Order of the Green Lady vs. Brothermark

Hey guys,

I’ve only played one game of Kings of War so far, of any edition. I’m coming from a certain other mass battles system set in a fantasy world. I was originally planning on playing the Brotherhood (as my mainstay army consisted of Grail-seeking fantasy Frenchmen), but as that faction has now been split up, it seems like I’m going to have to choose between the Brotherhood’s successors.

As far as I can tell it looks like most of the peasants…er…villeins have migrated to the Brothermark, whereas the knights have generally moved to the Order of the Green Lady (notwithstanding one major exception, but I don’t have any Abyssal Hunt knights ready to go anyway). Would an all knight army be viable in 3rd edition Kings of War? Can I get away with having 90% Order of the Brotherhood, with some support from the Order of Redemption and maybe some allied bowmen from Kingdoms of Men?

What are the principal magic items a cavalry army should consider?

EDIT: Oh, one other thing that I should ask - do I need to field chaff (maybe Mounted Sergeants from Kingdoms of Men) to be successful with an all cavalry army? That’s very much the case in the other game, but is it in Kings of War?

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Others will likely help more than I can regarding the list but unless your opponents spam pikes/spears etc you whould do ok with an all cavalry army. Due to the points you may be out numbered and need to pick your fights but thats not really any different to what ‘all cavalry’ armies are used to dealing with anyway.

Cas

and if you want to use the villeins you can probably just use allied kingdoms of men units (shield wall, spear phalanx, bowmen, etc)
you won’t be able to take many of these (since you are capped at 25% of total points for allies) but they might make a bit of difference.

First of all, welcome to the forum @ChaosReigns.

Concerning your question on magic artefacts suitable for the cavalry I would pick:

  • first of all the item providing Pathfinder and give it to your strongest cavalry unit with TC
  • for a second artefact I would seriously consided adding Nimble to another cavalry unit
  • then you may take the 5 points items providing rerolls of failed to hit and to damage rolls; these are good for any units but the first (Blade of Slashing) especially at units with small number of attacks (e.g. melee characters)

Finally, a fast cavalry army should take at least 2 chaff units (I used to play 3 in my fast Herd army composed mostly of lycans) to protect the side(s) of the units that charge in. That’s because cavalry and any other fast units are in general quite exposed to charges to their flanks if they do not manage to rout the charged enemy units (and sometimes even if they do).

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I don’t have my UE book yet (it’s been in the mail since december 2nd, so frustrating…) but I can tell something about the Brotherhood army in 2nd edition and my basilean army in 3rd edition.

My old Brotherhood army isn’t going to be valid in 3rd edition. It relied heavily on the budget vilein initiates joined by two elite knight regiments, two chaff units and a forsaken beast.

The idea was that the initiates and the beast kept enemies in place (having def 5+ and enough nerve with valiant around) while the two true knights killed off the enemies, all with the high mobility that cavalry have. While I was moderately successful (only being ass-kicked by elves all the time), the army lacked a true anvil that could stand up to a heavy hitter like honour guard or drakons.

In KoW3 the cheap mounted anvils are no longer, as the cheapest knights (paladin knights or order of the brotherhood) are 200/210 points each. This means you need a cheaper and/or more effective anvil unit.

The basilean order of the brothermark have men at arms; which even come in hordes. These serve quite well. The order of the green lady have (other than the retainers) regiments of earth and water elementals. Each is much cheaper and therefore more effective in keeping the pain away from your knights.

Then you would need chaff to prevent your knights from being charged by other cavalry. Brothermark have the excellent villein skirmishers (glad the unpronouncable “reconnoiterers” is no longer around) while green lady has the pegasus option (which is a great chaff piece) but also the very cheap woodland critters. (which may be represented byhunting packs in my army)

The transsition is not 100% and I feel the pain if your army becomes partially obsolete. That said, we get the opportunity for a new playstyle while keeping part of our forces. Bretonnia is no longer, long live the Brotherhood!

I’ve made the complete transitionto Basilea for now. Maybe I’ll return to either brotherhood one day.

In my first game with the 3E UE book, I played my Brotherhood as Order of the Brothermark against my friend’s Ogres. I’d never been able to beat that army with the 2E Brotherhood but as of this game, that losing streak is broken.

What I did was to field 6 units of Paladin Knights and 3 units of Foot Paladins supported by a Wizard and an Exemplar Paladin, and one artillery piece.

When going against solid, hard hitting units like what are common in ogre lists, your units of knights must ALWAYS work in pairs. Always. Very little can stand up to 32 attacks with TC(2) that hit on 3+ and even if they manage to survive that first charge, they’re gonna get hit again in the next turn by at least one of those two.

I used that tactic a lot when this army was Bretonnia and even with that old and outdated Army Book was able to find more victories than defeats. It’s a little harder now that these units have to be 5 models wide, but the principle is still the same.