Knights of Bretonnia, Warhammer Unit Chronicles
I now have quite a few articles under my belt, but somehow I’ve managed to neglect the “anchor" of Warhammer Fantasy — the humans! In honor of Warhammer Fantasy returning with The Old World, we’ll embark on a quest with the Knights of Bretonnia. Saddle up!
Bretonnia is now in focus after many years of silence, so of course we should take a deep dive into the main units of the army, the famous Knights of Bretonnia. We’ll go through all the various knight units that have been available for Bretonnia and it’s precursor armies during the history of Warhammer Fantasy. I have a feeling this will be a very deep dive!
I will cover all the variations of Bretonnian knights in this one article which is more units than I usually include so by necessity this article will focus more on the miniatures without very deep into rules and lore. We will certainly still look at the lore and the rules in the usual manner, only with a bit less detail to keep the length of the article more manageable.
If you are more of an Tomb Kings enthusiast and would like to read up on them to celebrate the return of Warhammer Fantasy, I have previously written an extensive history of the humble Skeleton Warrior in Warhammer Fantasy which includes the Tomb King variant as well. You can find that article here.
In the case of the Bretonnian knights the inspiration is very obvious so we don’t need to look into where they came from too much, although there is a bit more inspiration behind them than just historical knights. The beginning of medieval knights in Warhammer was mainly due to Citadel manufacturing a range of historical models at the time when the first edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles was written. The brief was to use all the suitable existing Citadel miniatures in the game until they could sculpt dedicated miniatures for the game which meant that historical knights were included in the creature list of 1st edition and thus they became part of the setting right from the beginning. Later on as the setting was developed the writers would take generous inspiration from sources like the Arthurian legends, the Green Man legend and also from medieval satire like Monthy Python’s Holy Grail and others. The tone has varied quite a bit during the different editions from a more dark and satirical version to a more idealized version, we’ll note the changes in tone as we go through the editions.
Visually the most distinctive feature of the Bretonnian knight is the helmet ornaments they wear on top of their helmets. Real medieval knights didn’t wear ornamented helmets for war, at least not these kinds of heavily ornamented helmets with big ornaments on the top or with horns or wings. They might have had a plume on the top even in war, but even that was likely reserved for the tournament ground for practical reasons. There are certainly many known examples of highly ornamented helmets and they are also depicted in manuscripts from the period but they were reserved for use in tournaments for jousting or other sports. These types of helmets came mostly to use in the latter part of the medieval period during the high medieval period of 1000–1300, there are many examples that make even the Bretonnian helmets look mild and reserved like the knight wearing a mermaid on top of his helmet pictured below! Later on during the renaissance period highly decorated helmets were also common for ceremonial use or as status symbols, these could be very highly decorated so that the whole helmet had been shaped to resemble for example the head of an animal. In Warhammer Empire is of course inspired by the renaissance period and these kinds of helmets are featured in at least some of the Empire art.
One famous example of ornamented helmets that many know are the knights of the Teutonic Order who are commonly thought to have had horns on their helmets and there’s one example of an helmet like that with spectacular horns on top of it, but in reality they didn’t wear helmets like that. We have contemporary sources for the rules for the order as well as other sources, all of which indicate they wore normal helmets without ornaments. The famous horned helmet (pictured below) belonged to Albert von Pranckh who wasn’t part of the Teutonic Order, his horned helmet is one of these fashionable tournament helmets mentioned above and not meant for war.
There’s of course a huge amount of very interesting history about medieval knights available, just the topic of helmet ornaments is very fascinating and deep and I’m sure there’s some exception somewhere when a knight rode into war with an ornamented helmet, but for the purpose of this article we’ll leave it there.
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Warhammer 1st Edition (1983)
The initial publication of Warhammer Fantasy Battles in 1983 contained 3 books with the rules for a game that was a peculiar mix of wargaming and roleplaying games and as such it did not contain actual army lists and it’s very bare bones on any kind of lore either. The creature list in the rulebook only contains the generic statline for a human, but that’s all your getting on the human side so you needed to come up with a lot yourself. Citadel was selling knight miniatures at this point, but there really isn’t any sort of faction of Bretonnia or it’s precursor in the game yet.
The Forces of Fantasy supplement followed quite quickly in March 1984 based on the feedback Citadel had received on the ruleset, it had mostly failed as an roleplaying game but there was lots of appetite for a fantasy wargame as there wasn’t any alternatives for that available in the market. Based on that it made logical sense to give players proper army lists with points so they could muster armies without having to do a lot of extra work themselves, this was especially important for points values as players wanted to have somewhat balanced games with each other instead of just creating fully narrative roleplaying wargame hybrid games. Creating these army lists also meant the creation of actual armies in the world of Warhammer which gave the impetus to start building the setting based on the miniatures Citadel had on offer at this time. A clear army based on those historical medieval models as well as general fantasy tropes was an army based on western European medieval armies which lead to the army “Men of the West” (there were also “Men of the North”, “Men of the East” and “Men of the Orient” in Forces of Fantasy).
The description for the Men of the West army is just fully a stereotype of a medieval western European kingdom with some amusing lines like “They are very dedicated individuals with a burning hatred of foreigners in general and non-westerners in particular” which is made about the Knightly Religious Orders of warrior monks, the Templars or Hospitallers. Not all knights are part of these religious orders, they are knights in the medieval sense of the word as in minor nobles with enough wealth to provide their own war equipment and warhorse when the King calls an army to muster. There is no fantasy element of any kind here or any reference to a Lady of the Lake or any other kind of lady, although obviously they have some kind of religion.
It’s a bit rough, but it’s a great basis for a fantasy faction, why look further when our own history provides such a wealth of inspiration?
In terms of the statlines the Knights have a basic human statline but a slightly higher Weapon Skill of 4 (average being 3 in first edition as well). I have gone into a bit more depth on these first edition statlines in my previous articles and I will do a general overview of the editions later on where you can read more about the actual rules and context of all the editions in case you are interested. For now let’s take a look at the army rules and special rules for the knights of the Men of the West.
Below I have listed all the rules that affect the knights, there’s more rules for the army in general.
- Knights cannot use any ranged weapons, they consider them cowardly and unchivalrous!
- Mounted Knights may ride barded or armoured horses, they may also ride Warhorses instead of normal horses at extra points cost.
Barded or armoured provides +1 armour save as does being mounted so a barded horse gives you +2 armour save as in all later editions except now with the Old World. A Warhorse can attack in close combat with WS3 and S2 (strength 2 is equivalent to strength 3 in later editions) but a normal horse cannot. A Warhorse costs 2 points extra. - Up to 10 Knights, either mounted or on foot may be religious
Knights belonging to either the Templars or Hospitallers. - Templars and Hospitallers are subject to Frenzy, they never take Morale tests and add 1 to Fear and Terror throws. They Hate all non-western men. In Frenzy they disregard the normal requirement to cast off their armour.
That’s it for all the lore and rules in 1st edition, let’s take a look at the very early Citadel knight miniatures next!
The earlier Citadel catalogues had actual pictures of models printed in them, but right when they released Warhammer Fantasy Battles in 1983 they moved to drawing the models instead due to the difficulty and cost of photographing miniatures with the technology of the day. Don’t worry though, below you can see modern pictures of these models.
The Citadel Compendium were a combination of a catalogue and a rules journal, all of them including articles and updates to Warhammer rules as well as the catalogue section with most of the models Citadel had on offer at the time. In total 3 compendiums were published, one per year from ’83 to ’85. They also included miniatures from other ranges that Citadel was selling at the time like official Runequest miniatures among many others.
The C39 Medieval Cavalry Knights were sculpted by Alan and Michael Perry, they were sculpted already around 1980 so way before anyone thought about creating Warhammer Fantasy. They were sculpted as part of the historical miniature ranges Citadel used to sell back in those days and then were repurposed as knights for the Men of the West army in Warhammer (or still for historical wargamers as well). The Perry Twins started sculpting for Citadel as freelancers in 1978 and full-time in 1980, so these knights are from their very first years of professional sculpting and they were also very young being only 19 in 1980. The materials, tools and general knowledge about sculpting miniatures were all still not that refined at that point, not quite in it’s infancy but maybe in it’s toddler years. Even with all of that taken into consideration, I think these are quite nice miniatures which I’m sure would paint up very well. Compared to many of the actual fantasy miniatures of this early era these are clearly of a higher quality, likely resulting from most sculptors having more experience in sculpting historical miniatures. Sure by today’s standards they lack a lot of detail and have certain clumsy elements and they do not have that whimsical thing going for them as the early fantasy miniatures do, but honestly I was positively surprised by how good they look.
The C33 Mounted Adventurers Paladins, especially the one on the right in the modern picture look great I think as well. I’m not sure who sculpted them unfortunately, but wouldn’t be surprised if it was the Perry twins again. These could have been used as hero characters for the army of the Men of the West for example.
The Citadel C38 Medieval Adventurers included a wide range of warriors on foot, it included among others Vikings, medieval Muslim warriors and of course these knights on foot. They were also part of the Citadel historical range and sculpted around the same time as the mounted knights, I suspect again by the Perry Twins but I do not have a confirmation on that so could have been one of the other sculptors although there weren’t many during the first few years of Citadel.
Really the same comments apply to these as to the knights although I think these look even a bit better, I suspect because it’s easier to pose a miniature on foot than a mounted one. These would be totally adequate for a historical miniature wargame even today! As you can see from the pictures, these are prior to Citadel moving to “slotta” bases and the tabs at the base of the metal miniatures, originally the miniatures came like this with a cast small metal base that was integral to the miniature.
The Second Citadel Compendium featured a new range of models, the C26 range which is called Fantasy Men-at-Arms here but would have varied names along the years. These were the first ever knight models which were specifically sculpted for Warhammer Fantasy instead of being repurposed historical models. To be honest, it’s difficult to notice any difference that has made, maybe the weapons are a bit larger as fits a fantasy game but even there I’m grasping to try and notice something. Personally I don’t mind that at all, I very much enjoy the clash of historical armies with fantasy armies but I do understand why they would become more fantastical later on. These were likely Perry sculpts as they had sculpted a lot of the Citadel historical range and would sculpt most of the later Bretonnia models. They are of course famously fond of history and nowadays sculpt historical miniatures for their own company Perry Miniatures, their range includes lots of great models that would work very well as cheaper alternatives for a Bretonnia army today as they are hand sculpted by the same sculptors who did most of the originals for Games Workshop.
Citadel released a knightly Regiment of Renown in 1984 called the Knights of Origo, the set included 9 models and came with rules for a character and the unit for Warhammer Fantasy 1st and 2nd editions as well as lore for the unit. If you are interested in their lore or rules, you can find them at the Stuff of Legends. These are a very cool set of models and there’s even a knight with antler horns as helmet ornamentation which is just now in 2024 coming back as featured on the new Paladin on foot model for Warhammer the Old World! That’s 40 years of consistency on that idea, quite impressive. As far as I know real medieval knights didn’t have these kinds of ornaments on their battle helmets, although there are many highly decorated helmets with horns or other kinds of ornaments from a bit later on in the renaissance period. Medieval knights did have some decoration on their helmets like plumes, but those were likely reserved for jousting and ceremonial use. I suppose it’s possible some knights would have had some kind of smaller ornaments even for the helmets they used in war to distinguish them from others, but it couldn’t have been something too heavy or something that obscures their already very limited vision.
Warhammer 2nd Edition (1984)
The 2nd edition Battle Bestiary which was one of the books released in the “starter box” alongside the rulebook mentions the Men of the West or Oldworlders and that section has the same illustration of knights as the Knights of Origo Regiment of Renown featured above so clearly they are referencing the same army, however after that there are no further mention of them in any of the main publications for Warhammer Fantasy. The Empire is featured for the first time in 1987 Ravening Hordes army lists supplement and it has other human armies like the Norse and Nippon, but no Men of the West or Bretonnia so it seems our virtuous knights were taking a back seat for a few years in the mid 80s before coming back (and then again going for a break in the early 90s!).
The Third Citadel Compendium from 1985 doesn’t feature any knights in the normal selection of miniatures, although the Fighters range has a few that are stylistically close. Further back in the catalogue there are however multiple Regiments of Renown and one of them is an order of knights sculpted by Jes Goodwin. These are stylistically quite different to the usual medieval knights and might not even have been meant to be used with a Men of the West / Bretonnia type of army list, but I still wanted to include them here as they are nice models. The helmets, the type of armour and the sun symbols on the models are very reminiscent of historical Byzantine types which is especially cool to me as I’ve always thought there should be more Byzantine influenced fantasy factions, that would be especially cool in Warhammer Fantasy. These are a small glimpse into what could have been!
Even though there wasn’t a dedicated army list for Bretonnia / Men of the West in 2nd edition, Citadel did release a new range of miniatures that are explicitly meant for them although they are also meant for historical wargames and roleplaying games in general as mentioned in the advert itself. The advertisement also mentions that these Feudal miniatures are suitable for armies of Bretonnia or Empire, which is the first instance of the name Bretonnia I have been able to find so far although I’m sure there would have been a prior mention (more on this later). There might have been a separate army list for Bretonnia for Warhammer Fantasy 2nd edition published in White Dwarf or some other publication, I haven’t had the chance to go though all from this period and in any case I highly doubt that such a list exist. Bretonnia of course wasn’t included in Ravening Hordes, if they had a White Dwarf list I would think they would have been included.
In any case, it would have been quite possible to create an army list of your own with the rules and stats provided in the rules and as we can see in the advert above, it also includes rules for Knights and Men-at-Arms for Bretonnia which would be most your army anyway. The Feudal miniature range was unsurprisingly sculpted by the Perry twins who the advert refers to as “deeply chivalrous”, they clearly kept the banner of Bretonnia held up at Games Workshop even if at this time they weren’t one of the fully supported armies. The knights in this Feudal miniature range are the first ones with ornaments on top of their helmets, which would become ubiquitous for the Knights of Bretonnia. The Knights of Origo already had some helmet ornamentation prior to these with their horns and wings, but not these ornaments that are on top of the helmet and can clearly be identified as looking very Bretonnian. The models overall have that 80s charm, I really enjoy them and wouldn’t mind collecting a unit of them some day if life permits.
As can be seen from the advert above, by this point Citadel had moved on to the “slotta period” with their models, the integral metal base was replaced by a metal tab that fits into a corresponding slot (hence slotta) in a plastic base. This was done in 1985 due to increasing cost of ingredients of the lead metal alloy they were using for their miniatures, it saved around 10% of material per model and with that change they managed to avoid having to raise the prices of their miniatures. As far as I know hobbyists did glue their models onto square bases for Warhammer Fantasy already prior to this, but the slotta bases makes it easy to do and I’m not sure whether Citadel provided bases with the models in the “pre-slotta” period or not.
The Feudal miniature range included also mounted knight models in it, these might have been released at the same time with the foot troops in October 1986, but this advert from June 1987 is the first one featuring the cavalry models. One of the mounted knights also have an ornament on top of his helmet and looks quite similar to later Bretonnian knights, only a bit smaller. These models were also sculpted by Alan & Michael Perry.
Amazingly you can still buy this Feudals range of metal miniatures from Foundry along with a few other more historical miniature ranges from early Citadel, most of them early Perry sculpts but they also sell the Citadel Samurai range by Aly Morrison. You can see all the ex Citadel miniature sold by Foundry here.
Warhammer 3rd Edition (1987)
The 3rd edition rulebook mostly continued the silence on Bretonnia as it’s bestiary section only has a generic description of humans in the Old World and Bretonnia is only mentioned in the general lore text as a kingdom ruled by a degenerate and corrupt aristocracy with it’s people living in the worst squalor of the Old World (not a ringing endorsement!). A year later with Warhammer Armies in 1988 we see for the first time a full blown army list for them with a large and varied army list as well as a dedicated section of lore. This is also the first time we see the name Bretonnia being used in a “mainline publication” for Warhammer Fantasy Battles, but as we’ve previously seen in the White Dwarf #82 Feudals advert the name goes at least as far back as 1986. I suspect Bretonnia was developed as part of the extensive writing done for the 1st edition of Warhammer Fantasy Role Play (WFRP) first by Rick Priestley and then by various TSR veterans who joined Games Workshop before it’s release in 1986 after the demise of TSR UK. WFRP has had a big impact on the setting and lore of Warhammer Fantasy and I’ll need to research that at some point to get a better understanding of where all these ideas came from, but 3rd edition Warhammer Armies was the first time the army list was published under the name Bretonnia.
This 3rd edition version of Bretonnia is a much more idealized and idyllic one compared to the short description we got in the 1st edition and also to the modern version of Bretonnia. It was written by Nigel Stillman who also wrote the later 5th edition army book, both of which share this view of Bretonnian knights as representing chivalric virtue honestly although there’s certainly also shades of grey in there and this 3rd edition description also pokes fun at the Bretonnian nobles and the French in general at the same time.
The knights of Bretonnia are said to be the model of chivalry and knightly virtue for all other knights all over the Old World and it is universally accepted that they represent the pinnacle of of the warrior-ideal. In battles against other humans from the Old World the Bretonnian knights are magnanimous to noble captives, courteous to the defeated and generous in victory. They see war as a chance to show their mettle, to gain honour and to further the ideal of knighthood. All of that is commendable, but this attitude doesn’t always work in their favour as they prefer spectacular jousts against their foes and often ignore other considerations, leaving the actual warring to the peasant levies whose contribution they usually ignore in the retelling of their glorious battles. There’s a marked distinction in a Bretonnian army in the noble knights who are bedecked in their full knightly liveries following the fashions of the season and with the lowly peasants levies equipped with whatever they can scrounge by, usually lacking any uniformity. The description ends in a quoted remark about the fashion of the knights, the spelling in the book is exactly as quoted here “Oh, but Pierre, deedent you reeurlise zet greeffurrns were ze thing last yeear!”. Games Workshop are British after all!
Overall I personally prefer this more chivalrous version of Bretonnia, especially when it blooms to a fully developed faction in the 5th edition army book. I find it to be closer to our history than the overly dark and pessimistic 6th edition version, although certainly reality wasn’t as idealistic as presented here. I won’t get into a massive thing here, I’ll just mention that the generally accepted view of the medieval period and especially the status and general description of peasants is inaccurate and they were much better of in most areas of Europe than most of us think. That’s a topic I’m very passionate in, so before I start writing an essay on that, let’s move on and take a look at the knight units Bretonnia had available in 3rd edition Warhammer Armies. The supplement lists 4 different kinds of knights, just like in later army books, but as the Lady of the Lake and the whole grail quest wasn’t developed at this point, the knight units are different.
The Noblesse D’epee can be considered the equivalent to the later Knights of the Realm, being the most common type of knight, the standard version. The name means Sword Nobility or Nobility of the Sword as written in the unit card itself, in Warhammer Armies many of the Bretonnian units have French names and Empire units have German names which is kind of flavourful but I’m happy they gave that up as the languages in Warhammer shouldn’t be exactly the same and it’s not exactly easy for most players to try and pronounce names like that. These knights are from the lesser nobility of the rural provinces of Bretonnia.
Overall these are very close to later Knights of the Realm with their stats and equipment, the biggest difference with 3rd edition would be that it has much more complex weapon rules compared to later editions. For example the lance gives the units +2 initiative, +2 strengths and -1 AP on charge and it can only be used on the first round of combat, after which the knights switches to his hand weapon. Even hand weapons have a special rule if used by a mounted model, they get +1 to hit against models that are shorter than 10 feet so most normal units on foot. It’s not that much more complex than later editions, but it has quite a bit of extra nuance which I find very compelling and I’m happy to see that the new rules for the Old World have added a bit of that back.
The Noblesse D’epee are “+1 Shock Elite”, but that simply means their statline has been upgraded by 1 level in the Elite category. The rulebook has a list of these upgrades, which stats each level upgrades and how many points it costs but that is for reference, you cannot upgrade the units yourself. There are 2 categories, “Shock Elite” and “Missile Elite” to distinguish between stat upgrades that are useful for close combat or ranged combat units. The base stats of course vary depending on what the unit is, but the Elite levels give the same buffs to specific stats for all of them (they are listed on page 97 of the rulebook). There is a similar level system for characters in the 3rd edition rules as well, but I’ll go more into that in a separate article.
The Chevaliers D’Honneur (Knights of Honor) are the most elite knights, equivalent to the later Grail Knights. Their basic stat line is only slightly better than for the basic knight type with +1 initiative and +1 attack and their equipment is the same except the unit can also take “a magic instrument” worth of 25 points which is a magical musical instrument for the musician.
The Chevaliers De Notre Dame De Bataille (Knights of Our Lady of Battle) are in between the standard knights and the Chevaliers D’Honneur for their statlines, but they can take a magic standard worth up to 100 points. In terms of lore these are more of a precursors for the Grail Knights as they are a knightly order devoted to some sort of saint or deity called the Lady of Battle, unfortunately there isn’t really more lore about these knights or the lady in question but the parallels to the Lady of the Lake are obvious.
The Chevaliers Rampants (Knights Rampant) are the equivalent to Knights Errant, young knights seeking to prove their mettle and become respected among the established knights of Bretonnia. I think the name Knights Rampant comes from the heraldry term “Rampant” which refers to an animal standing on one foot with it’s front feet in the air in heraldry, usually a horse is depicted like that. Here it refers to these knights being headstrong. Interestingly these are actually better than the standard Noblesse D’epee knights with 1 better initiative (as they are +2 Shock Elite), they also do not have any rule like the later Impetuous which makes them harder to control.
I very much enjoy these army pictures from 3rd editions Warhammer Armies supplement as they feature many of the biggest movers and shakers in Games Workshop’s history posing with their personal armies, showing their passion for the hobby. They are obviously also a great time capsule of the time with the hair styles and clothes which makes them even more fun to see, it must have been great to be a part of the studio back then at least if you were a young man without too many responsibilities as famously their pay was very low. Obviously there were some who made it rich even then like Bryan Ansell who very sadly just passed away. At least during the late 80s and early 90s the sculptors got royalties on the miniatures they designed which could amount to decent pay if the miniatures sold well especially when the game went global after 4th edition.
Warhammer Armies features a couple of pictures of painted knights, unfortunately the pictures are quite grainy but at least you get a picture of how models were painted back then. I’ve tried to identify the models used for this unit but I haven’t been able to, these do not look like any of the previously released Citadel knights and the supplement was published around a year before they released dedicated models for the different types of knights featured in the Bretonnia army list. I highly doubt they would have included pictures of models from another manufacturer, but that’s a possibility too or maybe these are Citadel knights from the early ranges as it’s difficult to identify all of them with the drawings in the catalogue. These are from the army of Games Workshop legend Dave Andrews.
In July 1989 Citadel released new models for 3 of the 4 different Bretonnian knights, the “standard” Noblesse D’epee knights didn’t get their own models yet so assumedly hobbyists would have used the older ranges for those. Here we already have established that the young impetuous Knights Rampants, later Knights Errants, do not have ornamented helmets while the more elite ones do have them. I really enjoy the 3rd edition style of miniatures and hadn’t seen these before writing this article, they are really exactly like I would have imagined them to look. They look like the later versions just put through a 3rd edition “filter”! The scale is a bit smaller and the poses are a bit more rigid than for later models, but apart from that they would look good mixed in with later Bretonnian models. Strangely though none of their horses have any caparisons, I guess that’s because they just wanted to use a common plastic horse for them without having to pay for a new plastic mould for a Bretonnian horse. I think that fits for the young knights, but the elite knights should certainly have caparisons or barding on their horses. That probably explains the small size of the horse as well.
I like the fact that the 2 different elite knights have clearly distinct helmet ornaments with the Chevaliers D’Honneur having all winged helmets and the Chevaliers De Notre Dame De Bataille having small statues of the lady on top of their helmets. That makes it easier to quickly distinguish which unit you are looking at, although then again the later style with all of them having unique ornaments does really fit with their style and lore of them all being individual nobles (same with the heraldry).
In September 1989 a “basic Bretonnia knight” model range was released, it’s just called “Bretonnian knights” instead of Noblesse D’epee but as they were the only type without distinct models, these are clearly meant to be used as them. This time around they also invested into a new properly knightly looking plastic horse! To my eye this horse also looks bigger than the previous ones. These knights do not have any kind of helmet ornaments so for the 3rd edition range only the elite types of knights had them. I kind of like them not having the ornaments for realism and to be able to easily recognize the elite units, but then again I do enjoy the more fantastical later version with all Knights of the Realm sporting those ornaments.
There’s a whopping 20 different torso + head variations with just one set of legs and 2 variations for a lance arm for those torsos that do not have a hand weapon already attached. I really love how much variation some of these 3rd edition metal model ranges have, this is an example of one of those. So far the Bretonnian model ranges have had a lot less variation than usual during this period, but for this set they didn’t skimp on it. You could easily of course use these models to depict any kinds of knights from the list and distinguish them from each other with paintjobs, but you would be missing out on the character and cool look the helmet ornaments bring to the previous models for the elite knights.
The Bretonnians also got a decent sized range of foot knights in September 1990 even though the Warhammer Armies army list didn’t include a unit entry for any knights on foot. The general rules contain points values for the warhorses the knights come with, so it wouldn’t be difficult to just take that amount of points out of the cost for a knight and use it’s statline and equipment to come up with rules for them if they didn’t have published rules somewhere which they likely did. I don’t have much to say about these other than you can clearly see the development of miniature sculpting and manufacture when comparing these to the Feudal range that came out 4 years prior to these. The proportions and posing are better and overall they have a more natural look, I think they look very cool and if I were to build the Bretonnian army of my dreams I would use these instead of the new plastic ones coming with Warhammer The Old World.
White Dwarf #136 (April 1991) featured an article about Bretonnian Knights and painting their heraldry by Alan Perry, it’s so good that I wanted to include it fully here. It has some great pictures of painted Bretonnian knights from the period of 3rd edition featuring some of the models catalogued above. The heraldry here is different from those featured in the later army books, these are more historical types of heraldry as expected as it’s written by Alan Perry, but they would certainly work really well even for a modern Bretonnian army.
Warhammer 4th Edition (1992)
During Warhammer 4th edition the army of Bretonnia was mostly on a break, there wasn’t any model releases and they didn’t get their own army book either. The 4th edition Warhammer Armies army list booklet provided with the 4th edition starter set did however include a full army list so it was still possible to use your 3rd edition Bretonnia army in 4th edition.
Warhammer 5th Edition (1996)
After having languished for 4 years Bretonnia came back big time with 5th edition! They were part of the starter set alongside with Lizardmen who had a similar situation with no support during 4th and they received a full new miniature range as well as a great army book. Arguably this is the golden period for Bretonnia although one could certainly make an argument for 6th edition as well. Rick Priestley mentioned in one of the interviews available on Youtube (sorry, can’t remember which one!) that the 5th edition starter set was the most commercially successful box Games Workshop did during his years there, he left the company in 2009 so if that’s accurate they didn’t manage to top this starter set in 13 years! I’m sure now with their current success they’ve probably made multiple more successful boxes, but it still warms my heart to know that the classic Bretonnia vs Lizardmen set was so successful. No wonder everyone had some of those plastic Lizardmen models in their bits box and many still do, although I never had any of the Bretonnian plastic models and they are much harder to come by today so it seems they were always the more popular army from that box.
November 1996, a month after the 5th edition starter set, saw the publishing of Warhammer Armies Bretonnia and the release of 4 new kits for them (the other kits followed in the next months). The army book was written by Nigel Stillman, who had also done the gargantuan task of writing 3rd edition’s Warhammer Armies so it’s no wonder the tone for Bretonnia remains similar to what it was there, even if almost all of the lore is new in this book. Stillman was a very passionate Bretonnia player himself, his Bretonnia army was featured multiple times on the pages of White Dwarf in his article series Stillmania which ran in it in the 90s. Those are still great articles, I recommend tracking them down and reading them if you enjoy such things (many White Dwarf issues can be found from the Facebook group White Dwarf-Through the Years 1977–2014).
The 5th edition army book established all the lore we know and love for Bretonnia, the Lady of the Lake and the quest for the grail and so on. Most of the current units were featured here for the first time as well as they tie in to the lore directly, for the knight unit types they are the Knight Errant, Knights of the Realm, Questing Knights & Grail Knights.
The Knights Errant are pretty much exactly the same as the Knights Rampant from 3rd edition, being young knights who are have yet to prove their worth. There is added detail about that in the army book, a Knight Errant is the first and lowest rank of knighthood in Bretonnia, they need to prove their worth by brave deeds and thus win the lordship of a domain and become actual knights. This is usually done by an assigned task, an errand, which by old tradition is given by the fairest damsel in the village but could be given for example by a duke. A Knight Errant remains usually a part of a retinue of a duke or a king until they become knights themselves and as they lack lordship they do not have heraldry of their own so no helmet ornaments or heraldic devices painted on their horses caparison.
Knights of the Realm are what a Knight Errant becomes if they accomplish their task, they have proved themselves to be worth the benefits of knighthood. It is honourable for him to accept the feudal dues and tithes of the peasants because he has shown he can defend them in return. On receiving knighthood they become the lord of a village, it’s fields and a castle — a domain. A knight is expected to be able to defend his village against a monster or a warband single handed, but he can of course also call upon the manpower of the village for bowmen and men-at-arms. If the attack is larger than can be reasonably expected to be dealt by him, he can call upon other knights for assistance, although normally they do not need to ask as other knights will have already rushed in to help due to the chivalric code and their wish to prove their mettle. The peasants of the village are totally in his power and heavily taxed, but in return he does defend them and the chivalric code also does require the knights to treat their peasants fairly. Certainly there are always bad lords, but in general in the 5th edition version of Bretonnia the peasants are fairly treated.
Questing Knights are a much more rare type of Knight, they are Knights of the Realm who have vowed to take on the quest for the grail, they relinquish their lordship of their domain and thus are freed of their duties and can embark on their spiritual quest to find the grail. It is also possible for a knight who have just received their knighthood after being a knight errant to embark on the grail quest straight without receiving a lordship and this is viewed as particular noble, this is usually done by the sons of lords who were not chosen for a lordship and even by the sons of the king including the heir apparent so the king of Bretonnia is often a Grail Knight himself. The quest can take years and is full hardships and tests which the knight needs to best in the spirit of chivalry to be granted a drink from the grail by the Lady of the Lake. Even before this a Questing Knight has become a more powerful warrior due to the experience gained and they are also more respected than Knights of the Realm even if the Knight of the Realm is a duke or otherwise of a high status.
Grail Knights are those who have successfully completed their quest and have been granted a drink from the grail, drinking from the grail grants them a long lifespan and physical prowess way beyond what a human could achieve normally, not to mention the spiritual strength gained from fulfilling such a quest. Many questing knights never accomplish this, usually due to meeting their end during the arduous quest, but it’s also possible to remain a questing knight for the rest of ones life. Grail Knights have immense presence, they become almost demigods and are changed from the person they used to be. They can endure unimaginable hardship, they know no fear or despair and are resistant to magic. They speak rarely, but when they do it inspires confidence in all those who hear it. They have become paragons of knightly virtue and chivalry in all ways. They do not return to their previous domain as lords, instead they usually become hermit knights residing in grail chapels which are often located in remote places in the woods or wilderness as they are dedicated to the Lady of the Lake. They protect these sacred chapels and offer protection to peasants in the neighboring lands and in times of great threat to the kingdom they gather together and fight in the armies of Bretonnia.
Needles to say, all knights of any kind can only come from the ranks of the nobility although this 5th edition army book does leave a small possibility of a peasant raising to the rank of a knight through some valorous act but it’s unclear how often that happens, possibly relatively often in this version of the lore. Knights of Bretonnia like nothing better than a tournament except perhaps a just and righteous war! Many tournaments are held in Bretonnia and it’s possible for a knight to travel the realm from one jousting tournament to another and to win great prizes (weapons, armour etc.) or to even win the hand of a duke’s, baron’s or even the king’s daughter. Winning a tournament can also be the errand given to a Knight Errant by which they can win their knighthood.
All in all the knights of Bretonnia presented in the 5th edition army book can be very haughty and arrogant in their ways, but they are duty bound to honor the chivalric code and they usually do embody the knightly values which include especially the protection of weak and fairness so even though they think they are inherently superior to the peasantry, they usually do not take advantage of their power over them.
The Seven Commandments of Chivalry:
- To Serve the Lady of the Lake
- To defend the domain entrusted to him.
- To protect the weak and fight for the right.
- Always to fight the enemies of virtue and order.
- Never to give up the fight until the foe are defeated.
- Never to break faith with a friend and ally.
- Always to display honor and courtesy.
On the rules front now the army has gained the special rule The Blessing of the Lady which in 5th edition is quite different to the later version although the blessing is gained in the same way by the Bretonnian player choosing to pray to the lady and thus give the enemy player the first turn. The blessing itself means that enemy warmachines or ranged troops like bowmen need to first roll a D6 when targeting any Bretonnian knight unit, they need to roll 4+ to be able to shoot at the knights, otherwise they lose their shooting for that turn. In the case of a warmachine a single roll of a D6 determines this so if a +4 is not rolled then the warmachine cannot shoot that turn, they cannot change their target after failing the test. In case of shooting units, the player needs to roll a D6 for each individual model with a ranged weapon and only those who rolled 4+ can shoot at the knights. It is also stated that the Lady will not bless the army if it includes any allies with warmachines of any kind or any type of gunpowder weapons as these are ignoble and craven devices! The 5th edition army list for Bretonnia does not include the Trebuchet unsurprisingly. If a unit of knights flee for any reason, they lose the blessing.
Bretonnian knights fight in the lance formation in 5th edition, which means that all the models on the sides of the lance count as being in contact with the enemy unit in close combat so they are able to move in a formation with a small front which is more easily maneuvered around the table and they also gain more attacks than they would in a normal formation. There’s a couple of pages of rules related to this formation in the army book to cover most of the issues that come up with putting a triangle into a game of squares. Even the peasant archers have a sort of lance formation in 5th edition, the arrow head formation which is a similar shape and works in a similar manner with more bowmen being able to shoot than in a normal formation.
The army is limited to only having a maximum of 1 unit of Questing Knights or Grail Knights which is a nice fluffy limitation on them as there certainly never should be enough of these types of knights to be most of the army. The Questing Knights in this edition also have the standard knight equipment of heavy armour, barded warhorse, shield, lance and sword unlike in later editions. The only differences between the various knight units are small differences in their stats and the Knightly Virtue they have, for example the Grail Knights have the Grail Virtue which means they are immune to psychology but the Questing Knights have the Questing Virtue instead which makes them immune to panic. The differences in their stats are very minor as well, all the knights have just toughness 3 and strength 4 except the Knights Errant have only strength 3, the biggest differences are between their weapon skill, initiative and leadership. Note that Knights Errant are not impetuous in 5th edition, they don’t have any other special rule either other than being able to ignore panic of peasant units. Bretonnian warhorses are special in that they do not get any movement penalties for being barded.
While I really enjoy these older editions, I do like how the last few editions and now the Old World have added a lot of special rules to the units to distinguish them more and especially to make them feel more like them in the game (as in, they work in game as you’d expect them to).
5th edition heralded the introduction of all new models for Bretonnia, they even got 2 different variations of the Knights of the Realm with a fully plastic version and another version with metal knights and plastic horses. The above featured plastic version is the same that came in the 5th edition starter set as well, they were sold in boxes of 2 separately and came with transfers included in the box. They were sculpted by Michael Perry and to me they look really great for plastic models of the era and I have to say I prefer these and especially the metal Knights of the Realm to the later 6th edition version. The kit is very simple, but there were altogether 8 different helmets and 4 different shields which gave just enough variation to create units with the illusion of each knight being a individual noble with their own heraldry even with just the plastic kit. There were only 2 variations of the plastic horse which was shared by all of the knight types although some of them did get metal heads to make them look more unique.
I think the simplicity of the kit is it’s strength, Bretonnia has always been the painter’s army, but especially so with the 5th edition range with the simple design leaving lots of room for creativity with the painting and allowing the painter to put the effort into that instead of picking out a million little leather straps, metal buttons etc.
The metal variant of the 5th edition Knights of the Realm were also sculpted by Michael Perry with some of the command models having been sculpted by Alan Perry, the Knight of the Realm hero pictured above was also by Alan Perry. These metal models really have all the strengths of the previous plastic Knights of the Realm with a bit of added detail and they look really great. Adding the metal command and a few of the metal knights to your plastic knights you got enough variation for multiple units of Knights of the Realm and you could individualize them even more with the individual paintjobs. It would have been great to have another variant of the command models as some units got during this period, but even without it you could create a stunning Bretonnian army out of these models. That’s something I’ll have to do one of these days, although hopefully by then I have become a much more rich man!
The Knights Errant were also sculpted by Michael Perry, they used the same plastic horses as the Knights of the Realm but were otherwise fully in metal. Even though they are in metal they come in a few parts so that it’s possible to vary their pose a bit by rotating the torso piece and deciding the angle of the lance hand which helps to make them look more individual as there’s only 3 variants of them plus the command models. They are all bare headed which I think suits the unit very well with them being brash young knights wanting to prove their courage and strength and it also makes them easy to distinguish from the other knights. Unsurprisingly I really like these models as well, they are 90s Games Workshop fantasy models sculpted by one of the Perry twins, how could I not love them?
The Questing Knights were sculpted by Alan Perry, they are the only 5th edition Bretonnian knight unit fully sculpted by Alan. They are one of these units of the era that got a crazy amount of variation in them with 20 distinct torsos with heads plus the command group! The Bretonnian metal range seems to have especially lots of variation in the peasant units as well, perhaps the Perry twins were given a bit of a license to go nuts with a miniature range they clearly loved as they always really wanted to sculpt historical miniatures and these are very close to that. 20 + 3 unique sculpts for a unit of metal miniatures is just wild to me, that’s a treasure trove for a collector. You can even only have just one unit of these in an army so there’s no way you would ever need more than maybe a maximum of 12 of them in a unit, leaving over 10 sculpts unused! No wonder this was the only knight unit for Bretonnia that Alan sculpted fully.
These are easily my all time favourite range of knight models in Warhammer Fantasy, they look so good. The ornaments on their helmets are not too big and look really good and there’s a lot of variation, what’s not to love? Some day I will have to make a vow to go on a quest to acquire all of these.
The Grail Knights were a combined effort by the Perry twins, Alan sculpted the command and Michael sculpted the rest. Compared to the Questing Knights there’s only a measly 3+3 variations of these models, but they did all get a matching unique horsehead to go with them which looks great with the horses sporting a similar ornament on their heads as the knights have themselves. These do look stunning and very special so they are easy to tell apart from the other knight units, I only wish there would have been a few more variations so you could build a bigger unit with only unique sculpts in it as that would fit the Grail Knights perfectly as they are basically a unit of hero characters. Then again a unit of 6 is probably all you needed and you could only have one unit of them in the army so it should be alright.
To keep this already very long article a bit shorter, I’m not featuring all of the Bretonnian knight characters, but I couldn’t leave out the Green Knight! It’s commonly held to be one of the best miniatures ever made and I certainly won’t argue against that, that paintjob by Mike McVey in itself is legendary as well! As is also commonly known, this was sculpted by Michael Perry right after he had lost his right hand in an accident with an cannon during re-enactment. What makes that even more impressive is that his right arm was his dominant arm so he sculpted this with his left hand and as far as I know this is the second model he sculpted after the incident, having sculpted the first one right in the hospital. That’s simply unbelievable! Everything clearly came together perfectly for this model and with a backstory like that, it’s even more impressive.
5th edition was a great time to collect Bretonnia, in addition to all the models shown already, in 1997 Games Workshop released a Bretonnia themed expansion pack for Warhammer Quest with the 9021 Bretonnian Knight pack. It contained a very cool knight on foot model sculpted by Gary Morley and cards to use him in the game. Note that this model is currently on sale as part of a Made to Order campaign among a few other Bretonnia and Tomb King classics so if you want to buy this classic miniature you can until the morning of 5th of February! I certainly ordered one for myself.
In addition to the Warhammer Quest Knight there were 3 other foot knight models released for Bretonnia during 5th edition, all of which are available on Made to Order from Games Workshop until 5th of February as well. One of them was already pictured above in the Grail Knight catalogue picture, the 1997 Grail Knight on foot model. It was originally sculpted by Michael Perry to be used as the Holy Knight from the Circle of Blood campaign pack and it’s a superb model, just like all the other models sculpted for these 5th edition Campaign packs. In fact I think the models made for those sets are pretty much the pinnacle of fantasy miniatures, I really really adore them and I’m slowly collecting all of them so obviously I had to order this model as well. Counting that I now have 5 of those models, I’ll need to write an article about them to highlight how great models they really are. They blend perfectly the whimsical and characterful style of 4th edition with the later more grounded grimdark style resulting in a style of miniature that for me is the best ever created.
There’s also foot knight models for the other “levels” of Bretonnian knights, a Questing Knight on foot as well as a Knight of the Realm on foot. Both of the models are from 1997, the Questing Knight is by Alan Perry and the Knight of the Realm is by Michael Perry. I ended up ordering these too to complete the set, obviously I very much enjoy the models as well. I don’t have any models sculpted by Alan in my collection so far to my shame, so it’s great to get at least one. I really enjoy the helmet ornament on the Questing Knight on foot model, it’s the same that some of the mounted ones share, it’s just a very cool shape to me and all of these models look like they will be an absolute joy to paint. I’m still not planning a Bretonnian army, but perhaps I can play Warhammer Fantasy Skirmish with these knights and the couple of 5th ed Bowmen I have.
Overall I think it’s very interesting to note that to me some of the helmet ornaments on the new plastic Knights of the Realm on foot look too big or silly, but for the most part on these old foot knight models the ornaments look right to me even though proportionally these are way bigger than the new ones. I do think the one on the Grail Knight on foot is a bit excessive and should be around 10–20% smaller, but still that bothers me less than the new ones. It must be the overall proportions and aesthetics of the model, the new ones have quite realistic proportions so anything too large really sticks out to the eye as not being right when as these classic models were never meant to have realistic proportions or scale. I think these classic models sort of embody the “platonic idea” of what they represent, in this case Bretonnian knights and that’s why they can get away with totally unrealistic proportions and still feel more believable (at least to me) than the modern models. I think there’s a whole article waiting to be written on that topic, so I’ll leave it there for now. Then again when looking at the real historical examples of helmet ornaments, even the one on the foot Grail Knight isn’t out of line, it’s around the same size as the mermaid ornament from a real historical source referenced in the introduction of this article (both are around 1/4th of the height of the knight). Obviously the real ones weren’t used in battle due to their obvious impracticality, but this is a fantasy game after all and these ornaments do easily stay within the realm of “believability”.
Warhammer 6th Edition (2000)
Bretonnia got their next army book in February 2004 followed by new model releases which almost fully replaced their previous range. This was relatively late in the “life” of 6th edition and the style of writing and designing models had already moved on from what it was in early 6th edition to a new era which I personally do not enjoy that much, but even with that the army book is I think one of the best Games Workshop have ever released and the new model range is very characterful and very well done even if it is slightly past the era I enjoy. For me the 2003 Tomb Kings miniature range is the last full range that I love, the 2004 Bretonnia range is the most modern miniature range I would consider collecting so I do still very much like it, just not as much as the 5th edition range.
Overall the tone of both the army book and the models is much darker and more fantastical, at it’s core it’s still the same army of chivalrous knights as it was before but infused with a bit more fantasy and viewed from another angle. If you’d want to think about it from the perspective of the setting, you could say that the 5th edition version was how the Bretonnian nobles see themselves and the 6th edition version is how the Bretonnian peasants see the nobles, although I personally like to think the 5th edition rendition was the accurate one. In the 6th edition army book the nobles of Bretonnia are depicted as brutal feudal lords extracting everything they can possibly get out of their peasants, they take 9/10 of what the peasants produce leaving them with only 1/10 and they are expected to labour for the nobles day in and out to earn their protection by the knights which they do provide but as often they use the peasants as disposable soldiers and do not care for their lives. Now peasants could never become knights in anyway, although there is one story of a peasant being given knighthood before mysteriously dying of wounds in the back during his first battle. In real medieval history the church took a tithe of 1/10 from the peasants which here has been satirically turned around so that the peasants can only keep 1/10, although of course there were other taxes that they needed to pay for their lords as well but it never was even near 9/10.
For the knights themselves the lore is essentially the same as in the 5th edition army book although it has been totally rewritten so it’s new lore in that sense. The chivalric code is the same, the knightly virtues are the same and the knights are expected to upheld those just as before so they do need to protect the peasants living on their land even at the peril of their own life. It’s not all just dark satire of the feudal system and most of the knights still do their best to act according to the code, there is just a bit more leeway in interpreting the code. Knights Errant get their knighthood as before and Questing Knights embark on the same quest to try and reach the high status of a Grail Knight who is still a paragon of virtue imbued with magical powers protecting the grail shrines and the lands and peasants around it. There’s a slight change in that some Grail Knights retain their previous domain, especially if they are of the higher nobility like a duke as they feel like they can best protect the sacred places by protecting the whole land. A duke that has become a Grail Knight will surely by a just lord as the Lady only grants that blessing to the pure of heart and the blessing itself transforms the Grail Knights into living saints.
The rules for the various knights are mostly the same as in 5th edition, the statlines are almost identical except in 6th edition the Knights of the Realm have only strength 3 instead of the previous 4 but they have gained in leadership and now have 8 instead of 7. There’s a few changes to the special rules, now the Knights Errant are impetuous so that they have to declare a charge if they fail their impetuous test (a leadership test) and are within range of any enemy units, they are also immune to psychology on the turn they charge so they will charge anything near enough. The Knights Errant and Knights of the Realm ignore the panic of peasant units due to their Knights Vow, the Questing Knights may re-roll any failed psychology tests due to their Questing Vow and the Grail Knights are immune to psychology, have magical attacks and start the game with the Blessing of the Lady regardless whether the army prays on the first turn due to their Grail Vow. The Questing Knights are now quite different as they have great weapons instead of lances which certainly make them much more unique although unfortunately quite bad in terms of rules due to how great weapons work in 6th edition. Both the lances and great weapons give +2 strength on charge and the aim is to always break the enemy with the charge, if that fails then sure you get that strength bonus in the next rounds with great weapons but you always strike last and you lose armour save compared to the lance armoured knights so in practice it’s usually worse.
There’s now also a new special unit in the army, the Pegasus Knights which are a flying cavalry unit with the Knight’s vow and have slightly better stats than a Knight of the Realm with toughness 4 and initiative 4. They are a very fast moving unit of knights, other than that there isn’t anything extra special about them.
With the release of the new army book Bretonnia also got a new plastic Knights of Bretonnia plastic kit which build either Knights of the Realm or Knights Errant, it was sculpted by a team of 6 miniature designers which is the biggest group I’ve ever seen for one kit! They were Colin Grayson, Adam Clarke, Martin Footitt, Gary Morley, Michael Perry & Dave Andrews, so there certainly was still many very talented sculptors included in it’s design. It’s a great kit in that it still has logical parts with separate hands, heads, torsos and so on which means it’s intuitive and easy to build and offers a lot of customization although with mounted miniatures the range of possibilities is always more limited than for models on foot. As I stated previously, I prefer the simpler 5th edition version due to them having a bit less details like leather straps and so on and I also prefer the older helmets and armour as for me they look a bit more elegant. These ones have more brutal looking helmets and for some reason they look a bit more stiff to me compared to the previous versions. Even with all that it’s a great looking kit and I would be happy to build and paint a unit of these.
The Knights Errant are a bigger downgrade for me, I preferred the older version with all bare heads and the heads were much better proportioned especially for the faces in the metal kit, that’s likely just due to the technology of plastic models being behind metal miniatures in terms of detail at this point (for some types of detail it still is to this day!). The 5th edition Knights Errant were also easier to distinguish from the Knights of the Realm due to being a totally different kit even if they shared the same plastic horses. Again, still nothing wrong with these, they still look great to this day.
The new Questing Knights are again my favourite of all of the 6th edition knight units, they have a lot of character packed into them with their somewhat comical baggage tied to the backs of their horses, one of them even having taken his cupboard with him and with the musician brandishing a lute! They are now armed with great weapons which makes them look more unique and they are certainly more easily distinguished from the other knights then the 5th edition version, although sadly they weren’t seen as often in 6th edition due to the rules for great weapons. These look very cool and I’d love to get a unit of these some day, although there is something in how they look that shows they are from the late 6th edition / early 7th edition era of metal models that I don’t personally like. I can’t really explain what it is exactly, but almost all metal models of this period have that look. Don’t get me wrong, I think these are still an absolute classic unit and they look great, it’s just something small that nags at me about them. They were also sculpted by a team, although just 3 designers this time who were Gary Morley, Adam Clarke & Dave Thomas.
The Pegasus Knights were a new unit for 6th edition Bretonnia and they really embody that slight change of tone that I mentioned previously with them having more fantasy elements included in the army. I personally prefer the more historical style with less magical elements from 5th edition so I wouldn’t include these in my army if and when I build a Bretonnian army. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the models themselves, they look the part and are quite nice. The pegasi could be slightly bigger as is especially evident now with their re-release for the Old World and those clear flight stands never look great, but other than that I think they are just as nice as the Knights of the Realm of 6th edition. These were sculpted by Trish Morrison (now Carden) and Dave Thomas, Trish no doubt sculpted the pegasi as she’s the master of sculpting animals and monsters and sculpted the majority of all of those for many many years at Games Workshop and later at Forgeworld.
The Grail Knights were sculpted by Colin Grayson, Dave Andrews, Gary Morley & Michael Perry so another team with many if not all heavy weights of miniature sculpting! They are a metal kit with plastic horses so that’s an immediate plus for them, overall I do really like them but again compared to their 5th edition counterparts they have this slight stiff and stocky look to them that the 5th edition models did not have. In terms of their poses and proportions they almost look like older models than the 1997 Grail Knights which is peculiar, although in terms of detail they are clearly more modern with lots more of small things added to them. They do look superb and if I hadn’t seen the 5th edition versions before I’m sure I would really love these, but sadly again the older kit wins my heart (well sadly for me because the older kits are harder to find and more expensive!).
Warhammer 7th Edition (2006)
There was a lot to cover for the last 2 editions, but unfortunately there’s nothing to cover for 7th and 8th edition as Bretonnia would use the 6th edition army book until the end of Warhammer Fantasy and wouldn’t get any new models either.
Warhammer 8th Edition (2010)
Bretonnia is on one of it’s customary breaks during this period, although they were certainly playable even if quite weak compared to most armies with more recent army books. They were still strong enough to be playable, although it was clear that their rules were from a previous edition as they lacked some special rules which other armies had access to due to a more recent army book.
Warhammer The Old World (2024)
As of writing this we are just past the first pre-order weekend for Warhammer The Old World and the actual release date is in a couple of weeks. Bretonnia is one of the first two armies in this highly anticipated return to Warhammer Fantasy. The Bretonnia army box deal sold out very quickly on pre-order so there’s clearly lots of hobbyists who have dearly missed them! We even have a new knight unit, Knights of the Realm on foot along with multiple new character models, but those are out of the scope of this article although the following comments do apply to them as well. I appreciate that Games Workshop has clearly designed all the new models with Warhammer Fantasy in mind and the new models are much more grounded and realistic in the classic Warhammer Fantasy style than other recent models by them which I really really appreciate, but they are still too modern for my sensibilities. I wouldn’t mind having them, but having the choice to go with older models, that’s what I’ll do when some day I have the time and money to build a Bretonnian army. There’s some elements of the new foot knights that I’m not the biggest fan of, although it’s a bit difficult to point out exactly why as those elements are present on the older models mostly as well. For example some of the helmet ornaments on top of the helmets look too large or clumsy to me, even though they are actually mostly smaller than on the older units! It’s probably the specific shapes chosen by the designers which I like less for these new ones, some of the are also too complicated and detailed in my view. They also have that general computer designed look to them which I can’t exactly point out, but which I personally don’t enjoy. There’s just something that is very apparent to the eye about hand sculpted versus digitally sculpted models and for me personally the hand sculpted ones look and feel much better. There also possibly seems to be parts for female knights in there which I don’t think is in keeping with the design ethos of Warhammer Fantasy and it’s certainly not in keeping with the previous lore, exceptional special female characters are obviously great (Repanse etc.), but them being line troops doesn’t fit an army that is so heavily grounded in real history and that has very clear and established gender roles with men being warriors and women magic users in the context of war. Humans in Warhammer Fantasy are also clearly like us (i.e. sexually dimorphic) which is one of the main reasons for why women were not warriors in medieval Europe as melee combat was physically very demanding. It also destroys the potential of creating narratives about women wanting to become knights and their struggle with the strict social norms of Bretonnia or even the possibility of creating a variant exile army list from the Border Princes that could include female knights. Female human warriors can be done correctly even for Warhammer as shown by the Sisters of Sigmar in Mordheim, that’s a very cool faction I think and it’s all women warriors so it can be done well even in my view. It needs to be done in a way that fits the design ethos and established lore of Warhammer, adding female knights to Bretonnia as part of the default regiments isn’t that in my humble opinion. Anyway, this came up with my article about Dark Elf Warriors last time with how those units should have more female elves so let’s not get deeper into that mire, I want to keep these articles focused on the hobby and enjoyable by everyone, I don’t want to alienate anyone with this.
Even with all that, I think it’s a cool kit and really no matter what the kit is, it’s just so great to see Games Workshop releasing new models for Warhammer Fantasy! I do think it’s probably the best plastic unit kit Games Workshop have designed in many many years, certainly the best fantasy kit! If I had to give it a rating it would be something like 8/10 in the context of modern miniatures (models released within 10 years).
The rules are not out yet for the general public so I can’t comment too deeply on them, but I have a decent idea on them as I’ve consumed most content we have available so far on the new rules and lists. Overall the rules are very similar to what they were in the 6th edition army book, with the notable exception of the original lance formation from 5th edition being back, although compared to the 6th edition version of the formation the difference is mostly in the aesthetics. Then again, the spectacle of playing, the visuals, are a massive component of wargaming and even more so for Warhammer Fantasy so I do think it’s a meaningful change just on that basis alone and it sends a certain message of the intent of the game designers which I very much appreciate (i.e. narrative and theme are baked into the game mechanics). In general the ruleset and army lists are the best I’ve ever seen in conveying narrative and theme, units work in game just as you’d imagine by looking at the models and reading the lore and for me that’s one of the most important aspects of a wargame.
There are many tweaks to the unit rules and some small changes to stats with for example Grail Knights gaining toughness to 4 (from 3) and leadership to 9 (from 8). Overall Bretonnian knights play in a very similar manner to prior, just fine tuned to the new ruleset and with some additions to enforce their narrative feel, which is great. It’s very difficult to tell so early on but they seem well balanced with obvious strengths and weaknesses, they will be fun to play for sure. The army lists and rules for Warhammer the Old World have really surprised me on how great they are, can’t wait to play it myself!
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Thank you so much for your continued interest, all the best!
