Bretonnians in 8th after 1 game

So had the opportunity to play a game of 8th edition on Sunday. Boy was that long, I think it took us almost 3 hours to play 6 turns at 2250. Mind you we didn't know the new rules completely so there was a lot of checking and stuff.


My army was a pretty standard 7th edition MSU Bretonnian cavalry army
Duelist Lord
+3 CR Battle standard bearer
3 damsels with defensive scrolls (yay for % slots again)
4x 6 Knights of the Realm - Full command
2x 12 peasant bowmen
3 Pegasus Knights
6 Grail Knights - Full command, razor standard
2 Trebuchets

My opponent had a dwarf army that I think consisted of
Lord - Always Strike First rune, 4+ ward save, 3+ armour save
Rune Priest - +2 dispel dice rune(?)
Battle Standard - +1 CR
19 Iron Breakers - full command, 5+ ward vs. shooting
16 slayers
20 Handgunners
20 crossbowmen
2 bolt throwers
1 cannon
Bugmen + 19 rangers

I don't remember everything that happened (other then that I lost) and I forgot my camera but here are my notes regarding the changes that affected our battle the most.

1. Steadfast is awesome for infantry blocks. Through some unfortunate rolling on my part (I failed 5 3+ saves on 6 dice in one round of shooting) I was only able to charge the flank of his Iron breaker block with just my battle standard. The front was charged by my lord and one unit of knights of the realm. I won combat by 4 and he would have broken (rolled break test and failed both times) until he remembered steadfast which made that block LD10 stubborn.
   Bretonnians will either need bigger blocks of knights (hard to move) or be a lot more patient before engaging infantry blocks. Of course it didn't help that after 3 turns of shooting neither of my trebuchets were able to hit that block of iron breakers. If I caused one or two hits on that unit I think my charge would have been fine.
2. Trebuchets are really nice now that they don't need to guess anymore. They started hitting a lot more often after turn 3 but it was too late to swing the battle. I might end up filling up all 25% of my rares with trebuchets as they have a lot more potential to do damage than an equivalent number of peasant bowmen.
3. Magic is quite useful to the Bretonnians. Lore of Life & Beasts is really nice. The signature spell of Beasts is just amazing for Bretonnians. +1 S & T while in combat, yes please. It'll help when those lances fizzle against blocks of infantry. Lore of Life being able to bring back dead people is great too. I must have brought back an entire unit of Grail Knights by game's end with that spell.
   My magic could have been more helpful if I took offensive magic items, but I wanted to keep my list all-comers so stuck with what I usually do with my casters and armed them as scroll caddies. I might change that as Bretonnian magic is useful (not in a melt your face kind of way though)
4. Support attacks were useful, but against Bretonnian armour and the narrow front of the lance, fairly negligible.
   2nd rank shooting however was not negligible especially with S4 and/or armour piercing weapons. Very effective and armies that can field large horde-like archer blocks (goblins) could be quite useful simply because they can throw down so much dice.

Overall, the new rules didn't hamper my army as much as it could have. I made some bad mistakes in hindsight and the dice weren't with me at crucial moments (by not being with me I mean not rolling average)

I think my army could have done better. There was a moment where I could have charged his unit of crossbowmen with both the grail knights and the BSB+Knights of the realm. Then after crushing them ran amok behind his lines forcing his iron breakers to turn around. I locked his rangers in close combat on turn 1 which I probably shouldn't have. The peg knights should have gone after the war machines and let Bugman chase them around. Oh well, better decisions and a little more average rolling would have made the game a little closer. In the meanwhile, I think I'm going to try and add more trebuchets to my list as I think those will be useful for thinning infantry blocks for my knights to crush.

I'm thinking that when the Island of Blood box set comes out, I'm going to pick up one or two and start a High Elf army as those Seaguard look mighty tempting with the new infantry rules.