The Brothermark Revival (II)

Introduction

Last week I started writing up a set of changes to make the Brothermark army a (more) valid and disctinctive army. This week, all changes have been compiled in a list comparable to the Clash-of-kings updates.

Due to the Covid lockdown, playtests have been very limited. (a few minor skirmishes on my own gaming table) so this list is subject to change. Feedback is *very* welcome!

Finally, a shoutout to @bloodaxe for inspiring me to to this!

Homebrew – disclaimer

The below set of changes is homebrew, neither official nor sanctioned by the KoW rules committee. Please seek your opponent’s approval before using it in your games.

List of changes

Changes to the army list

(this set of changes include the Clash ’20 updates)

• The Brothermark can no longer use the Dictator, Ogre Palace Guard and Phoenix from the Basilean parent list.
• The brothermark can include a unit of hunting dogs. The stats are the same as the Basilean Gur Panthers. Practically, for all intends and purposes, it can include this unit from the parrent list.
• the Basilean high paladin on dragon’s nerve is ammended to 17/19 and the unit gains the “headstrong” ability.
• Men-at-arms swordsmen, spearmen and crossbowmen lose the “veteran command” upgrade, but gain the “Villein” keyword.
• Villein penitents’s point cost amended to 85/140/200
• Exemplar hunter’s attacks increased to 5.
• the Brothermark gains access to the Order of the Forsaken from the Order of the Green lady army list.
• new units: Villein initiates, Chaplain of the Forsaken, Forsaken Exemplar

Options that are now out, but may come in later after more playtesting

The amended army list has two main problems that may or may not need solving.

a) The army may lack punching power as it is *very* reliant on thunderous charge, which can be removed. The list does not include any Crushing Strength higher than (1) and even that only on two units.

We’ll see if an army that relies heavily on TC is valid. In a first draft of this set of changes, the army included large cavalry compared to either honour guard (League of Rhordia) or Frostfang cavalry (Northern alliance) to include some CS. The problem is that these units overshadowed all other units to an extent that there was little reason to take actual knights (especially order of the abyssal hunt) if these were included. So, they were removed.

Another option is to include a pahthfinder -villein aura on one of the heroes, but I couldn’t test it yet, so it was not included.

In the end, I decided that buffing the heroes (slightly), combined with the availability of bane chant on the priests might be enough. We’ll see.

b) The army is very vulnerable to the Phalanx rule as all the army’s hitting power comes from TC-cavalry. This means that the army will have trouble removing a horde of spearmen, let alone a wall of spears.

This comes with the territory of an all-mounted force and forces the Brothermark player to use a combined arms tactic (using infantry and cavalry). That said, I think the army might need some kind of advantage facing spears, but I’m not sure how to do this.

An options would be something along these lines:

• The following units can buy the “spearbreakers upgrade for 5 (troop)/10 (regiment)/15(horde and legion) points: paladin foot guard, men-at-arms, men-at-arms-spearmen, villein pennittents.

Spearbreakers: Some infantry formations employ big soldiers with large, double handed, swords or axes in the front ranks. The role of these soldiers is to attack the shafts of spears and pikes before they can make contact.

The unit gains CS (1) or 1 additional point of CS against units with the Phalanx rule.

why it wasn’t included?

This rule was not included because it would be a) a new rule and b) punishing an opponent for taking an upgrade.

Still, if the army needs a buff against Phalanx, this might be on the table again. The charm of this little rule is that it (once again) enforces the combined-arms theory and furthermore adds a bit of CS to the army which it otherwise lacks.