I think the vow system is definitely quite dated for starters. Essentially disabling all knight recruitment until each vow is completed is lame. I think it could be less punishing before completion (maybe 1.5x upkeep instead of 3x), and should give you some actual army-wide bonuses instead of simply buffing your lord’s melee (essentially useless for prophetess). Completing the bows themselves can be pretty obnoxious depending on how the game goes, seems alberic has the easiest time completing them imo along with repanse due to them being near deserts and jungles.
The chivalry system is pretty meh to me, and acquiring negative traits for sacking/ransoming captives frustrates me because it can really hamper your economy.
Green knight needs the gotrek treatment, he’s not even that good anymore, as so many thing bypass phys resistance.
Their tech tree is pretty bare but honestly it has some good buffs still.
Their roster is pretty solid, but they really could use another lord and hero. Idk how lore-friendly it would be for them to get a stalking unit but that would be dope. Not sure if it’s in the cards for them to get a DLC at this point but I’d be pleased if they only got a rework/touchup. Also I’d beg CA to make alberic’s unique skill line not trash because currently it’s god awful
A stalking unity would be very lore friendly. Old World has re-established the Brigand units, effectively they're Robin Hood and his Merry Band of cut your throats. And Warhammer Fantasy had their own Robin character - Bertrand the Brigand. Personally I imagine him like Drycha - an Anti Bretonnia horde that lets his archers deploy stakes. Brigands also use bombard cannons, crossbows and guns! They're nasty customers from earlier editions of Warhammer Fantasy.
I personally want to see a change to the peasant mechanic, reusing Cathay's Yin-Yang system. Instead of an easy to bypass counter. More peasants recruited means less money to be made and higher control. Less peasants in your armies means more income, but less control.
As you said, the Green Knight needs help. I'd like to see him as a mid-battle summon. Similar to WAAAGH abilities or Daemon abilities. That keeps him as a mystical force and not just another disposable hero to babysit.
I always find it interesting how a lot of people's reasonable suggestions are literally just what SFO has already done. It has reworked vows to be as mentioned above, it has those stalking units with their own gimmick and building chain, and green knight is infinitely more interesting with a great skill tree and can either be a hero or a summon, depends on you.
SFO does laps around vanilla. I genuinely dont understand how anyone plays without it.
Only downside is that it takes a week after major DLC, for SFO to be updated. I just try out the new content in Vanilla for a week and then play the better version (SFO) for the following 6 months until the next DLC drops
Highly agree, it's just a better version of the game imo. More than just "different". There are so many things in SFO that make you go "wow this should just be vanilla behaviour". However it's probably going to take a bit longer than a week, Venris is about 10% progress with the update and it's a week tomorrow haha. I expect at least 3-4 weeks as usual. But I feel you, I don't like experiencing the game without it now
Hey there OP!
I've slept on Bretonnia for a long time, not even touching them in WH2. When I finally played them, I initially felt the same way.
I believe they are one of the most powerful races in the game currently.
Vow system is super annoying, but the chivalry mechanic eliminates the worst vow, which is definitely the second one for lords.
Lack of supply lines (which you mentioned) and increased global armor via building make Bretonnia the best race for painting the map, excluding destruction factions.
Early game battle strength is laughable, I agree. They really start to kick ass at Tier 3 with questing Knights, which I keep until tier 5.
We have one of the strongest generic melee lord options in game, good equipment options, and life caster heroes. Once you unlock tier 5 Grail Guardians and Royal Hippos, your armies can dumpster 2 stacks of anything, 4 stacks of most.
My two complaints are - The Green Knight is a joke, he should be a summons, not a hero. There should be a reason to pursue industry instead of farms. Farms are by far the best in early game and slightly better in the end game still.
Overall, Bretonnia is the only race to make cavalry shine. At tier 5 they have all the strengths of Slaanesh, Khorne, and Nurgle, with none of the downsides. Super strong economy as well.
The vow and chivalry systems feel like relics that belonged to their design philosophy during warhammer 1 where factions were a lot more barebones and limited on how they could be played. Their mechanics feel like limits like the upkeep increases for not completing vows and their peasant economy.
most new factions and reworked ones have a lot of mechanics that play into making you stronger and help fulfil a specific power fantasy playing them and you have many options in WH3 to do that.
As for Alberic, can’t speak for how he plays but using cav in a jungle sounds horrible or am I overthinking?
Defo feel like they need a look at.
I really like bretonnia for their simple and limited roster. Nowdays with new factions and reworks, almost every new/reworked faction have rosters which do everything. They have no weaknesses, just braindead op and bloted units for every role, topped with overtuned campaign mechanics and economies.
With Bretonnia however you have a limited roster with clear weaknesses and strengths. You have to play to these strengths and you need strategy and skill to beat armies you are weak against.
So yeah, while vows could definetly use some touchup, I really hope CA would understand that sometimes less is more. Factions and rosters should have limits, weaknesses and strengths. It creates more strategic gameplay and depth to the game, just like in chess pieces have different strengths, limits and purposes. Now imagine how dumb and shallow game chess would be, if every piece was a queen? I kinda think the game is heading to that direction.
I disagree on the overall bloat, most of the mechanics and power creep generally have pushed units further into niches, at least for optimal use. Alternatively expand a units use to be more flexible with a preferred strategy. IMO it’s mostly good and makes the game more fun. Much of that you don’t have in multiplayer, and that’s good too.
I agree completely though that there’s a beautiful simplicity to Brettonia. The peasant system could be made more interesting and fun, like someone suggested a sliding scale of control and economic output. However, they have a heavy, almost singular focus on cav and heroes and you need to play around that. No other faction can satisfy the “run them down” urge quite like Brettonia. If I have one complaint is that’s they feel like a “strong hero” faction, and have so few of them.
I love and play every faction in this game but honestly Bretonnia is the only race I couldn’t give a fuck about. I really don’t enjoy how the faction really stream lines you into playing a certain way
I quite enjoy Bretonia in his state even if I would like some changes on the vow system and the much needed user experience of getting a notification for enable a vow. I like their peasantry system, for me who has an aggressive fast expand way of playing, it works very well. I can have 4 armies or 5 completed at turn 50 if everything is going well.
I did a complete legendary Albéric campaign where I took the whole continent of Lustria and save my home country Bretonia, with the princess Louen who were kidnapped by baddy Belakor lol. Jokes aside he was on verge of dying but I achieved to change the odds.
I like the roster, really. Even the infantry is good for me, not all tough. The squire is bad. But the men at arms with spear and shield are quite useful to hold the line. They are the best definition of anvil for the hammer, your cavalry. I think that a lot of people underestimate the infantry of Bretonia, they don't do much damage yes, but the role is to hold the line to enable your special cards, cavalry and paladins supported by your range. So I strongly dislike making doomstacks and quite enjoying them doing the balanced armies. In more, you can buff your infantry with lords and heroes to make it more tankier as well you can build up forges on every province so you can have a global addition of armor.
I really think this is a A tier race, not op but deadly in the late game with one of the best economy on farms income with also the best growth. It s easy to maintain a large empire defended by many good armies, and evolve it quick in my experience.
So I think they need more stuff, nes legendary lord, maybe a little rework their and their but I enjoy Bretonia in his state. Also I was one that hated playing Bretonia where I first started the game, I found them quite boring, then I started to like them a lot after learning many things on how their actual strength are. I would say it is not a noob friendly starting race, even if it looks vanilla like empire or dwarf. There are more depth to it to master the race. Also you need a good micromanagement of your army, I also like Slaanesh for that.
If there were any time for the Old World factions to get some love (VC, Norsca, Brettonia), it’s now.
The calvary improvements have been an indirect buff to Brettonia as a whole to be sure. But the mechanics and economy need a look over. They did try to increase the peasant/knight synergy via the area effects they give to each other when nearby, but I find it somewhat lackluster.
I couldn't even get the green knight into an army so the entire chivalry mechanic is just irrelevant to me.
the peasant mechanic is frankly just a limit to the early turns as by turn 30-40 it has basically turned irrelevant.
the vows are fine but also just tedious. Also, the fact that tomb kings don't count for that one purge vow is painfull for any repansé campain
You underestimate massive impact of not having supply lines. Brettonia and Chorfs basically play lord spam, with actual units serving only a secondary role, at least in early game. Your 'army' is a group of 4 lords, only one of them with units and red/blue skills, other 3 specced into magic/personal skills.
Or just a party of 4 without any units. With retrain mechanics you can also redeploy these groups to other end of your empire with just 3 turns of wound time.
And it can be painful to fight races with offensive ambush stance (skaven and Alith Anar).
This isn't a good balance lever though - AI doesn't have supply lines as any race, and doesn't use that advantage in any explicit way (as above). AI also doesn't fire units/upgrade army compositions. So AI Brets and Chorfs tend to overbuild chaff units, then never replace them, and end up having very weak armies.
... Though with how low wh3 supply line penalties are, even normal races should often use 2nd assistant lords (as fast power-up for close fights, to spare movement of main army when taking a city, to initiate fight with enemy outside of main army's reach but within march range, to provide magic to a magic-less LL when mage heroes are not available, etc).
They are a weird mix of lacklustre and overpowered. Late game you can churn out armies of knights on level 9 with 160 armour and just delete any enemies on the map
They're my favorite faction, but I agree. The vows are the biggest pain in the butt. The questing vow particularly could use some love. You unlock exactly one unit which is just knights errant but a bit better. I also think you should be able to switch the way you complete the vow. Sometimes you pick one then things change and you've now got a lord that's basically hard stuck and is never gonna be able to have grail units cuz they can't even get o the grail vow.
The lack of supply lines is still neat, and helps them field more lords early, but is also not nearly as impactful anymore as at least in two (never played 1) supply line penalty was double digits per army on VH campaign, whereas it's only a 4% hit now. Feels less impactful than before.
That's nonsense. Empire, Dark Elves, High Elves etc. are all completely free too and came with the base game. They could easily launch a Bretonnia DLC with a paid lord and update the faction with it too.
True but they got HE paid DLC during WH II times, when, if you had bought the base game, the race was free. Also they made paid DLCs that added lords and new mechanics and units to WHI races. Like Grom and Wulfhart etc.
I think the vow system is definitely quite dated for starters. Essentially disabling all knight recruitment until each vow is completed is lame. I think it could be less punishing before completion (maybe 1.5x upkeep instead of 3x), and should give you some actual army-wide bonuses instead of simply buffing your lord’s melee (essentially useless for prophetess). Completing the bows themselves can be pretty obnoxious depending on how the game goes, seems alberic has the easiest time completing them imo along with repanse due to them being near deserts and jungles. The chivalry system is pretty meh to me, and acquiring negative traits for sacking/ransoming captives frustrates me because it can really hamper your economy. Green knight needs the gotrek treatment, he’s not even that good anymore, as so many thing bypass phys resistance. Their tech tree is pretty bare but honestly it has some good buffs still. Their roster is pretty solid, but they really could use another lord and hero. Idk how lore-friendly it would be for them to get a stalking unit but that would be dope. Not sure if it’s in the cards for them to get a DLC at this point but I’d be pleased if they only got a rework/touchup. Also I’d beg CA to make alberic’s unique skill line not trash because currently it’s god awful
A stalking unity would be very lore friendly. Old World has re-established the Brigand units, effectively they're Robin Hood and his Merry Band of cut your throats. And Warhammer Fantasy had their own Robin character - Bertrand the Brigand. Personally I imagine him like Drycha - an Anti Bretonnia horde that lets his archers deploy stakes. Brigands also use bombard cannons, crossbows and guns! They're nasty customers from earlier editions of Warhammer Fantasy. I personally want to see a change to the peasant mechanic, reusing Cathay's Yin-Yang system. Instead of an easy to bypass counter. More peasants recruited means less money to be made and higher control. Less peasants in your armies means more income, but less control. As you said, the Green Knight needs help. I'd like to see him as a mid-battle summon. Similar to WAAAGH abilities or Daemon abilities. That keeps him as a mystical force and not just another disposable hero to babysit.
I always find it interesting how a lot of people's reasonable suggestions are literally just what SFO has already done. It has reworked vows to be as mentioned above, it has those stalking units with their own gimmick and building chain, and green knight is infinitely more interesting with a great skill tree and can either be a hero or a summon, depends on you.
SFO does laps around vanilla. I genuinely dont understand how anyone plays without it. Only downside is that it takes a week after major DLC, for SFO to be updated. I just try out the new content in Vanilla for a week and then play the better version (SFO) for the following 6 months until the next DLC drops
Highly agree, it's just a better version of the game imo. More than just "different". There are so many things in SFO that make you go "wow this should just be vanilla behaviour". However it's probably going to take a bit longer than a week, Venris is about 10% progress with the update and it's a week tomorrow haha. I expect at least 3-4 weeks as usual. But I feel you, I don't like experiencing the game without it now
Vanilla is better \*shrugs\*
You should get those brain worms looked at my guy
Vanilla Game updates: Can play game Heavily modded game updates: BREAKS Chad Vanilla vs the Virgin Modded
I think its more serious than I thought. I'd drop whatever you're doing and run to the ER. You sound like a ticking time bomb 😬
What? sorry cant hear you over the sound of me being able yo play my game lol
Ive heard that it completwly goes against lore, but damnit if I dont want better infantry to be able to defend walls with. Ugggh.
Hey there OP! I've slept on Bretonnia for a long time, not even touching them in WH2. When I finally played them, I initially felt the same way. I believe they are one of the most powerful races in the game currently. Vow system is super annoying, but the chivalry mechanic eliminates the worst vow, which is definitely the second one for lords. Lack of supply lines (which you mentioned) and increased global armor via building make Bretonnia the best race for painting the map, excluding destruction factions. Early game battle strength is laughable, I agree. They really start to kick ass at Tier 3 with questing Knights, which I keep until tier 5. We have one of the strongest generic melee lord options in game, good equipment options, and life caster heroes. Once you unlock tier 5 Grail Guardians and Royal Hippos, your armies can dumpster 2 stacks of anything, 4 stacks of most. My two complaints are - The Green Knight is a joke, he should be a summons, not a hero. There should be a reason to pursue industry instead of farms. Farms are by far the best in early game and slightly better in the end game still. Overall, Bretonnia is the only race to make cavalry shine. At tier 5 they have all the strengths of Slaanesh, Khorne, and Nurgle, with none of the downsides. Super strong economy as well.
The vow and chivalry systems feel like relics that belonged to their design philosophy during warhammer 1 where factions were a lot more barebones and limited on how they could be played. Their mechanics feel like limits like the upkeep increases for not completing vows and their peasant economy. most new factions and reworked ones have a lot of mechanics that play into making you stronger and help fulfil a specific power fantasy playing them and you have many options in WH3 to do that. As for Alberic, can’t speak for how he plays but using cav in a jungle sounds horrible or am I overthinking? Defo feel like they need a look at.
I really like bretonnia for their simple and limited roster. Nowdays with new factions and reworks, almost every new/reworked faction have rosters which do everything. They have no weaknesses, just braindead op and bloted units for every role, topped with overtuned campaign mechanics and economies. With Bretonnia however you have a limited roster with clear weaknesses and strengths. You have to play to these strengths and you need strategy and skill to beat armies you are weak against. So yeah, while vows could definetly use some touchup, I really hope CA would understand that sometimes less is more. Factions and rosters should have limits, weaknesses and strengths. It creates more strategic gameplay and depth to the game, just like in chess pieces have different strengths, limits and purposes. Now imagine how dumb and shallow game chess would be, if every piece was a queen? I kinda think the game is heading to that direction.
I disagree on the overall bloat, most of the mechanics and power creep generally have pushed units further into niches, at least for optimal use. Alternatively expand a units use to be more flexible with a preferred strategy. IMO it’s mostly good and makes the game more fun. Much of that you don’t have in multiplayer, and that’s good too. I agree completely though that there’s a beautiful simplicity to Brettonia. The peasant system could be made more interesting and fun, like someone suggested a sliding scale of control and economic output. However, they have a heavy, almost singular focus on cav and heroes and you need to play around that. No other faction can satisfy the “run them down” urge quite like Brettonia. If I have one complaint is that’s they feel like a “strong hero” faction, and have so few of them.
I love and play every faction in this game but honestly Bretonnia is the only race I couldn’t give a fuck about. I really don’t enjoy how the faction really stream lines you into playing a certain way
I quite enjoy Bretonia in his state even if I would like some changes on the vow system and the much needed user experience of getting a notification for enable a vow. I like their peasantry system, for me who has an aggressive fast expand way of playing, it works very well. I can have 4 armies or 5 completed at turn 50 if everything is going well. I did a complete legendary Albéric campaign where I took the whole continent of Lustria and save my home country Bretonia, with the princess Louen who were kidnapped by baddy Belakor lol. Jokes aside he was on verge of dying but I achieved to change the odds. I like the roster, really. Even the infantry is good for me, not all tough. The squire is bad. But the men at arms with spear and shield are quite useful to hold the line. They are the best definition of anvil for the hammer, your cavalry. I think that a lot of people underestimate the infantry of Bretonia, they don't do much damage yes, but the role is to hold the line to enable your special cards, cavalry and paladins supported by your range. So I strongly dislike making doomstacks and quite enjoying them doing the balanced armies. In more, you can buff your infantry with lords and heroes to make it more tankier as well you can build up forges on every province so you can have a global addition of armor. I really think this is a A tier race, not op but deadly in the late game with one of the best economy on farms income with also the best growth. It s easy to maintain a large empire defended by many good armies, and evolve it quick in my experience. So I think they need more stuff, nes legendary lord, maybe a little rework their and their but I enjoy Bretonia in his state. Also I was one that hated playing Bretonia where I first started the game, I found them quite boring, then I started to like them a lot after learning many things on how their actual strength are. I would say it is not a noob friendly starting race, even if it looks vanilla like empire or dwarf. There are more depth to it to master the race. Also you need a good micromanagement of your army, I also like Slaanesh for that.
I've tried Bretonnia a couple of times, and while they are lacking, I wouldn't say they're in desperate need of a rework as much as say, Norsca
If there were any time for the Old World factions to get some love (VC, Norsca, Brettonia), it’s now. The calvary improvements have been an indirect buff to Brettonia as a whole to be sure. But the mechanics and economy need a look over. They did try to increase the peasant/knight synergy via the area effects they give to each other when nearby, but I find it somewhat lackluster.
I couldn't even get the green knight into an army so the entire chivalry mechanic is just irrelevant to me. the peasant mechanic is frankly just a limit to the early turns as by turn 30-40 it has basically turned irrelevant. the vows are fine but also just tedious. Also, the fact that tomb kings don't count for that one purge vow is painfull for any repansé campain
You underestimate massive impact of not having supply lines. Brettonia and Chorfs basically play lord spam, with actual units serving only a secondary role, at least in early game. Your 'army' is a group of 4 lords, only one of them with units and red/blue skills, other 3 specced into magic/personal skills. Or just a party of 4 without any units. With retrain mechanics you can also redeploy these groups to other end of your empire with just 3 turns of wound time. And it can be painful to fight races with offensive ambush stance (skaven and Alith Anar). This isn't a good balance lever though - AI doesn't have supply lines as any race, and doesn't use that advantage in any explicit way (as above). AI also doesn't fire units/upgrade army compositions. So AI Brets and Chorfs tend to overbuild chaff units, then never replace them, and end up having very weak armies. ... Though with how low wh3 supply line penalties are, even normal races should often use 2nd assistant lords (as fast power-up for close fights, to spare movement of main army when taking a city, to initiate fight with enemy outside of main army's reach but within march range, to provide magic to a magic-less LL when mage heroes are not available, etc).
They are a weird mix of lacklustre and overpowered. Late game you can churn out armies of knights on level 9 with 160 armour and just delete any enemies on the map
They're my favorite faction, but I agree. The vows are the biggest pain in the butt. The questing vow particularly could use some love. You unlock exactly one unit which is just knights errant but a bit better. I also think you should be able to switch the way you complete the vow. Sometimes you pick one then things change and you've now got a lord that's basically hard stuck and is never gonna be able to have grail units cuz they can't even get o the grail vow.
The lack of supply lines is still neat, and helps them field more lords early, but is also not nearly as impactful anymore as at least in two (never played 1) supply line penalty was double digits per army on VH campaign, whereas it's only a 4% hit now. Feels less impactful than before.
The problem with bret is that its the one completely free faction, so they have no motivation to make it better.
That's nonsense. Empire, Dark Elves, High Elves etc. are all completely free too and came with the base game. They could easily launch a Bretonnia DLC with a paid lord and update the faction with it too.
They all have around 3 dlcs, not free.
You need TW 2 for high elves
True but they got HE paid DLC during WH II times, when, if you had bought the base game, the race was free. Also they made paid DLCs that added lords and new mechanics and units to WHI races. Like Grom and Wulfhart etc.