Rescue Mission- 5th Edition Bretonnians

[Iain R]

So, the other night I was trawling through my old 5th Edition Bretonnians to dig out  some archers for someone, and ended up getting sucked into the zeitgeist of all that cheesey Herohammer goodness (leafing through the army and rulebooks probably didn't help). My original plan for these guys had been to paint 'em up and sell them on as a complete force, to fund my growing 20mm habit. However, the longer I sat ranking them all up, jabbing my fingers on lances and exclaiming "Haha, awesome, I'd forgotten about that", the more I came down in favour of painting them up and keeping them, for nothing more than the nostalgia; after all, Warhammer as we know it is no more, and these aren't quite old enough to be all cool and Oldhammer, and there doesn't seem to be much of a 5th Edition gaming community out there. Furthermore, most of these, with a bit of "live and let live" applied, could be used to bulk out historical armies if need be...

And so was born The Chanson of Claude the Intemperate, Hereditary Constable of Krounenbourg


Ugh. The force as it stands, in all its inches-thick-paint-applied-with-a-rolled-up-newspaper glory. Ol' King Louen's seen better days; he rolled a 1 on taking a header off a display cabinet shelf. So much for his amazing flying Hippogriff...

I'm a big fan of these Bretonninan minis, and think they're infinitely better than the horrendous later models, when GW transformed the Brets into a comedy army (OK, so the KotR aren't that awful, but the plastic men at arms? Seriously?), to go with their comedy playability, after 6th Edition nerfed the knights and the archers, reducing the Bretonnians to poor-relation Empire (I'd given up playing Warhammer by that point, but it still pained me to see it nevertheless)...

So first up for a swim in the Rio Dettol, the said Constable himself, dismounted Questing Knight Flatulent Roland the Directionally-Challenged, Damsel Isoulde the Well Endowed, and dismounted Knight of the Realm Grizzled Robert ...


After a few hours the Surgical Spirit's already wrinkling the paint nicely. Some archers have also found their way in.


Ignore the M113, that's not for them; I know it's 5th edition, but there are limits...

How long I'll stay on this before going back to historicals is anyone's guess (but probably not very long), but expect at least one "Wanted" thread mooching old metal Bretonnian men-at-arms to finish off three units...

[Blue in vt]

 

Fantastic to see you getting bitten by the bug again...I personally love these models and have been painting up an army of them myself for use in Oldhammer games (3rd ed).  the figures aren't that old but they look great on the table top and and thats what matters to me.

If you'd like to see what I've been up to check my blog post here: http://bluesmarauders.blogspot.com/2015/09/bretonnian-knights-finally-finished.html

I look forward to seeing what you do with yours...and certainly keep in mind that these can be used in 28mm historical armies as well.  I use mine for Lion Rampant as well as 3rd ed WFB.

Cheers,

Blue

[Arundel]

Thank you for the highly entertaining post. I'd guess most gamers have had a similar experience of digging through old collections and finding the bug biting once again. I wouldn't be so hard on the paint jobs, by the way: they look great. Have fun with the project, and please keep posting pictures!

On a related note, though I'm not a Warhammer gamer (and so don't have any sense of the dates of the various editions) I totally agree with you on the decline of the GW models over the years. I definitely prefer the sculpts from the late 80s through the very early 2000s meself, though it may only be a factor of age and nostalgia...

[Iain R]

Cheers guys. progress will probably be very slow as all the models have to be stripped first, but we'll see where it takes me...

If you'd like to see what I've been up to check my blog post here: http://bluesmarauders.blogspot.com/2015/09/bretonnian-knights-finally-finished.html

Lovely painting! I'd actually come across your blog when doing image searches for the Bretonnians for some inspiration, I must say it definitely worked!

I look forward to seeing what you do with yours

As many Monty Python references as I can cram into it...

On a related note, though I'm not a Warhammer gamer (and so don't have any sense of the dates of the various editions) I totally agree with you on the decline of the GW models over the years. I definitely prefer the sculpts from the late 80s through the very early 2000s meself, though it may only be a factor of age and nostalgia...

I feel they've just dumbed everything down; from their highpoint in the late 90s of creating some beautifully proportioned, finely detailed models, which could hold their own against the best the historical genre had to offer, they now just appear to produce bland, exagerrated, comical children's toys, which is compounded by the fact that the prices have skyrocketed for no easily discernable reason. Which is a great shame...

[fitterpete]

Hey
Whats rio Dettol and where do you get it.
I'm always looking for new stripping techniques
Thanks,Pete

EDIT Nevermind I found it.Should have searched it in the first place.

[CarlLeyland]

This is very interesting! I like the bretonnian models no matter what edition as they seem to fit my own personal image of a fantasy world....also Age of Sigmar is better than the web would have you believe so you could find a use for them in a completely new game?

[Vanvlak]

More please 
That's a nice old army, one of my favourites from Warhammer.
Before I owned one I had used a friend's army for an impromptu game at an old (and now sadly defunct) club. The characters were loaded with magic stuff, and I ended up with a thick wad of cards describing stuff I was completely unfamilar with. I was playing the dreaded Dark Elves (I always did rather badly against them and their Dark Eldar descendents, never seemed to get the hang of them). In spite of the mess of magical paraphernalia - orto be honest, thanks to it - I won, and distinctly remember my opponent plonking away a defeated Malekith, cold one chariot (a conversion) and all.
That's the thing about the Brets - theybrig back memories.

I'm doing something similar, but at my usual slow and haphazard pace, with Dogs of War, in support of Lion Rampant.

So yes please, more!

[Constable Bertrand]

A mighty fine selection you have there constable. The jules, the Saracen, metal men at arms AND the grails!   

I much prefer the perry sculpted metal 5th ed peasantry over the multi plastics (though i did like the fact that a unit of bowmen wasnt just Bill and his brother Bob with their clones).

I hope they enjoy the Detol Spa treatments you have planned for them

Cheers
Matt

[Major_Gilbear]

A lovley old army - I'm looking forward to seeing its refurbishment! 

I much prefer the perry sculpted metal 5th ed peasantry over the multi plastics

I quite agree - although some of the later metal models were quite nice (the redone King Louen' for example, and Adam Clarke's Enchantress), and the plastic Pegasus knights were decent too.

[Iain R]

*Blows dust off, removes husk of long-dead spider *

Thanks guys, finally got around to resurrecting this!

I've been taking a bit of a hiatus from painting over the last couple of months, real life demanding a bit of attention. I did manage to get a couple of these guys done, though (after about six months of starting them...), and I'm quite chuffed with them...




Quite pleased with the results that can be got with these basic old figures with a bit of time and effort...


This chap was missing his nose, either on his arrival from eBay, or as a result of my over-enthusiastic mould line removal. I countered this with some fierce highlighting to give a 3-D effect, which looks rather better in the hand than it does in the pics...



I have no idea when the next installment will follow. You may have noticed that I'm a bit of a painting magpie...  :grin:

[OSHIROmodels]

They look good to me 

cheers

James

[Elbows]

They look excellent!  Doesn't it feel good?  Giving those guys a new lease of life (however short it may be on the tabletop).

[Vermis]

Nice! I like the skintones and the effect of the shading/highlighting placement. Looks more realistic other 'triad' systems I've seen. The paintjob standing in for the missing nose looks grand.

[Cubs]

Great work and your painting style brings out the best in them. these are some of my fave models of all time, so simple and classic and I have a big tub full of them on the shelf!

[Hupp n at em]

They look great! I'll be incorporating a bunch of old Bretonnians (along with some of the newer plastics) that I bought off of one my dad's gaming buddies, so it's nice to see they can be rescued. 

I would like to say though, I do think my favorite army has largely gotten better with the more recent models. The newer Skaven are much more representative of the lore and much nicer models than those awful older clanrat models.