I want a "good" army.

After getting sizable forces of ogres and dark elves I am itching to have a "good" army to play.  I want this army to be the most fluffy.  I have narrowed it down to a tree spirit wood elf army or a bretonnian army.

Tree spirit pros:
Trees!
Treeman and treekin conversion opportunities
Pretty uncomplicated
Tree spirit cons:
Getting shot to bits
restricted to one magic lore
One dimensional

Bretonnian pros:
Pretty
The fortified manor makes the most sense
Bretonnian cons:
Kind of redundant with like 5 different knights
Metal/finecast

I am torn.  I want to stick with all plastic models.  I won't be starting this new army until my ogres and elves are fine though so hopefully there will be a new army book for either of them.

Both of the armies you listed can be good in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing.  Of the two, Bretts are clearly the superior army, game wise, but two of the strongest players I know (both top 50 US guys) play woodies as their main army and do well with them.  The tree spirit army has worked best for me, but it really does place some serious limitations on your magic selection, so if magic is a strong part of your tactical toolbox, I would lean towards bretts.  If on the other hand you like a smashface army with some degree of finesse in the movement and shooting phases, woodies are a very workable army, or at least better than Tomb Kings.

I play both armies off and on, though only the bretts competitively, and I have had the easiest time with Bretts.  I like them because they play in all phases of the game, though they do not excell in any one phase.  They also have a nice varied selection of units to choose from and good magic phase options.  Speaking from a tournament standpoint, I consistantly went 4-1 with them the year I played them with two best general awards to show for it.  They do tend to hit a brick wall when facing down the power armies out there, but Woodies have it worse in that department.

Are there any good alternate models for brets?  Knights just look too similar to me.

You might luck out with some historicals or Exhillis ones, but basically, not really.  There is a lot of variation in the Realms kit, though.  I use a lot of reaper stuff and a couple out of print Ragnarok models for my characters in that army, if memory serves.  I also swapped in High Elf horses for some units (fluff wise they are using that, anyhow) to set some units apart.  None of the alternatives I saw were cheap, though, except for the out of print Exhillis stuff, but its kind of meh.

Try these for Brets

http://www.fireforge-games.com/

Those look pretty good.  Ive already been in contact with a guy that has a really nice trebuchet sculpt that hes working on, and cheap!

Are there any good alternate models for brets?  Knights just look too similar to me.

Gamezone has some AMAZING bret models. Seriously fantastic quality and I've seen them in the flesh. They're also pretty expensive.

http://gamezoneminiatures.de/feudalritter.html?___store=gamezone_english&___from_store=gamezone_german

Here is a nice treb model and pretty cheap compared....

http://www.mfpilot.com/plastic-models/other/medieval-trebuchet-siege-engine-catapult-1-72-zvezda-kit

I have ruled out the Forest Spirit army.  Bretonnians are in 1st place with a surprise addition, Night Goblins.  Way I see it I already have two competitive armies in Ogres and Dark Elves so why not have a fun army?  I've been frantically trying to finish my dark elf conversions to justify starting another army and I managed to finish my cauldron (using scragg's pot) and scratch build a pretty nice dreadlord.  Just need to finish the cloaks on my Shades and repose some spearmen and crossbowmen.

If you look into older Bret models, you can get a wide variety of poses.  The older metals are very prolific in style while the newer plastics offer greater variety over the old plastics.

John M>