Archive - Ogre Kingdoms Vs Bretonnians

Some ideas:

Msu armies tend to have better chances against bretonians, as one unit can flee from a charge whilst the others then flank charge the unit in question. Against MSU armies, the only option is to bring goblin fanatics

Questing knights: the most vurnerable to shooting compared to other units. Not only do they come in small units, but they also only have a 3+ armour. Enter the leadbelchers, hit on 4s, wound on 3s, save on 5s
Never let these guys touch your ironguts, or most other units apart from gnoblars.

Knights of the realm: very hard, very fast, and very vurnerable to Gorgers, scraplaunchers and ironguts.
these are the units i would worry most about as they are large, have little weaknesses and have a 2+ armour save.

Knights errant: These are like knights of the realm, but easierst to bait as they have a compulsory charge rule, which will kick in about 30% of the time.

pegasus knights: these guys need to be taken out ASAP. Not only will they march block half your army, but they will be able to hunt down your butchers and destroy your magic phase. once again their 3+ armour save makes them vurnerable to leadbelcher shooting, and their small unit size also makes magic missiles a good choice, as it ignores the skirmishing penalties to hit.

peasants: declare a charge and watch em run.

units that work well against brets

gnoblars, gnoblars, gnoblars!!!
charge a unit of knights in the flank, and youll be able to pin them in place for an entire game, and maybe even kill one of them!. they make great bait, they can shoot and they give you combat resolution.

leadbelchers:
great at killing questing knights, pegasus knights and mounted yeomen. units of three are probabaly the best choice, and their armour piercing clubs really pay off against bretonians, as it makes knights fail their armour save 50% of the time.

butchers:
once again butcher lead the way, with bonecruncher, braingobbler and the bangstick being very effective.

scraplaunchers:
bit of a no brainer really, but some things to consider:
1)dont bother shooting it as units that are immune to psychology, as you want the maximum effect,
2)dont charge in too early, you want to get plenty of shots in before they hit your lines

1. Correction. Questies have a 2+ save vs. shooting (as they do come with a shield). They'll have a 3+ save in combat if they opt to use their GWs (as opposed to using a hw/shield, which would improve their save accordingly but drop their attacks to "only" S4).

2. From experience of running all sorts of Bret nastiness (and usually winning).

Bret strengths:
- Fast. Very fast. Especially in the hands of a good player, who'll have things smacking into you from multiple directions by Turn 3 at the latest. I won't even mention Flying Circuis builds.

- Some truly hard-hitting units and character setups, particularly on the charge. Especially considering that Ogres don't have much armour (as an example, 6 charging Grails will consistently drop any 2 r-n-f Ogres).

- Resilience. Sure they're mostly T3, but the 2+/3+ armour plus Ward saves means they're not very easy to drop.

- "Free" standards on peasants (i.e. you don't get VPs for them). All of a sudden that fast cav or man-at-arms unit becomes a dangerous weapon.

Bret weaknesses:

- Leadership. Can't stress that enough, especially for Bret MSU builds where much of the army operates outside of the general's Ld radius. Grails are immune, Questies get Psych rerolls and Errants are immune when charging, but generally Fear and (especially) Panic will do nasty things to the army. I won't even mention the non-knight units.

- Most of the units are pretty useless after the charge (S3 or, at best, S4 attacks). That means if you manage to hold and counter, the Brets will probably die from a combination of Panic checks and bad combat res.

- Not enough flank protection. Especially if you're running a non-MSU build (i.e. 9-strong units of knights - that's a 150mm flank!!). MSU Brets counter this by throwing out some KoR or Errants as quasi-fast cav, but still, with enough mobility and some charge traps...

- Can't survive attrition fights. Just not enough numbers (excluding Peasant Horde builds). Even if you're not killing a lot of knights on a given turn, by Turn 6 the Brets can be worn down to the point where they can't hold on to a victory anymore.

- Every unit has a champion. And can't refuse challenges without losing the Lady's Blessing. Need I say more.

- 90% of Bret players won't even consider letting their knights flee from a charge. [The other 10% tend to be very, very good.] Good to know when you've got someone with Longstrider and the Brets make the mistake of hanging out 13"-14" out, thinking themselves outside your charge range.

Useful OK units:

- Leadbelchers. Single most useful unit against Brets, namely because they a) have an effective 18" range and b) force a 4+ armour/6+ Ward, which is better than you'll get against most attacks. On average, 1 Belcher will do 2.5 hits, 1.7 wounds and 0.7 kills on a unit per volley. Multiply that by 6, and that unit of Grails gets reduced to dust.

More importantly, Belchers are shooters, which means that they can be used behind your main force to ward off any Pegasus Knights or flying characters (and believe me, if your opponent is good enough you will grow to utterly despise Pegasus Knights and flying characters). Now, on average even a volley of 2 Belchers will drop one whole PK, which a) will cause a Panic check on a Ld8 unit (28% chance to fail), and b) will serve as a powerful psychological deterrent to any flying shenanigans.

And, at the end of the day, Belcher units are (relatively) cheap, and if they survive can pummel some knights in HTH with more S4 armour-piercing attacks.

- Anything with a Tenderiser. Preferably a Tyrant with Longstrider.

I always hated this part. Every Bret unit (well, the knights anyway) gets a champion, which means any halfwit Orc Bigboss with a Sword of Whoozits has a chance of doing more damage than he'd normally be entitled to. Grails (where every _model_ is a champion) suffer from this especially. Now, it can go both ways - a viable strategy against certain characters/monsters is to keep challenging with one guy, losing just him, and having your knights' ranks/numbers/War Banner/whatever win the combat for you.

Doesn't work against a Tenderiser.

- Butchers. Specifically for the No-Save-Magic-Missile and Regen spells. Though they can be shut down in decent builds...

- "Naked" Bulls. Specifically 'cause they're cheap, but can still hurt the knights. Which means they can't be ignored by them, but can be used by _you_ to draw, trap, bait or just annoy the enemy.

- Units that didn't quite make the list - Scrappas (they're ok, especially for being US5, just not stellar), Yhetis (against bad Bret players they're awesome, but a good player will have a way of dealing with them), Ironguts (good all around, but each Gut's 3 attacks will only cause 0.56 unsaved wounds, in part thanks to the 5+ Ward the Brets will be getting).

Useless Ogre units:

- Maneaters. Yeah yeah, they're Stubborn. They're also Move 6. Enter Grail Knights and/or Questies, who should chew through 2-3 Maneaters in 1, maybe 2 turns.

- Ranked Gnoblars. Unless you drop >100, the knights will either avoid them or Overrun through unit after unit into your main line. Remember, Brets have speed, and so can and _will_ pick their fights. [Contrast with, say, Orcs or Dwarfs, who generally have no choice but to plow through your Greenskin slaves on their way to being flanked and butchered.]

Strategies:

- Against non-MSU. Those 9-12 man lances will hit something, and smash right through it. Might as well make sure that whatever they're hitting  (hint: naked Bulls...) is angled oddly enough for the rest of your army to take advantage.

Belcher flanking units come into their own here. The guns can reduce the most expensive lance (usually 9 or 8+character Grails) to an afterthought, and flank charges can do wonders on big lances.

Even if you don't take Belchers, just remember to have your first line bait the big lances, then to pounce. Chances are his flank protection won't be good enough to stop you (being that all the points are tied up in the juggernauts charging up the middle).

- Against MSU/Flying Circuis builds. For Pete's sake, play defensively. Make sure you do as much damage as possible from a distance, via Shooting/Magic/whatever. In MSU, individual units tend to lose their usefulness pretty quickly, so try to spread the damage around - killing 2-3 knights in a given regiment will suffice (and cause a few Panic tests to boot).

Once you have no choice but to get stuck in, make sure he can't double-team things very much. Sometimes it even pays to march up to within a couple of inches of him, daring him to charge, with a second line about 8" behind. If you deny him the chance to double your guys, your first line may actually hold (and remember, Brets don't deal with attrition well). Throwing out lots of "naked" Bulls in a line comes to mind.

Bottom line - Brets are far from invulnerable. That is not to say that a good Bret player can't dismember an Ogre army in 4 turns or less. He can. But, if you know what you're doing, you can still make his life fairly difficult, especially once the Panic/Fear checks start piling on.

i still maintain that a well-run MSU OK army can be the hardest for a brett player to face... use bait units to set up traps that your opponent will not see... like into a terrain piece... while he's extricating himself from that, you can flank him with other units...

other than the terrain trap, asnything else i can come up with has been / will be said

Beware of trebuchets too - they can blow away those big ogre units (D6 wounds).

Bretonnian knights are well protected with armour and ward save.  Some major effort is required when attacking them.  Seemingly powerful troops, even on flanking position, can see their attacks bouncing harmlessly off the knights' blessing.  e.g. 4 charging ironguts will perhaps cause only 2 wounds on average - whereas the knights with the numbers, full command, hero, fightback, can even win the combat and chase you down.  Always look for a flanking position and make a concerted effort when going against knights - e.g with tyrant joining, 2 units charging, etc.

As a Bretonian player, I can say that brets are very (and I mean very) hard to beat.

Brets’ strengths are:
1-fast moving heavy cav (M8, 16”charge is just sooo fast);
2-2+ armour save and a 6+/5+ ward save (I have never met a single bret player who doesn’t pray the lady of the lake, so count on it) sure grants a good protection;
3-lances: they are like tanks that run over the enemy, since they are made of ranks composed by 3 knights,  and every knight, in the front rank, and the ones in the sides of the rear ranks.

The brets’ weaknesses are (in random order):
1-magic, both offensive and defensive;
2-flanks (those lances are tough, but, when big units of knights have wide flanks);
3-overall low Ld;
4-most important: long hand to hand battles.

What can a bret player do, to overcome these weaknesses?
1-use magic resistance tools, and get into battle before the enemy can say "doh!", not a hard thing to accomplish, due to fast movement.
Also, I use fast cavalry to take down the lone mages, or heavy cavalry to charge the unit they are in;
2-use MSU (lances with 6 knights still deal 5 or more attacks on the charge -plus horses- , and have a 10cm flank, which is not that wide, after all).
    This remedy has a problem, though, that short lances mean fewer attacks on the charge, and less CR points, so this brings to point 4, of which you can read later.
3-I usually equip one unit of Knight errant with the errantry banner (which makes them immune to panic when they charge), and place a hero in each of the units (brets can have an additional hero, so that makes 5 in a 2k battle), for Ld8 (9 for the general).

What about the 4th problem?, you might ask, well, this is the MAIN problem a bret general has to face, so will try to avoid it in every way.

In 5th ed brets, all knights, placed in the sides of the lance, could attack every round; but in 6th ed, in the 2nd turn of melee, only the first rank of knights will attack, at WS4 (3 for the errants), St3, T3. These are very poor stats, that, more than often, not even a 2+ armour save, and a 6+/5+ ward save can help.

Using MSU, it is probable that the knights see a second round of battle, since a Unit Strength of 12, 1 rank with a banner, they get +2 combat resolution, plus casualties.

Lets look at some stats:
A lance of 6 knights of the realm with full command (168 pts) charges a unit of 3 bulls equipped with ironfists, light armour, stendard and champion (169 pts).
The knights make 6 attacks, at WS4, St5, plus 5 attacks of the horses, at WS3 and St3. Against the bulls, that would result in: 2,7 wounds by the knights, and 0,6 by the horses, for a total of 3,3 wounds, round down to 3: 1 bull slain (note: in this battle the ironfists were used as shields).
The remaining 2 bulls counterattack, and make 7 attacks, WS3, St4, that deal: 1,2 wounds, round down to 1: 1 knight slain.
So, CR would be 6 (rank, stendard, US, 3 wounds) for the knights, 2 (stendard and 1 wound) for the bulls: the bulls loose by 4.

Lets look at the same exact battle, from the second turn (without the knights’ charge, but using the units’ Initiative stat, and with the ironfist used as extra hand weapon).
The knights attack first, since their I is 3, and the bulls’ is 2.
The knights make 4 attacks, at WS4, St3, plus 3 attacks of the horses’ at WS3 and St3. These would result in: 0,7 wounds by the knights, and 0,4 by the horses, for a total of 1,1 wounds, round down to 1.
Now its the bulls’ turn, and they make 13 attacks, at WS3, St4, and dealing 1,8 wounds (with 6+ ward save), round up to 2.
So, this second turn will see the following CR: 3 (1 wound, stendard, rank) for the knights, and 4 (2 wounds, US, Stendard) for the bulls; the bulls win and the knights flee, since bulls cause fear.

See what I mean: the key to winning against bretonian knights is to block the lances for at least one turn. If your units resist and stay, after the knights’ charge, you have great chances to win battles.

What can an ogre general do, against knights’ lances? The best way would be to use unbreakable swarms, but ogres don’t have any, so, we have to think of a way to use other units as swarms.
Meneaters are just great, due to their stubbornness, but their problem is that they cost too much to risk loosing them as tar pit units.
Gorgers would be great, but they’d have to stay at least one turn, and you’d have to have at least 3, which is impossible (in 2k battles).
What I think would work nicely are big units of gnoblars (30+ would do good).

Lets look at some stats:
A unit of 6 “naked” KotR (144 pts) charges the 30 gnoblars (60 pts).
The knights make 6 attacks, at WS4, St5, plus 5 attacks of the horses, at WS3 and St3. Against the gnoblars, that would result in: 3,3 wounds by the knights, and 1,3 by the horses, for a total of  4,6 wounds, round up to 5, so no gnoblar can counterattack.
The CR is 6 for the knights (5 wounds, 1 rank), against 4 (3 ranks, US) for the gnoblars: the gnoblars loose by 2. If you have a tyrant near by, the gnoblar unit will have to test at 7, which is not that impossible after all.

Now you have got yourself a bretonian lance, stuck for a second turn of battle, by a unit of gnoblars that costs less than half. Now the bulls are ready to charge the lance and deal some serious damage.

Gut magic can help out the ogres, for this purpose, and especially three spells: Bonecruncher; Toothcracker and Braingobbler.
    Before explaining why these spell do wonders against Brets, I must tell you that hardly you’ll find a magic offensive bretonian army, so, when you see one or two damsels of the lady, expect them to be scroll caddies.
For what concerns the three above mentioned spells, they hit the bretonian knights, where they suffer more: low Ld, low To, and, above all, the second turn of hand to hand battles.
    The Braingobbler spell forces unengaged enemies, within 18" and in line of sight of the butcher, to take panic test. While this is not that effective against Grails or Questers, it very effective against knights of the realm (Ld and Errants (Ld7) and peasants.
    The Bonecruncher spell causes 2D6 S2 hits, with no armour saves. St2 vs To3 is a 5+ hit, with no armour save (but with a 6+ ward save). Very effective indeed, thinking that 2D6 has a high probability to result in a 7, that makes for 2,33 wounds, that are saved 16,7% of the time, which means 1,94 (round up to 2) wounds every time the spell is cast. In a 6-9 man lance, it is devastating. The key point of this is to throw it against different lances, instead of trying to eliminate one unit at a time, and letting the others complete. The shortened lances will charge your ogres, and these will finish them off, after the charge.
    The Toothcracker spell gives a unit of ogres +1T and stubbornness. Just what an ogre player was waiting for. Throw it to a unit of 3-4 naked bulls (105-140 pts), and there you have it: the swarm I was  talking about before. Just awsome.

Bottom line: while all the brets disadvantages can be overcome, in one way or another, the second turn of battle, for a knight’s lance, means defeat!!!

Naked Bulls, naked Bulls, naked Bulls.  Cannot stress that enough.  They are amazing against many armies, not just Bretonnians.

A risky move which can often pay off, however, is simply using a Tyrant (preferably Mawseeker) to stop a Bretonnian lance charge.  If you have a BSB, there's a good chance you'll do it.  The Tyrant often only loses by 1 or 2 depending on if the Bret player accepts or refuses the challenge.  With a BSB it's very easy to have your Tyrant reduce an entire unit to a pulp.  The best part is that due to the frontages if your Tyrant holds you can charge in with another unit from the front if need be.

The Tyrant will slowly start winning combat whether you charge in with a secondary unit or not.

Deny Brets the charge and they lose.  They are a boring, one-trick pony army.  If they charge unhindered they win.  If they don't, they lose.

Naked bulls have S4 -2 save which work reasonably well against Bretonnian knights (6 ward save against S4 only).

Indeed a tyrant can sometimes hold off a lance, especially since Bretonnians will likely accept challenge.  (In one of my previous games, a lone tyrant was flanked charged by 9 QK with lord and still survived.  However, you'll also need good dice luck to achieve that.)

I have to STRONGLY disagree with Taladryel's assessment that Gnoblars are useless against Bretonnians.  I always take a couple of units myself, plus Trappers, and employing the "Thin Green Line" tactic works absolute wonders with Brets.

Place the Gnobs in a loooong line, only one rank deep.  I damn near covered my entire deployment zone this way - and cheaply too.  March them forward a bit.  With little to none in the way of shooting, The Bret is going to HAVE to charge with a couple of lances, at least, to eliminate the Gnoblar screen.  After that, those lances are done-for, and the rest of the army can be taken apart a piece at a time.  Cool stuff.  The Gnoblar screen can either flee and cause failed charges on the Bret side (nex turn the Ogres charge themselves), OR they can hold and die horribly - but letting the Lances get sunk into the midst of the Ogre lines during the next turn or two.

I play against Brets. alot. Ironguts are good as hammers. What I do is have 2 units of six bulls to take the charge and hand the line. Next I have 2 units following each bull unit. They act as the hammer after the bulls take the charge. In total I take four units of four Ironguts. It works because the Brets. charge gets help off by the bulls. After the Brets charge they become alot weaker. Making them easy meals for my Ironguts. I also use two Hunters (with sabertusks) to guard the flanks. Plus their Harpoon crossbow is good for taking out a bret or two before combat. It makes it easier to get the outnumber bonuse. The sabertusks, being fast cavalry, is really good to charge the rear of the Arrowhead. With this setup I will have a unit of six bull, two units of Ironguts, a Hunter with two sabertusks attacking one unit of Cavalry, and I have noticed that in 2000 point armies Brets. take on average two lances, with 12 knights in each. Gnoblars, Trappers, and Leadbelchers are completly worthless when it comes to Bret knights. Mainly because of the 2+ armor save and then the ward save. Plus gnoblars get run over without notice, and with BS 2 they cant hit the broad side of an oger if it was three feet away.

well, against Bretts it's a numbers game.

First off you get first turn. So you move all you units 7" up so your 17" away from him. This way you have the edge. Use all your dice on the no AS MM and panic spell. And make sure your butchers are in the same unit so you get the -1 to panic from the skull mantle. On your turn 2 use units of leadblechers to move up and lett lose. I'v got 2 units of 3 shooting at the knights. And again use your magic to cast panic and MM's. use small bull units to bait and flee. Or redirect.

The thing is that when you are 17" way from your brett opponent he has 2 options.
1 moving 4-5" so you cant charge him. however this gives you space to manuver and if you flee with the units he will charge the next turn you will have free acces to his flank with the units that did not get charged.
2 standing still. And this is just really great for you since it gives you more time to magic him.

Bretts biggest strength is there speed. So what do you do? Corner them, puch them back to stop there manouvering. Then flee and counter-charge....

I'm a big belever in MSU style Ogre armys. haveing 3-4 units of bulls with xhw and bellower is probbably the best way to get to any army since it gives you more units to move around and threten with. And this is key to controling enamy movment and game play.

It's all well and good to say which units are good against the Brets, but I think that it's not really too important.  I mean ALL Ogres are good at killing knights.  The problem is surviving the Charge.  Ogres are great at attacking, but suck totally at defending.  And lets face it - with Brets, you will always be defending.

So, with that in mind, how do we do it?  How would you deploy against a smart Bret player?  How would you maneuver your army to surive that Turn 2 charge that's comming?  How would you beat it?

3 words, Bait and switch.  Walk up with a unit of 3 leadbelchers just inside 12 inches and fire.  Have a hammer like Ironguts behind and to one side on an angle facing the belchers.

When he charges the leadbelchers flee.  This way you do get the charge and the knights crumble.