Bretonnia in 2017: What's changed, and how

[Davariel]

As most of you are probably aware by now, the GHB2017 has come and with it have come massive changes to the compendium warscrolls. Since almost every Bretonnian warscroll has seen multiple revisions, I thought I'd go through each warscroll and note everything that's changed for our favourite fantasy knights.

Note that this is not a thread to complain (whether complaining about GW killing Brets, or that Brets shouldn't exist in AoS); this is simply a helpful thread so those affected can easily see what's changed for their armies without having to comb through the compendiums, and a friendly place for people to discuss strategies/thoughts/uses for Bretonnians under the new rules.

With that out of the way, there are a few army wide points to be made before running through the changes to our warscrolls:

• All our units have lost the FREE PEOPLE keyword (and no longer interact with it); it's been replaced with the BRETONNIAN keyword. Our own synergies are mostly intact, but there's no longer any synergy with Empire/Freeguild forces.
• Bretonnians are not available as allies except to Stormcast Eternals. Apart from this you have to run a GA: Order allegiance to use them.
• Points and unit sizes have remained the same as they were for all units under the first GHB (for better or for worse).
• There are no longer any points listed for our two battalions. Both were pretty awful so this isn't much of a loss.

So what's actually changed at the warscroll level? Well... quite a lot actually, ranging from subtle changes in wording to major overhauls. I'm going to run through each warscroll one by one and note any changes from the previous version:

King Louen Leoncoeur:

First off, Louen's been renamed to a generic King on Hippogryph (meaning you can take more than one, and he can take items/traits, which is a definite plus). His crown's ability to negate battleshock now affects BRETONNIAN units. Both his crown and command ability now have a 24" range rather than being army wide. Other than that he's the same.

The Fay Enchantress:

No longer unique and renamed to an Enchantress. Her Chalice of Potions now allows her to re-roll a failed cast once per turn (rather than auto-casting one spell if you rolled a 2+ on one D6), and only stops working if you roll a 2 on the re-roll - it also no longer prevents the spell from being unbound. Her "Spiteful Glance" now works at the start of the combat phase (rather than before she attacks) and you only have to equal (not beat) an enemy's bravery to deal a mortal wound. She can now only heal herself for D3 wounds in the hero phase. Her spell only affects BRETONNIAN units, and only adds +1 to hit for their melee weapons (it's no longer +2 for a NOBILITY unit).

The Green Knight:

No longer unique and renamed to Sacred Protector. He's now summoned in the movement phase rather than the hero phase, but is otherwise the same.

Bretonnian Lord:

He now adds +1 to hit rolls for his lance on turns he charges rather than gaining +1 to wound rolls and +1 to damage. In addition, his "Courage of the Bretonni" special rule (preventing NOBILITY models within 10" from fleeing on a 4+) has been completely removed.

Paladin:

Renamed to Noble Champion. This warscroll is missing a save value in the PDF (but presumably it's still a 4+). He no longer has a shield special rule (which previously granted +1 to his save if he didn't charge that turn). His flavour text still mentions a shield though... His "Heroic Blow" ability (dealing D6 mortal wounds on a 3+ instead of his usual attacks) has been removed, but he now gains +1 damage against DAEMON and DEATH units. He also gained the "Virtue of Empathy" special rule, which lets PEASANTRY units within 6" use his bravery for battleshock tests.

Paladin Standard Bearer:

Renamed to Noble Standard Bearer. Now makes 4 attacks with his sword instead of 5, but it gets +1 damage against DAEMON and DEATH units. His banner has been changed to let you re-roll battleshock tests for NOBILITY units within 12". His "Follow Me to Glory!" special rule (letting NOBILITY units re-roll charges) has been removed.

Damsel of the Lady:

Renamed to a Damsel. Otherwise identical.

Knights Errant:

Their shields now let them re-roll saves of 1 if they charged, rather than adding 1 to save rolls. In addition they no longer have any bonus for being in a unit of 10 or more models.

Knights of the Realm:

When in a unit with 10 models or more, they now re-roll ones to hit rather than gaining an extra attack with their lances. Their shields now let them re-roll saves of 1 if they charged, rather than adding 1 to save rolls. Their "Virtue of Knightly Temper" (granting +1 bravery if a FREE PEOPLE HERO was within 8") has been removed.

Questing Knights:

Their shields now let them re-roll saves of 1 if they charged, rather than adding 1 to save rolls. Otherwise unchanged.

Grail Knights:

Their shields now let them re-roll saves of 1 if they charged, rather than adding 1 to save rolls. The "For the Lady!" ability (granting re-rolls to hit) has been removed (though note you can still give them re-rolls to hit via the Enchantress). Additionally, their lance attacks now gain +1 damage against DAEMON and DEATH units - this is independent of, and in addition to their charge bonuses.

Pegasus Knights:

Their shields now let them re-roll saves of 1 if they charged, rather than adding 1 to save rolls. They can no longer pile in and attack twice if they charged that turn. Their musician now lets them roll 3D6 (rather than 4D6) and pick the two highest when charging.

Battle Pilgrims:

They no longer gain the NOBILITY keyword when carrying a reliquae.

Men-at-Arms:

They lost the relic bearer upgrade, which granted them an unbind. Their banner now lets them re-roll battleshock tests instead of adding to their bravery. The "Virtue of Empathy" special rule (which gave them +1 to hit if there was a PALADIN within 8") has been removed.

Peasant Bowmen:

Have been affected by all the same changes as the Men-at-Arms above. In addition, they now lose their braziers and stakes if they move or are attacked in the combat phase. The stakes now deal D3 mortal wounds to a unit that ends a charge within 3" of them (before you rolled a D6 for each model that finished a charge move within 1"; on a 6 its unit took a mortal wound). Finally, the champ now makes fewer attacks during an Arrowstorm.

Mounted Yeomen:

Their banner now lets them re-roll battleshock tests instead of adding to their bravery. The "Virtue of Empathy" special rule (which gave them +1 to hit if there was a PALADIN within 8") has been removed. Their shields now let them re-roll saves of 1 if they charged, rather than adding 1 to save rolls. Their musician only lets them add 1 to run rolls now (it added 2 previously). They can't run anymore when making their free move before the game starts.

Field Trebuchet:

The "Virtue of Courage" (which let the crew ignore battleshock if a PALADIN was within 8") has been removed. If shooting at a unit it can't see, it now suffers a -1 to hit penalty.

And that's it! As you can see, there have been a LOT of changes, large and small; hopefully this post makes some of them a bit clearer! Feel free to post feedback, point out things I've missed, and give your own thoughts on the changes to our army and where you're planning to go with Brets from here. I might follow up with some tactical thoughts and first impressions, but this post is ridiculously long already so I'll leave it there for now

Thanks for reading, and I hope some of you have found this post informative or useful - may the Lady's blessing always be upon you!

 

[Cerve]

Nice thread! For what can I say for now, I guess Bretonnia should run something like a monoleaders right now, more than big units of knights.

They struggle with the 3+ Battlelines thought. 

[Artobans Ghost]

Where do you find all the warscrolls. The new compendium only lists some of these. Or do you have to look up the model and retrieve the Warscroll? 

[SentinelGuy]

They've been hit hard with the nerf bat. I think we're now better off running a mix of free guild archers as bowmen and free guild guard as men at arms because the Bret versions are unbearably useless. The Leon change is wonderful for taking multiple hippogryph lords though. I can see myself doing that if I can find another model somewhere. I'm struggling to see any relevant point to knights errant, the Knights of the realm are superior if you wanted mounted battleline.

I guess we should count ourselves lucky that grail and questing knights are still good.

[Xin]

The only pro of this change is multiple lords but why oh whe did they nerf bertonnians I can't understend

[Cerlin]

Note that if you delete old bretonnians in your app, hard close it, and reopen, you get the new stats.

The paladin gets his old shield ability straight into his base save, which is a 3+, which is better than I expected. 

Knights of the realm get to reroll 1s to hit on charge with 10 or more which is solid, if not as good as 2 attacks.  Compare these to what happened to empire knights and I think knights of the realm win hands down.

The bretonnian Lord still gets his Pegasus and is a 3 + save rerolling 1s to save on charges. He is also still monsters bane which is great. I'll probably use my Pegasus knights as lords.

Overall I think that bretonnians did better than I expected. 

[Baron Klatz]

Oh, I didn't notice the paladin defense buff. That's pretty good.

So meta-to-fluff view, the Kingdoms of the mortal realms have skillful leaders and noble knights born through the rigors of the age of chaos that lead the Freeguild soldiery to battle or fight alongside their demigryph knight orders and at times ally with other Order races to safeguard the realms.

Yeah, that works for me.

[Oppenheimer]

I made a revised version that improved rather than nerfing them like GW did. Brought them more in line with free guild points and abilities while still keeping the fluff that was added in this one if anyone's interested.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jgnwpxbhc7stpnb/AoS_BRET_Compendium_2017 V2.pdf?dl=0

[Davariel]

14 hours ago, Artobans Ghost said:

Where do you find all the warscrolls. The new compendium only lists some of these. Or do you have to look up the model and retrieve the Warscroll? 

The latest version of all the Bretonnian warscrolls is listed in the new compendium; you won't find a warscroll for King Louen Leoncoeur, but you will find the King on Hippogryph which replaced him. 

Above I've organised them according to the older names since I was interested in comparing the two (and where a unit's name changed I've noted it).

15 hours ago, Cerve said:

Nice thread! For what can I say for now, I guess Bretonnia should run something like a monoleaders right now, more than big units of knights.

They struggle with the 3+ Battlelines thought. 

Yeah, battleline was Bretonnia's big weakness before thanks to their awkward unit sizes, and sadly their options have only gotten worse. Using other Order battleline to support a strike force of elite knights + hero support is probably the way to go nowadays.

10 hours ago, SentinelGuy said:

They've been hit hard with the nerf bat. I think we're now better off running a mix of free guild archers as bowmen and free guild guard as men at arms because the Bret versions are unbearably useless.

Yeah, I was honestly a bit shocked at how badly the peasants got hit. Especially the poor yeomen who received 5(!) different nerfs! Who knew GW considered Mounted Yeomen such a terror

9 hours ago, Xin said:

The only pro of this change is multiple lords but why oh whe did they nerf bertonnians I can't understend

Some of the changes I think were good for flavour, balance and simplicity; stuff like Pegasus Knights rolling 4D6 and picking the 2 highest on the charge and the Fay Enchantress' spell granting +2 to hit was a bit over the top and silly. It's good to see this sort of thing made more sensible.

Other changes like making our banners redundant with the Order allegiance ability (which you have to run in order to use Brets at all...) and the lord's lance getting a to hit buff instead of a wound/damage buff on the charge were downright dumb, and the sort of thing I'd really urge GW to take a second look at.

And of course, there's the elephant in the room - the points. It's absolutely inexplicable that GW put the effort into rewriting our entire warscroll compendium from the ground up yet did *nothing* to the points. Tomb Kings received point changes, so it's not an issue with updating compendium points; it just seems like they forgot. Most of the nerfs would have been much more palatable if GW had updated the points to reflect them (not to mention changed our awkward unit sizes - this alone would have fixed Knights Errant).

Bit busy at the moment but will follow up later with some tactical thoughts and more discussion about the good, the bad and the stupid. Stay tuned!

[Marc Wilson]

Just a quick add -  Stormcast can take Bretonians as allies as they have the Order keyword.

[Sactownbri]

For a dead army seems like a lot of wasted effort on GWs part. I think the loss of unique characters and the loss of the free people keyword is what disappoints me most. I am curious if they will now add these to the "order old models" program, at least the characters anyway, and that's why the focus. Heck it's not like people were crushing opponents in matched play tournaments with them.


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[Chris Tomlin]

On ‎28‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 6:57 AM, Marc Wilson said:

Just a quick add -  Stormcast can take Bretonians as allies as they have the Order keyword.

Beat me to it!  

This applies to all Compendium Order warscrolls.

[Marc Wilson]

 Definitely a place for some Human Knights in a Dracothian SCE army.

[Davariel]

On 8/28/2017 at 3:57 PM, Marc Wilson said:

Just a quick add -  Stormcast can take Bretonians as allies as they have the Order keyword.

Good catch! First post updated.

On 8/28/2017 at 11:59 PM, Sactownbri said:

For a dead army seems like a lot of wasted effort on GWs part.

I actually really appreciate GW taking the time to go through and clean up all the things that were written at the AoS launch that were a bit too extreme or clunky nowadays. There are a lot of good changes in the Bret compendium (and, admittedly, a lot of weird ones too). Meanwhile making everything more generic - much as I loved the old characters - does help the army fit the AoS world better. Brets are still a fantastic option for representing generic human kingdoms out in the realms!

I do wish they'd put a little of that effort into updating the points, though

[Melcar]

On 27/8/2017 at 8:42 PM, Oppenheimer said:

I made a revised version that improved rather than nerfing them like GW did. Brought them more in line with free guild points and abilities while still keeping the fluff that was added in this one if anyone's interested.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jgnwpxbhc7stpnb/AoS_BRET_Compendium_2017 V2.pdf?dl=0

I have a couple of comment regarding your otherwise fine piece of homebrew...

1) I don’t understand why you have kept the Peasant Archer bonus on charge... I don’t see this unit charging... ever! Is there a reason for this?

2) The Peasant Archers cost 12 points per model... that is too much IMO. I don’t think they should cost more than 8 pts. I also think the max unit size should be 40, so they can lose a few without losing they +2 to hit immediately. Maybe give a unit size bonus when maxed out, like you did with some of the other units.

3) In terms of looking further at the Archers, I would suggest, that when they don't move, they get another attack. That would seem like a nice synergy and mirror other archer units. (They should still only cost 8 points though).

4) Both the Damsel and Enchantress unique spells should have a range of 18 inches. They should also be able to use their healing ability on themselves.

5) Noble Champion’s command ability should have range 18 inches.

6) Sacred Protector should IMO have 6 wounds, 5 attacks and deal 1d3 wounds damage. And like the Death spirits should deal mortal wounds instead on a hit roll of 6.

7) Anointed Lord’s command ability should have a range of 18 inches

8) Achduke on Pegasus’s command ability should have range 18 inch.

 

Now I know you didn’t ask for it, but I took the liberty to anyways. Please see this as positive commentary. You did a great job and Bretonnia needs some love.

Cheers

 

PS: I would love to hear your thought on my suggestions! ?