Thought I would give a quick theory hammer run down of our troops.

Rating System

****best
*** Good
**ok,
*not so good

Heroes

King Louen Loeoncoer****
Better than in our previously outdated book. Definitely worth taking in larger battles as he prevents troops taking battle shock tests the whole army is essentially ItP while he is alive. His stats are pretty good vs. heroes and monsters. The King of the realm rule is pretty good for knight cavalry heavy armies as they add +1 to the to hit rolls on the turn they charge.
An added bonus of this guy is he can unbind 1 spell similar to a wizard.

Fay Enchantress****
The ultimate mage of Bretonnia healing D3 wounds on a model great for keeping those heroes and Pegasus alive. Chalice of potions 2+ to cast a spell which cannot be unbound. The Favor of the Fay also seems a reasonable spell adding +2 to the to hit rolls of a cavalry (riders only) unit within 16"s.

Green Knight***
Seems ok for warmachine hunting still but with only 5 wounds and only a 50% chance of turning up each turn. He does however have a permanent 3+ AS and 6+ WS so may still have some sort of use. Especially for getting behind the enemy lines to get at war machines and heroes.

Bretonnian Lord***
The 2 rules he has Courage of the realm and Lord of the Realm make him pretty useful for helping knights get their charges off and for rallying fleeing troops. Keep him close to your knights. Put him on a Pegasus as there is no longer a look out sir at present anyway.

Paladin***
Not sure how good this guy is until a bit of play testing, but his Heroic Blow seems nice and fluffy D6 wounds to a model with no saves seems good if he manages to hit the target. 3 stars if using peasants for his bonuses in leadership, etc.

Paladin BSB***
+1 to the bravery of all units within 15"s seems pretty useful. Re-rolling charges of nearby units also seems good but only if he makes a successful charge. Interestingly you can take more than 1 of these guys if you wish, maybe in bigger battles.

Damsel/Prophetess***
Put her on a Pegasus as there is no downside for this that I can see. Aura of the lady healing 1 wound a turn yes please, this now includes our wounded knights. Blessing of the lady is nice basically giving a unit a 5+ ward save. Tempting to take more than 1 of these girls but how many is to many? .

Knights

Cavalry have 2 wounds each which is great. Pegasus 4 wounds each.

Grail Knights****
Grail Vow: Permanent hatred is great especially with 4 attacks per model, also a built in BSB (Grail Banner) for battle shock tests at leadership 7. Downside is limited 1" reach so run them wide in 1 rank.

Pegasus Knights****
Swooping Charge: Pile in and attack twice (nice!). The extra range of 2"s for the riders means you can run these guys 2 deep if you want to. Banner to re-roll battle shock tests and 4 wounds per Peg Knight. Lower bravery than the Grail knights at 6. Downside is no rend so avoid heavily armored troops.

Questing Knights****
These are great vs. Monsters doing double damage and re-rolling charge if Monster within 12". However similar limitation to the Grail Knights so one rank deep due to the 1" reach. The riders do wound on 3's rather than 4's which is a bonus and the rend helps punch through armour.

Knights of the Realm***
Similar stats to the Grail knights but riders have the 2" reach so you can run these units larger than 10 for the extra rider attack otherwise the rider only gets 1 attack. Also keep close to a hero for the extra bravery +1. Once they get below 10 become less effective so units of 12+ and 2 ranks deep seems good.

Errant Knights**
As for the KoTR however keep them within 18"s of a Damsel and you get to re-roll 1's even if less than 10 models in a unit. Otherwise keep them bigger than 10 for the re-rolls. Can keep them 2 ranks deep as for KoTR due to 2" reach. Only bravery 5 so more likely to run away.

Filthy peasants!

Battle Pilgrims**
Technically not peasants as they are classed as nobility. Re rolling save rolls of 1 or 2 is pretty nice if with a Grail Reliquae (who would take them without it?). Also adding 1 to the to hit rolls as well.

Men at Arms**
These guys are pretty usable now in blocks of 30+ they get +2 to hit so hitting on 3's. The tower shield also gives them a 5+ save if they didn't charge. Also you can add +1 to hit if within 8"s of a Paladin so they could be hitting on 2's which is really nice. Their low leadership is a problem so full command plus heroes nearby will help if not using King Loue. The 2" reach is also nice so you could run these guys in 3 or more ranks.

Peasant Bowmen***
Arrow storm seems awesome so save the shots for the right target and shooting in to combat would seem useful. Paladin nearby +1 to hit for shooting and close combat to hit rolls yes please. Burning Braziers auto include for free re-roll wounding rolls. Full command useful they need the +1 to bravery for the banner and the +1 for a hero if the King isn't in the army.

Mounted Yoemen**
Unsure of these guys, they are fast cavalry and get a free run move and also have bows so seem good on paper with a 5+ AS. Keep a Paladin nearby and +1 to hit. Anti war-machines maybe?

Field Trebuchet****
With its long range and auto hitting units of 10+, and shooting into combat this is still a really good unit now 2D6 damage with a full crew. I had to paint up extra crew for my Trebs.

Battalion Special Rules

1. Defenders of the Realm**

Form the Lance**
Re-rolling 1's to wound on the charge for all your troops is quite nice.

Virtue of Stoicism*
Re roll battle shock tests if the unit charged is ok but the units already have this if they take a banner. So really only useful on characters such as your Lord.

2. Peasant Militia***

Peasants Duty***
Re rolling 1's to hit if peasant's did not move seems pretty good, especially useful on the 2nd and successive rounds of combat.

In it together*** also seems useful to make the peasants leadership higher for battle shock tests.

Battalion Summary
In summary the Peasants Duty seems really good and certainly makes peasants more viable. While Defenders of the Realm is there if you are taking that style of list anyway.

I ran some Yeomen yesterday. They were OK. They screened my KOTR wall with their scout move. Ate a cannon shot first turn (3 casualties), held, then ate a round of shooting from 10 thunderers. Maybe not 3 stars but they did save the lance some wounds. I couldn't think of a way to get them into combat with the cannon. If they scouted up toward it they would have been charged easily. If you go second, scout up and win the roll to go first in round 2.. I could see it. But that is a lot of ifs.

Apart from a screen, I don't see how they'll be much use. Now that everything in the game is so much more maneuverable, they can't sneak up a flank to get at something. And really, they may not be a very effective screen, as they're smaller models than knights and LoS is just whether the attacking model can see the target model, and there are no penalties to shooting through enemy units. If your Yeomen were deployed in a skirmish formation, your opponent likely made a tactical mistake shooting at the yeomen versus the knights. Can't think like 8th anymore; this game is much simpler.

Mounted Yoemen
Thanks for the info guys I have re evaluated the Mounted Yoemen and put them back to 2 stars even though they can shoot. I think I will run them in units of 10 when i use them.

Trebuchets
I have also made the Trebuchets 3 stars as they are better than I thought they would be. They can hit things at range and what I didn't realise is they get 2 shots with a full crew, add to this auto hitting larger units and you get 2D6 hits at -2 rend which is nice.

Paladin
With only 5 wounds this guy isn't very resilient I have dropped him to a ** rating due to this.

I conga lined them sideways. He could -probably- have made an LOS on the knights but we nether of us are "that guy".

Paladin
With only 5 wounds this guy isn't very resilient I have dropped him to a ** rating due to this.

I think your initial rating was better. A Paladin is obviously a support character and should not be used as a frontal assault character in anyway.

He makes Peasant Archers and Men at arms All hit on 4+ instead of 5+s if he is within 8'' . This is HUGE when you consider how many attacks Large mobs of Men at arms can get off, and ARrowstorm on peasants.

He can also do d6 Mortal wounds , allowing no saves. Lucky rolls on monsters will deal MASSIVe damage. He can take out Lords!

He also will have more armor than Knights of the Realm will on average. He has +1 to his save if he hasn't charged, where as KoTR have have +1 if they have charged.

So as a support character among peasants, he is the peasants BEST option in my opinion. there's lots of units that support "Free People" but the Paladin seems to have the best for combat ability. Stick a Paladin behind a unit of 30 archers. 30 x 3 attacks with arrowstorm.. and Having peasants hit 50% on 4's of the time is much better than rolling 5's and 6's !

Great work, Sir Percival, at compiling such a thought out assessment of our valiant troops.

Though it's a shame that our errants and yeomen have taken a hit in their use it's still good to know they have potential still on the battlefield. Truly these warscrolls are a blessing, such flavorful and useful abilities for all the legacy armies is hard to believe.

It's hard to choose my favorite things about our warscroll, so much of it is great, but I think questing knights and damsels are my top-rated models. Character wise, our noble king is a glorious sight to see on the battlefield again.

I do believe that the Fay Enchantress spell also affect mounts. Hooves are still weapons, unless I have missed something.

The Green Knight should have a star more IMHO. He can fly, and can come back to the battle with full Wounds forever.

The Paladin is a "ok" choice in and of itself, but if you see how many cool abilities he can pass on to several other units, you will see that having 2-3 Paladins in the army is a very good choice! All still just my opinion, of course.

Maclav wrote:
I conga lined them sideways. He could -probably- have made an LOS on the knights but we nether of us are "that guy".

Eh, I'm not sure if it's a "that guy" approach. In 8th it was addressed by giving the unit hard cover; now it's simply not addressed.

I thought the new rules were supposed to make formations like the conga line obsolete?

Re: Paladins, I believe Wiegraf and the good Duke have the right of it -- this game is about synergy more than direct hitting power, and one lone paladin can boost all peasants within 8". With the right deployment of those peasants, you can also ensure that he can never be charged, but he's available to charge in and lend support to any of the peasants nearby. If something does try to pick on him, they need to be wary he doesn't do a whirlwind attack and deal 6 mortal wounds.

Frankly, I think he's worth an extra star just because we can finally use all our foot knight models from decades ago, but it would be a poor, poor decision to not take at a minimum 1-2 when fielding other peasants (minus the GR).

Conga line or war caterpillar?

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yUohVoGOwxI

Upgraded the Green Knight to 3 stars will give him a test run in the near future.

Wiegraf wrote:
Paladin
With only 5 wounds this guy isn't very resilient I have dropped him to a ** rating due to this.

I think your initial rating was better. A Paladin is obviously a support character and should not be used as a frontal assault character in anyway.

He makes Peasant Archers and Men at arms All hit on 4+ instead of 5+s if he is within 8'' . This is HUGE when you consider how many attacks Large mobs of Men at arms can get off, and ARrowstorm on peasants.

He can also do d6 Mortal wounds , allowing no saves. Lucky rolls on monsters will deal MASSIVe damage. He can take out Lords!

He also will have more armor than Knights of the Realm will on average. He has +1 to his save if he hasn't charged, where as KoTR have have +1 if they have charged.

So as a support character among peasants, he is the peasants BEST option in my opinion. there's lots of units that support "Free People" but the Paladin seems to have the best for combat ability. Stick a Paladin behind a unit of 30 archers. 30 x 3 attacks with arrowstorm.. and Having peasants hit 50% on 4's of the time is much better than rolling 5's and 6's !

I agree changed it back again to 3 stars for Paladin.

Im starting to see in battle reports where shooting is just OP and kudos to Brettonian Peasant Archers. Apparently in AoS shooting is starting to be king until people find a way around it.

Warmachines are shooting twice with no LOS requirements and something like d6 wounds with -2 rend. That is like 2 twin linked lascannons. Imagine a treb or cannon hitting heavy cav with 2 d6 rend -2 wounds.

Also hearing peasan bowmen that double fire is at least 40 shots. This will most likely auto kill most monsters and heros not to mention wip out troops.

Just a suggestion to consider shooting and and extra start just because its shooting.

If you block a Vampire lord with your unit of troops in CC. Then take the free move out of CC leaving the Vampire kill all Lord standing there by himself. Point your shooting at the VC and its dead.

Just some ideas and observations from others battle reports.

Dirtywolf wrote:
Im starting to see in battle reports where shooting is just OP and kudos to Brettonian Peasant Archers. Apparently in AoS shooting is starting to be king until people find a way around it.

Warmachines are shooting twice with no LOS requirements and something like d6 wounds with -2 rend. That is like 2 twin linked lascannons. Imagine a treb or cannon hitting heavy cav with 2 d6 rend -2 wounds.

Also hearing peasan bowmen that double fire is at least 40 shots. This will most likely auto kill most monsters and heros not to mention wip out troops.

Just a suggestion to consider shooting and and extra start just because its shooting.

If you block a Vampire lord with your unit of troops in CC. Then take the free move out of CC leaving the Vampire kill all Lord standing there by himself. Point your shooting at the VC and its dead.

Just some ideas and observations from others battle reports.

There's no need to retreat out of CC -- you can just shoot into combat with no penalties whatsoever.

And peasant bowmen don't double fire at 20 models, they quadruple their fire with arrow storm...

The actual write up is this:

Arrowstorm: Once during the battle this
unit can shoot an Arrowstorm in their
shooting phase; when they do so you can
triple the number of attacks made by their
Longbows. If the unit has 20 models or
more, quadruple the number of attacks
instead. Peasant Bowmen cannot shoot an
Arrowstorm if there are any enemy models
within 3".