Also, to answer some general questions:
He does tend to rush. He’s no simpleton, but he knows that getting the charge before he takes too much damage is key.
He never combines cav charges with infantry (for the above reason).
Normally he takes big fat units with a damsel to give magic resistance. It’s a real pain to thin them down enough before they hit.
He does take men at arms, but they rarely make any difference. I’m more than happy to engage them, once the cavalry is taken care of, of course.
I have a very mixed feeling about bull centaurs. Yes, they rock my socks off, but they also take a rare choice. Two earthshakers to slow down lances (and maybe even kill something!) Seems like the stronger play, since it gives me more time to damage the lances and (hopefully) have one break (and lose the blessing).
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His problem is the numerous no-save warmachines. He can either rush (his strategy) with a cav oriented list or he can take more time to support smaller cav units with cheap infantry ranks but it also implies using fast cav and flying units of go warmachine hunting.
If he doesn’t use infantry to support his cav, it’s quite useless indeed. Just enough to fight a unit of unarmored greenskins, not able to take on an equipped one except archers.
The sword of might on the BSB makes sense indeed, I had missed the “battle standard” line.
How do you use your archers ? Do you feel they are worth the cost against Bretonnians and their 2+ saves ?
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No worries, I appreciate all your insight thus far.
The archers are actually not there to do ANY damage… they might plink some mounted yeomen, but their real purpose is to screen my blocks from chargers. With that said, it might be better to just take unequipped hobgoblins (to conserve pts). They also are convenient at stopping pesky stray enemy arrows and spells.
Use 1: place both units in a single rank right in front of my big block unit. When the front unit is charged, they flee in response. He can then redirect into the second unit, which will also flee. Chargers are only allowed to redirect once in 6th ed, so if both units flee, that charge has now failed.
Use 2: place each unit in front of a block, then move forward. Similar to use 1, these units flee in response and, if run down, have hopefully provided enough breathing room so that the knights do not overrun into the block behind it. If they do overrun, no biggie, now they can be flank charged on my turn by supporting units.
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Rules are rules but I find use 1 a bit cheap, exploiting a caveat.
I prefer the 3 layers of use 2 but I feel something is wrong. If he missed the overrun, he was over 16" away from your block. The charge is missed, he moves 8" and remains over 8" away from your block so you still can’t charge him with infantry. So you fled to provoke a missed charge instead of allowing him to move freely.
If your screen holds and flees, at least you get a chance to charge depending how far he pursues. He got his unit bumped forward far from the rest.
I think what I would do is to sacrifice your screen which holds the charge with a CD unit 5" behind. He may either not pursue and allow you to charge (if his expensive unit flees and loses the benediction and magic dice, it’s still a good deal for the price of a screen unit). If he pursues and overruns into your warriors, you get the opportunity to countercharge on his flank before the close combat phase turning the tide in your favour (removing its ranks and adding flank attack for you without causing any extra knight to fight) and causing a panic test before.
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It’s fair that the use of redirects is a bit cheesy, but then again he can always choose to just pursue and not redirect (and most likely run down both the screens, possibly hitting the main unit regardless).
The idea behind the failed charge is that it gives me another round of magic and shooting to hopefully thin the ranks even further. If I take lore of shadows, I could potentially use Unseen Lurker to charge with my block, but that’s not guaranteed.
However, I do overall agree with you that Use 2 is probably the better option of the two! It’s both cheaper and more straight forward.