Why don't GW just re release brettonia?

[Icegoat]

Having read quite a lot of the novels and background lore of aos now I'm certain now is the time that brettonia type knights and chivalry etc belong back in aos. 

The age of chaos destroyed entire civilisations and countries were wiped off the map. You could easily justify that the remaining humans were sent back to a feudal like society. In fact the flesh eater courts basically seem to exclusivly come from these feudal type societies and yet none remain?? 

The loss of brettonia was the single greatest tragedy in warhammers history. People would absolutely lap up a re release of the knights I mean who doesnt like fantasy knights?

We have aelves still fighting with spear and bow while dwarves are carrying gatling guns, logic no longer plays a part in how each different army is composed and an AOS style brettonia releases would be a sell out.

[Melcavuk]

Brettonia have never been more popular than when they've been removed from the game. They were removed by GW for a reason, most likely due to poor sales and low trademarkability, the fact a vocal minority still clamour after them doesnt mean they would be an instant sell out. Instead far more likely is the fact that vocal minority would find a new faction they feel should be in the game to clamour after insisting that they "won" getting brettonia back and therefore they can do it for everything.

New and cool beats old nostalgia for me.

[zilberfrid]

However much I like 14th century knights, have you seen AoS?

Everything is larger than life, over the top and loud. Bretonnia doesn't really fit in that.

The best we can hope for is ToW being compatible with AoS.

 

In the meantime, other rulesets do work quite well with a Bretonnia-like faction. 

[Kramer]

16 minutes ago, Icegoat said:

The loss of brettonia was the single greatest tragedy in warhammers history

Wasn’t that the release of cities? 🤔  

a reimagining would be cool. But a straight up rerelease would be a financial mis hit I’m afraid. 

[Armoured]

The vast majority of mortals across the realms fell to the chaos gods during the age of chaos; this means that fantasy knights do exist- they are just the Chaos Knight and Marauder Horsemen kits now 😬

 

[Craze]

1 hour ago, Icegoat said:

...an AOS style brettonia releases would be a sell out.

Sorry to say it that way, but this just sounds like wishful thinking from a really big fan but would in no way reflect reality.

I myself have like 100 things that would get me WAY MORE excited than medieval knights and if you look at the stuff that gets people most hyped (huge giants, bone constructs etc.) than I think that this feeling is true for a lot of people.

I know that it is sad, but a some point it's just time to let go, as much as it may hurt...

Edited July 15, 2020 by Craze

[MaatithoftheBrand]

I liked Brettonia in the World-that-Was, but even with an Age of Sigmar-y remaining, what would it add?

Narratively you have Blood Dragon Soulblight and their Blood Knights, you have the Flesh Eater Courts (especially as the years go by and they get more models like the Grymwatch and their Endless Spells that lean into their madness), and you have the Slaves to Darkness who can all do armies of dark chivalry.

Mechanically, StDarkness, Soulblight, eel spam Idoneth, and Cities can all do all-cavalry, and the latter two even have access to Fey mages as heroes. The Living City seems like the most obvious AoS exaggeration of the Bretonnia asthetic - you can have elite horse(demigryph)men supported by knots of light cavalry and ranks of peasantry troops, led by Fey Enchantresses with access to the Life magic of the natural world. If you instead amplified the crusader overtones of the Bretonnians, they begin to feel similar to the Stormcast and the Teclian Vanguard of the Lumineth. 

I'm just not sure what unique flavour - either mechanical or fluff - would be added by Bretonnia coming back, either unchanged or AoSified. 

[Beliman]

Not going to lie...I prefer the old summerian-like Chaos Dwarfs or Tomb Kings before Bretonia.

[El Syf]

Some people believe it's more fitting to just view Flesh Eater Courts as what became of Bretonia.

[Laststand]

7 minutes ago, El Syf said:

Some people believe it's more fitting to just view Flesh Eater Courts as what became of Bretonia.

It would be very cool to see some FEC models with elements of bret armour, clothes etc maybe even a few models representing the delusion and are 90% knight but one arm is a ghoul claw or something. 

[Gaz Taylor]

23 minutes ago, El Syf said:

Some people believe it's more fitting to just view Flesh Eater Courts as what became of Bretonia.

This is how I see it. It’s a nice twist on the background

 

1 hour ago, Icegoat said:

The loss of brettonia was the single greatest tragedy in warhammers history. People would absolutely lap up a re release of the knights I mean who doesnt like fantasy knights?

I think it’s classic now it’s gone, it’s popular. Personally I don’t want GW to bring them back unless they did something different. Considering the place the game is set in, we could see knights but riding monsters or mechanical creatures. I think that would be more interesting from a minature point of view

[hughwyeth]

Brettonia is pretty old-school fantasy now. I can't really see a place for them in AoS, other than in a reimagined way, as Gaz says. All the new armies are much more exciting than Brettonia ever was, though I did like the narrative and a lot of the models. 

[JustAsPlanned]

I’ve got to agree with the previous posts here - Bretonnia are one of those factions that work in Fantasy, but don’t really have much of a place amongst the other AoS armies. It’ll probably get brought back in some way or another for the Old World game though.

[Neverchosen]

I would love a reimagining of Bretonnian Knights to place an emphasis on Gryphons, Hippogriffs, Pegasi* and Unicorns  and other mythical mounts. 

I love the idea of a chivalric order that makes use of noble mythical mounts. Unlike Stormcast's strange chimeric cavalry the new Bretonnians would make use of better established mythological creatures. 

*The plural for Pegasus seems to be a fairly contentious topic online. 

[Overread]

Having seen mounts like the Deathriders for Ossiarchs I think that classic mounted horses would still look good for AoS. Just fully done with thick barding, long mail coats flapping in the wind as they charge forward. Heck the new elf riders are basically that. 

Give them regular knights on horseback backed up with elite fantasy mounts and go for a pure classic style. So griffins, horses, pegasus, unicorns, dragon etc... Nothing "new" just go for pure classic fantasy tropes and thrust them into the single army of knights and kings and queens. 

[Charleston]

Some issues I see with a Bretonnia rerelease:

• Dated Sculpts would require full range rework
• Strong Historic Theme of the Army means only few unique aspects that could be turned into protectable intelectual propery
• High Contrast of Low-Fantasy-Bretonians in Ultra-High-AoS could lead to Bretons feel alien in the Setting.
• Old Bretonia Range sold bad. So risk that redesigned Bretons sell also badly

The closest imaginable thing is a full redesign of Bretons like Lumineth were redesigned High Elves or Tomb Kings turned into OBR. Or a "Made to Order: WHFB Classics"

[Overread]

20 minutes ago, Charleston said:

• Strong Historic Theme of the Army means only few unique aspects that could be turned into protectable intelectual propery

This has never been a problem - EVER. 

GW cannot protect anything like you describe. They can make the most insane outlandish totally bizzar unique creature and ANYONE can make an alternate sculpt of the same idea and sell it and have no problems

 

GW has renamed a lot of things to names they can legally protect, that helps ensure that their brand is protected and that when you google up those names you get GW products FIRST not 3rd party options. However its only the name GW can protect. The actual concept they can't. Heck look at Luminoth - they have basic cavalry elves and spear elves and archers. Those are all three very classic, very standard units. In fact it you look at a lot of armies they have very standard very classic unit types. If anything GW is actually very tame when it comes to things like weapon and unit types. Most armies have spears and swords and bows and/or crossbows. Maces, pole weapons etc... You see more gaudy and crazy weapons in Dynasty Warriors console games. 

[Neverchosen]

31 minutes ago, Overread said:

Having seen mounts like the Deathriders for Ossiarchs I think that classic mounted horses would still look good for AoS. Just fully done with thick barding, long mail coats flapping in the wind as they charge forward. Heck the new elf riders are basically that. 

Give them regular knights on horseback backed up with elite fantasy mounts and go for a pure classic style. So griffins, horses, pegasus, unicorns, dragon etc... Nothing "new" just go for pure classic fantasy tropes and thrust them into the single army of knights and kings and queens. 

I hope I didn't give the impression that I would get rid of the aesthetic of Brettonians, I just like the embellishment of a horn or some wings to tie the faction into AOS. I always loved the mixture of the fantastic and mundane for Brettonians in Fantasy and think it could be explored further in AOS. The Green Knight in particular was a nice reference to Arthurian myth while blending historical and fantastic aesthetics. 

[Baron Klatz]

They basically have remade them with Lumineth Realm-lords, literal shining knights on horses that have chalice instead of grails, tall helmed super warriors in-tune with the lands and a priestess that resembles a damsel.

This makes a lot of sense with the Lady being Lileath of the Asur in disguise whose Grail was basically turning humans into aelves with some added-on divine potentcy(in "Honor or Duty" even Helborg noted the Grail knight he fought was aelvish in nature).

So until we get  the Ghyran Freeguild knight orders with nature knights in magic wooden armor riding demigryphs and ghyrlions (plant creature lions which one Order is built around) who worship Alarielle this is the closest we'll get.

Plus we already have Stormcasts and Deepkin taking up the roles of magic knights on exotic beasts with one side being holy questors and the other being water-focused flying cavalry so they wouldn't bring anything new to the table.

 

[overtninja]

Bretonnia was a historical pastiche without any of the additional compelling bits that made other parts of the old Warhammer world mildly interesting. It was basically monty python and the holy grail: the army, with mud-stacking peasantry, an absurd quest, and a bunch of ponces in heavy armor dashing about. It was additionally pestilential because it had rather rubbish rules for most of the range, so you couldn't reasonably field many of their units. The best thing in the whole range was the trebuchet.

Also, I vaguely remember that the army was a pet project of the modeler who made many of the models, and once he stopped making them they really didn't make any more, so the army didn't really have much longevity to begin with.

[El Syf]

4 minutes ago, overtninja said:

Bretonnia was a historical pastiche without any of the additional compelling bits that made other parts of the old Warhammer world mildly interesting. It was basically monty python and the holy grail: the army, with mud-stacking peasantry, an absurd quest, and a bunch of ponces in heavy armor dashing about. It was additionally pestilential because it had rather rubbish rules for most of the range, so you couldn't reasonably field many of their units. The best thing in the whole range was the trebuchet.

Also, I vaguely remember that the army was a pet project of the modeler who made many of the models, and once he stopped making them they really didn't make any more, so the army didn't really have much longevity to begin with.

Wasn't it kept to appease the Perry twins? It's a long time ago now but I vaguely recall it being stated, that it was their love for "proper" Knights that kept Bretonia around.

[Baron Klatz]

Yeah, I was gonna add that to my post but thought meh. Originally they were made by the Perry Brothers before they left GW so there's that hanging over their head too of not technically being a GW creation.

[Overread]

4 minutes ago, overtninja said:

Bretonnia was a historical pastiche without any of the additional compelling bits that made other parts of the old Warhammer world mildly interesting. It was basically monty python and the holy grail: the army, with mud-stacking peasantry, an absurd quest, and a bunch of ponces in heavy armor dashing about.

You realise that if any Arthurian fans appear in this thread they are likely going to have you taken down to the scales to be weighed against a duck to confirm that you're a witch; then have you burned at the stake.

 

 

Or are you suggesting that one of their Endless Spells should be "cast greater shrubbery!" 

[zilberfrid]

I would really like the FEC to be more knightly, their endless spells and names fit, but not the models. Cadaverous or ghostly knights would be a nice classic.

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

Between my Chaos Warrior/Knight army and my expected Lumineth army, I already think there's a good number of factions that can play like a more old fashioned Rank and File game.  So I don't really Bretonnia adds much there.  Unless you are looking for sort of all chaff version with more normal humans.  Which I don't see being that popular.  At least with GW minis.

Lorewise, the peoples of Bretonnia and been dispersed between those that got through the gate before Sigmar closed it, those who fell Chaos (one way or another) or became a servant of Nagash.  I could see Sigmar naming a city Bretonnia, but I also see Chaos and Death trying to raze it at every opportunity as it would remind them of when Sigmar turned his back on them.