Anthony Reynolds

Who are the Bretonnians? Bretonnia is a land of knights and peasants, with the focus of the army being the devastating charge of the knights, supported by units of peasant men-at-arms infantry. The knights of Bretonnia live by a series of vows – these vows uphold the virtues of honour and chivalry. To lose honour is just about the worst thing imaginable to a knight of Bretonnia, and they would rather die with honour than live without it. The entire society of the Bretonnian nobility is based around upholding the honour of the self, the king and the Lady of the Lake (the goddess of the Bretonnians). Individual heroism is very important to the Bretonnian knight, and tales of paladins fighting dragons and heroes facing off against countless foes are the kind of things they dream of. Bretonnia is a feudal society. The peasants serve the knights in return for protection, while the knights are obligated to provide military assistance to their lords in return for certain rights (to own land, raise their own taxes, receive aid and military forces in times of war). At the top of this hierarchy is the king. Beneath the king are the dukes. Beneath them is another layer of nobility – earls and barons. The king, dukes, earls and barons are also each the lord of a number of knights, who are the lesser nobles. Each knight (including the higher nobles) has a force of men-at-arms. These men-at-arms are chosen from the most physically able of the peasantry, and, in return for being a standing fighting force for the knight, they may be given a small tract of land for their family. In theory, all commoners can be called upon by a knight to serve him in battle, but since many who are not already men-at-arms are either simple-minded or impaired in some other fashion, this is usually only in the form of a levy of bowmen. However, as well as the temporal hierarchy, the lands of Bretonnia are also ruled over by spiritual and mystical powers – the Fay Enchantress, her Damsels, and the Grail Knights, who are all devoted to the Lady of the Lake.

Ant: I think one of the main strengths of the Bretonnians is that they appeal to so many people. I'd go out on a limb to say that pretty much everyone who likes Warhammer probably thinks that knights, castles and medieval battles are pretty cool. Even a lot of people who don't know about Warhammer (gasp!) think that castles and knights are pretty cool. Girlfriends and non-hobbyists can appreciate ranks of knights (rather than giggling at funny little green men or asking why that guy has such a long neck – "that's a banner on his back with a skull on top, dear" – this is a true story). Just like the Lizardmen appealed to me because I liked playing with toy dinosaurs when I was little, the Bretonnians appeal to me because I used to like playing with toy knights, and I reckon lots of people would agree with me. Simple as that really. Knights are cool.

Right, now that I have established that fact, on to the latest version of the army book itself. Long before any work was done on the book, lots of decisions about the Bretonnians were made. The things answered at this point included such things as: how did we want to portray the Bretonnians in this incarnation? What will the miniatures range consist of? Did they need some new troops? What troops needed to be 'reinvented'? Who ate the last pie? Quite a lot of work has gone into this, which is now called the 'Key Design Process'. Sounds impressive, huh?

A DARKER STRAIN OF KNIGHT...
Just flicking through the Bretonnian book, you may notice that Bretonnia seems to be a slightly darker place than it had been in recent years. The peasants look that little bit more hunched, that little bit more, well, ugly and downtrodden (insert joke about the 'closeness' of peasant families here if you must). The knights are still shining paragons of virtue fighting against the horror of the world, but they are a bit more hardened and gritty than before. The castles look a little more Ghormenghast or Jabberwocky than Disney. This was a conscious decision made early on in the project, for we felt that this fits better with the Warhammer world. Now, no one wanted the pendulum to swing so far that Bretonnian knights were depraved, arrogant and corrupt, but darkening up their lives a little would make them more interesting and able to gel better with the rest of the Warhammer world. I thought that emphasising the contrasts of Bretonnia would really work to carry across the character of the place. The knights make the peasants look even more destitute than before, and the peasants make the knights look even more saintly and heroic. This is beautifully shown in the artwork in the book – the artists really have outdone themselves once again.

THE BLESSING OF THE LADY
The Blessing of the Lady in the past gave protection against shooting aimed at your precious knights. The Bretonnians now have a war machine of their own, and more things capable of taking out enemy missile troops and war machines (namely Pegasus Knights). One thing I never particularly liked about this Blessing was that Bretonnian armies would only ever pray to their goddess if they were facing a missile-heavy opponent. If they were facing an army with little or no missile fire (and that is quite a few armies, including Chaos in its various guises and Vampire Counts), then the Bretonnians wouldn't pray (why would they bother? Their goddess only helps them out against shooty enemies). This didn't really ring true to me – the knights would want the Lady's Blessing whenever they fought a battle, surely.

The Fay Enchantress bestows the Blessings of the Lady on an army departing for war

Therefore, I wanted the Blessing to be useful against any enemy. The Blessing turned out to be the part of the Bretonnians that underwent the most change from my early drafts. One early mechanic involved units generating 'Blessing dice', with some units generating more than others, and with various levels of effect. While I quite liked this mechanic, it did turn out to be a bit of a pain to keep track of, and was encouraging armies that always tended to include the same units. In the end, I opted for a fairly simple system, which I still believe creates the right feel.

To make the Blessing more universally useful, I decided to change it to a general Ward Save. This keeps things nice and easy, and also allows the Lady's Blessing to be felt against any opponent. I decided that the Ward Save would get better against stronger attacks. This is to simulate the Lady giving more protection against particularly dangerous foes – dragon, cannons and mighty heroes. I also liked the idea that it was the Bretonnian player rolling for his Blessing Ward – it's very satisfying for a Bretonnian player to be able to shout "The Lady saved me!" when you make the roll.

THE LANCE FORMATION
Along with the Blessing, the Lance formation was the main thing that gave me a headache with the Bretonnian project. For months I tossed around ideas for the Lance formation in my head, trying to figure out ways for it to work more simply, and more in line with the main rules. The problem was that the old triangular Lance formation, while looking lovely on the battlefield, was irritating rules-wise. I pulled my hair out trying to keep the look of the old Lance formation, but came to the conclusion that it was just too problematic. In a game of squares and rectangles, triangles just do not work – and to make it work involved just too many rules (several pages that could be better spent in the book on cool stuff rather than dense rules text). A nice, simple rule would not only be easier and quicker to manoeuvre, but would also have a lot less room for confusion and misinterpretation. I also found in the past that the Lance formation really had no drawbacks – strangely, it was a very solid defensive formation as well as devastating on the charge. I much prefer the idea of the lance being devastating on the charge, but if the Bretonnian player is caught out of position or is out-manoeuvred, then they should be in trouble.

The formation that I ended up with is pretty much a mix of the old rules and a normal formation of troops. Basically, the knights are arranged into ranks of three. In most respects, this is treated as a normal unit, albeit a longer, thinner unit than normal. As such, it follows most of the rules for a normal unit (including moving and flanks), with a few exceptions – mainly that when it charges, not only does the front rank fight, but everyone up the sides does as well. In play-testing, everyone found this new lance to their liking, being just so much easier than the old one, with pretty much the same result. Playing with the unit suddenly became more tactical as well, for you have (large) flanks to protect, and you really don't want to get bogged down in combat.

MAGIC ITEMS AND THE VIRTUES OF THE CHIVALRIC KNIGHT
For the magic items, the main focus is on weapons (notably lances), funky armour and items that help protect your army and individuals. The items that gave a Ward Save I generally tied into the Blessing – so you will get an improved Ward Save, but only if you do not lose the Blessing! As a result, I made these items a bit cheaper than they would normally be.

The Virtues are back. There are 14 Virtues – one for each of the first dukes (Gilles and his famous Grail Companions). I see these Virtues as being fighting styles – for instance, Duke Folgar was famous for his jousting skills. A knight who follows his path (and so has the Virtue of the Joust) gets to re-roll his misses when charging and using a lance.

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