Help for playing Bretonnia

[Hywel]

Hey there,

I've got around 150 hours now playing mostly wood and high elf lords in IE and was trying out Bretonnia recently. I wonder if I'm missing something here as this seems a lot more difficult.

For the early game I don't see a good alternative to "elf" play in getting archers behind infantry (Leoncoeur has some knights), but they are much weaker in stats and severely limited in number by the peasant economy (once you start to recruit you 2nd army).

Knights, while micro intensive seem to be decent, but you have to start with Leoncoeur and his oaths unlocked plus five cav from the start to use them. It then feels like I have to work very hard with those units to get somewhere near the power level of a simple elf army. Plus the other lords are just heavily penalized until they have their oaths unlocked.

Do I need to rely more on trebuchets or other units? The former seem fine, but their dps is not that high, plus I need additional infantry to cover them effectively.

The last problem I have are the starting positions. With Leoncoeur I can defeat the orcs in the east and the two vampire factions, but after that it becomes randomly more difficult. Grom often gets quite strong in the south while Belakor and Vanaheim often invade from the north together pretty early on, later joined by Slanesh and others. Carcassone is a bit easier but still has the problem of constant cross mountain skaven harassment together with Grom and beastmen aggression.

TLDR: How do I best deal with the severe limitations that are put on me with Bretonnia?

[Da_Higg]

Another Tip - Paladins have the holy grail of agent skills: Assault Units, Assault Garrison and Assassinate. so if you get into a situation where you have to fight say, an entire army of halberds you can just assault units half the enemy away

[kekkuli]

Originally posted by (Steelclaw):

I wouldn't go as far as to recommend full cavalry armies - using cavalry is a pain

Mate, when you have 5-6 flying cavalry as flankers, and enough heroes to support, it doesn't matter if enemy has bvl infantry or not. Never had problems with full cavalry armies, and that was even way before they actually started buffing bretonnian knight units.

[(Steelclaw)]

Originally posted by Hywel:

Steelclaw, thanks a lot for the thorough write up on how to use cavalry. While I'm doing some of the things you describe, I can certainly improve a lot more, especially with using two cavs in tandem. But I guess it's a matter of practice and will be a lot more fun once the micro stress is reduced somewhat by experience.

Having tried out Repanse just now I've also realized how quickly she and the paladin hero become very strong. Would you all say that keeping those on a mount is better than having them on foot bolstering/replacing infantry units? They seem almost unkillable this way and lack mobility of course, but I still have the knights for that.

Yeah, cavalry is way more fun to play once the micro becomes second nature and you have the confidence to not worry about it dying. :)

Repanse's faction is super strong, and probably the easiest Bret faction at the moment, just for geographical reasons. I always put her and Henri on horseback (and Henri on his hippogriff once he unlocks it), and there are a couple reasons for that, which might not all apply to you.
a) It allows them to keep up with the cavalry, and harass enemy single entities similarly to how your cavalry can harass isolated infantry.
b) The higher speed allows you to choose your engagements.
c) One of the big disadvantages to being on a horse, normally, is that you take more damage when you get tied up by infantry, especially halberds, and you can't always push your way out. But Repanse is anti-infantry and has her Halo of Maidenly Wrath, which can be used to blast away surrounding infantry and guarantee an escape.
d) The higher speed allows Henri, as an anti-large unit, to more easily catch and kill problematic enemy cavalry and monsters.
e) I like intensely microing my lords and heroes, and cavalry lords can achieve damage while taking almost none in return if your micro is sweaty enough (just keep charging from behind and pulling out without ever staying long enough for the enemy to turn around and hit you). This is probably not widely applicable, but it seemed worth mentioning since it biases my opinion.
f) I am a simple soul and dismounting lords who start with a mount at level 1 rarely occurs to me.

That having been said, if you want to use them as infantry, they're probably pretty solid that way too! It's hard to go entirely wrong with a lord who's just good in melee, and some fights might be easier with an infantry lord than a cavalry one.

Do note that Henri counts as large rather than infantry for bonus vs large/bonus vs infantry purposes, even when he's unmounted, so he'll never do well against spears.

[endurstonehelm]

Bretonnia is one of my favorite factions, and I have spent a lot of time playing Louen, Repanse, and the other LLs.

Playing TWW3, I prefer Louen> Repanse>Fay Enchantress>Alberic, but all four have their advantages.

Defintely watch the Bretonnia FLC release video on youtube, I still think its the best TWW release video.

Lots of good advice in this thread. General advice:
Protect your capitol, all other cities can be lost, but don't lose your capitol.
Build the level 2 tavern early to get Gotrek and Felix. Recruit extra lords early, you want 4 armies versus the AI when you can manage it.

My recommendations for Louen:
Lots of incoming attackers, 2 undead factions, 2 greenskins factions, Belakor, and various norscan/chaos factions.
Get overseas diplomacy first and send a lord or hero (Felix) to go meet Repanse and the other Bretonnia factions in Araby. After overseas diplomacy, get the diplomacy teach to confederate the Fay Enchantress and Alberic.
When you can manage it, confederate Repanse. If she won't join, confederate another Bretonnian faction in Araby and trade a settlement to Repanse. After receiving a settlement, she should like you enough to confederate.

My recommendations for Repanse:
Smash the undead.
Tech: get overseas diplomacy first. Send a hero (Felix) or a lord to go meet Louen and the Fay Enchantress and Alberic. Use diplomacy to confederate them. If necessary give them a settlement to increase their desire to confederate.

[Human bean]

Also. Let the Lady in. Become Her. Then Smite the enemy with righteous anger. Also, realise that you peasants are indeed chaff. Use them. Use them up. Then hire some more. Also. Having more than two archer regiments is a waste

[The_Mad_Pooper]

use spearmen to hold units, flank with cav. make sure you have things in kind of a checkerboard pattern so that if one unit gets hit the other units ccan support. Square Front line> long front line.

[Hex]

I would suggest you pick another faction. Bretonnia is so exhausting to play late game. Also keep in mind that you don't win by conquering, you win by amassing enough points so you don't need to expand at all, simply not lose. Simply confederate and hold Bretonnia and you will win.

As for armies, I never bothered with any of their infantry. Just peasant bows and later Blessed Trebuchets. Knights of the Realm are so tanky that you can use them as an anvil for your lance cav if you need to defend your ranged units. Even Foot Squires are absolute garbage and a waste of a unit slot. Use 2-3 Paladins as your melee units to tie down enemy infantry and a Caster lord.

[Hywel]

Thanks for all the helpful comments!

[Jack]

Infantry? Their pesants and can hardly be trained.

[RiyuzakiMY]

Brettonia.. is a rush faction in end game.. but a hammer and anvil in early game.

Economy: farms. Money maker.

Armies:
Early game: Lord, 1 mage, 1 melee hero. men at arms, 8 melee 6 archers + 3 cav. That's it. No headache.

Late game:
Army 1: Lord, 2 melee heroes. purely cavalry roster. Half anti infantry, half shock cavalry.
2nd Army: Lord, mage of life, 2 melee heroes. 8 halberdier, 8 archers.

End game:
Army 1: Lord, 2 melee heroes. Half Anti large cav, half Anti infantry cav.
Army 2: Lord, mage of life, 2 melee heroes, 10 archers, 6 squires.

Doom stack:
Lord, 3 melee heroes, rest hypogrith knights.

[Dagy47]

Originally posted by Hex:

I would suggest you pick another faction. Bretonnia is so exhausting to play late game. Also keep in mind that you don't win by conquering, you win by amassing enough points so you don't need to expand at all, simply not lose. Simply confederate and hold Bretonnia and you will win.

As for armies, I never bothered with any of their infantry. Just peasant bows and later Blessed Trebuchets. Knights of the Realm are so tanky that you can use them as an anvil for your lance cav if you need to defend your ranged units. Even Foot Squires are absolute garbage and a waste of a unit slot. Use 2-3 Paladins as your melee units to tie down enemy infantry and a Caster lord.

but Knights of the Realm are the lance cav...

[Pancakes]

Forget recruiting any infantry they're all trash don't even build the building. Bretonian archers are actually decent. If you don't want a lot of cav recruit a bunch a paladins and and life damsel to keep them alive and those guys are your front line. let the enemy crowd around the paladins and focus that area with trebuches and archers. Usually good for early game.

[Xhal]

Recruit multiple lords at the beginning, 1 healer lord 3 melee lords, move them all together and they will wipe out armies, early bret armies are trash.

[Metalhead123]

The way to do it is have your main army as Knights and your second army as Peasants. The skill trees of the lords have you pick from Knight or Peasant. Main army lord gets all the Knights. Second Lord gets the peasants. You can kill anything.

The peasant archers are really good. Can take out anything attacking your frontline.

[RiyuzakiMY]

Originally posted by Metalhead123:

The way to do it is have your main army as Knights and your second army as Peasants. The skill trees of the lords have you pick from Knight or Peasant. Main army lord gets all the Knights. Second Lord gets the peasants. You can kill anything.

The peasant archers are really good. Can take out anything attacking your frontline.

I completely agree. The 2nd Army can just be completely made from Peasant archers with 4-5 Halberds and 1 trebuchet to defend. But you would need a powerful computer to allow reinforcements to come in full numbers.

For pure fun. I would recommend newcomers to play with mod called the Armored Bretonnian Infantry. It reskin your infantry with more armour while providing "Slightly" increase in stats. Having Mods that provides lots of buffs are completely boring. This mod just have that middle ground bread and butter goodness.

As a cherry on top. You can subscribe to another mod that improves your tech tree, as well as reducing the vow requirements!


https://steamcommunity.com
Armored Bretonnian Infantry (Reskin) (V1.7.3)