old oldschool fatasy? A gap in the market, or a forgotten relic?

[Sir_Theo]

Warhammer was largely low fantasy with added grimness (More Jaberwocky than Excalibur) but when they rebooted Bretonnians in the 5th edition they went from being an early medieval feudal type army to Chivalric Arthurian.

One of the most popular fantasy IPs at the moment is Game of Thrones. Sure it has the modern sensibility of blood.and guts rather than a Victorian view of knightly virtues but it has knights a plenty

[DivisMal]

Warhammer was largely low fantasy with added grimness (More Jaberwocky than Excalibur) but when they rebooted Bretonnians in the 5th edition they went from being an early medieval feudal type army to Chivalric Arthurian.

One of the most popular fantasy IPs at the moment is Game of Thrones. Sure it has the modern sensibility of blood.and guts rather than a Victorian view of knightly virtues but it has knights a plenty

Bretonnians even started as something that was described as Grimdark Three Musketeers if I remember the early descriptions in the Warhammer Roleplay book. It just happened that the Perrys had produced a series of historical minis that was then used for Arthurian knights in 4th/5th if I remember correctly.

The Arthurian knights next to the Landknechts of the Empire also annoyed me with the later versions of the Warhammer world. I know its fantasy, but why not keep at least a little bit coherence in style!

[white knight]

I do like the Bretonnian models from the 5th edition as they did incorporate all those elements from Arthurian and similar mythologies that I loved as a child.

I too grew up with old Robin Hood and King Arthur movies and books, black & white Ivanhoe television series, The Red Knight (Rode Ridder) (both in the Leopold Vermeiren crusader novels as the Willy Vandersteen comics where he joined the knights of the round table) and of course my lego sets were all part of the medieval castle range.

[sukhe_bator]

There is a place for this traditional medieval romance fantasy I guess. Representations on the screen rarely live up to my expectations however. Personally I find the representation of armour in most films lamentable and it significantly mars my enjoyment of them. I blame Victorian romanticism primarily, and the swathe of prints and illustrations based on them ever since.
It is usually too baroque as to be unwearable (yeugh!). Either that or if it halfway attempts accuracy usually incorporates elements to look good and shows the designer fails to understand the original purpose the elements were designed for. My take is that it may be fantasy but it still should at least look plausible and functional. I far prefer the medieval grunge look of soiled aketons and jacks which is far more realistic and probably truer to real life than all that shiny white metal.
If you look more closely at medieval and renaissance depictions of saints in sculpture and art they are usually far more accurate. I regularly see a Tilman Riemenschneider statue of an armoured St Maurice from 1510 that has such character and attention to detail it shows the artist has more than a passing acquaintance with real life armour.
I too grew up on a diet of bad Hollywood films and TV series. Ill designed and fitted metal and carbon-fibre plates designed more to snag a blade than deflect it and knitted mail sprayed silver were the norm. I try where I can to avoid the obvious howlers in my own modelling but having said that I'm just as guilty, with plate armoured characters using heater shields. My Westerosi are fantasy after all.
A visit to the Sobieski chapel in Vienna back in 1993 jarred, when common mistakes borne out of a misunderstanding of armour bleed out into the real world. I didn't have the heart to explain that the Polish 3/4 armour was assembled incorrectly. The gorget should have gone underneath the back and breastplate, not on top... Next time you watch a film look out for that one

[Westfalia Chris]

I'm in two minds about this - I liked the "classic" media take on the Middle Ages very much as a kid and still do, also with fantastic elements thrown in (e.g. Johan et Pirlouit, "The Magic Sword", as tacky as it is), but I find the setting played straight to be lacking a bit in variety, especially in RPG environments with a wonky grasp of agricultural economies, to say the least.

Still, I am quite fond of a Fantasy setting having a "faction" that is playing to the "noble knights" aspect, but amid others; then again, I also like the Tolkienian and Howardian approaches, depending on the mood of the moment.

This "gritty middle ages" thing that essentially set in when Monty Python deconstructed the genre in their "Holy Grail" was never quite my cup of tea, although there have been some who did it well (even if they then drew it out too much, mainly in Fantasy, e.g. GoT and the Blood Song novels). But gritty seems to be applied to everything these days, or rather, these recent decades, so there is probably no escape and no chance of it being successfully done in a non-ironic fashion.

[Westfalia Chris]

I'm in two minds about this - I liked the "classic" media take on the Middle Ages very much as a kid and still do, also with fantastic elements thrown in (e.g. Johan et Pirlouit, "The Magic Sword", as tacky as it is), but I find the setting played straight to be lacking a bit in variety, especially in RPG environments with a wonky grasp of agricultural economies, to say the least. Shrek did it really well on the parody front with that strong fairytale angle, too.

Still, I am quite fond of a Fantasy setting having a "faction" that is playing to the "noble knights" aspect, but amid others; then again, I also like the Tolkienian and Howardian approaches, depending on the mood of the moment.

This "gritty middle ages" thing that essentially set in when Monty Python deconstructed the genre in their "Holy Grail" was never quite my cup of tea, although there have been some who did it well (even if they then drew it out too much, mainly in Fantasy, e.g. GoT and the Blood Song novels). But gritty seems to be applied to everything these days, or rather, these recent decades, so there is probably no escape and no chance of it being successfully done in a non-ironic fashion.

[Inkpaduta]

The Thunderbolt Arthurian figures.
What scale were they? I am thinking they were
smaller, true 28mm?

[Cubs]

Lucid Eye is doing some lovely 'Celtic' stylie miniatures in their 'The Red Book of the Elf King' range, which have a real Victorian fantasy romance flavour to them.

https://www.lucideyepublications.com/the-red-book-of-the-elf-king

[nic-e]

Lucid Eye is doing some lovely 'Celtic' stylie miniatures in their 'The Red Book of the Elf King' range, which have a real Victorian fantasy romance flavour to them.

https://www.lucideyepublications.com/the-red-book-of-the-elf-king

And bloody lvoely they are too, I've been keeping an eye on them for when i have a little spare money to spend on more miniatures!


I hadn't checked out the pendragon RPG before, But looking at it it seems to capture exactly the kind of Ahistorical fantasy that I'm thinking of, and it seems like a genuinely fun and interesting system.

Hobgoblin, I certainly have checke out song of arthur and merlin, I have it on the shelf! A wonderful expansion it is too, and one i had forgotten i owned!

[Cubs]

Yeah, Pendragon was fun and we didn't play it nearly enough for me, back in the day. Central to its theme was the idea of advancing your 'knightly virtues' (and gradually reducing your vices), not just combat skills, to become the perfect knight.

In theory you could play someone from a range of backgrounds within the game, but it was geared up towards you being a 'Cymric' Christian knight to serve the Arthurian ideal. If you had a GM who liked to poke around in old British mythology it was a ball.   

[Plynkes]

Had some of my best RPG times GMing Pendragon. Absolutely loved it. Played it for long enough that my brother's character had grown-up children who had been born in-game (as per the between-adventures "end of year" rules), and his eldest son became his new character for lower-level adventures once his original character had become a lord with his own castle.

My brother did not embody the knightly ideals, though. He got on to the Round Table by being a staunch supporter of the Boy King in the early days but never even tried to live up to its aims. He was a thief and murderer, drunkard and carouser. If he was ever accused of anything he would demand trial by combat and thus maintained a spotless record, despite being an absolute sod. A bit of a Blackadder, really, except he was pretty fearless.

Ah, what fun! Maybe it's time we went back to that world and found out what those characters are up to...

[Cubs]

Lots of fun being a villain!

[Daeothar]

No matter how you look at them, in the end, RPG player characters are basicaly all sociopathic mass murderers...

[Diablo Jon]

No matter how you look at them, in the end, RPG player characters are basicaly all sociopathic mass murderers...

I don't know what you mean. There is something deeply heroic about massacring a tribe of goblins, just minding their own business in the local dungeon, so you can loot ever last copper piece they own to help buy that suit of plate mail you really, really want...

[DS615]

The Thunderbolt Arthurian figures.
What scale were they? I am thinking they were
smaller, true 28mm?

They're true 25mm.  They are exceptional figures, but too small to fit with most other things.  Not an issue if your entire game uses them, or if different sizes don't bother you.