A Tale of 1 Warden #4: Rules Lawyerin'

Its been raining on and off the whole weekend so far and I can't get a good picture of my Archers to save my life. Trust me, I have eight Archers finished aside frim the basing and as soon as light returns to our world photographic evidence will be provided. I absolutely need to invest in one of those light tents people keep talking about and come payday I will.

So instead let's discuss the rules I'll be using to play this army.

The Bretonnia book is fourteen years old and two editions out of date. It isn't bad exactly and its hardly unplayable. Having core troops with a two-plus save does wonders for power creep. The lance formation just doeesn't do much anymore. In a world of supporting attacks a full lance formation of nine knights gets nine lance attacks (including champion) and seven horse attacks. Under the same rules a unit of ten knights in two ranks gets eleven lance attacks and five horse attacks.

The lance is obviously inferior and it shouldn't be. A Bretonnian cavalry charge should be one of the most terrifying things to face down in the Warhammer World.

Luckily, Mathias Eliasson and his Warhammer Armies Project come to the rescue on a shining steed. I'll be mostly using the eighth edition version of the book (his website now hosts a version compatible with his own 9^th edition rules but its essentially the same, as far as I can see).

I love this book, for the most part. There is one area in which I'll still be following the 2003 rules and that's peasants. Eliasson has raised Men-At-Arms and Battle Pilgrims to WS3 and that just doesn't work for me. I see why he did it but I want to maintain a distinction between the disciplined and trained troops of the Empire and the grubby indentured rabble of Bretonnia.

That aside, the book is basically perfect. Eliasson's version of the Blessing Of The Lady is much more fitting to the background with a 6+ Ward in combat and a 5+ Ward at range against the cowards' weapon that kills from afar. His lance formation confers Devastating Charge which adds a welcome element of brown trousers time to my opponent's day whilst maintaining the formation's disadvantages, to wit a narrow frontage that won't get you many attacks back when charged and a flank the size of Wales.

He's expanded the Lores available to Damsels allowing them to take Heavens (previously only available to the Prophetess) and Light. The choices make sense: they're medieval knights so they get the astrology lore and the religion lore. There's also a homebrewed “Lore of the Lady” which I might experiment with down the line.

One of most bitter ongoing gripes with the army has been addressed: Pegasus Knights now have barding like the models do.

There's also the fact that the 2003 book had a rather limited range of units and characters. Its not surprising. It was a lower tier army, it was the sixth edition and so that meant the standard load out of two Lords, two Heroes, four Core choices, four Special, two Rare and an extravagant three special characters.

There are a bunch of old special characters with modern rules in the Eliasson book but what interests me more are the new units: Foot Knights, the Merry Men-esque Herrimaults and Hippogryph Knights. There's even a Robin Hood style character class to go along with the Herrimaults: the Faceless. It might not sound like much but it adds some extra variety to an army I know like the back of my hand.

Now I just have to apply the colour scheme it took me over a week to barely finish eight Archers with onto the other thirty-seven models in that Battalion.

Also to buy some things so I can actually provide pictures.