Having now
built my Bretonnia Battalion (and crossing my fingers I won't need
more than four stands of defensive stakes for this army because they
are an arse to build), I went looking for some inspiration on how to
paint the models.
For a start
I want to recommend Youtube as a fantastic source of battle reports,
especially the Miniwargaming channel's Olde World Wars series which
has more Bretonnia videos than I expected as one of their employees
(Steve, I believe) actually has a Bretonnia army. Having not touched
my old Bretonnia army since the early seventh edition its interesting
to see how they play in eighth. Not badly, as it turns out, though I
still think the lance is no longer as meaningful a tactical choice as
it should be in the age of supporting attacks.
Second, I
dug through my old White Dwarfs and found issue 290 which has a guide
to painting Bretonnian heraldry. I may bend the rules a little but I
think I'll mostly abide by them.
For a start
you have a palette of five colours: black, red, blue, white and
yellow. You don't use purple because that's royal (and too expensive)
and you don't use green because that's a commoner colour (and too
cheap). Yellow and white stand in for gold and silver and you don't
use them together because they contrast badly.
My army is
going to be based at Castle Desfleuve, a holdfast guarding the
Bretonnian end of the Gisoreux Gap pass through the Grey Mountains.
This is a
selection of heraldry examples for Gisoreux from the 2003 Bretonnia
army book. Red and black seem to be the main colours, which are
always a good contrast and relatively simple to paint, with white and
yellow mainly for devices. That's also good because it means painting
as little white as possible. The characters who will form the family
deMartrand, the lords of Castle Desfleuve, will have yellow and red
as their house colours. I'll be using mostly black and red on the
rank and file Gisoreux knights so the characters will stand out.
Also, I just like the contrast of black and red, there's a reason
Flesh Tearers are my favourite Space Marines.
Also, if I
follow these colours and leave blue out of the equation, I can use
blue as a visual key to denote units that aren't from Gisoreux like
the Questing and Grail Knights. I also have this concept of saving up
the Knights of the Realm champion heads, which have stag horns, and
creating an entire lance with stag helms to be the personal household
of Duke Hagen.
For the
moment, though, I'm concentrating on my Peasants and using them to
test out colour combinations. I'm currently painting some Archers in
the deMartrand red and yellow and Men-At-Arms in the Duke's red and
black. Results, one hopes, will be in a fit state for posting by
Sunday.
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