Bretonnians - The Rise of a Bretonnian Army Part 1

The Rise of a Bretonnian Army

I Shall log this build from its humble beginning through to its completion.

I must admit that when I started I had no idea how Bretonnians play, what are must have's and what are must avoid items.  I just went with what I liked..

So without further ado I present my Bretonnian Army.

(Sorry for the dodgy blurry pictures)

Ok so the more astute of you will be thinking to yourselves "That's not a Bretonnian army, that's a Khorne Daemon army."

Correct it is a Daemon army.

Now I said I would start at the beginning so here goes.

At the moment the army I use is a Skaven horde, features elsewhere in these forums.  I play my Skaven very defensively.  Now don't get me wrong I love my Skaven but I have to admit, although I like the way they are painted, they do not really stand out.  They are a mass sea of brown.   

So what to do?   I wanted my next army to be as far opposite my Skaven as could possibly be.

So out I went and brought a mono Khorne Daemon army.  Small, Offensive with no shooting or magic.  Surely the Army would be perfect for me.

Well no it wasn't.   I played it twice, once at 2250 points and once at 1500 points and found it to be rather boring to play with and against.  Of course I mean no offence to all those Daemon players out there.  It was just not what I was after.  In addition it seems like I had replaced my mass brown sea with a red sea, all be a smaller one.

Anyway at Gauntlet 2009 I played against a Bretonnian army and had one of the best games ever.  Part due to my opponent being one of the most sporting I have had the pleasure of playing.

So I started to look around at the various Bretonnian figures available.  

Anyway to cut a long story short I came across someone who wanted rid of their Bretonnian army and was after an army to replace it.

Next thing I know I have swapped my Daemon Army for this

It looked ideal and we were both happy.  I offered to finish painting the Daemon army as I knew it would help him get a fully painted army on the table.

Now some of the Bretonnian figures were painted.   Not badly, just not by me.   

Now I don't really like entering Tournaments with unpainted figures or even figures painted by someone else.  It just seems a little rude to me that when a part of your score is comprised of painting and you haven't tried to do it yourself.

So the Painted figures ranged from this

Through this

to this.

So I set about the repainting of them.

First I had to re-position all the lances.  I wanted all my lances to be raised up.  Basically for three reasons. 

•  It would help tie the army together
•  It makes it easier to rank them up
•  It will fit in better with my planned display base

Next up was to remove the moulded grass that connects the horses feet to the ground.

The riders needed removing and old glue had to be scrapped away.

Mould line were then removed removed.   

Next up a light undercoat of Black.  I find Black is far more forgiving then white when it comes to undercoating.  I figured that to paint the yellows and whites I would be after I could just build  them up in layers over the black.

So anyway I painted this chap as figure one.   Basically a test piece to see where I was going with the colours.

Now some of the original second hand figures were painted with green cloth.  I don't much like green cloth and historically green was not overly popular until later medieval times... but I digress.

So figure one down I had to decide on a limited pallet.  With all the knights destined to have their own heraldry I didn't want the army to collapse into a riot of colour.

In the end I decided I would go with four colours and two metals.

Black

Red

Blue

Purple

White

Yellow

Anyway shortly after Knight one I decided on doing this chap.

Followed by this one

And then this one.

So I now have four Knights down and am working on the horse for the next few.

At the moment I have no idea what my army will consist of, but know that I will need Knight in a plenty.  I also want to include a couple of blocks of Men at Arms, possibly with spears.

I also plan to scratch build a Trebuchet so that its actually in scale.... but that's another days work.