Why don't GW just re release brettonia?

[Overread]

1 minute ago, zilberfrid said:

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.

FEC honestly need a massive overhaul to sort of link up their insane lore with their models. Though it would have t obe very carefully done so that they didn't end up appearing as a joke army or as a nurgle styled army. 

[Nos]

They were/are an intimidating prospect hobby wise as well. Most people who liked Brettonia liked the fact that the knight units were units of individuals and heroes, with their own pageantry, heraldry etc.

Most people did not want to come up with 40 different paint schemes for their core units. 

Also- lots of flat surfaces on caparisons and shields etc. Perfect for free hand if you had the skill,  but even just painting flat surfaces well and clean takes good technique. Again, very counterproductive if you're trying to build an army to play with. 

 

[Nos]

3 minutes ago, Overread said:

FEC honestly need a massive overhaul to sort of link up their insane lore with their models. Though it would have t obe very carefully done so that they didn't end up appearing as a joke army or as a nurgle styled army. 

Their lore fits perfect with their models.

*They* see themselves as a pure, chaste society of chivalry and gallantry but they have *nothing to do with any of that* in reality. Its complete delusion.

They're not just watered down grungy or messy facsimiles of a court. They are a total ape like blasphemy of the very idea of it. 

[Icegoat]

I was talking more of a redesign ala lumineth rather than just releasing the old models. The fact there are lumineth cavalry and chaos knights still suggests there would be some order human foil to them.

I mean in warhammer fantasy the bretonnians living alongside the empire made no real sense just as how in aos it doesnt really make sense chaos warriors arent totting cannons and gatling guns around.

They are a strong army concept maybe not the peasant side but the pegasus knights and Griffin riders could easily fit into aos and large special warehouses would look great with updated sculpts. 

[JPjr]

personally I'd consider it a SLAP IN THE FACE if GW spent all the time and effort to re-do and AOSify a Brettonian army just to satisfy the kind of new jack, Johnny-come-lately players who only got into the game some time in the last 25 years,  some of us are still patiently  waiting for a new army of medieval thespians and travelling players you realise.

[EccentricCircle]

8 minutes ago, Nos said:

Their lore fits perfect with their models.

*They* see themselves as a pure, chaste society of chivalry and gallantry but they have *nothing to do with any of that* in reality. Its complete delusion.

They're not just watered down grungy or messy facsimiles of a court. They are a total ape like blasphemy of the very idea of it. 

You get the impression that the lore was thought up after the fact, when they decided that they didn't want to redesign half a dozen ghoul kits to make them fit the idea better.

I find the lack of any sort of attempt at heraldry and chivalric styling in most of the FEC range to be a real disappointment. The whole, "its just a hallucination" thing works much better on the page than it does on the table top, and you could do some amazing things with the idea, if you redesigned it from the ground up. If anything the new endless spells demonstrate that admirably.

I want the noble knights of the Courts to actually have something to ride. I want shambling armies of zombie "peasants" to follow them into battle, eating the brains of anyone who points out that they are not real archers. I want grim and macabre heraldry, daubed haphazardly over ragged surcoats. Saying "I know they look like this, but they think they look like this" may be canonical, but its still basically proxying.

 

As for Brettonians themselves, its a tricky one. I don't believe that GW cannot under any circumstances make historical styled models. However, the fact remains that you can quite easily get 14th century knights, peasant militia, trebuchets and all the other battleline stuff from just about every company that makes minis for medieval historicals. If you don't care about using GW minis it is entirely possible to field a Brettonia themed cities army. Substitute real knights for demigryphs and outriders, use a trebuchet as the rockets. Make your archers humans instead of elves and you are almost there. The main thing missing is a mounted hero now that the freeguild general on horse isn't around. However the new character builder in this years GHB sort of solves that one.

What they need then are the more wacky stuff that the Brettonians used to have. Pegasus Knights, the grail reliquae, and the sorceresses. Some of that you can proxy, some you can convert, but those are the gaps that are left, which cities can't quite represent.

If I was in charge, I wouldn't recreate the wheel, I'd release small add ons to cities, which allowed you to supliment your troops with heroes and characters themed around stuff like the different realms, different cities, and old factions like the Bretts.

But that would rely on GW being happy for people to buy most of their battleline from Perry Miniatures or Wargames Foundry, and we all know that's not going to happen!

[Lord of the Isle]

I would love Remnants of Haven as a strange, disturbing Post-Bretonnia. More Mabinogion / old Breton Welsh Irish than French / Malory. Sidhe, fey folk. Aelven and Sylvaneth and Kurnothi elements with a difference. Celtic low armour heroes, fay weirdly armoured knights, in between stages between life and death, good and evil...

[NkfPanda]

When I was younger Warhammer Fantasy was way too confusing for me at the time to play or want to learn but I loved the minis for Brettonia. I would love for them to return and get the AOS treatment as well. Personally if they returned in some crazy way where they were big bads that would be cool to me as well. I think there are a lot of opportunities there to bring them back in a flavourful way. 

[Clan's Cynic]

4 hours ago, Melcavuk said:

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.

Bretonnia had low sales because it hadn't received a new Army Book in twelve years and had a very small number of kits, most of which were expensive even by WHFB standards (x5 Grail Knights were what, £40 or something stupid?)

How many Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle players did you see before their respective revamps? There were more Bretonnian players at the end of 8th than I saw for either of those two when they were similarly left to rot. Medieval knights are a very enduring and popular image, so it always baffled me that GW didn't milk that cow.

As you allude to yourself, it probably had a lot more to do with being unable to properly trademark them. Whilst people do cite the Empire as being similarly historically based, the latter had nowhere near the amount of third-party models compared to medieval knights who had alternatives in just about every system that wasn't sci-fi. 

I do however think AoS has space for a Bretonnian-esq faction in the form of Soulblight. Heavily armoured shock cavalry in full plate supported by disposable chaff? They'd certainly fit the bill and there's already references to things like 'Blood Crusades', nevermind that Mousillon was a thing in Bretonnian lore. Abhorash was making his last stand alongside Giles as the world ended too, which has got to count for something.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Clan's Cynic

[EMMachine]

I think, the closest thing to bretonia was the mentioning of a knightly order called "Sons of Breton" in @JReynolds Story Spear of Shadows. The question is, would it make sense to include a basicly historic faction as an additional human faction or would it make more sense if the Freeguild would have additional units, that Outriders, Pistoliers, Demigryph Knights and Freeguild General aren't the only cavalry units. Sadly GW removed the archers as well from the Freeguild with Cities of Sigmar.

Edit: And the compendium List is still playable and has points with the Generals Handbook 2020 in the legends section (it only lacks the lore)

Edited July 15, 2020 by EMMachine

[Evangelist of Cinders]

Even beyond copyright desire problems post spot the space marine,lack of support(at least until the 8thed FAQ that made their rules work again) and other aforementioned issues. this may be a string of personal bad luck  and more conjecture but the last few Bretonnian boxes I  got at the end of WHFB had a few isssues, with details almost looking like blobs and casting issues that all pointed to worn out molds(the worst looking like a cracked mold elongated my horse). If this was the case at the end of a material cycle, with a new game that was already a risky project I done, I don't think GW was in a position to continue Bretonnia seeing as AoS release scale was already a risk, starting from the ground up on design takes time and costs  that needed to be invested elsewhere

[Nos]

1 hour ago, EccentricCircle said:

You get the impression that the lore was thought up after the fact, when they decided that they didn't want to redesign half a dozen ghoul kits to make them fit the idea better.

I find the lack of any sort of attempt at heraldry and chivalric styling in most of the FEC range to be a real disappointment. The whole, "its just a hallucination" thing works much better on the page than it does on the table top, and you could do some amazing things with the idea, if you redesigned it from the ground up. If anything the new endless spells demonstrate that admirably.

I want the noble knights of the Courts to actually have something to ride. I want shambling armies of zombie "peasants" to follow them into battle, eating the brains of anyone who points out that they are not real archers. I want grim and macabre heraldry, daubed haphazardly over ragged surcoats. Saying "I know they look like this, but they think they look like this" may be canonical, but its still basically proxying.

 

As for Brettonians themselves, its a tricky one. I don't believe that GW cannot under any circumstances make historical styled models. However, the fact remains that you can quite easily get 14th century knights, peasant militia, trebuchets and all the other battleline stuff from just about every company that makes minis for medieval historicals. If you don't care about using GW minis it is entirely possible to field a Brettonia themed cities army. Substitute real knights for demigryphs and outriders, use a trebuchet as the rockets. Make your archers humans instead of elves and you are almost there. The main thing missing is a mounted hero now that the freeguild general on horse isn't around. However the new character builder in this years GHB sort of solves that one.

What they need then are the more wacky stuff that the Brettonians used to have. Pegasus Knights, the grail reliquae, and the sorceresses. Some of that you can proxy, some you can convert, but those are the gaps that are left, which cities can't quite represent.

If I was in charge, I wouldn't recreate the wheel, I'd release small add ons to cities, which allowed you to supliment your troops with heroes and characters themed around stuff like the different realms, different cities, and old factions like the Bretts.

But that would rely on GW being happy for people to buy most of their battleline from Perry Miniatures or Wargames Foundry, and we all know that's not going to happen!

It's a  very obvious after thought without question but its undeniable that regardless of motivation that the lore and models work together to accomplish that vision, however much of a commercial bolt on it is.

If you want a drab undead feudal faction, I agree that would be awesome, love to see it.

But totally disagree that FEC should have what you describe. They are proxies because that's literally what they are. They think they are something which they are objectively not, or remotely similar to. That's literally the only unique thing about the faction.

[Icegoat]

I mean 100%in current AOS lore there are multiple mentions of human knightly orders riding horses. Now admittedly most of those are I assume to be old empire knights rather than brettonia but within the realms human order cavalry certainly exists. 

I think maybe it does just come down to being seen as generic which is a real shame. As the brettonians had a fairly decent background yes its was a complete rip off of arthurian legend but people seem to like that story a lot and its still a strong IP so cant see the harm myself.

[Rodiger]

I was under the impression that Bretonians were pretty much in a nutshell what GW wanted to move away from and start a fresh with.

Firstly the designers wanted more freedom to design instead of being restricted artistically by trying to recreate things like medieval knights, and secondly losing the physical restriction by moving to round bases so the models could be more dynamic and not constrained by trying to bunch all the models up together.

Also there is the whole copyrght issue, Bretonians are one of the hardest things to copyright, and they were just another army with a huge buy in cost that was killing the game.

I loved Bretonians, I was sad to see them go, and I'd love some normal human cavalry, but the AOS models have consistently been some of the best models GW have done, they were far better than 40ks for quite a while. Freeing themselves from Fantasy really did let the designers off the leash. 

I don't think there is any need to bring them back, I'm much more enjoying the new armies they are creating rather than trying to recreate classic fantasy.

[michu]

25 minutes ago, Rodiger said:

I don't think there is any need to bring them back, I'm much more enjoying the new armies they are creating rather than trying to recreate classic fantasy.

Especially as classic fantasy is going to be remade either way. You want Bretonnia? Look there.

[Fellman]

1 hour ago, EMMachine said:

I think, the closest thing to bretonia was the mentioning of a knightly order called "Sons of Breton" in @JReynolds Story Spear of Shadows. The question is, would it make sense to include a basicly historic faction as an additional human faction or would it make more sense if the Freeguild would have additional units, that Outriders, Pistoliers, Demigryph Knights and Freeguild General aren't the only cavalry units. Sadly GW removed the archers as well from the Freeguild with Cities of Sigmar.

Edit: And the compendium List is still playable and has points with the Generals Handbook 2020 in the legends section (it only lacks the lore)

You have the Order of the Fly which is Bretonia sprinkeld whit nurgel and despair.  

[Popisdead]

6 hours ago, Icegoat said:

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 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?

Well first off Bretonnia is now Flesh Eaters Corpse so GW gave you a pretty powerful army and way for hobby people to convert their old armies

Second you cannot copyright a medieval knight.  So don't expect them ever to return.  Just like TK are now OBR.  I encourage local TK players to just use the OBR book or figure a way to make them work under Death however it suits them.  There will be a desert in a realm where they look like TKs.  That's why AoS is so freeing.  So I encourage people to make use of Bretonnian armies with what we've been given either rules or fluff-wise.

Also the loss of Brettonia was the single greatest tragedy.  That was allowing people to be vocal about warhammer history.  

6 hours ago, Melcavuk said:

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.

I highly doubt they are more popular now than in 2003 or in the mid '90s for the 5th ed box.  

However,.. so few of the games played are governed by a TO and much like how Brets were pretty bad in 8th, they aren't bad in AoS in friendly games.  I encourage people with army to post bat reps and show them off.  Represent!  

[Clan's Cynic]

The whole "haha FEC are now Bretonnia" thing has always been silly. The lore is fantastic, probably some of, if not my favourite, in all of AoS but that's pretty much where the similarities end. People tend to go off models and playstyle first, lore last and there's absolutely nothing resembling Bretonnia or medieval knights in the form of ghouls. Even if they stuck bits of rusting plate, chain and lances on them, it wouldn't make it so, anymore than putting runes and gromril armour on Orcs would make them Dwarfs.

It's a fun meme, but much like referencing The Emperor's Text-to-Speech Device, it got old very quickly.

My guess is that if we get updated Freeguild the Demigryph Knights will remain. GW could either expand on that, which is doubtful, as I imagine they'd end up a much more 'combined arms' force much like the Empire was or they expand Soulblight in the direction of the Blood Knights, which is personally what I would like to see.

 

Edited July 15, 2020 by Clan's Cynic

[Oceanic_Eyes]

8 hours ago, Baron Klatz said:

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.

 

Was that the Order of the Furrow? I remember seeing a bit of them in a short story, seemed like a cool place for a spiritual successor for the Brets.

 

[Sinfullyvannila]

11 hours ago, Icegoat said:

The age of chaos destroyed entire civilisations and countries were wiped off the map.

You answered your own question.

[Baron Klatz]

@Oceanic_Eyes

Close, Order of the Furrow uses Demigryphs.

Josh clarified a bit more here:

"

What makes The Knights of the Furrow. The Order of the Green. The Order of the Last Flower. The Knights Ghyrlion different from each other?

"The Knights of the Furrow are demigryph riders - one actually features in The Eight Lamentations: Spear of Shadows. I imagine the Order of the Green are an order devoted to tending a grove of soul pods, and the Order of the Last Flower are devoted to taking vengeance in the name of a fallen kingdom. The Knights Ghyrlion are a crusading order, devoted to spreading the glories of the Lady of Leaves to other realms."

So I say stop looking to the past and embrace the glorious potentials of the people of the realms.

[Lord of the Isle]

I think part of what hurts is that other factions get individuals, let alone civilisations, surviving either after a fashion or completely (Gotrek et al). That and the whole elaborate hope offered and dashed by Haven. That makes it tempting to look for hints to continue the Bretonnian story in some way. Doesn’t need to look like French late medieval knighthood any more...

[Greyshadow]

15 hours ago, Icegoat said:

I mean 100% in current AOS lore there are multiple mentions of human knightly orders riding horses. Now admittedly most of those are I assume to be old empire knights rather than brettonia but within the realms human order cavalry certainly exists.

Absolutely. You can gladly play with a Bretonnian list in Age of Sigmar and be lore appropriate. There are enough oblique references here and there and the realms are diverse enough for an army like this to be out there somewhere.

Now whether GW should re-release them? I think I agree with the consensus. The Mortal Realms are so different the army would have to be reworked considerably to really fit with the new setting.  Could it be done? Perhap but as others have said it may have already been done with the release of Flesheater Courts.

[Lord of the Isle]

But what about those of us who loved the specific background more than the general knightly mechanics?

I’m trying to resolve that grief! Through a Soulbound campaign with some unwitting Bretonnian descendants questing for the lost Haven

[flemingmma]

Made to order like the rerelease of dark vengeance would be cool

Speaking of i still have to assemble that