Anyone run one? What are your thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of such a list?

100 skirming bowmen!! :) Old colleague at GW wanted to make this list. He would have,.. except it involved making and painting 100 pesants :P

In all honesty, i think it could work.

Maybe go with a Magi heavy Phophetess list? Phophetess, Damsel, Damsel, Paladin and BSB. Lore of life is pretty hard.
2 Trebuchets, the core KotR (8 with FC and BSB) Then 25 bowmen skirming, some yeomen and then max on M@A.

Alternatively, go with a pesant/Pegasus mix. General on Pegasus, few foot paladins and damsels, then 3 Pegasi units, and pesants as above

I suppose magic heavy would be the way to go, as phoenix pointed out, as the strength of the charge of the bretonnian hero/lord would be rendered inert. Although you'd have to be smart about KoTR and Paladin placing, so that the peasantry would have enough leadership. Maybe a massive skirmishing archer unit, a few stationary archer units, two or so MY, and a minimal KoTR would round it off. And a Grail Relique would be positively necessary. One would probably have two large blocks (30-40) of Men-at-Arms, flanked by four or six 20-25 unit Men-at-Arms.

Provided one could endure such a massive painting feat, they would be rewarded with a difficult to play with, fluffy and unexpected army. Shooting would pose a problem because of the mix of low leadership (if there are no knights around), low armour/toughness and no Pegasus (for war machines). Although, this could be fixed if one set up screens of peasant bowmen/MY. It would basically be a smaller and (slightly) stronger Goblin army, relying on overwhelming numbers, and occasionally, strong magic (dependent on enemy).

It'd be fun, no doubt. But workable? I'm not sure.

Iam sorry but u don't see it working. I like to use peasants don't get me wrong. In 2k games I field 2x 25 M@A, bowmen and yeomen unit.

However this is mainly support for the knight that deal the killing blow. I don't see peasants dealing a killing blow...Ofcourse 100 bowmen is nasty but it can be killed quite easily.

Peasants are great but in my opionion only for support reason.

I would go ahead and say ANYTHING can work under the right conditions. The question is, are you making a peasant army just for the sake of trying to make it work, or are you building it for a particular opponent? I could see a few different ways of making this successful. One is to bulk up on small rows of peasent archers and effectively build 3-4 ranks of "barriers" so you can barricade up your casters and have only pegasus knights that can easily manuver around these barriers. The other option is to help compensate for an ultra heavy lord on a hippogryph. Are you counting the reliquary or the yeomen? I mean to an extent I do feel that peasants are only good in ratio to knights not knights in ratio to peasants.

I've got plans for one too, just don't have the characters worked out yet. I would love for there to be a foot soldier army available in the 7th ed army book.

strengths are outnumbering and having free banners on everything. Decent leadership if there is a knight in the each unit or 1 for every other unit.

weakness is WS 2 and average leadership because of humans. Knights are the only thing that will kill anything but you can have some cool items and get a 5th hero that other armies don't. Knights and yeoman on the flanks will rip bad guys up on the counter charge.

There is definitely a way to make a peasant heavy army list work. You won't get anywhere forming battle lines like other armies though. You have to bank on a couple things.

1) Your leadership is awful, even with the Knight's Vow. Your units will flee at every opportunity.

2) If you are the one being charged (Bretonnians?! Being charged?! Blasphemy!) you can essentially pick where the overrun will carry the chargers. This sets up flank or rear charges for you.


The way I would go about making such a list would be to set up some small units of bowmen with defensive stakes, angled to avoid incoming overrunning troops escaping safely off the back of my board edge. This makes them sitting ducks for the men-at-arms standing behind the bowmen, and even at WS 2 those halbreds hurt going in to your backside.

In terms of heroes, you're going to need to have some good magic phases to soften up the enemy, so I'd take only a single Paladin to be my BSB, and probably give him the Virtue of Empathy (not so much for the effect, but because it's cheaper than giving him a horse!) The rest of my slots would be Damsels and a Prophetess, hoping to catch a break and pick up some solid offensive spells. That said, it's pretty hilarious when a Damsel gets Bear's Anger and turns in to an angry viking woman.

Your required Knights of the Realm are basically damage control. Inevitably something will go wrong, and you'll need some hitting power to fix it. From what I've found, that's usually because something of your opponent's causes Terror. For obvious reasons, this is very bad.

I HIGHLY recommend playing Mounted Yeomen to fix some problems too. They don't hit very hard, but they do charge block. And they can help to pick off some problems your fairly immobile army would otherwise have, like war machines. When playing a peasant heavy army, your most important resource is time. Yeomen are great because they buy a lot of time. Those of you who aren't familiar with fast cav, try running them within charge range of a high movement unit your enemy controls, and take a flee reaction if they charge. You essentially cut their movement in half, and it puts them in a position where you can now stay out of their charge arc within 8" to prevent march moves. With one maneuver, you've gained 2-3 turns of shooting and magic.

One last note, any knights you DO decide to play need to be placed to maximize leadership. Knights of the Realm are the best fit for this job.

I was also thinking about using a Prophetess in a Peasant heavy army, the problem is, a Bretonnnian Lord is so useful that it is hard to justify not using him :P.

I saw a cool peasant heavy list at the last lonewolf gt. It won an award just for the guy having the cajones to bring a list like it to an gt. But that's all he won. :ballon:

I run a 1 knight unit peasant army.

In 2000pt

7 KOTR with full command warbanner
1 lord, 1 paladin BSB

1 Paladin with virtual of empathy on foot with maa

1 damsel with 2 dispelscroll

2*25maa

2*12maa

2*10peasant archers with musician

1*10peasant archers skirmisher with musician

2*mounted yeoman with shields musician

2*trebuchet with craftsman

1*Grail Relique
Strengths are:
-Almost cover the board.
-Win combat using CR not kills.
-Can overwhelm, march block and control what he charges.
-Can't kill 1 unit to effectively end your game. (like uber game ending unit)

Weaknesses are:
-Magic heavy armies dominate you.
-Fear causing armies will make it hard for you.
-Need good open terrain.
-Kind of reactive since your units are neither fast or can operate alone.

I have played against one and it was quite nasty.

It plays a bit like a magic heavy empire army, I do recommend going magic heavy. Mounted yoemen are great a redirecting and can be useful for a flank charge.

I sort of gave up going magic heavy for my peasant army. I play magic armies alot and get dominated by high elves, magic goblins and magic orgres.

BUT against CC armies like chaos, its good!!