Dealing With The Bretts

As the topioc says, im having trouble facing bretonnian. They are fast, hard hitting, and are hard to kill. I run a Tk 3x LP, 2x 23 skeles one with BoUL, 1 swarm, 2 scoprions, 4 ushabti, 1 giant, 1 SSC, and 4 carrion. Recently i've been using the scorpions to redircet but i feel that im not using them to benefit me the most ( i think they should be used to get some kills, and run down the fleeing units. Basically the game is mine to lose. my brother basiclaly just move foward and from there is it all about what i do. Personally i'm thinking my two skele units should take charger while scorpions, usabti, and giant flank. The only issue is how do i ditract 2-3 other lances while i deal with the first two? Any suggestions welcome

Sergrum

You should put this post on the TK tactic section.. But never mind, the administrators from this forum do that.. Against Brettonia, I need to know, you want a offensive or a deffensive army?
TK + 3LP, 3 Ushabti, BG, Chariots, Tomb Scorpions, Skeleton Heavy Horsemen, Carrions and Skeleton Warrios with Shield and LA;
or
LHP + 2 TP + 1LP, Skeleton Warriors with Bows, 2 SSC, Tomb Swarm, 2/3 Tomb Scorpions, 3 Ushabti;
What do you prefer?

i woulldnt bother going so magic heavy against brets. they aren't that powerful in magic, so a King, prince and 2 LPs are more than enough to get your spells through. not to mention since brets will go CC very quickly, the combat heroes will be more useful than spellcasters. the fact that you dont break is a very big advantage for you. cavalry is powerful only on the charge, and unless he's able to get a massive CR against you, that usually means you'll still be standing there after the first round of combat. with a few combat heroes you can turn the battle in your favor. get a prince with the blade of Setep, and field your regiments deep so that you still have a few ranks if you take casualties.

hehe, you forgot to mention the obvious! BE SURE TO GET THE CHARGE! never let a regiment of grail knights charge you!. use many combat heroes and use the blade of setep and flail of skulls or a great weapon. Use the catapult and try to make him flee and remember that lances aren't very big, so usually one-two hits with the catapult would make them suffer a panic test. Make use of your fear and outnumber him! use your ushabtis and your bone giant to get through their armour. Once again, the skull catapult is marvellous! their armour save are totally useless against aggressive, flying skulls!

Obviously this is important, however, i did not forget to mention. In fact, i chose not to mention it since the brettonian army is made up primarily of knights that can move 8" AND march. Put that against our core 4" movers that CAN'T march, and theres a tactical piece of advice you dont need to bother mentioning

Of course, that said, it would be possible to use chariots and horsemen to deter your opponent from moving into charge range. however, with brettonian armor saves against S4 attacks, not to mention the ward save from the ladies blessing, i would advise NOT putting in chariots and cavalry at all, and instead trying to put in as many regiments of 25 skeletons and Catapults as possible.

I'd like to at this moment add another point which i am actually surprised i forgot to mention earlier, in addition to the Blade of Setep. As Dragua said, getting the charge in any combat is critical, which is why i thought of this at this time. The Crook and Flail of Radience on a Tomb King. An extra attack, as well as striking first is a sure guarantee of weakening a brettonian charge. I would also give the king the golden Ankhra, since armor saves are not going to provide much protection against lances. a 4+ ward save, however, will. or, the collar of Shapesh and Vambraces of the Sun makes another great combo, especially for fighting challenges.

I understand what you guys are saying, but i play with a set list to take on all commers, so i will not be changing my list (it's for a GT). My own persoanl observeations is i need to let the skeles get charged, flank with scrops, giants and ushabti, and use all the magic i have to heal back the skeles. after the inital charge bretts are not hard to get rid of if they are tangeld with a skele unit.

Sergrum

thats pretty much what you have to remember, once in combat and without lances, brets are not much tougher than Empire infantry with a better armor save. The only thing you have to remeber is that Brettonian heroes can make the difference against your skeleton regiments, so you'll need to use your own CC heroes to counter them.

Moved to specific army tactics...

Also I believe there are a few other Bretonnian Topics in there, if you have a look around Sergrum...

I just studied the Brets a little more intensively, as I will move on to Brets sometime next year (probably).

Grailknights will get 10-14 S6 attacks on the charge. That is really bad news against any target.

But even the standard Knights will get 8 S5 attacks. Add banner and 2 ranks and your almost there to kill even a 25 strong unit of skellies. Put in a paladin with army standard and a duke that can reroll all to hit and to wound and all armor saves (0+ armor saves) and that has the 5+ blessing from the lady you'll even smash 25 skellies with a full grown king in it.
two more units of of knights and your almost invincible. Even if your enemy gets close enough to charge you simply flee with the charged unit. The enemy can't redirect because he could have charged the other two unit in the first place. That leaves him open to the lances charge. 2 lances (with a duke and paladin in them as described) charging will break anything!

So simply using big blocks of skellies and heros can't be the answer.
You have to use light cavalry. ??? Why that?

To redirect! take a block of skellies and place a unit of light cav in front of it at an angle. So that only one unit can charge the block and the other has only the light cav to charge.
a) If the bret charges the cav with both/all his lances he is either open to flank charge or ends up in nirvana when he overruns.
if he charges one each then you can deal with them one at a time with a) being true for the other one.
c) if he charges only with one unit then:
- you charge him into the flank with the light cav
- he charges the light cav and consequently breaks up his flee-and-charge duo/trio and you have another round to shout at the bast...

Either way you win... if not the game then at least some VP.

Over all I find brets the toughest of all our enemies. The typical tourney setup is really really hard to beat.

Nedorus

stonethrowers are the key to killing off brets. S4 on the template except for the model in the center means no armor saves, and only a 6+ ward as the hits are not S5+

thats true. but you can't depend on a catapult . I was about to collect bretts before i began on Tomb Kings. Their magic is quite irritating also. With the lore of life they can place a mage within a forest and terrorise troops all over the battlefield with their spells which doesn't have a limit in range or need line of sight...Well, i can't find a good way to beat them. If i were to use Nedorus tactic i would have to change my whole list, and thats not something i would like to do. The only things i have found working is Ushabtis and bone giants, because of their high strength. But that also means that the knights ward save goes up to 5+.
I can imagine that a regiment of tomb guards would be quite effective, because of their killing blow, but they would not fit in my army either. It's sad but i don't think we have a good tactic for an balanced Tomb Kings army which could compete with brettonias might!

I am a bretonnian player so i know what is good i would be careful if grail knights and pegasus knights. Also underestimate peasant bowmen but you can just counter them with your bowmen