[WFB] Bretonnian Diary, New Bretonnian Lord & Fay Enchantress added Options

[Din]

Bretonnians were an army I was always fascinated by. Perhaps this was due to growing up on some unhealthy amount of viewing movies like Excalibur, Braveheart, and in later years Kingdom of Heaven (director cut which was a much better movie), and getting my dirty mits on games like Medieval Total War (and now MTW2).

Bretonnians first grabbed my attention back in 5th edition with the awesome Michael and Alan Perry sculpts, but for one reason or another I never got around to purchasing many models in the range. Which was something that I later regretted.

With the 6th edition release I went about building up a small Bretonnian army based on the Order of the Knights Templar, with a few Hospitaller allies for pure cosmetic reasons. Something was still missing though. I definitely liked the new barded horses, they were definitely the goods, but something just wasn't right... I still wanted those Perry models. My collection wasn't going to feel complete until I got them.

I'm now in the position where I have managed to get my hands on a fair amount of these models that I grew to love well over 10 years ago, through sales in the WTS Thread here on WAU as well as Fleebay.

So I'm overhauling my entire range. My Templar contingent will remain as it is, although it will get a few fix up jobs along the way. I'll still be using those models in larger games.
As for my new purchases, and a few repainted units, they will loosely be based (for pallet purposes only) on a Medieval English army set somewhere around the rein of the Three Edwards. This gives me a pallet of predominantely Red and Yellow to work with, whereas the Knights will get a pallet of Red, Yellow, Blue and Cream (Blue and Cream which Edward the Third's adopted to support his claim to the French throne) to add a little variety and differentiate them from the lesser foot sluggers.

So here goes...

Men-At-Arms

I wanted these guys to look like the absolutely disorganised pathetic mob their stats reflect. Their equipment would be in bad condition, the weapons would be whatever was available at the time (hence a few pitchforks) and the standard had to look like no-one in their right mind would see any value in capturing it.

Jules


This post has been edited by Din: May 23 2010, 03:11 PM

[Roby1]

Very nice mate should be a ripper army, keep us updated on how you go.

[Banebeast_D]

I'm loving the look of this army so far and I'm really looking forward to seeing how the other units turn out. Nice colour scheme and I appreciate what a chore painting yellow can be...keep up the good work!

[winder]

beautiful painting mate, the peasants are spot on with the good colours but all dirtied up, it looks like you painted them cleanly and then added mud rather than just painting it messily and it really pays off i think

Liam

[Din]

Grail Reliquae

I wasn't completely sold on the idea of a bunch of fanatical peasants collecting the relics from a former Grail Knight, and decided to go with something a little different.

So, rather than a band of fanatics carrying the corpse of a Grail Knight, I went with a unit of battle hardened men-ar-arms carrying into battle their either somewhat insane or impoverished lord. Leadership 8 would represent the lord's leadership, or their loyalty to the 'not-all-there' Knight. The fact that you can't strike the Reliquae would represent the Men-at-Arms protecting the lord, or even the lord's cowardice by avoiding combat until the bitter end.






The Reliquae itself had to have the Knight sitting atop (albeit uncomfortably) a palaquin carried by his personal retinue. So I decided that the Knight was either so poor, or just plain mental enough to bring everyone that served under him to battle. Hence the Reliquae having his Torturer/Executioner, a Jester, Priest, and Village Idiot (just a normal Reliquae model with a head swap) on the base.




I wanted the Battle Pilgrims to represent the veteran Men-at-Arms, and found some substitute models by converting some of the older Perry Twin's Bretonnian Archer range. A few arm/weapon swaps and I was happy.



This post has been edited by Din: Dec 11 2009, 01:51 PM

[Din]

Very nice mate should be a ripper army, keep us updated on how you go.

Thanks mate!

I'm loving the look of this army so far and I'm really looking forward to seeing how the other units turn out. Nice colour scheme and I appreciate what a chore painting yellow can be...keep up the good work!

Cheers, yeah yellow can be an utter pain in the a$$. I wanted to go with a colour scheme that would hopefully be eye catching. This is reason the Simpsons are yellow... so hopefully it pays off!

beautiful painting mate, the peasants are spot on with the good colours but all dirtied up, it looks like you painted them cleanly and then added mud rather than just painting it messily and it really pays off i think

Liam

Yeah, spot on. The models are just painted as per normal and then a coat of thinned down Khemri Brown, then a thinned coat of Calthan Brown is added to give the right look. Glad you noticed.

[fmi1979]

Great work, it reminds me of the original Brettonian army without all the crazy fanatics. It's tempting me too start a Brettonian army.

[GuardsmanLowe]

Great work. It's tempting me too start a Brettonian army.

+1 to this comment. I have always liked the Brets - even have a Repanse somewhere.

[Smorg]

loving the reliquae, very cool idea

[SturmJager]

Very Nice mate. I hope I play your beautiful Army. (AND SMASH YOU!!!)

[Citizen]

This army is really nice man. The shields on the Men at Arms look suitably tatty and dirty, and the Grail Reliquae is a fantastic idea. I'll be keeping an eye on this diary.

[Din]

Knight's Colour Scheme

To emphasise the difference between my Knight units I decided on a pretty simple format, with the colour scheme and heraldry becoming more and more elaborate depending on the unit. This would help me get my free-hand painting skills to develop as I progressed, and should hopefully avoid confusion on the table for my opponent as to what was what (one of my personal pet peeves!)...

Knights Errant: Blue, Yellow, and Red - minimal detailing
Knights of the Realm: Blue, Yellow, Red, and Cream (Bleached Bone)
Questing Knights: NFI
Grail Knights: Any colour - fair amount of free hand and detailing

Knights Errant

I've got a fair amount of the older Perry Twin's Bretonnian Knight Errant models, so it was an obvious no-brainer as to what I was going to use for these guys. The only problem was a few head swaps were in order so that the entire unit didn't look like something from a Panteen commercial with their flowing locks.



I decided to keep their colour scheme basic to represent the fact that they weren't fully fledged Knights yet, and to build on this I tried to keep the individual heraldry pretty simple too.





I took a knife to a few of the horses to make it look like they were rearing to fit in with their impetuous nature... which is kind of hard to tell in this photo.

[Omnipotent]

GO THE CROWS!!!

Ha Ha, know you love that comment.

[deathstarray]

wow they are great looking Bretts, love your work

[Jimmy]

These are looking fantastic! Incredible work, this army will look splendid on the battlefield once it's complete.

[Din]

Great work, it reminds me of the original Brettonian army without all the crazy fanatics. It's tempting me too start a Brettonian army.

That's the ultimate compliment (even if it wasn't intended that way ), cheers!

+1 to this comment. I have always liked the Brets - even have a Repanse somewhere.

Do it, Repanse has to be one of my favourite models from that range, next to the Grail Knight champion. They're awesome sculpts.

loving the reliquae, very cool idea

Thanks mate

Very Nice mate. I hope I play your beautiful Army. (AND SMASH YOU!!!)

Haha, if they were going to accept grudges for first round at Dogcon I would have accepted the challenge. As long as you bought me a beer to dull the pain of this 'smashing'.

This army is really nice man. The shields on the Men at Arms look suitably tatty and dirty, and the Grail Reliquae is a fantastic idea. I'll be keeping an eye on this diary.

Glad that you think so, it took me a long time to come up with an idea that I was happy with for the Reliqaue. Now that I've got it assembled and painted, I don't know how I managed to play so long without one. So far it's held up a Wood Elf lord and Dragon for long enough to prevent them from having too much of an influence in a game, and held an Orc unit in place to enable me to get a game winning charge in.

[Din]

Peasant Skirmishing Archers

This was pretty much a no brainer. I wanted a unit that resembled Robin Hood and his Merry Men, and these guys were obviously made to fill that want.



I decided also on adding a banner to the unit. Game wise this is a must, seeing I using these bad boys in skirmish formation I would be losing their defensive stakes. The banner would hopefully make someone think twice about sending in those annoying Great Eagles/Fellbats/Harpies/Terradons (probably not, but I need to think positively). Also not granting an opponent the 100 point bonus for captured standards (due to the Peasant Rule) is awesome.
Model wise, I decided that these guys would just have some natty banner that was more about symbolism than looks. It would be held up with an old pitchfork found somewhere along the way.



This post has been edited by Din: Jan 10 2010, 04:19 PM

[winner@life]

Wow those are some really nice painted models Daniel, especially a big fan of Robin Hood and his Merry Men

Is this your tournament army for this year?

Once again fantastic work, your art astounds me.


Cheers,
Andrew

[Fox]

Absolutely love the army, Dan. Your painting and theme choice really does those characterful sculpts justice. Top notch stuff.

[SturmJager]

This is going well.