Thursday 19 May 2016

Bretonnia 9th Ed and 8th ed update out now!

This update changes the following:

  • New Hero: Faceless replaces Yeoman Serjeant. 
  • Lords and Paladin no longer has to be mounted (but shame on you if you don't!).
  • Grail Knights 38 pts.
  • Priestess of Shallya has A0.
  • Foot Knights 10 pts, free morning stars.
  • Bowmen does not have stakes by default.
  • Men-at-Arms have spears by default, can add shields or replace spears with halberds.
  • Hippogryph Knights 75 pts, can take barding. 
  • 8th Ed: Lance Formation does not use supporting attacks, meaning you will lose 2-3A on the charge.
  • 9th Ed: Devastating charge only applies to models in the front rank as per normal rules. This means that a unit of 9 knights will have a total of 10A when charging, rather than 14A in 8th ed. This means a price drop of 1 pt for all mounted knights. 
  • Lots of added/re-purposed background for many units.

27 comments:

  1. -The formatting has gotten weird on pages 88-91.
    -Healing Hands should also grant Immunity (Poisoned Attacks) like the spell used to do.
    -Why would Defensive Stakes not have a chance to hurt unique models?
    -Though Horses are in the mounts section I don't think it's possible for any character to ride a horse.
    -Peasant Bowmen have the Defensive Stakes special rule despite that now being an upgrade.
    -Since you made it that Fast Cavalry is only lost if the model gets an armor save of 4+ or more I think you should remove the rule stating that Mounted Yeomen lose Fast Cavalry when they take armor and shields.
    -Perhaps add a rare unit of Faceless. They would be WS/BS/I 4 and have a special rule that makes their shooting attacks ignore armor saves (but can't be used with multiple shots). The Hero Faceless would have the statline of a Ranger from the Kislev book, the rule that allows armor saves to be ignored and sniper.

    Also, I'm wondering if you are planning on reworking some of the illogical fluff such as peasants paying 90% taxes or a complicated and difficult ritual being required to make arrows of Asaph (that makes it sound like it could only be used for constructs rather than being standard issue). This is also a bit of a nitpick but I think that Men At Arms should be renamed to Militia and the fluff for Men At Arms should be reworked to be more like the historical Men At Arms.

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    1. - Fixed the bugs, thanks!
      - The Faceless are really the leaders of the Herrimault bands, like champions or characters, a whole unit would not fit, and be too similar to Waywatchers. I'll think about adding the sniper rule though, but I don't want them to be too good, Bretonnia is not really about archers after all!

      As for the fluff, I need to read the TK book thoroughly first. While the 90% tax sounds pretty silly (and believe me, as a Swede I know of high taxes! *stupid government*) it's actually explained pretty well here: http://www.roundtable-bretonnia.org/index.php?option=com_fireboard&func=view&catid=2&id=143032&Itemid=46
      Similar references is pretty much just the kind of dark humour that makes up a lot of the Warhammer world.

      While Foot Sergeant would probably be more historically correct for GW's Men-at-Arms, the terms has been used for so long I'd hate to change it. There are not really any other kind of Men-at-Arms in the background either that would be better with the name, in Bretonnia you are either a noble knight or a dirty peasant!

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    2. That link is pretty interesting though further posts in that link raised some good questions that you might want to address. That being said, I'll post what I would change the fluff too. Why? Because I feel like it.
      -Men at Arms changed to Militia. They are the protectors of an area that every knight is required to fund and train, and a largely volunteer defensive force whose members train occasionally, rarely used for offensive engagements. Rename the unit champion to Foot Sergeant.
      -Knights of the Realm and Knights Errant changed into a single unit called Men at Arms (start at WS3, can be upgraded to 4) and Foot Knights changed into Dismounted Men at Arms. Men at Arms are the backbone of the Brettonian army and consist of either nobles, the retinue of nobles or sufficiently wealthy commoners that can afford to fight as heavy cavalry. The fluff about how Men at Arms are recruited is as the retinue of a noble is left the same. Reduce the price of the unit by 2-3 points and remove Blessing of the Lady and The Knights Vow which can be given back for the same amount of points. It is assumed that a unit without those upgrades does not have a genuine noble among them for whatever reason while a knight that is present gives the blessing to his followers for the battle and makes the unit produce an aura that the lower classes can sense. It even lingers if all nobles of a Men at Arms unit are cut down but the rest of the unit remains.
      -Lords, Paladins, Questing Knights, Grail Knights, Pegasus Knights and Hippogryph Knights are all nobility. A wealthy commoner wouldn't go to the expense and trouble to own a Pegasus or Hippogryph and becoming a Lord, Baron, Questing Knight or Grail Knight is still exclusive to nobles.
      -Yeomen are land owning commoners that for the purposes of an army, come in mounted and unmounted versions. Infantry Yeomen are BS4 skirmishing scouts with longbows, Cavalry Yeomen are BS4 fast cavalry. The champion of both units is called a Yeomen Sergeant. They would also be Ld7.
      -Herrimaults moved to rare. They are a WS4, BS4, I4 of skirmishing scouts with Longbows and a special rule that makes their shooting attacks ignore armor saves. Outlaw is BS5, Faceless is a hero version with BS6, A2 and is also a Sniper, basically Bretonnia's answer to the Kislev Ranger.

      Lastly, I said earlier that a Plague Cart of Nurgle should be tougher than a Blood Chariot of Khorne and you argued it shouldn't because the Blood Chariot is made of metal while the Plague Cart is made of rotten wood. That logic doesn't quite work because the realm of chaos... well... doesn't follow logic and therefore can have a chariot made out of rotten wood be tougher than a chariot made of metal.

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    3. I've been thinking about how all Monstrous _______ have Fear due to their size and Monsters have Terror due to being even bigger. In the game, Monsters aren't scared of other monsters due to both being of the same size but what about things that are scary due to something else like the mind-corroding influence of Chaos giving Chaos Daemons fear and Phoeinix Guard being scary due to how unafraid they are. There should be a modification to the unit types section and the Fear special rule so that Chaos Ogres still fear Daemons (especially ones of equal size), Arachnorak Spiders are scared of Bloodthirsters and other things.

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  2. Upgrading my Bretonnian list for 9 ed. I've seen that Banner of Defence now is worth 25 points, giving a ward save 6 against missile fire. That means that the existing Blessing of the Lady Ward is improved by one(getting a 4+ Ward for Knights units against Shooting)? Or you just have a ward save for units that normally don't have such protection?

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    1. Yes, they get a 4+ ward in total since Ward saves now stack with the 5+ they already have.

      Grail Knights are 38 pts in 8th ed, they are cheaper in 9th since Lance Formation is weaker there.

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  3. Grail Knight just 37 points in the Book, not 38 ^_^ Fine deal as they cost 42 p. before

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  4. Now I'm kind of tempted to do a 1000 point army of Bretonian outlaws lead by a faceless, not the most viable force but it would be kind of a cool theme.

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    1. Technically speaking you can't do that since your general has to have a Vow ;)

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    2. Oh well I'll just have to use the blasphemy of an unmounted paladin as the general. His lack of a horse should qualify him as an outlaw :)

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    3. Well it does say that the Faceless are sometimes nobility working on things they can't do openly. Presumably they wouldn't loose their martial prowess, so a bit of clever model making to fit the image and using a paladin entry should work for you.

      Personally I think the this is a quality idea for an army, always been a fan of more "concept" style armies than purely building as balanced a one as possible. I say go for it!

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  5. Did I see that you removed the Morning Star special rules from the 9th ed rules? Just mentionn it since some units in this list have Morninng Stars as an option. Just ignore this post if I'm wrong with my assumption here.

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    1. Yes, I will remove that option from the list.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. I didn't know where to put this question, and I'm sorry if it's been asked before, but here goes: You've done such good work with WFB, do you ever plan to do something similar with WH40K?

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    1. I'd say doubtful. 40k is still supported by GW who has actually been doing a good job of keeping things current whereas Fantasy is dead and entered the realm of homebrew only.

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    2. I don't really play 40k, so that's not likely. Right now, I'm hard pressed as is to update Fantasy!

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  8. Is there a reason that monstrous mounts for heroes are the same cost as for lords? Since you're generally using the T/W of the monstrous mount in 9th ed., heroes get a bigger boost from such mounts than lords (who have one more wound and so gain fewer wounds from the combination)...

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    1. Lords also have more attacks, better leadership, more points to spend, etc. So I don't really see a problem

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    2. I've simply used GW's old pts system. But in general, lords pay about 33% more for their options compared to heroes, so it should even out in the end.

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  9. I have to say that while you've done a great job, there is some units and rules that need to be looked at. Armand, the 6th magic spell, the virtue of the knightly temper and Bertrand to name a few. These have serious issues when it comes to balance. Mostly that they are very very powerful and need to be toned down. I'm on mobile so I can go into detail later if you like but we've playtested these things and seen how powerful they are first hand.

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    1. For 8th, 9th or both? I think Armand might need a nerf, especially in 9th ed. I'd like hear in more detail what issues you have found with the list.

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    2. Oh sorry, for 8th, should have posted that. Anyway, yeah I can provide more details

      Armand:Between his charge ability, the banner removing bonus ranks and then the enemy losing Ld, it's basically going to guarantee that you'll break the enemy unit. I think that just removing the minus to Ld will solve the balance issue.

      Tristan's Grail chorale: A 4+ ward to the unit is very OP. With a Sacrosanctum you can easily give a unit of Questing a 3++. That's insane for what he costs, especially considering you get another character with him. I'd suggest changing it to just a +1 when the str of the attack is like 5 or 6 or higher like the old Blessing used to be.

      Virtue of the Knightly Temper: This ability costs 50+ points in other armies and isn't as good. Combine it with other stuff like Cuirass of Fortune and you are looking a Lord who can cause more wounds than many entire units in the game. Bump it to about 50 points.

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    3. - I'll make is the banner simply removes rank bonus in 9th ed, and forces the unit to test on unmodified Ld in 8th ed. The original idea was to make it a steadfast-breaker, but it might have been too much.

      - Yes, it should just be +1 to ward saves due to the changes to the blessing I made last time. So it would be 5+ in CC, and 4+ against missiles (limited to 4+ in 9th ed by default).

      - It's 50 pts in other armies (like VC) but apply every round, not just when charging. I could make it so you only get extra attacks after saves if you would prefer, but then it would go down in price to 25 pts.

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  10. Love the book but I need to know is there a conclusion to the story with Thibault? I really enjoyed that as I was reading through the book and wondered where it came from.

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    1. It's from the 5th ed Bretonnia book. I'm afraid there is no more to the story, I've used all the background it had.

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