AdamH's fancy Frenchmen - An introduction

Hello everyone,

My name is Adam and along with my good friend Sam Winter it seems I find myself partaking in this strange challenge to paint models almost as old as me for a game long retired which I will probably never get to play! Now I thoroughly blame Sam for all of this so let me explain why; like many people I gave up playing GW games when they felt the need to destroy the world I grew up with in order to sell (admittedly sometimes wonderful looking) giant display figures. However, Sam put me onto the challenge website just as last years was ending, combined with introducing me to the concept of 'old/middlehammer' in general. So, after going back and reading through last years Old World Army Challenge I found my love of old-school models and game systems reinvigorated and my wallet preparing itself for a beating.

Through almost no intentional action I found myself with a few Bretonnian models, now Brets were never an army that I found myself drawn to, preferring the darker and more 'fantasy' armies over the brightly coloured medieval inspired knights. Never-the-less on looking through old pictures and drawing inspiration from old White Dwarfs and the internet I found the crazy horse-riding clowns growing on me. The fact I am a terribly slow painter means the low model count is particularly appealing to me and the opportunity to step out of my comfort zone (generally being rag-tag rough around the edges armies like Skaven) finally cemented this army for me as one I wanted to try the challenge with.

However, I am going to come right out and say that I know almost nothing about the history, fluff and even army composition of the Brets. At the moment the models I have are a combination of what I found online for reasonable prices and the ones I like the look of. This challenge is going to be as much me reading up and learning about the army as it is painting it. Therefore, when you see my initial list, the experienced Bret players among you might think to yourself "Well that is a terrible list that will get crushed", and you may be correct! So, there is a chance I will swap units/characters in and out of my list as the challenge progresses, if you have any opinions on my list and if you think what I am doing is crazy for any reason please don't hesitate to let me know.

Right so onto the list, I'm going to be building this army for WFB 5th Edition with points taken from the Bret Army book of the same edition. As per the challenge rules the army is planned to be at least 1000pts with magic items not included:

The Nobility:

103 - General of Bretonnia on Warhorse

59 - (Damsel) Level 1 Wizard on Warhorse

234 - 6x Knights of the Realm

278 - 6x Grail Knights with Champion, Standard and Musician

166 - 5x Knights Errant with Champion, Standard and Musician

The Riff Raff:

83 - Bertrand Brigand
108 - 8x Bowmen with Bergerac Upgrade

128 - 15x Bowmen with Musician

98 - 6x Mounted Squires with bows and Musician

General thoughts here (and this is where I show my lack of knowledge of Bretonnian lore) are that this is a small expedition of knights that is patrolling the edges of their lords’ lands, which happens to border the great forest where Bertrand and his jolly chaps reside. The knights will be painted in their usual 'a clown just threw up on us' heraldries with all the riff raff painted in a similar scheme as if they are all part of Bertrand's group. Again, I need to sit down over the holidays and really read through the Bretonnian books and learn more about them so my first post may see me re-visit this idea with a more fleshed out background for them.

But for now, this is what I have ready to paint, pretty much everything but the bowmen which I am waiting to arrive:

So anyway, to all the other challengers (except Sam, you suck and you know it) I wish you the best of luck and can't wait to see your figures, and to the readers that will be following along with us I hope you enjoy the challenge as a whole and of course my contributions to it!