do a few more attacks but weight in numbers will do them in by the time it's all ove with. Dice rolls are as they are, not much you can do against that But rest assured getting those flanks will help!
What point level did you guys play at? I know Bret fighter lords are relatively cheep but two level 4s and a lord on Peg? That seems WAY over priced at evn 2500 pts, let alone 3K. Also I don't think he could have taken 4 Trebs, they aren't multiple per choice and I think you can only max at 3 rares at grand battles so if you were under 3K he played twice as many Trebs as he should have.
First post - Yep, flanks worked well. I managed to get the Skrox unit into the flank of his mad bassids (Errants?) and was taking them down nicely. Also, I would hesitate to say that a big enough unit of Saurus can take one charge from a lance... but not two. Second post - 3.5k
How did he field 4 Trebs? i thought they were rare and you can only field 2 of each under 3K? or is this from the 7 ed?