The staff member suggested I play the knights and archers, while he would play the evil lizards. I was 10 years old and didn't use anything resembling tactics so I just charged my knights in while my archers didn't do a lot. My knights managed to defeat the monstrous lizard people with ease, and the cowardly things ran away and off the edge of the table. I suspect the staff member was going easy on me, but I know any better. I thought it was great!
I pestered my parents about Warhammer for quite a while, and my brother was interested too, so at some point (my memory is fuzzy here) they got us both the Warhammer 40k 3rd Edition starter set. I think we'd been in to get the starter set and saw they'd just released the big exciting 40k 3rd Edition box set - it came with super soldiers, evil aliens and a cool flying tank!
We ended up coming away with the 40k Starter Set, but a part of me still wanted those knights, so at some point in the future I got a £5 box of 2 plastic knights and a £5 box of archers too. I think I was getting £10/month pocket money by then, so you can see where it all went! I was a terrible painter, but thus started my love for the Bretonnian faction.
I didn't manage to do much with my Bretonnians until I went to high school and made a friend by asking the guy I was sitting next to "Do you play Warhammer??" seemingly at random. My friend (Daniel) had a talent for painting and modelling, and he worked very hard at making his armies impressive. I was less dedicated but I still loved the game. My Bretonnians fought games against his Empire army (my Bretonnians usually lost - damn artillery!), they also fought against his Chaos (and usually lost - damn daemonic armour!) and occasionally fought against another friend's (Adam) Goblin army (and usually lost - damn fanatics!). My lads did sometimes have backup from Adam's Wood Elf army, but I don't remember the results of the collaboration. I can only assume my knights died a lot as usual - I wasn't very good at tactics.
I ended up selling a lot of my warhammer at some point in my late teens, but for some reason I kept a few Bretonnians:
- A badly painted Knight of the Realm on foot.
- A badly painted Damsel on foot.
- 7 badly painted archers.
- 7 unpainted & untrimmed men-at-arms with spears.
Not much else survived the purge. Years later when I was getting back into warhammer I discovered these faithful troops again and decided that this time I would do it properly. I'd get a proper 5th Edition Bretonnian army together, and I'd actually paint it this time. I touched up the paintjobs on the existing models I had, but didn't want to change them too much - so they're not the best looking models. Then I set about replacing my erstwhile troops, and getting the other troops I always wanted.
I've now got a decently sized Bretonnian army, although I haven't finished painting it all yet. Most are 5th Edition miniatures, but there's some suitable models from other manufacturers too. Some FireForge sergeants, which I'll be using as skirmisher variants of standard men-at-arms, and Fireforge foot knights too, which I'll use to represent knights who have dismounted from their horses.
There's also a block of metal halberdiers which look very classic Bretonnian, but I'm pretty sure aren't GW models. I need to get these identified at some point.
The entire army. A lot of them are eBay purchases which were part-painted, but some are my originals from when I was a young knight-errant!
The army's heroes. These are both models I bought back in 1999 or so. They were some of the few models I'd actually bothered to paint back then, so in honour of that I decided to neaten them up and apply some washes, but otherwise keep them the same.
Foot knights made from the Teutonic Infantry box from Fireforge Games. I'm going to paint each knight with their own heraldry and colours.
Foot Sergeants from the same box. For WFB I will be using these as loose skirmisher versions of regular men-at-arms. These soldiers will be painted in red & blue to match one of my groups of archers.
Foot Sergeants with crossbows from the same box. I'll use these as armoured skirmisher versions of regular bowmen probably. I'll paint these in green & brown.
Unknown halberdiers. They definitely look the part but I can't find any reference to these being genuine Bretonnian sculpts so I think it must be another company. They do look a lot like Michael Perry's style though.
A group of 15 Bretonnian men-at-arms I got on eBay recently. I'm going to keep the original colour scheme but they need quite a bit of work before they're ready for battle.
A herald/courtier painted by my partner Laura. He will probably be useful for objectives.
Another Fireforge skirmisher group. I need to add something to the shields but otherwise these are finished. I wanted this group to be an elite special forces squad who perform recon/scouting operations. Maybe a bit advanced for Bretonnia but I'm sure the Wood Elves will have taught them something.
These are my original men-at-arms from the 90s. I recently painted them, but have yet to base them (and I need to do a flag for the standard bearer). I'm thinking of taking 3 of the red & black spearmen and repainting them to match these guys. That way I will have a unit of 10 and a unit of 12 instead of 7 and 15.
14 Bretonnian bowmen acquired from eBay. I've sorted out half of them so far (mostly just through the liberal use of washes!).
The painted models and the musician are some of my surviving original Bretonnians. I got the others from eBay to make this a complete unit of 10 archers.
The musician in the centre was a gift from my friend Rick. Lots of painting to be done here!
I managed to get two mounted squires on eBay for a reasonable price, and they're very nicely painted too! I'm hoping to get a third at some point to give them some company.
Another group of 10 bowmen, also from eBay. Once again I've managed to spruce up a few of them, but there's still work to be done.
The second group of knights of the realm. All of these need painting/repainting.
My main group of 10 knights of the realm. The three command knights were bought already painted on eBay and are pretty decent, although there are some chips in need of painting over. Two of the painted regular knights were a gift from Rick and are well painted too, so I'll just make some minimal adjustments to those. The final 5 are fresh off the sprue and built.
As you can see, there's a lot of work to be done, and only 1 of the units is really battle ready, but quite a few aren't far off, so I'll have finished a small army soon enough.
