Dealing with Bretonnian Knights

[Giles the zog]

So what can opener options doe we have ?

I faced 2 blocks of knights, each about 16 or more strong. My 4 RBTs all managed to miss, and then they were on me carving up infantry. Lokhir Fellheart and an Assassin both failed to do much really.

Hydras are nice (except when said Knights come with flaming banners), and chariots are good, but what close combat options do we have ?

Executioners/BG buffed with something or t'other ?

http://thelostcityofcarcosa.com/2012/11/05/whfb-dark-elves-vs-bretonnians-lizardmen/

[Heartsbane]

Lokir failed to do much? He should have had a veritable bucketload of attacks, about 8ish, and doesn't he ignore armour saves?

Anyhow, horrid luck aside, the charge is what makes bret cavalry do damage, without that their core options lack punch (and I'm guessing from the unit size they were either knights of the relm or errants, it'd cost an unholy amount to boost grail or questing knights up that big, including packing them out with characters once he's hit the maximum unit size). The trick then lies in making sure they don't get the charge. A unit of harpies 11.5" out from your line should get the job done; if he doesn't charge them you can send salvoes from your RBTs into them all day long, once he does charge he'll wipe out the harpies, but can either reform, leaving him within average charge range, or overrun, but is unlikely to reach you. I suppose he could reform sideways, with units that deep it'd make a long charge for you once they've pivoted around their centre, but I can't see that leaving him in a good position...

[Giles the zog]

Lokir failed to do much? He should have had a veritable bucketload of attacks, about 8ish, and doesn't he ignore armour saves?

Anyhow, horrid luck aside, the charge is what makes bret cavalry do damage, without that their core options lack punch (and I'm guessing from the unit size they were either knights of the relm or errants, it'd cost an unholy amount to boost grail or questing knights up that big, including packing them out with characters once he's hit the maximum unit size). The trick then lies in making sure they don't get the charge. A unit of harpies 11.5" out from your line should get the job done; if he doesn't charge them you can send salvoes from your RBTs into them all day long, once he does charge he'll wipe out the harpies, but can either reform, leaving him within average charge range, or overrun, but is unlikely to reach you. I suppose he could reform sideways, with units that deep it'd make a long charge for you once they've pivoted around their centre, but I can't see that leaving him in a good position...

LH re-rolls to wound....S4 vs T3 its a useful attribute, but does little to negate the 2+ armour save. And yes, he did get 8 attacks....

[Saintofm]

This maybe one of the few areas we say ude reaper bolt throers in.

For the most part try and flank or rear them, or have your own heavy hitters get the charge in to deny them both the brettonian charge and the strength bonus of the lances. Thia should mean executioners, Cold One Knights, And Hydra (with Murder or Razor Wind Standard should also help with it's armor piercing). The knights will get the ward save but something that can take aways 2-3 layers of armor is better than nothing.

I would also sugest if you have a couldron to give the ward save to executioners and killing blow to everything else (including the hydra). This won't get past wards, but will armor and regeneration.

The next issiue will be to actually get the charge. Being heavy cavalry that do not suffer the -1 to movement for barding, they effectively get 10-20 inches to charge compared to 7-17 for elf infantry and 9-19 for our knights and chariots.

[Vulcan]

Preventing Bretonnians from getting the charge off means they loose, pure and simple. This should be your #1 priority. Use all the maneuver shennanigans the DE are famous for to accomplish this.

After that: Corsairs with killing blow, Executioners, Hydras, or anything with Mindrazor should do the the trick. Also consider hitting them in the flank - 16 Knights have a 6" flank, after all!

[Calisson]

My Hydra fears the Bret champion with heroic KB (especially on a Pegasus).
Fortunately, he fluffed all his attacks and was eaten alive by the hydra. But the pegasus did wound the poor li'l beastie.

Other tricks that work:
Assassins can KB the champion with magic banner that does all the trick.
BG can receive the charge, lose many, remain stubborn and allow for a neat flank charge.

RXB and Shades do kill knights. The best is if you can place them in buidlings.

The COB should not give 5++ to execs, but +1 attack.

[Red...]

Lokhir Fellheart and an Assassin both failed to do much really.

Well, that was your first mistake really. Both are awful choices n 8th ed. Assassins have limited damage output and are about as durable as a an imperial guard infantry man in an apocalypse game of 40k - and Lokhir isn't much better. Neither was going to be of any use against S4(6) Knights with 2+ armour saves, and so were essentially a big points sync without any real value potential.

Yeah, a Death Hag BSB led Executioner horde is pretty much an auto-win against Brettonian Knights. I hate to cite my own article again, but it's worth a look: http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=69921

Only thing to watch out for when using the DH BSB led Exec Horde is that cursed Brettonian Trebuchet, but that is best dispatched using fast troops such as harpies, pegasus riders, dark riders and shades.

[Taijushue]

CoB is best, give anything killing blow and watch knights fall, big spear blocks to hold to a bret charge. massed shooting to make him eventually fail a few 1+ saves. our cold one knights do well against em at least for me.

[Cold73]

Executioners led by a Death Hag BSB with Banner of Hag Greaf is almost an auto win against Knights.
But if you are like me and enjoy giving you opponents a fighting chance before you utterly destroy them. Use a unit of Black Guard with the Banner of Murder. It is only a -2 on armour, but with the aid of some metal spells they are devestating.
But just in case the knights hold...always prepare for a flank attack next turn.

[van Awful]

Even though i'm a big fan of executioners, the downside against brets is that anything with a strength 5 or higher will cause the knights to get a 5+ wardsave instead of 6. That is if your opponent prays before battle. I'd rather take black guards with AP banner.

[Red...]

Black guard with an ap banner give a 3+ armour save against 1+ armour foes. Execs with an AP banner give those same foes a 5+ save. I'd rather take 5+ followed by 5+ than 3+ followed by 6+

[van Awful]

@ red I thought Brets "only" had a 2+ AS?! I Could be wrong though.
That would mean 6 followed by 5 and 4 followed by 6. You still got a point though.
But a better ward save is a bit of shame considering KB

The lack of KB could be solved with the CoB obviously.

[Daeron]

Black guard with an ap banner give a 3+ armour save against 1+ armour foes. Execs with an AP banner give those same foes a 5+ save. I'd rather take 5+ followed by 5+ than 3+ followed by 6+

It's sound reasoning.. +3AS and and 6+WS give 27% chance to get through, whereas 5+AS and 5+WS give 44% chance to get through. But the BGs have an extra attack.

In total an Executioner has a 36.2% chance to score a kill, in the first round, and 27.2% chance in subsequent rounds. The black guard with AP banner always have 16.5%, per attack, but they have 2 attacks (so, on average 33% per model in the front). The main advantage of the Executioners comes when taking into account the supporting rank. 2 attacks at 27.2% beat 3 attacks at 16.5%.

In a 7 wide deployment, both units have their output around 3-4 kills, but BGs weigh a bit more towards 3 kills and Executioners a bit more to 4 kills. But then, you need more bodies in the Exe unit to compensate for the "always strike last", where the BG's may actually lower the number of attacks against them in the grinding stage. Exes are cheaper and don't have a size limit, so it works out

I think the difference is subtle enough to call it a fair match for both units though on paper the Executioners might do a tad better. They are less versatile and reliable though.

[Omnichron]

They have 1+ armor saves.

The executioners (With ASF bsb) will decimate the knights, the BG won't unfortunately. Only having str 4 means that you'll only wound on 3+ and 4+ against pegasus knights. If you also add CoB buffs for the BG, you can have that for the executioners as well, adding +1 attack... That is a lot better than the BGs against armor (Especially as KB won't work if you meet pegasus knighs).

[van Awful]

But they have normal heavy armour right?
Chaos knights and empire knights have 1+ save due to their special armour(chaos & full plate)

barded warhorse means 5+, heavy armour 3+, shield 2+...?

[Prince fabulas]

Harpies can be surprisingly poor against bretts as the good brett players often take heavens magic and with plenty of MM and the lore attribute they get destroyed.

Also pegs can often chase them away.

RBT (nearly always multishot) and XBs are quite good as they reduce the save to 4+/6++ and 3+/6++ respectively they can whittle down lances.

Pegs can be a problem again for archers and shades.

Metal is a obviously a good lore against them but death is also very good.

Most knights are I3 so PSun can devastate a lance.

D&D plus shooting is effective, character sniping is effective although they tend to have MR from Mages plus blessing.

Soulblight is also good especially when combined with shooting.

Blocks of execs are good but be cafeful of trebuchets maybe line up two deep as you manouvere before charging.

[Calisson]

Normal Bret knights do have 2+ armour save, not 1+.

[Red...]

But you'd be silly to run a unit of execs 7 wide. 3 ranks of 10 would be normal. Yes, of course you can't compare that with equivalent black guard ranks because you can only take 20 max, but that sort of reinforces my point...

And the point is to run the execs with a death hag Bsb with standard of hg, so you wouldn't need to worry about asl. Trust me, execs will serve you better.

[Cracklord frederick]

I know against Brettonians Lore of Metal would traditionally be the best, but a game I played earlier tonight (3000pt per team 2v3), I found Shadow to be particularly effective. I think it was the only time I've ever seen my Crossbowmen get 3+ to wound, since I got the spell that can reduce toughness by D3. My opponents never dispelled it because it sounds so measly on paper but having T2-T1 knights to shoot at was highly entertaining as well as deadly. It also annihilated Men-at-Arms. One unit can only save so many wounds. And as always, Lifetaker was just total cheese, it completely knocked a Prophetess off her Pegasus.

[Omnichron]

Hmm... 2+ armor and not 1+. I guess my friend made a mistake then and had them with a higher armor value than they should've had.

Withering + "only" 2+ armor means that our crossbows can do very well. The sheer amount of shots means that the knights will fall quite quickly. If you add a secondary metal sorc to the mix, a bretonnia player should struggle a lot against you.

[Daeron]

Hm, yes, I've rained down 2+ AS with bolts before. I never got a unit down entirely but always managed to wither it down to a less threatening number.

Though... I'm starting to love Metal so much I may never go without

[Red...]

Ironically enough, the true joy of metal is not the heavy armour killing spells (those are a nice bonus), it's the three awesomes:

- Glittering scales (+2 armour save to everyone within 12" in your army, except hydras, is beautiful).
- Enchanted blades of aiban (magical weapon, armour piercing and +1 to hit buff is beautiful).
- Final transmutation (great for killing high resilience and massed horde armies alike).

[Choombatta]

(Especially as KB won't work if you meet pegasus knighs).

I thought KB now worked, on Monstrous cavalry, but only on the rider.

[Red...]

Monstrous cavalry - such as pegasus riders - count as a single model. You may be thinking of ridden monsters.

[Choombatta]

Monstrous cavalry - such as pegasus riders - count as a single model. You may be thinking of ridden monsters.

As does regular cavalry and chariots, and does not KB work on the characters if classified as Cavalry or Chariot?

Of course, as we have always played in our group, if you KB a character in a chariot, it only removes the character and not the entire chariot.

I always figured this is how it worked for monstrous cavalry and ridden monsters also. The KB portion only works on the rider, leaving the monster portion intact.

P.S. Only in the case where the rider would be classified as infantry without the mount. So Mournfang would be immune to KB, since the rider is classified as monstrous infantry. If this is not correct, we have been playing incorrectly since the release of 8th.