Prior to using Empire I had had enormous trouble dealing with Brettonians. Meaning I always lost. Always. While I still found them a challenge to face (frankly, everything is a bit of a challenge to face when you’re an Empire player ☺) the highly annoying and immediately abundant suicide-squad detachments make the job much more fun for me (and I suppose much more frustrating for my opponent). Although I’d been struggling against Bretts in some practice games leading up to NatCon I felt I was getting a better handle on how to deal with them.
Enter Henry Poor. I thought the name sounded familiar and it flippin was – Henry is an ex-student of the school I teach at! Small world stuff – time to see if the student has now become the master!
Henry had also just recently stumbled upon the fantastic WargamerAU forums, having posted his tournament list (already submitted) and keen to seek feedback about ‘where to from here’. By further coincidence I contributed to his thread (being a long-time sufferer of Brettonian lance-induced death I felt somewhat qualified to offer an opinion) so it was time for reintroductions with forum names ☺ I was very confident going into this game – the Empire really had the tools to deal with this one!
Brettonian Lord (General) – Barded Warhorse, Shield, Virtue of Confidence, Birth Sword of Carcassone, Gromril Great Helm, Gauntlet of the Duel (the reroll King!... or Duke…)
Paladin (BSB) – Barded Warhorse, Virtue of Duty, Banner of the Lady (big block death)
Paladin – Virtue of Empathy, Morning Star, Shield, Tress of Isoulde, Cuirass of Fortune
Damsel – Warhorse, 2 x Dispel Scrolls
Damsel – L2, Prayer Icon of Quenelles, Power Stone
Field Trebuchet
10 Peasant Bowmen – Skirmishers, Brazier
10 Peasant Bowmen – Brazier
10 Peasant Bowmen – Brazier
24 Men-At-Arms – Full Command
24 Men-At-Arms – Full Command
12 Knights of the Realm – Full Command, Warbanner
9 Knights of the Realm – Full Command, Banner of Twilight
9 Knights Errant – Full Command, Errantry Banner
Holy Brett-Bus Batman!
Well, seldom does a plan go as perfectly as it did in this game. The Reiksguard Knights and Pisoliers held the advance of the Lord’s Realm bus in check until I was ready for them to hit my Spearmen and BSB head-on (having ploughed through a detachment first) at which point the evil Brettonians were smashed in the flank. Hard.
The BSB's bus of doom was baited, redirected and harassed by the GW-Knights until they were charged (!) by the Flagellents. The good old Flaggies died to a man just at the point where the Swordsmen and Arch-Lector (having already seen off the Errants) got into one flank while the rallied GW-Knights hit the other. The evil Brettonians took another solid beating and buggered off.
After that the Pistoliers cleaned up some Peasants (those busy Spearmen and the detachments having taken care of the rest… ok, the Mortar might have helped with an awesome direct hit that killed 13 in one shot) and that was the game.
With the entire enemy army, the enemy general, 5 standards, and all 4 quarters held by the Empire it was probably the most brutal defeat I’ve ever inflicted upon anyone. Ever. I’d lost the Flagellents (which was an annoyingly recurring theme throughout the weekend and one of the reasons I make those rash suggestions in my summary in a later post) and not a few detachments.
To his absolute credit Henry took the loss well and was keen to learn what he could from the game. We had a good talk about deployment and army selection (a couple of small lances would be handy for sorting out those redirectors for example) and he's definitely someone I look forward to playing in the future (especially if he's not using Brettonians any more).
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