A Truthsayer comes to the Grey Mountains

Sometimes in this hobby you just inherit random models from friends. In this case I've inherited Matt's old Truthsayer and Fenbeast from the Dark Shadows campaign.

We've been talking about using mercenaries in our games, incorporating some of the rules from Triumph & Treachery and Storm Of Magic. Having an itinerant Truthsayer wandering into Castle Desfleuves with his squelchy pal seems like a good way to start testing this out. There are perfectly good rules for both in Storm Of Magic's bestiary, after all.

The as-yet-unnamed Truthsayer will bounce between my Bretonnians and Wood Elves, maybe even the Dwarfs who will be very confused about the whole affair. He has his own agenda, his own wrestling-esque enforcer in the form of his Fenbeast so no one really wants to question what that agenda is.

There's not much background on the Truthsayers as individuals but I see them (or at least this one) as an Odinic sort of figure, both a wise man and a trickster because as we established yesterday...

… I have a type when it comes to mysterious, morally questionable wanderers.

The Army of the Grey Mountains

Since writing yesterday's post I've been batting around ideas for my Bretonnia / Dwarf allied army: who they are, what they're doing, how they're doing it. I'm not yet ready to forge it into a complete narrative but here are a few of the ideas I think have legs (horse legs or short legs but legs whichever way)...

Castle Desfleuves

and the Warden of the Passes

Castle Desfleuves is located in the Gisoreux Gap, one of the two passes through the Grey Mountains to the Empire. Its purpose is pretty obvious: not only to protect against invading armies coming through the pass or down from the mountains but also to handle the diplomacy and trade with the Empire and the Grey Dwarfs.

In my version, Desfleuves is the seat of the Warden of the Passes, supreme military commander of all castles and holdfasts from the Pale Sisters in the north to the southern border of Montfort just south of Axe Bite Pass. Now, that territory happens to cross two duchies so there can be some nice political complications for the warden.

Solution to this would seem to me to be that the warden acts under royal warrant and that their authority supersedes the dukes of Gisoureux and Montfort. Also, they would have access to long term alliances, such as...

The Dwarfs of Karak Ziflin

Karak Ziflin, like Castle Desfleuves, is completely undefined in the canon background. All it has is a location: it sits in the mountains just north of Axe Bite Pass. Its a Grey hold which means it is rather poorer in terms of materials than the holds in the Worlds Edge Mountains and so maybe they don't have as much material to make armour and weapons and supply their armies. Thus, centuries ago they entered into an oath of mutual protection with the wardens at Castle Desfleuves.

This explains why the fast-moving, gun-hating Bretonnians are tooling around with the slow-moving, gun-loving Dwarfs. Karak Ziflin tithes troops and engineers to Desfleuves including Rangers and Gyrocopters to act as outriders. The two armies operate independently in the main but when they need help they know who to call.

There's tension in the different ways they fight. Bretonnians have this hatred of ranged warfare, “the coward's weapon that kills from afar”, but they can't debate the honour of dwarfs which is beyond reproach. Still, a little tension between allies never did a story any harm.

The Brothers Borsson

Main characters for the dwarf contingent are Aelfrid and Lief Borsson. Aelfrid is my Runesmith and Lief is my Master Engineer. They're both makers of things and I imagine, given how mobile the Bretonnians are compared to dwarfs, that the dwarfs' main job in the alliance is building and maintaining defences. I also like the idea of having family ties between the scientific and religious officers of the army, not that the two roles are opposed in dwarf society what with both engineering and runesmithing taking place in the forges.

Still, some tension between the traditionalism of the runic arts and the experimentalism of the engineering guild could make for some nice conversations.

The Family de Martrand

The Warden of the Passes is Lady Sabifa de Martrand. Sabifa is a character from my Empire army. She's Bretonnian on her father's side (her mother was Arabyan, they met during a crusade) and has been living in exile in the Empire for some years. She's a Bright Wizard, hence her exile, its not one of the disciplines that Bretonnians make common use of and might have been seen as witchcraft. However, with her father death she's acceded to the title and has some measure of royal protection.

I've already talked to my friends and they're happy for me to run her as a Damsel of the Lady using the Lore of Fire.

As to the rest of the family, my Bretonnian Lord will be Sabifa's uncle Black Hal de Martrand, so named for his killing a black dragon in single combat. He'll probably have a son or something to be the battle standard bearer.

The Rangers of Karak Ziflin

So, the basic Dwarf infantry kits have a funny number of models in them. They date back to the days of four men to a rank so you get sixteen of them to a box. So here's the plan:

I have two boxes of Warriors and one box of Thunderers. The Thunderers I will just make as Thunderers but keep the spare parts on hand. Twenty of the thirty-two warriors will be made as warriors. As for the remaining twelve I'll mix up warrior great weapons and the crossbows from the Thunderer/Quarrellers kits to make Rangers. I'll also use the cloaked bodies from the three kits (which come to an even twelve) so I can give them a unique visual character.

Graeme and his companions

I have dwarf spare parts. Lots of dwarf spare parts. I have a character known as the Friend Of Dwarves, a natural liaison between the two sides. Not only can I make a nice, characterful model for Graeme himself but maybe also use some other bits to create a whole unit of dwarf-themed Questing Knights.

Enemies Everywhere

What can we have as antagonists? Obviously there are Orcs & Goblins in the mountains; Night Goblins and Skaven under them; the ever-present threat of Chaos; Imperial deserters and Bretonnian outlaws taking refuge in the peaks; and the undead out of Mousillion. Plenty to be getting on with even before we get to the Bretonnian nobles who aren't happy about this Imperial-educated witch being handed a wardenship by the king.

Yes, things are going to go a bit Richard Sharpe, plenty of enemies on the same nominal side as our heroes.

The Colours of War

Bretonnians are as varied as they come, each knight having a different heraldry but I think I can stretch the point to having some recurring motifs. Red and black as the de Martrand family heraldry to be used on banners, on champions who will be nephews and cousins of the family, and on the shields and shirts of peasants seems like a nice time saver.

As to the dwarfs, there are some illustrations in the army book that make me like the idea of deep blues and reds unifying the army with plate armour in silver and scales armour in bronze. I tried an all-bronze colour scheme once and it looked terrible but I think mixing it up a bit will give things a lot more visual interest for me. First order of business will be to test this colour scheme out, probably on something singular. I think the Runesmith has all the requisite materials: plate and scale armour, some sleeves and a cloak, enough to test out every colour I'll be using.

Graeme, Friend of Dwarves

One of the best things about the sixth edition Bretonnia army book is the heraldry guide. Not only does it give the painter a good idea of how to vary up the limited palette of heraldic colours but the names of the knights the heraldry belongs to make great background hooks.

Amongst suck fantastic names as Piers the Intrepid, Matthias the Villainous Warden and Mogen of the Flame is Graeme, Friend of Dwarves. Now, that's just too perfect for my purposes.

In my mind, Graeme gained his name as an ambassador to the Dwarven holds in the Grey Mountains. He's long retired from that position and now he's a Questing Knight because I don't see someone named “Friend of Dwarves” armed with anything other than a great axe.

Him being on the Quest gives me an idea. Now, obviously, he needs a few old friends in the Dwarf throng and I think his oldest and best friend absolutely has to be the champion of my Slayer regiment. That way they're both on quests of honour, one hopeful and one fatalistic, nice way to contrast the characters of the two armies.

Mercenary Tactics #1: The Slayer's Oath

I don't want a Dwarf army. I like Dwarfs but I've tried to collect Dwarf armies before and they don't work for me. As evocative and fascinating as their background is, as much as I love their character they are just not an army that plays to my strengths. Their lack of speed means they have a defensive style of play that just doesn't suit me.

Luckily, Matt and I have been talking about mercenaries recently. More specifically, we've been talking about bringing back the old 25% allowance for allies so we can use mercs in our regular games just to shake things up a bit.

First unit on the docket...

image from the Avatars of War webstore

… Avatars of War Dwarf Berserkers or, as everyone else calls them, plastic Slayers. Painting them as not ginger does not change that. And just look at that banner: its huge, its over the top, its fantastic.

Slayers are one of my favourite Dwarf units: shamed Dwarfs sworn to die in battle but, being Dwarfs, they can't just get in the way of the enemy and die. No, a Dwarf does something he has to do it right! If they have to die in battle they'll fight to win and they will only die if the enemy can genuinely beat him. They'll go up against the biggest, the most dangerous things they can find.

They also make great mercenaries for the army I want to pair them with: my Bretonnians.

Wait, what?

Okay, to explain: back when Dogs of War were a thing Bretonnians were the only army that couldn't take them. Their honour code forbade the use of mercenaries who fought for money. Slayers don't travel fighting for money, they fight to reclaim their honour and a Bretonnian general can understand that. There is a concept of penitence amongst Bretonnians even if the rather nihilistic honour code of the Slayers might not translate all that well.

Actually, the relationship between Bretonnia and the Dwarf holds in the Grey Mountains fascinates me. Its never been addressed in official background, I don't think and I want an avenue to explore it. I've ordered a box of Berserkers and they'll be taking the field alongside my Bretonnians and Empire. Maybe there'll be more units, though I don't think it'll run to much: a couple of units, a character or two, definitely a Gyropcopter (I love the new Gyrocopter).

But yeah, now I have to work out how to paint orange hair. 

2016

I feel a real rush of energy coming into the new year. Later this month I'll be moving in with a couple of old friends and, whilst I've enjoyed living on my own the last few years, I must admit I'll be glad of the company. They're very good friends and fellow hobbyists so I look forward to making real progress on some longstanding projects.

So, goals for the year? Goals for the year:

52 Books in 52 Weeks

Between one thing and another I've not had much time to read over the past year. I vaguely remember this sort of challenge being mentioned in a Rooster Teeth Minecraft Let's Play (by Geoff, as I recall). It might be interesting to have a record of what I read over the coming year.

Bretonnians

My once-and-future signature Fantasy army: the brave sons and daughters of chivalry. I bought a job lot of models last year when they made a sudden reappearance on the GW webstore. I want to make this a real production number: unique heraldry on every knight; written background for every unit; conversions for some of the new units from Matthias Eliasson “8^th edition compatible” homebrewed Army Book. Given that our group has started our own post-End Times continuity it seems only right that I get my own (knightly) house in order.

Model Counter

Sudden need to move rather robbed me of impetus for the 100 Model Challenge so let's start afresh and see how many models I can paint in a calendar year.

Writing

Just do it, as they say. More blog posts, write some fan fiction to get back into practice, maybe do NaNoWriMo this year, get back to writing weekly comic reviews. Just write whatever I can, make it a habit. Last year I managed 191 blog posts, let's see if I can top that this year just as a soft target.

Doctor Who Marathon

Third time lucky: watch and review every story from An Unearthly Child to the 1996 TV Movie with a few distractions along the way. Definitely not something I'll finish this year (that would be three stories a week) but if I only do one a week that'll be the black and white era polished off before Christmas. 

Planning an educative Warhammer game

My friend Tom is currently putting together a small Bretonnia army. Bretonnia is, as has been previously mentioned, my absolute favourite army in the whole of Warhammer. It's the army I keep coming back to and, as such, we've decided to have a game where I bring out my new, improved (and not yet entirely built) Bretonnia army against his Empire so he can see how they work in practice.

He plays a very black powder heavy Nuln army so I'm going to get shot to hell and back before I reach him. The logical solution would be to take loads of Peasant Archers and a couple of Field Trebuchets. I'm taking one of each but, to be frank, he wants to see how knights work so I'm just taking lots of knights: four full lances and a five man unit of Grail Knights. Also, the whole issue of not being corrupted into relying on the coward's weapon that kills from afar.

We've made a few gentleman's agreements as pertains to the “classic” Bretonnia army book. Agreement the first: modern command costs, ten points each for champions, musicians and standard bearers. Agreement the second: back then Battle Standard Bearers couldn't take additional mundane equipment, now they can so my BSB gets a shield. Agreement the third: the rule is ambiguous so we're saying a Damsel in the middle of a lance can use the unit's arc of sight. That said, here's the “educative” list:

Lords

Bretonnian Lord with the Knight's Vow and the Virtue of Purity armed with lance and shield, wearing heavy armour and riding a barded Bretonnian warhorse. 160 points

Heroes

Paladin with the Knight's Vow and the Virtue of Duty, armed with hand weapon and shield, riding a barded Bretonnian warhorse, Battle Standard Bearer with the War Banner. 141 points

Damsel of the Lady, Level 2 Wizard using the Lore of Beasts. 105 points

Damsel of the Lady, Level 1 Wizard using the Lore of Life riding a Bretonnian warhorse. 80 points

Paladin with the Knight's Vow and the Virtue of Empathy armed with hand weapon and shield. 72 points

Core

8 Knights Errant, armed with lances and shields, wearing heavy armour and riding barded Bretonnian warhorses, full command. 180 points

8 Knights of the Realm armed with lances and shields, wearing heavy armour and riding barded Bretonnian warhorses, full command. 212 points

8 Knights of the Realm armed with lances and shields, wearing heavy armour and riding barded Bretonnian warhorses, full command. 212 points

20 Men-At-Arms armed with hand weapons, halberds and shields wearing light armour, full command. 130 points

16 Peasant Archers armed with hand weapons, bows and defensive stakes, full command. 126 points

Special

9 Questing Knights armed with great weapons and shields, wearing heavy armour and riding barded Bretonnian warhorses, full command. 272 points

Rare

5 Grail Knights armed with lances and shields, wearing heavy armour and riding barded Bretonnian warhorses, full command. 210 points

Field Trebuchet with 4 crew including Master Craftsman. 100 points

2,000 points

If he can get the Empire miniatures together for 2,400 points then I'll expand with this, just for the hell of it:

Heroes

Damsel on foot will gain the Channelling Staff. +15 points

Core

Knights Errant will gain the Errantry Banner. +20 points

20 Men-At-Arms armed with hand weapons, halberds and shields wearing light armour, full command. 130 points

Special

Questing Knights will gain the Banner of Chalons. +10 points

Grail Reliquae with 6 Battle Pilgrims and 12 additional Battle Pilgrims. 226 points

2,401 points

I would very much hope to get a charge against his Handgunners or one of his nastier war machine with the Questing Knights kitted out with the “you can't declare a stand and shoot reacion” banner. Also, having not been able to purchase some of the more exotic units until now this will be my first chance to road test the Grail Reliquae and Grail Knights, which will be fun for me.

There are some things I have to build and the amount of paint on this army will be laughable even for me but I am so very much looking forward to playing my signature army again. 

Matthias Eliasson presents 8th edition Bretonnia

Bretonnia. My white whale. My beloved signature army. My brave sons and daughters of the Lady. In a moment when Warhammer Fantasy has gone completely to pot and I have to work to remind myself why I want to be in this hobby, of course I was going to turn to Bretonnia.

Bretonnians were my first Fantasy army: brave knights, grubby peasants, wise sorceresses, flying knights on pegasi, trebuchets hurling bits of church at the enemy and every knight (in the hands of a better painter than I) a work of art in its own right. Now, twelve years later, is my chance to do right by this army and make the noble host I always dreamed of fielding: each knight with his own heraldry and individual colours on the horses, peasants' heraldry painted to match the character model they owe fealty to. Honestly, the way things are going, this is probably going to be my last chance at this.

Just about the only thing I don't like about Bretonnia is the rather outdated Army Book. Its the oldest one left, dating back to the 6^th edition. It isn't that its unplayable, just that times have changed. Several items and abilities simply don't work in the 8^th edition, the command upgrade prices are ludicrous and largely negate the benefit of the knightly units getting free champions. And, of course, there's the fact it was a typically bare bones 6^th ed. book: four character classes, four core choices, four special choices and two rare choices. This was exactly how a lot of the smaller armies worked in those days: creating a stable basis on which later editions would build.

In Bretonnia's case, later editions never came and now they never will.

But never underestimate the dedication of fans. Matthias Eliasson, whose Warhammer Armies Project I've praised before, put together an expanded 8^th edition version of the Bretonnia Army Book, our subject for today. Its huge, its free and it looks pretty well-balanced at first glance. I've already taken temperatures with my gaming group and we're looking forward to field testing it.

So what's different?

The Basics

The lance formation stays as is but it gets the Devastating Charge special rule. The knights are slightly more expensive overall to represent this but the price hike is pretty low given how the years have changed them from being dirt cheap cavalry to merely averagely priced cavalry.

Knightly champions are still free and most musician and standard bearer upgrades are the standard ten points.

Every knightly unit has an option for one unit of that type to carry a magic standard.

Damsels and Prophetesses now have access to the Lore of Light as well as the specially-written Lore of the Lady in addition to the previously available Lores of Life, Beasts and Heavens (and, yes, Damsels get Heavens now, as well).

Men-At-Arms are now “proper soldiers” with WS 3. They still have low leadership to show they aren't the equal of Imperial State Troops. Their former”useless arrow fodder” duties are taken up by a new Peasant Levy unit we'll discuss later. Best of all, the pole-arms that were previously just a halberd under an assumed identity can now be used as a halberd or a spear, decided at the beginning of each close combat phase.

Pegasus Knights now have barding! This is a massive and longstanding complaint of mine answered. They still have only two wounds (most monstrous cavalry has three) but they're also five points cheaper.

The Virtues have been rewritten and re-priced where neceessary, as have the Vows. Questing Knights now re-roll only Fear and Terror tests but also ignore Always Strikes Last when using their great weapons. Grail Knights and characters with the Grail Vow gain +1 Leadership.

And then there's all the new stuff:

New Characters

Of the three new character classes, it's the Priestess of Shallya that interests me most. She's essentially a healer version of the Empire Warrior Priest with a series of Bound Spell blessing she can confer on units. I rather like that the two blessings that effect the Priestess's unit don't effect her,its a nice representation of self-sacrifice.

The Templar Crusader is an experienced knight who gives buffs to any unit he joins: a mounted unit re-rolls 1s on their charge distance whilst a foot unit gains the Hatred special rule.

Yeoman Serjeant is something I'm not entirely convinced by. Why? Because he's actually good at things. He has WS, BS and Strength 4. He's on par with knights in a lot of ways. A useful cheap character to be sure but perhaps rather more useful than a Bretonnian peasant, even a relatively “upper class”one, should be. I don't know, I'll probably give him a ho someday but there are so many more tasty options to play around with.

New Units

Peasant Levy. Skill stats of 2, armed with “Farm Tools” that give them +1 Strength but also require two hands and always strike last. They test for Leadership on 3D6 and pick the highest result of 2 dice because they are just that crap. Sounds like a fun unit and, yes, I really mean that, you won't find me shying away from fun random crap, oh no.

Truffle Hounds. Oh, how I look forward to using Truffle Hounds. Right now Matt is fielding Orcs & Goblins and, oh, how we love those crazy Fanatics as they hew through our armies like a hot knife through infantry. These are by now means as devastating but they work in a reasonably similar way: concealed in peasant units they charge the first enemy unit to come within 8”. If they make the charge they inflict D3+1 Str 3 hits and are then removed from play, if not they then make another charge against the closest enemy unit in the next turn until it hits something. Nowhere near as devastating as Fanatics but a hell of lot more reliable an no risk to yourself.

Foot Knights are exactly what it says on the tin: elite armoured infantry fulfilling that Greatswords / Tomb Guard / Grave Guard role of anchoring the battle line. They've the Knights' Vow but an impressive array of weapons options, being able to choose between hand weapon and shield, morning stars, great weapons and halberds.

Herrimaults are absolutely, one hundred percently Robin Hood and his Merry Men (or, if you're of my generation, Maid Marian and her Merry Men). Rules wise: Skirmishing, Scouting bowmen with a champion who has knight stats. I really want to make some of these guys and put my Virtue of Empathy Grail Knight character with them.

Hippogryph Knights are as awesome and monstrous as they sound. Hugely expensive at 75 points but you get what you pay for: Fear-causing, flyers, Stomp attacks, Str 5 and 3 Wounds, plus the Knight has Str 4 basic. They do, however, inherit the old issue Pegasus Knights used to have that they don't have barding even though it's sculpted on the model!

Spirits of the Fey are fun: mini-Green Knights represented as Ethereal, Fear-causing swarms, plus if they're at least partially within a forest or water feature they regain D3 wounds lost earlier in the battle at the end of each close combat phase.

The Sacrosantum of the Lady is a Bretonnian version of the Chaos War Shrine, essentially. Its a chariot with a Damsel and relics on it that every turn confers an automatic (not a bound spell, not random) benefit to the army around it. At 125 points, you certainly can't complain on value for money.

Now just to work out how to model some of this stuff. 

Farewell, fair Bretonnia

Well, not really. I still love the Bretonnia concept and the miniatures and I'm absolutely reviving the army... just not using my old models. You see, I'm one of those artistic people: the ones who hate anything they did more than a few years ago with a visceral passion. I painted these models when I was twenty. I really couldn't paint that well and so I went for a “house” colour scheme every knight had the same livery. Hell, if I could actually paint then that might even have worked, I've seen some fantastic Bretonnian armies painted that way.

A thing about me is that while I can and so repaint models there comes a point where I've done it so many times to a single model that I just can't do it anymore. Its a mental block that is honestly cured by buying a new copy of the exact same model, which is both irrational and financially ill-advised.

Still, my friend Tom wants a Bretonnia army of his own and I want to get rid of this so I've been sorting it all out, deciding what little I want to keep and the rest he can have for whatever he feels is a fair price.

I'm keeping a few things: a Virtue Of Empathy Grail Lord I converted (not well, but it has sentimental value); some spare Grail and Questing Knights that I can add to my new Finecast ones to create FULL LANCE FORMATIONS BWAHAHAHA!!!; and the fifth edition Damsel On Foot, who is genuinely the best damsel model GW has ever made. The rest can go and good riddance.

I really hope Tom enjoys them. He's got some damn funny ideas about keeping the more exotic choices, like Grail Reliquaes and Questing Knights, out of his army. I shall educate him. Once my own Bretonnia army is built (I am a very slow painter and anyway my group has no problem with in-progress minis going down on the table) I'll take the field against his Empire, or even against his Bretonnians, and show him the value of going to full monty with your spread of knights.

Also, I have a Green Knight and he doesn't so we'll see how he likes getting that to the face. I've never used the Green Knight, I wonder if its still as sick as I heard it was back in the day?

We shall see.

FOR HONOUR AND THE LADY! CHARGE!

Bretonnian ponderings

There was going to be an End Times post today but then I ran out of steam. We'll get back to it, I'm sure, but for now I'm pondering my much delayed Bretonnia army. Now, my focus up to the end of the year will be the Tomb Kings but since I'm going to need to do a lot of conversion on the Bretons to make a full army it'll have to be a slow build even before we take into account painting all that heraldry.

So, yeah, the things the Bretonnia range is currently missing: generic knightly characters, Questing Knights, Mounted Yeomen, the Grail Reliquae, Mounted Yeomen, Grail Knights and the Field Trebuchet. We're good for core plastics and Pegasus Knights but that's are a lot of things I'll either have to convert or do without.

I've been at this long enough that I remember when this sort of thing was business as usual. I remember the days when character classes and even whole units had no models for them. I had a Lost And The Damned army! I converted ninety mutants! This is nothing!

So, a few initial ideas:

Questing Knights

The name Graeme Friend Of Dwarves has always been an inspiring one to me. I was just going to paint an old Questing Lord in his colours but now I have all these spare champion weapons from my Dwarf Longbeards that don't seem too badly scaled to the knights. If I can chop the ball join flat I think I can wed the Dwarf great weapons to the knights with little difficulty.

More challenging are the piles of junk Questing Knights generally carry around, having no home to go back to and all. I'll have to raid my bits box and anyone else's I can get my hands on for random objects.

Mounted Yeomen

I once saw (and stupidly failed to save) a tutorial on merging Bretonnian Men-At-Arms and Empire Pistoliers to make Yeomen. Shouldn't be too hard to do if I can find the right spot to chop the Men-At-Arms in half at.

Grail Reliquae and Battle Pilgrims

Battle Pilgrims, easy: Empire Flagellants with the twin-tailed comets filed off and as much Bretonnian props glued to them as I can find. Grail Reliquae, far harder. I did own a Grail Reliquae so hopefully I can dig that up, strip the awful teenage paint job and just set it up in the middle of the Flagellants.

Trebuchet

There's only one other Trebuchet in GW's range and its terrible. Again, hopefully my old one has survived somewhere.

Grail Knights

Unbelievably this is the trickiest proposition. It seems easy: they're armed and armoured exactly the same as Knights Of The Realm and therein lies the problem: making the buggers look distinct. My first idea is to strap lots of those little heraldic shields to their shoulders and I think there are some big fleur de lys I could use somewhere on the model (chest, maybe) but aside from that I'm kind of out of ideas.

Still, if I make the Questing Knights first it'll be a while before I have to worry about the Grails. 

The End Times: Bretonnia ain't goin' nowhere

(Those seeking spoilers are not getting them from this post. Okay, maybe one, a little one. I'll be doing a full review of the Nagash books when I've finished them, this is just based on reading the first 80-odd pages of Book One and how I think what's been written affects my most favourite army ever, ever, ever: Bretonnia.)

I'm not one to give credence to the doom and gloom rumours of armies getting “Squatted”. Frankly, the Squats were a long time ago and they were, sorry if this offends, a crap idea. Space Dwarfs on motorbikes were never going to age well, it was very Eighties and one of those mistakes companies make when they think they'll be out of business this time next year. They got dropped more than twenty years ago and its time to get over it. Whilst we're on the subject: Black Templars players (and I am a Black Templars player!) gained more than they lost from being folded into Codex: Space Marines.

Still, the continuing false rumours of a Bretonnia release and the dropping of kit after kit from the webstore have made it hard to keep the faith. May the Lady forgive me, I did start to waver.

Then I opened the Nagash book.

Oh, its grim for Bretonnia just like any other Forces Of Order race right now but I've watched enough wrestling, seen enough faces pounded into the canvas to know where this is going. In this book and probably the next the good guys will get hammered relentlessly but come Wrestlemania (or, y'know, Middenheim or wherever this ends up) the good guys will strike back with faith, steel and gunpowder (less of the last one with Bretonnia but you get my point).

So, yeah, its grim: a major character has been taken off the board; four duchies are in ruins and another one seems to have been eaten by daemons; and La Maisontaal Abbey was destroyed but, frankly, that's just what happens to La Masiontaal Abbey. By this stage La Maisontaal being burnt to the ground is almost a running joke, what you put in an army book's timeline when you want them to have done something in Bretonnia.

But then...

Okay, NO SPECIFIC SPOILERS but the counter-attack is already underway. The book opens with a forty page prologue describing where all the races and nations of Warhammer are at the beginning of the End Times (or is the end of the beginning?). Most of the good guys get a ray of hope, something that they (and their fans) can cling to in the hard times ahead and Bretonnia's is a whopper!

My point is: this is not how GW addresses a concept they're going to junk. They have two strategies they've used in the past. Either they ignore the idea until it fades away (Squats and a lot of Rogue Trader-era background) or they completely, utterly nuke it in a brief piece of background. 80 pages in and this book has the highest mortality rate of any Warhammer supplement I've ever read: background characters and playable special characters with models have been done in, whole cities and small nations have been wiped out including one or two places that did once constituted the basis of an army.

Really, not everyone is going to be happy with who bites the dust including some much-missed old armies but as for Bretonnia (yes, I'm selfish!) they get such a build-up, such a huge revelation-ish (not entirely a surprise but still nice), such advancement from where they were left in Warhammer Armies: Wood Elves and such a huge part in the opening chapter with the whole La Maisontaal affair (and a couple of accompanying scenarios in the rules book) that I cannot believe GW has any plans to drop them.

In fact, I lead myself to hope this means something is coming in the not too distant future. After all: why write whole scenarios requiring a Bretonnia army and not have a Bretonnia army available? Right now the whole metal and finecast range are out of production and there are no knightly character models. 

Like I said, every good guy gets a ray of hope to see them through. 

The Bretonnia Royal Marine Air Corps

Okay, the revival of my Bretonnia army keeps getting delays due to lack of models but this idea won't leave me alone. You see, for a while my friend Matt and I have wondered how exactly Bretonnian naval warfare works when they don't have cannons. Logic dictates that they depend on boarding actions and ramming manoeuvres but a few nights ago something occurred to me:

What if Bretonnia has invented the aircraft carrier?

I just have this image of Bretonnian frigates acting as mobile bases for Pegasus Knights. The Bretonnian ships close with the enemy and whilst their peasant crews prepare for ramming speed and boarding the Pegasus Knights sally forth to draw fire and harry the enemy crews. Meanwhile Damsels using the Lore Of Life whip the sea up so as to batter the enemy ships and speed their own fleet to attack positions. Their Lore Of Beasts sisters use their own magic to augment the Pegasus Knights' attack run.

(Yes, I know Bretonnia is probably the most sexist and most superstitious human nation in Warhammer so you could argue that women wouldn't be allowed aboard. However, Damsels have long been established as beyond all social rules enforced on the general female population and quite a few enforced on the male population, too).

So now my Pegasus Knights have a theme: lots of trident and merlion heraldry to represent the coastal duchies. I wonder if I can pinch a trident head from Matt's Lothern Skycutter for the champion?

Painting challenge failed satisfactorily

(It has to be admitted I've actually forgotten how my camera works, its been so long since I finished a model. Still, photos should improve again with practice.)

My determination to finish a 16-man unit in a day failed but, as the title, suggests I failed to a satisfactory standard. I got the base colours and inks done on every model, drybrushed the fleshtones and bows and even got the monk finished.

I got a bit obsessed with the monk, in all honesty, probably because I was watching Cadfael as I painted. He's hardly a production number but I feel I did good work on him. Most likely he'll pull double duty amongst my bowmen and in the Stirwood Outlaws warband I'm building for a local Mordhiem campaign. I've always loved the little extras you get on the Bretonnian command sprues: the monk, the mangy dog, the keg of ale, the snail. Yes, there really is a snail on the Peasant command sprue.

Learnt a few lessons, too. Doing the block colours as a 16-man batch was challenging given the different sculpts in the set but for the details I'll work on one design at a time. With any luck I'll be able to finish off the detail work in a couple of afternoon sessions.

After that I'll move up the social order somewhat and make a start on my Knights Errant.

One Day Speed Painting Challenge

So for the first time in a while it's Sunday and I have nothing to do. No barbecue to go to, no friends around this weekend, no family obligations, nothing needs cleaning or washing. What's more the weather has turned grotty so going for a nice walk is sort of a non-starter.

What I do have is the grey horde of Bretonnia sitting there atop my shelves, their longbows, polearms and lances pointed at me accusingly. I really need to get some of these things painted, break the block that's settled on my hobby over the last month.

Right: one wet Sunday, a stack of Companion Chronicles to listen to, 16 Peasant Bowmen and a vague sense of how I want to paint them (Artois heraldry: red and black). Results posted Monday. 

What's wrong (and right) with Bretonnia

Under no circumstances am I even going to
attempt to paint that heraldry!

So the “scrapping of Bretonnia” rumour is doing the rounds again, this time enhanced by the idea that Wood Elves, Beastmen and Tomb Kings are getting the chop as well. I'm not going to dwell on this because it is bollocks, doubly bollocks when you consider two of those ranges were given substantial numbers of new models within the last four years so let's point and laugh at that idea and move on.

Finished pointing and laughing? Good, let's start.

Another rumour that did the rounds a few months ago was that Bretonnia was getting a new Army Book some time about Quarter 3 of this year so I decided to start a new army in anticipation. Sadly, a lot of the range went out of production whilst my back was turned but I'm choosing to interpret that positively as GW running down soon-to-be redundant stock instead of negatively as a conspiracy to “destroy my hobby!”.

But what would a new Bretonnia book do? The current book will be ten years old next month and whole editions have come and gone in the mean time so a few odd relics of ages past remain that could do with updating.

Before we move on I should warn you that I'm going to do something I've often said in comment threads was stupid: I'm going to compare Bretonnia to The Empire. I want to qualify this hypocrisy by saying that in the past I've warned against this because commenters on rumour sites who themselves say they don't play Fantasy believe the Bretonnian army could be absorbed into The Empire. This is also bollocks: differences play styles, formations, special rules and background scream against the idea. Points costs, however, are based on statistical usefulness and game balancing so the also-human Empire makes a good point of comparison to propose theories against.

All settled? Let's talk crunch:

Lords and Heroes

Characters for the most part are rather reasonably pointed and I was pleasantly surprised to see a Bretonnian Lord has a couple of superior stats to a General Of The Empire (+1 Weapon Skill, +1 Initiative and +1 Attack, as it happens) for only 15 extra points. Eminently reasonable. Paladins and Damsels are similarly reasonable against their Empire equivalents so the only over-priced one seems to be the Prophetess who is 25 points more than a Battle Wizard Lord with a lower Toughness.

What might need a bit of fixing are the Virtues: extra traits you can buy for your knightly characters, some of which are useful, some of which are useless and some of which are blatantly broken. This is no one's fault, edition changes have simply wreaked their customary havoc.

My personal favourite bug bear is the fact that to have a great weapon your knight character has to have the Questing Vow but you have to pay extra for the great weapon on top of the Vow.

Core Knights

Not over-priced, in spite of what people have said to me. Knights Errant are 20 points, Knights Of The Realm are 24. Empire Knights come in at 22 points and I'll take either Bretonnian choice over them any day. The lance formation gives you a bucket of extra attacks. In a lance of nine knights (three wide, three deep) you get the full attacks of seven knights and their mounts plus one supporting attack from the guy in the middle.

Knights Errant, whilst statistically inferior to Empire Knightly Orders in several regards are Immune To Psychology after charging but I have one complaint: the Impetuous rule. If you're in theoretical charge range you have to take a Leadership test to restrain the urge to charge headlong at the enemy. Unfortunately the theoretical charge distance of Knights Errant is 20 inches and that means your enemy cam easily bait you into maximum distance charges to get you nicely out of position and then slam into your flanks.

Whilst we're on the subject, though, I'll take the current lance formation over the old arrowhead idea any day.

Grubby Working Class Yobbos

It was recently pointed out to me that Men-At-Arms are, statistically speaking, Vampire Counts Skeleton Warriors with higher leadership. That's all, really, they're fine, so are the Peasant Bowmen so all that needs noting is that we could really do with plastic Mounted Yeomen and it'd be nice to have Men-At-Arms with the spear option included on the kit.

A Modest Proposal Towards Pegasus Knights

This is a big one because one of the most feared units in our little gaming club are Matt's Demigryph Knights. In light of The Empire's monstrous cavalry being a full 3 points more expensive than mine I humbly submit that one or both of the following measures need to be employed:

One: Give Pegasus Knights the option for barding and therefore a 2+ save. The barding is on the model so it won#t necessitate a re-sculpt.

Two: Give them 3 Wounds. This is absolutely standard for monstrous cavalry and infantry these days.

Beyond that I have no complaints. Questing Knights stand up well and, in all honesty, I never used Grail Knights so I can't vouch for their effectiveness. The Field Trebuchet remains an immensely powerful stone thrower by anyone's standards and I hope it stays as is for the next edition.

So, all in all, a fairly solid army even now so GW can spend more time working out cool new shit for them than bringing their rules into line with anything more than a few token additions and subtractions.

Fingers crossed. 

Hobby Vows passed and failed

Hobby Vow Tracker

Passed: 1

Failed: 1

Last week I set myself two hobby vows. One I passed, one I failed but I can content myself that the one I failed wasn't through laziness.

I failed to paint my three Necromancers but not through lack of effort but rather because for most of the last week I've had a stinking cold and not been motivated to do anything, plus I left my army case at a friend's house and so I didn't have them readily to hand for most of the week.

I have succeeded in the other vow, however, and have not only a colour scheme but theme and self-written background for my new Bretonnian army.

The army will be (predominantly) from the duchy of Artois. It's general, the one I am converting from King Louen Leonceour, will be Sir Merovech of the Quest. This is one of the lords whose heraldry is set out in the Army Book. As it turns out Merovech is the name of a semi-legendary Frankish king from around the 450s AD so I'll read up on him to see if there's anything I can blatantly poach.

The idea at the moment is that Merovech has finished his Quest (and so I won't have to do too much cosmetic surgery on his hippogryph) and has been named by the king as Warden of Artois. Most of Artois is covered by the Forest of Arden so I imagine the people are under constant attack from Beastmen, Goblins, bandits, Orcs, Skaven and feral squirrels. Artois also shared a substantial border with Mousillon, home of Bretonnia's Undead. Thus the king has appointed a warden to co-ordinate the entire military might of the duchy. It allows me to include any units I want without the limitations put on me by saying the army is on crusade.

As to the next two vows:

Vow the Practical

Build the contents of my Bretonnia Batallion. It might look like a lot for a week but the Peasants are actually quite easy.

Vow the Theoretical

Plan out the conversion for Merovech himself. As said above I've decided against making him a Questing Knight because I've seen some amazing conversions using Leonceour's body and a lance. Not sure what I'll do with the Questing Lord body I have spare now but I've seen some very nice kitbashes on the Google Image Search sitting him on a Pegasus.

Though I do feel that perhaps taking a flying mount on the Quest is rather cheating a bit. 

Bretonnia: I'm not panic buying, I'm preparing

So rather a lot of the Bretonnia range has disappeared from Games Workshop's website recently, a face I only discovered after writing a 2,000 points army listed composed mainly of discontinued models. I'm choosing to see this as a positive sign, the running down of stock that typically happens a few months before a new release.

There are, of course, counter rumours floating around that this is the prelude to GW dropping the army entirely or “folding it in” to another army (the Empire, apparently) as they folded Black Templars in Codex: Space Marines. I'd like to concede that there is precedent and it isn't an unreasonable assumption before explaining why I think it's wrong but I honestly don't think there is. Black Templars were folded into Space Marines because their own list was crushingly limited (and I say this as a man with a much loved Templar army of his own). They had one unique unit, one unique character class and a whole lot of restrictions: no Scout units, no Librarians, no Devastators, and so on. They were also, at the end of the day, Space Marines and so just shoving their two unique choices into the main codex did them no aesthetic or background harm.

Compare the Empire and Bretonnia: the argument goes that a Bretonnia army can be represented using Knightly Orders supported by Archers and Halberdiers (or Free Company in some tellings). To quote Frankie Howerd: “I've never heard cock so poppy!”

The two armies have quite distinct background, aesthetics and, most of all, game mechanics. The Empire relies on great coordination between the many different elements: the detachments system, officers with Hold The Line!, and a large selection of ranged options to soften up the enemy before the two armies collide. Bretonnian armies rely on the hammerblow of the lance formation: a spear of knights formed three wide hitting the enemy and attacking not only with the standard attacks from the front of the unit but from every knight and horse on the sides, as well. The Peasant units have appalling stat lines representing a bunch of malnourished, poorly trained bumpkins being handed halberds and pointed at the enemy their uncaring feudal lords, used either to mop up depleted enemy units in the knights' wake or to flank charge into ongoing combats when the knights get bogged down and lose their lance formation attacks and lance strength buffs.

Thus I am betting on a new release some time in the next six months. To this end I have invoked the power of Christmas money and an unexpected council tax rebate to splash out on the following:

1x Finecast King Louen Leoceour on Hippogryph

1x Finecast Damsel on foot

1x Finecast Damsel on horse

1x Bretonnian Battalion (being 8 Knights of the Realm/Knights Errant, 1 Pegasus Knight, 20 Men-At-Arms and 16 Peasant Bowmen with defensive stakes).

The Louen Leonceur I'll be converting into a Questing Lord using an old metal Questing Lord I found in a drawer whilst moving and at some point I'll get a second unit of Knights but this should be pretty much it until the release comes: a solid core of characters and Core units so I can spend good money later on cool new shit.

Now to drive myself insane designing and painting individual heraldries.