Introduction

            Bretonnian army is made out of basicly two types of units: the elite cavalry knight regiments, an the cheep peasent backup units. The structure which is needed in order for this unbalanced order to work is that the peasents duty is used to its fullest, i.e. that the knights constanly controll the peasent leadership. A problem may arrise, and this will be discused later, because the speed inferiority of the peasent units will either slow down the knights, or leave the peasents stranded on their own. In this perticular case, the knights are without backup, and under pressure to break their opponents or be defeated in second and subsequent turns of combat. The peasents on the other hand are left as easy targets for the enemy base line shooting and flanking troops.

            A sociologyst, and a philosopher, Max Webber once wrote : A lawyers prowess is not to make a strong case stronger, it is to make a weak case strong. The base thought of this article is to give hints and schemes, how to strenghten up the peasents, as knights are allready strong on their own.

            Another thing that is going to be examined is the use of the battle standard bearer, which although a free upgrade in Bretonnia is a great asset.

            The main center-discussion is about using the combination of two infantry units, the men at arms and the battle pilgrims.

The man at arms

            When analyzing the men at arms, we have to take into considiration the following aspects: thir combat skill, their leadership and their cost. In normal occasions it is not wise to except the men at arms to give sufficient cassulties because with weapon skill 2 it is not likely to hit. Their equipment brings forth another doubt: halbards or the hand weapon and shield. It is my experience that halbards are a good choice in rare cases (when the enemy has strenght 6 and the 4+ armour save would not be sufficient). So in most cases hand weapon and shield are the best choice. This is because the man at arms are primaraly a defansive unit, and you want to get the least casulties possible. Their weapon is their numbers, their standards that do not award victory points and their ranks.

            The other aspect is their leadership. There are two sollutions to this problem: (a) units, (b) characters. If you go with the sollution (a) you will acompany them with a single knightly unit which will secure your peasent units. (b) Either by leaving a character in the back or taking the virtue of empathy and fielding him with the troops, your peasents should be secured.

            The third aspect is cost, and it gives you a great deal of room. If you use the peasents properly you will get a trooper with 4+ armor save, leadership eight, standard wihich does not grant 100vp, all for 5 points. If you manouver well for a low cost you get solid troops – making a weak case strong.

The battle pilgrims

            To be as clear as possible – in my opinion, this is one of the most powerfull units in the army list. They do look like a rabble taken to the police station on the saturday night, but their statistics, and battle usage implicate otherwise. They are stubborn on leadership eight! That is a knightly leadership. And besides that, Bretonnia gets a bonus battle standard bearer. 

In sufficiant numbers, this men will pin almost everything. With the armour save of 4+, and the blessing wardsave. And to pin is of uttermost importance, because the knights, mighty as they are, have limited line of sight and broad flanks for the fast troops to capture. A stubborn unit, holding the main battle line and guarding the knights rear is very usefull.

            Their combat prowes is doubtfull but not to be underestimaded. Hatred gives them a great cure for their low weapon skill, and the ward save is brutal when used on a large unit like this. With three ranks, ward, hatred, stubborn, and the relic used as a standard which does not grant victory points, they are a wall in your center.

Numbers and formation

            The bigger, the better – I agree on that, but remember one thing. Men at arms may look powerfull in big numbers but a flank charge of a serious cavalry ends them. The trick is to make the unit strong, but expendable. So, when the enemy general calculates, he must find the men at arms unworthy because of their low victory points cost. A full command unit of tweny four men costs 147 points! 147 points that the enemy will not get easily. Thats the strenght of the men at arms. Som i would recomend a formation 24 men strong, either 6 men wide with four ranks – if you want to cover more space, or 5 men wide, with five ranks (24+hero)

            As for the pilgrims, take no less the 18 pilgrims + the relic. If the points provide you with sufficiant space, feel free to tke some more. The pilgrims frontage has to be wider. Six men wide, and four ranks should be a minimum, because they cover more ground, and have more attacks. Remember that the relic alwys strikes with four attacks.

Leaders and equipment selection

            Iz is healthy to have a hero in both units, and it is imperative to have the full command in all the units of the men at arms. There are two ways of taking heroes for this units: (a) Knight with the virtue of empathy on foot (b) Mounted knight in infantry ranks.

            Although, statisticly, the (b) chioce would be preferable, but I would recommend (a). If you take the mounted knight he will have a better armour save, and more points for magical items, as he will not be obliged to take the virtue of empathy (although he could). On the other hand you will get tempted to ride out of the unit and help the knights, which will leave the cmmoners alone. If, on the other hand you are tacticly disciplined there are a few more reasons why to choose alternative (a). The first argument is that you can make a knight with the same armor save, as a mounted knight (enchanted shield, heavy armour, hand weapon shield). If you choose to take a magice weapon, a 3+ armor save is not bad. A good combination would be to take the sword of might. The second argument is that a foot knight is more destructive with the great weapon. Giving your footknight a great weapon will decrese his armour but make him destructive against chargers. It is also a good combo to take the armour of agillulf and the biting blade. The third argument is that you can cast the bears anger, the first spell from the lore of the bestas on your foot knight making him a good fighter with toughness 5 (toughness 5, ward save 6 or 5…Is it a strigoi?…)!  The forth argument is that a foot hero can chase the enemy mages if the situation provides it, because he has 360 line of sight (when he leavse the unit ofcourse).

            You can take one or two heroes. Two is stronger, but your peasent infantry line will work just fine with one hero in the pilgrim unit.

            As for the equipment for the men at arms, I prefer hand weapon shield. I never took spears, and use halbard only when there is no chance of armor saving.

Magic item trics for peasent infantry

Basicly there are three items I would point out : The Ruby goblet, The braid of Bordeaux, and the Prayer Icon of Quenlass.

            The ruby goblet is a great thing to strenghten your infantry against chargers who will surely wound you on 2+. In a unit of knights the goblet is not so useful because you do not want your knights to be charged, and if htey are charged, this three plus wound is not much of a conselation. But when a cavalry charges it needs all the wounds it can cause. The only problem is that you have to suffer a wound. Hope the enemy shooting will take care of that. Overall, good but risky.

            The braid is a good thing but maybe too expensive. I mentioned it just to be an option. It can come in handy if a unit gets stranded, but it is not universaly useful.

            The prayer icon, on the other hand is, and it is a great option for a footmage. If your men at arms get the blessing + the goblet, you can imagine the extent of the damage and surprise they can do to enemy chargers..

The tactics

I will lay out three tactics. The second one seems most efficiant to me:

1. Peasent middle
2. Flanking elite & hard centar (Scipio tactic at the battle of Kana)
3. The March of doom

Peasent middle – this tactic forms a peasent line in the middle, not only theese two units mentioned earlier but the works : longbowman, skirmishers, trebuchet, yeomen, men at arms, pilgirms…All of them form a batle line in the centar and the two heroes with the virtue of empathy control all the forces with their leadership. The men at arms and the pilgirms are put beside one another, and their heroes on their flanks to conrol the line with their superior leadership. The line stands, and the knights try to outflank the enemy. When the enemy exposes its flaks to the centre, the peasent line begins its march to capture the centers flank.

Flanking elite and hard centre – this tactic is similar to the first one with few exceptions. The centar line is formed out of three units : the men at arms, the grail pilgrims and one unit of knights. Other knight units go on flanks, and the other peasents can support which ever part of the battlefield you choose. The flanking units are not as agressive as in the peasent middle mode, and the line marches straight to the centar of the bettlefield, awaiting to get charged. The flanking knights will threaten the enemy flanks to aid the middle, and try to capture one of the enemy units while turnued to rear or flank. The question is which knights go to the centre? My first choice are the questing knights. By fluff they are easy to fight along the pilgrims, and by stats they are good for long combats. The knightly unit always goes between the two peasent units, so that it may charge, when the peasents pin the charge. The other choice for the centar knights are the knights of the realm, bacause the errants are unreliable to hold their ground, and the grail knights are needed on the flank.

March of doom – this is a fluffy tactic with a cool name, but is not very reliable. You put all your knightly units in the middle, support the flanks with the man at arms, and the pilgrims, marcha ahead and prey for the best. Could work against slow enemys, but it is not universal.

Epilogue

The goal of this article was : (1) to show that it is fune and good to take peasents, and not only knights, (2) to show how you can make cheep troops strong, and useful. This is my first article, so I apologise for any gramatical or other tehncal errors, and hope that this article will be interesting as well as useful to you.

King Mislav