First a look at uniquely Bretonnian magic items, then a glance at other items that are very appropriate and useful for them.
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Uniquely Bretonnian magic items.
Magic Weapons:
The Blade of Couronne: 100 pts. After movement, undead within 3" suffer 1 wound, no armour save. Character and unit immune to undead fear and terror.
Okay, obviously this item is a one-trick pony. But, it's a helluva trick when used right. Give this to someone mounted on a flying monster. Fly over and take out those screaming skull catapults right off the bat. Park him next to wraiths, ghosts, whatever is giving you a lot of hassle. Use him to charge into the front of that obscenely large skeleton mob while your main lance of knights hits it from the side. Not only do you get all sorts of combat bonuses, all those skeletons in the front row within 3" crumble to dust instantly, before you even enter combat.
Morning Star of Fracasse: 30 pts. Bearer +2S first round of combat. If scores 1 or more wounds on enemy with magic weapon, roll d6. On 4+, the enemy's magic weapon is destroyed.
The morning star is good to use against, obviously,
enemies with expensive magic weapons, like the executioner's axe.
Just get in one wound and you have a 50% chance of destroying
an expensive item with a really cheap one. Them's good echo-gnomics.
The +2S charge-like bonus is nice too. Sort of like an extra
cherry on top.
Magic Armour:
Come on, -2 to hit? That's just beautiful. The enemy basically misses 50% of the time no matter how cool they are. A '1' always misses, and at -2, everything up to a '3' becomes a '1'. Thus, 50% misses right off the bat. If they're not so tough, they'll miss even more often. Even if they connect, on a Bretonnian Warhorse with barding (a paltry 7 points extra.) the character gets a 1+ armour save. The -2 to hit makes this item even worthwhile against characters that have attacks which allow no armour saves. On the bad side, it doesn't help much against magic, or cannons. Might be a good idea to take a virtue and the Banner of Righteous Retribution to protect your general with if you give him this item. Most other generals get some kind of special save at 4+. We get a -2 to-hit penalty against our enemies instead. We may be getting the short end of the stick. I'm not real sure.
Note: This item is no longer Bretonnian Only.
Enchanted Items:
The Tress of Isoulde: 35 pts. Once per battle, user hits on unmodified 2+ and wounds on unmodified 2+. No armour saves allowed. Cannot be used in conjunction with automatic hits, wounds, or kills.
The rule against using it with automatic kills reduces its effectiveness a bit (no Frostblade combo, unfortunately, the way I read it. Others may disagree.) However, there are other combos that suggest themselves to me: (and yes, some smell of chedder, imho.)
Tress/Blade of Leaping X: +X attacks, all hit and wound on 2+. Tress/Hydra Sword: Lots of hits. Lots of wounds. Throw in virtue of knightly temper for your general. (Possible 48 wounds, if my math is better than my reading skills.) With virtue, combo costs: 135 pts. Tress/Venom Sword: Sort of like the Hydra Sword, but might be better for use with the tress, since you save 5 pts. I think the math may suggest that you should spend the extra 5 points, however, but my math isn't that good.
Tress/Dragon Blade: Double your hits.
Tress/Heart Seeker: Insult to injury, re-roll those 1's when rolling to-hit. Statistically you will miss once every 36 uses of the tress with this sword. Pretty amusing, if not awesomely effective.
Tress/Tormentor Blade: Wounded enemy suffers stupidity, and your odds are very good of wounding.
Tress/Bone Blade: More wounds. Keep 'em coming. Tress/Warrior Bane: If you get reasonably lucky, you'll wind up with an opponent that can't fight back. I'd say that this is about my favorite of these combos. It's cheap, yet truly ugly. Whittle that Champion of Khorne down to size. Since he's frenzied, he loses two attacks every time you wound him. This could be good anti-chedder. :)
Tress/Morning Star of Fracasse: Good odds that you'll get that wound in to try and destroy your opponent's magical weapon.
Tress/Sword of Swift Slaying: Get in your shots quick. Will likely beat the dickens out of anyone without a special save. Plus, it's a cheap combo at only 60 pts.
There are a few others, but you get the idea. More hits, more wounds, special effects when wounding, or first attack are what you're after to use with the tress. I'd say the tress is probably the best item the Bretonnians get. Just remember, ONE USE. That's it.
Crown of Bretonnia: 15 pts. Wearer adds +1 to any characteristic before the battle. First choice is given on 5+. If that fails, second choice on 4+, and so on until one characteristic is selected.
Not a bad item for 15 pts. Here is my preferred
order to roll for the stat increase: Leadership, Attacks, Toughness,
Wounds, Initiative. Your mileage may vary, but I'd go for Leadership
first. A 10 Ld general is a big advantage as long as you are
careful where you position him. Failing that, make him harder
to kill, or more likely to kill his enemy. (Remember, with virtue
of knightly temper, 1 extra attack can be the same as 2 extra
attacks when using the tress of Isoulde.)
Potion Sacre': 5 pts. Declare use before a die roll for the bearer, then you may adjust the die total by +/- 1
If you have the points left over and an open magic item slot, grab it. There may come a time when you have a life or death roll to make. Use the potion to increase your chances of living through it. If you are feeling grumpy, you can try adjusting the to-hit roll of the Executioner's Axe.
Wizard Arcana:
Crystal of Malfleur: 25 pts. Chance to see enemy's WoM cards. You each roll d6. If you beat his roll, you see all his cards. Tie him, you see all but one. Lower than him, you see none.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong here, but is this item as crappy as I think it is? The cards it can let you see are:
It just doesn't seem to me that 'MAYBE' getting to
look at your opponent's WoM cards is all that hot a power. I
guess it isn't that bad when compared with other 25 pt. wizard
arcana (well, besides the Amulet of Xapati, anyways.)
Magic Standards:
Banner of Righteous Retribution: 75 pts. Deflects missiles back against firers. They are reflected d6x10". If they reach the firers, they automatically hit. Exhausted on a 1 or 2. This includes cannon shots, as well as other projectiles.
Not too shabby. Seems a trifle expensive, but what the hey. If those high elven repeater bolt throwers open up on your knights, well, let's just say they're not going to be real happy about the results after finally getting through the Lady's Blessing. ("Say, Illarial, what's that flying at us?" "Gosh, Iaaaiaalaian, I don't know." *THUNK THUNK THUNK*) (Have you ever noticed that elves use too many vowels in their name?)
Banner of the Lady of the Lake: 75 pts. Enemy unit fighting the unit bearing the banner loses combat bonus from rear ranks. If banner carried by Battle Standard Bearer, all knights can re-roll failed break tests.
This is a beautiful item. The Bretonnians are very much into the whole 'pursue and destroy fleeing enemy' thing. With this banner, it's much more likely to be the enemy doing the fleeing. With your general's 9 Ld (10 if you're using the Crown of the Brets on his Ld.) and a re-roll, you shouldn't have to worry about break tests too much. Of course, if your enemy has the far cheaper Crown of Command, this item loses some punch, since it doesn't matter by how much you won the combat, he still rolls against a 10. Grr.
I really don't know where GW came up with this item. Granted, it is very useful. Having your enemy's 48 crossbowmen get a shot at your Knights Errant before you close to close combat is a Bad Thing ™. This item makes them either hold or flee, and it's only 10 pts. Bad side, it's only good for your knights errant, and only when they're charging. Before then, you've got to get in close enough to the enemy to charge all by your lonesome.
Other items that are useful to the Bretonnians, but not restricted to their use:
Magic Weapons:
I'll be brief on these items. There is one item that at first glance looks interesting, since it's the only magical lance the knights are allowed (bit of an oversight, I would say.) However, read below for my full opinion of it. Other than that, you probably already know which weapons are good. Extra attacks, automatic wounds, special effects when wounding, death when wounding, etc, etc, etc. These items just seem very self explanatory, sadly enough.
Star Lance: 60 pts. Useless. Gives a TOTAL Strength bonus of +3 when charging as opposed to +2 for a normal 2 pt. lance. No armour saves are allowed versus it, but the lance is only used when charging. I can't justify 60 pts. for this item by any stretch of the imagination. What a shame it's not allowed in tournaments. <sarcastic noises.>
Magic Armour:
Besides the standard armours, which are useful to varying degrees, I also like (or particularly dislike) these:
Spelleater Shield: 100 pts. Handy. It can destroy spells. Remember though, you can't reinforce dispels from a magic item, but then, neither can your opponent reduce your odds of success, and this item will succeed in dispelling 2 out of every 3 spells. A total of 1 in 3 spells cast at the wearer of the shield will be destroyed flat out. On the downside, it's 100pts. That's a lot of points to invest in one item, just to protect one unit from magic, even Grail knights.
Spellshield: 50 pts. Dispels magic on a 4+, and has a chance of dealing damage to the spell's caster. This I like much better than the Spelleater Shield. I don't want to destroy the caster's spells, I want to destroy the caster, which in effect destroys all his spells. Although the wounds caused by the shield are S D6, with a 3rd level spell reinforced once or twice, you might inflict 4 or 5 wounds, killing most wizards (no armour save, sorry Chaos Wizards.)
Dragonhelm: 10pts Grants a special save of 2+ versus fire attacks. This is a cheap item, and against dwarven war machines, dragons, or any other model that spews fire at you, a real bargain. Just remember that this item, like the Blade of Couronne, is a one-trick pony, utterly useless against a normal old infantry unit.
Shield of Ptolos: 10pts. A shield that grants a 1+ armour save versus missile weapons can't be all bad. Give it to a hero or your general, not to a champion, as the shield only protects the bearer from missiles. Your unit should get the Banner of Righteous Retribution instead.
Wards:
The wards are all useful. Of course, with the knights' great armour saves, the dawnstone in particular is a good buy at only 25 pts. Remember that it's no good unless you get an armour save in the first place, though.
Enchanted Items:
As the Bretonnians, we don't get a very wide selection of these items. So many are restricted to Chaos, Lizardmen, and Skaven that it's ridiculous. But, I'll take a look at what we CAN get.
The Crown of Sorcery: 125pts. Too expensive, and very unchivalrous to boot. If you really want those necromancy spells that badly, I suppose you can get it, but don't give it to someone with a low Ld, or he'll stand there looking real stupid the whole battle.
Talisman of Obsidian: 100pts. Expensive, but a really great effect. Takes away all spellcasting abilities from wizards in base contact with the wearer. They get them back if you let them get out of base contact, but as long as you've got them helpless, might as well kill them. As an added bonus, all spells cast at the wearer's unit are automatically dispelled.
Cloak of Shadows: 75pts. Makes the wearer hard to hit with spells or missiles. Pretty good item for the Bretonnians, now if it was only cheaper, I might recommend it.
The Ruby Chalice: 60pts. With the knights' vulnerability to missile fire (even with the Lady's Blessing,) this is a good item to invest in for your front line troops. Once one guy is hit by missile fire, from then on all missile attacks are made at -2 to-hit. Plus, all HtH attacks are made at -1 to-hit. Don't get too reliant on this item though, it's not tournament legal in most areas, and war machines ignore it.
Talisman of Ravensdark: 50pts. When the enemy has flyers on its side, your knights are in peril of being hit from the rear or flank by them. This item will greatly reduce their chances of effectively hurting you when they do so. I recommend it for large units of knights.
Crown of Command: 50pts. Wearer gets Ld 10. He and his unit roll for break tests on an unmodified 10. Hmm. I really don't know what to say. Seems like an overly simple way to dodge break tests. But, I suppose that with the grail virtue floating around for the Bretonnians, I shouldn't complain. With so much of the Bretonnian force geared to break rank n' file, it just seems really crappy that one item can wind up screwing your knights over like that. Oh well. I reckon you'd better always put this item in your army.
Amulet of Fire: 25pts. 4+ dispel once per turn. If you can, get the Virtue of Purity instead. It's cheaper and affects all spells aimed at the unit, not just one a turn.
Black Gem of Gnar: 25pts. Let's not go there. But, if you must, give it to a unit champion rather than a hero. Heroes cost too much to be using this item.
Aldred's Casket of Sorcery: 25pts. This is a beautiful thing. Steal spells from enemy wizards and cast them against their own army. I assume the casket only works once a turn, or it would be a tad unbalanced. Heck, it's still a bit unbalanced as written. Give this to a flying hero, or one with the cloak of mists and shadows. Even though you can't attack when wearing the cloak, I don't think there's anything against moving into base contact with an enemy wizard. Rush over, grab the wizard's spells, maybe use one or two to kill the wizard after you've milked him dry, then unleash the rest on his own army. Absolutely gorgeous, if it's actually legal.
Magic Standards:
Bretonnians do seem to love their magic standards, don't they? They have three reserved just for them, and a pretty wide selection of the rest of them to boot. However, they do seem to have mostly simple effects, so I'll just run through some of them quickly.
100 pt. Banners:
Banner of Arcane Warding: Gets a natural dispel of 2+, reflects the spell at an enemy on a further roll of 4+. Cute, but expensive. Make your own call on this one, I guess. I wouldn't recommand it.
Battle Banner: Add d6 to your combat result. Good item, insofar as it goes. It's well countered by a Crown of Command, at half the cost.
The Storm Banner: One
Use Only. Good against flyers. Expensive, risk of rolling a
6 right away. Not recommended.
75 pt. Banners:
Banner of Wrath: d6 lightning bolts at S4, no armour saves once a turn, I think. I don't see the One Use Only thing written on the card. Assuming that it's once a turn, you might be able to whittle away some rank n' file with it. Doubtful you do any serious damage. Not recommended.
50 pt. Banners:
Banner of Arcane Protection: 4+ natural dispel, deals 1 wound to daemons or undead in base contact each turn. Amusing if you're going up against undead, but I wouldn't really bother. There are lots cheaper 4+ dispels.
Dread Banner: Unit causes
and is immune to fear. Okay, I guess. Reading fear rules...blah
blah...WooOoo. Nice. This item can let your knights of the realm
not only dodge fear, but cause it themselves. This is pretty
stylish if you have a unit of 15 or so knights. Plus, folks have
to make a leadership test to charge you (AND when you charge THEM.)
Tee hee.
Scarecrow Banner: Causes fear in flyers...+d6 combat result bonus when fighting them...hmm...might be useful. I still prefer the Talisman of Ravensdark to this item though. Fleeing flyers are hard to do anything to.
Banner of Defiance: Doubles rank bonuses....never pursue a fleeing enemy.
I can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Any more experienced players want to fill us in on what good that does (never pursuing, that is)
Banner of Might: +1 to-hit.
Simple, effective. I like it. Use in a unit of knights, preferably
your knights of the realm or knights errant, who need the boost
to their WS.
35 pt. Banner:
Valorous Standard: Basically gives your Bretonnians the cold-blooded advantage. Roll 3D6 for psychology tests, pick the best 2. Warning, does not help with break tests. If it did, I would heartily recommend it. As is...enh.
25 pt. Banners:
The Banner of Sorcery: You get D6 WoM cards before the game starts. That means you get first crack at Total Power and Drain Magic. If you draw Total Power, hang onto it. Keep it out of the game until your last turn if possible. The Bretonnians have a lot more to lose from magic than to gain, except for Morgiana Le Fey. One person mentioned to me that he used her and a Total Power card to turn his opponent's general into a frog. Pretty stylish. Recommended. We need all the magical assistance we can muster.
Banner of Courage: Re-roll failed break tests. RECOMMENDED. The knights don't worry too much about psychology, but a failed break test will ruin them.
Standard of Shielding: Add +1 to armour save. Nice little item that can help against incoming bow fire and HtH attacks. And hey, it's nice to be IMMUNE to S3 hits (not that many folks besides the Brets ever dish out S3 hits. Grumble grumble)
War Banner: +1 to combat result. Probably not too useful to the knights. +1 isn't usually going to save your bacon. They tend to either win or lose big. I'd take a pass.
Wizard Arcana:
Probably the category in which the Bretonnians lose out the harshest. Chaos, Skaven, Undead, and Slann get a ton of neat toys that we miss out on.
In return, we get "The Crystal of Malfleur." Whee. Yippee-skippy. Be still my beating heart. Granted, the Bretonnians aren't meant to be great at magic, but it almost seems as though GW wants us helpless before it. Sheesh.
Anyways, among the stuff we CAN get, here's what I like (or dislike) the most.
75 pt. Arcana:
The Forbidden Rod: Let's not go here either. If you can have it, your opponent will take it, and you just don't want to see how pitifully the Brets will do against a Total Powered spell each turn.
50 pt. Arcana: (loads of these)
The Book of Secrets: Not
recommended. The penalty is too severe for casting spells without
power. You are cannibalising a very expensive wizard and a 50
point magic item (along with any other items the wizard has) in
order to get free spells. There are better, and cheaper, ways
to do this. If you must use it, the Bretonnian wizards have spare
points in BS. See, this is the reason I don't recommend it for
us. Our wizards start losing stats we need almost immediately.
Spell Familiar: Four words: Crappy Book of Ashur. Hey, I suppose there are a few, fairly obscure uses, but 9 times out of 10, I'd go for the book.
Staff of Flaming Death: Not recommended. Rank n' file killer. You have knights to do that with.
Wand of Jet: I might recommend it. On the bad side, it runs out of power on a 1 or 2. You've got maybe three power cards out of it for 50 pts. Hard to say if that's worth it. I'd think about the Banner of Sorcery instead.
Staff of Osiris: Better
than Staff of Flaming Death, but not as good as the Staff of Lightning,
in my opinion. Shorter range, not as likely to inflict at least
one wound. Should be 5 or 10 pts. cheaper.
Destroy Magic Scroll:
Take it. Pray it destroys a spell. This is a good item for Bretonnians
to take, simply because we are so damned helpless against magic,
compared to other armies. Save it for a spell that you NEVER
want to see again, like Curse of Years or Fiery Convocation.
Use the Potion Sacre with this thing to help your odds.
Potion of Knowledge: I
prefer this spell-powering item to the Book of Secrets. You have
a chance of suffering from stupidity, and the item wears off,
but you don't have to devour your wizard's stats in order to use
it. On the bad side, the item wears off.
Cloak of Mists and Shadows: Very interesting item. Hard to say whether or not I recommend it, but it looks fun enough to try out at least once.
Book of Ashur: The best of the 50 pt. arcana. Your wizard gains a level and can pick from any one spell deck. This is just gorgeous. It can really help the Bretonnians get some decent magic on the table. Okay, so basically here's the deal on how it works. If you take High Magic or Dark Magic, you get the extra abilities, like using Power cards as Dispel cards.
If you take Necromancy, you choose your spells and can recast them. I wouldn't take Skaven or WAAGH! magic with it, because there are race specific spells in there. As for Chaos Dwarf magic, it might be handy against Wood Elves. I can't think of many other reasons to desire it. (Me, I'd rather have Gold Magic against Wood Elves.)
40 pt. Arcana:
Skull Wand of Kaloth: A powerful HtH weapon for your wizard. BUT, all our wizards have a WS of 3. Can you say, not a hope in hell? I wouldn't bother. You not only have to hit, they have to fail a Ld roll. Ugh.
35 pt. Arcana:
Skull Staff: Reveals magic
items within 12", +1 to dispel rolls from counter magic cards.
Not bad for its cost. You can ferret out the Black Gem of Gnar
and the Heart of Woe with this item. The dispel bonus is nice
too. This thing is sheer gravy. The obvious combo is to use
it with the Ring of Corin. I wouldn't recommend being too hasty
to do so, however, as your opponent might then rush up and ring
your ring, taking control of the magic item game a bit. But,
in a 4 turn game, what the hell.
The Chalice of Sorcery: May draw 1 extra WoM card. If so, 1 in 6 chance of a wound. Use it with the Amber amulet, I'd say. Or, if you can, give your wizard a special save somehow, and try to avoid the wound. Only armour saves are disallowed. The chance of getting that Total Power card is well worth it. That thing's bloody dangerous.
30 pt. Arcana
Power Familiar: Store 1 extra WoM card. I think I prefer the Rod of Power. You might lose the cards, but it's cheaper and can hold more WoM cards.
Power Scroll: Cast 1 spell
without power. I like the Potion of Knowledge better.
25 pt. Arcana:
Rod of Power: Can store up to 3 WoM cards from turn to turn, with a chance of losing them, so don't put that Total Power card in here. Just stick to holding a power card or two in reserve, maybe a dispel, and you'll be fine. Save the important cards, like Total Power and Escape, with your wizards.
Dispel Magic Scroll: Automatic dispel. A good buy. I might even consider stocking up on these if playing against someone like the Undead. If you allow the Forbidden Rod, don't bother, it'll be mostly useless.
Warrior Familiar: Let
me first say that if you let your opponent get this close to your
wizard, you're already in deep doo-doo. But, if you're still
determined to get this item, let me also point out it only gets
2 attacks at WS 5 and S 4 and has 1 W. If you're STILL determined
to use this item, let me point out that it's a waste of points,
so don't.
(c) Copyright Alex Blake (GWR) '98