Why don't GW just re release brettonia?

[Lord of the Isle]

I wouldn’t want them back unaltered, that would be silly. But if Tolkien heavy Moorcock lite High Elves can become Idoneth and Lumineth, I don’t see why Arthurian Brets can’t be very excitingly reimagined, and the background possibility is still just about there

[Charleston]

1 hour ago, flemingmma said:

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

Speaking of i still have to assemble that

Made to Order of Skaven vs High Elves Box would be even cooler...but never going to hppen due to High Aelves beeing officialy cut out from existence

[Lord of the Isle]

Also instinctively want options for Order humans who aren’t into Sigmar!

[zilberfrid]

40 minutes ago, Lord of the Isle said:

Also instinctively want options for Order humans who aren’t into Sigmar!

Yes. There's monotheistic stuff (a faction governed by one god) dripping all over the setting (two exceptions in Chaos, and the Kharadron), and I don't like the smell of that sauce.

[El Antiguo Guardián]

I think that bretonnia will be part of "The Old World", as people like Duncan insinuate on Instagram.

 

I hope it.

[Lord of the Isle]

Well the Idoneth worship no / a dead god while actively rejecting the god that ‘made’ them which I do like!

But yes. I’d like some more minor deities / fairy like entities involved

Old World is nice but I’d like a future development as well as a nostalgia fest ideally!

Edited July 16, 2020 by Lord of the Isle
Extra post

[Paladin of Khorne]

On the bright side it means there’s no 300$ new Bret army box that I have to buy lol

I think logistics and diversity were the biggest reasons for their being axed. Logistic wise no one can really know other than GW; we don’t know their money numbers, mould status, licensing issues etc. 

Diversity wise, an army of only cavalry, arguably ineffective Lady magic, and poor foot troops may not have translated well into the AoS roster and those things can be and are done effectively in small doses in other armies. 

Just my 2 cents; Brettonia was my first army back in ‘98 and I’d love a re-release. 

[Neverchosen]

3 hours ago, Paladin of Khorne said:

Diversity wise, an army of only cavalry, arguably ineffective Lady magic, and poor foot troops may not have translated well into the AoS roster and those things can be and are done effectively in small doses in other armies. 

That is a pretty apt summary of Idoneth Deepkin tbh.

[Evantas]

Release Bretonnians as a new Stormcast Chamber. No horses, more dracoths, tauralons, dracoline, gryphcharger calvary. 

Those who didn't go mad, and got resurrected, now have a huge axe to grind with Nagash.

They are good vs Petrafax/elite type armies but will struggle with holding objectives. 

Problem solved. The asethics are close enough to SCE, just needs new helms. 

Edited July 17, 2020 by Evantas

[zilberfrid]

25 minutes ago, Evantas said:

Release Bretonnians as a new Stormcast Chamber. No horses, more dracoths, tauralons, dracoline, gryphcharger calvary. 

Those who didn't go mad, and got resurrected, now have a huge axe to grind with Nagash.

They are good vs Petrafax/elite type armies but will struggle with holding objectives. 

Problem solved. The asethics are close enough to SCE, just needs new helms. 

I'd rather have the memory of Bretonnia than this.

Sigmar only chains the souls that were pledged to him to his war machines, so it would be a massive departure from lore to reanimate Bretonnians in Sigmarite.

Dracoths, Star drakes and dracolines are stumpy things, and butt-ugly, the Tauraline looks like a mutated or chimeric beast in the Chaos roster, not too offensive itself, but add a few spikes and you have your chaos lord on manticore. If you do want this, go full on with the Gryph chargers.

Stormcast are similarely offensive to the eyes. They use 40k bolters, bolt pistols and the like with a few crossbow bits glued on, and have the aesthetics of something that has the realistic-heroic slider cut out, and glued back on a mile to the right. You could be charitable, and say they are Sigmar's Chaos warriors because he thought the power of those came from the pauldrons.

Bretonnians have a distinctly historical feel, while Stormcast are designed to look like a cross between warcraft or mobile games' interpretation of knights with dr Who's cybermen.

It would not add anything to the existing Stormcast line they do not already have.

Though you could do this as a conversion project, of course. Just disgrace a few good looking helmets with Stormcast bodies.

[Baron Klatz]

2 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

It would not add anything to the existing Stormcast line they do not already have.

Though you could do this as a conversion project, of course.

Yeah, Stormcasts already have two great Stormhosts for that and "Grailcast" conversions. The Anvils of Heldenhammer(the black armored ones) reforged from spirits of the long dead who are studious, speak in archaic languages and have a grudge against Nagash fit the bill and then there's the Tempest Lords from the realm of light who worship the Sanguine Lady (new incarnation of Myrmidia) alongside Sigmar, come from the noble houses in Hysh and focus on building civilization in war torn lands, being corteous and even taking mortal squires.

They got the bases covered for Bret fans that want to convert in either sense of the word.

20 hours ago, Lord of the Isle said:

Also instinctively want options for Order humans who aren’t into Sigmar!

That would be the purpose of realm-based freeguilds. Ghyranites worship Alarielle, Chamonites Grungni, Hyshites have shown blind warrior monks that style themselves after god-Tyrion, gold masked diviners preaching the Teclian faith, Ulgu natives of course love their sinister aelven gods who are as deceptive as they are, Shyishians who worship the death gods that evaded Nagash and tribal Ghurians worship everything from Gorkamorka to Seraphon who landed there in divine celestial ships.

So there should be plenty of options.

[zilberfrid]

1 minute ago, Baron Klatz said:

Yeah, Stormcasts already have two great Stormhosts for that and "Grailcast" conversions. The Anvils of Heldenhammer(the black armored ones) reforged from spirits of the long dead who are studious, speak in archaic languages and have a grudge against Nagash fit the bill and then there's the Tempest Lords from the realm of light who worship the Sanguine Lady (new incarnation of Myrmidia) alongside Sigmar, come from the noble houses in Hysh and focus on building civilization in war torn lands, being corteous and even taking mortal squires.

They got the bases covered for Bret fans that want to convert in either sense of the word.

That would be the purpose of realm-based freeguilds. Ghyranites worship Alarielle, Chamonites Grungni, Hyshites have shown blind warrior monks that style themselves after god-Tyrion, gold masked diviners preaching the Teclian faith, Ulgu natives of course love their sinister aelven gods who are as deceptive as they are, Shyishians who worship the death gods that evaded Nagash and tribal Ghurians worship everything from Gorkamorka to Seraphon who landed there in divine celestial ships.

So there should be plenty of options.

I doubt the realm based humans will escape lore pieces and not be shackled to Sigmar. GW is really into monotheistic stuff, so I doubt they'll let humans hit the table with religeous freedom.

As you may have noticed, I don't really like Sigmar.

[Baron Klatz]

I mean except Gorkamorka those all can be monotheistic and still fit order handily. Cities of Sigmar just got shackled to Sigmar because lorewise they're all Azyrite colonists. The novels point this out several times that the higher ups in the free cities have influence because of their families in Azyrheim and connection to the celestial Grand Conclave. (Thus why the cover has them in Azyrite colors standing near Stormcasts)

Time will tell but an overhaul focusing on the rising tribal civilization growing out of the colonists shadow would be perfect to expand on the wider pantheon.

[zilberfrid]

2 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:

I mean except Gorkamorka those all can be monotheistic and still fit order handily. Cities of Sigmar just got shackled to Sigmar because lorewise they're all Azyrite colonists. The novels point this out several times that the higher ups in the free cities have influence because of their families in Azyrheim and connection to the celestial Grand Conclave. (Thus why the cover has them in Azyrite colors standing near Stormcasts)

Time will tell but an overhaul focusing on the rising tribal civilization growing out of the colonists shadow would be perfect to expand on the wider pantheon.

Yeah, there are more soul powered golems on the cover than living people. But there's a reason these cities were chosen: they don't do interesting gods.

It's nice there is a BT at all though.

Maybe in AoS 7 or 15 GW will do something worthwhile for Order humans, but first they'll kill off the remaining subfaction and a half.

[Lord of the Isle]

I really like the way wh fantasy stories have continued and changed (especially in the case of aelves and duardin); I just want something similar for my beloved Brets. Not a non Bret thing that’s kinda a bit like a Bret, an army that works the same way or sounds vaguely similar or whatever, but almost the opposite - a very different army that is what the actual few surviving Brets  turned into, for good or for ill.

I know there are various ways to do this already - freeguild / Stormcasts / Wanderers, vampires, Flesh Eater Courts, even slaves to darkness - but I believe GW could pull off something else really special if it wanted to.

The Wanderers are looking pretty anaemia right now having fallen out w their trees. I would probably resurrect the old Bret/WE alliance and blend them up fairly closely if it was my decision.

I also do agree with Zilb above about Stormcasts (though Soulbound has made them a bit more interesting somehow...)

Edited July 17, 2020 by Lord of the Isle

[EccentricCircle]

You know what I miss? False Gods.

One of the main features of WFB is that the lore isn't all coherant. Different army books present things from different points of view, or give you the propaganda of the army, while hinting that it might not really be true. The fact that the wood elves are secretly manipulating Bretonnia is a prime example. On the face of it, they are a simple parody of medieval knights, but the more you read into the lore, the more you realise that their religion is built on a lie. It leads to so much interesting narrative potential, and the fact that you have to read up on a wood elves a bit too, before it becomes really apparent rewards those who want a deeper dive into the lore.

It wasn't just Bretonnia either, but all over the place, from the true nature of Sotek or Khaine, to Archaons real motives for turning to chaos. Once they say one god of order might secretly be a chaos god, it makes you wonder who else might be.

I feel like that feeling of doubt, and the way that draws you further into the lore is kind of lacking from AoS. The gods are all larger than life personalities, but they are characters first and mysteries second. We don't have to speculate about their true nature, because our mortal warriors had tea with them the other day. 

There are secrets in the setting for sure, Morathi is pretending Khaine is alive, Sigmar is chucking the bits of stormcast that don't want to be reborn in the bin etc. However, while those secrets are massive in universe, they are presented to the players in a very matter of fact manner. There is no teasing, no encouragement of fan theories, or sly "what ifs". The setting has great ideas, but when we say it lacks the depth of its precursor, its not just that not as much history has been explored yet. It is also written in a less deep way.

[Lord of the Isle]

I more or less agree, yup!

edit: LOVED the amusing well written biased in universe army books from particular racial perspectives I associate w 6th ed

Edited July 17, 2020 by Lord of the Isle

[EccentricCircle]

55 minutes ago, Lord of the Isle said:

I more or less agree, yup!

edit: LOVED the amusing well written biased in universe army books from particular racial perspectives I associate w 6th ed

Yeah,that era was definitely the height of it. The new books are very shiny and well put together, with all the colour art and such, but that era jut knocks them out of the park. The complex lore, the moody graphic design. Maybe its because that's when i got into the hobby, but that syle just is warhammer to me.

[Deepkin]

6th edition warhammer and 2nd ed WFRP were the height of the background and aesthetic. Throw Mordheim in there too.

Bretonnia would work just fine in the new setting. People who don't like Bretonnia are just peasants, jealous of their betters

[Ggom]

9 hours ago, EccentricCircle said:

You know what I miss? False Gods.

One of the main features of WFB is that the lore isn't all coherant. Different army books present things from different points of view, or give you the propaganda of the army, while hinting that it might not really be true. The fact that the wood elves are secretly manipulating Bretonnia is a prime example. On the face of it, they are a simple parody of medieval knights, but the more you read into the lore, the more you realise that their religion is built on a lie. It leads to so much interesting narrative potential, and the fact that you have to read up on a wood elves a bit too, before it becomes really apparent rewards those who want a deeper dive into the lore.

It wasn't just Bretonnia either, but all over the place, from the true nature of Sotek or Khaine, to Archaons real motives for turning to chaos. Once they say one god of order might secretly be a chaos god, it makes you wonder who else might be.

I feel like that feeling of doubt, and the way that draws you further into the lore is kind of lacking from AoS. The gods are all larger than life personalities, but they are characters first and mysteries second. We don't have to speculate about their true nature, because our mortal warriors had tea with them the other day. 

There are secrets in the setting for sure, Morathi is pretending Khaine is alive, Sigmar is chucking the bits of stormcast that don't want to be reborn in the bin etc. However, while those secrets are massive in universe, they are presented to the players in a very matter of fact manner. There is no teasing, no encouragement of fan theories, or sly "what ifs". The setting has great ideas, but when we say it lacks the depth of its precursor, its not just that not as much history has been explored yet. It is also written in a less deep way.

I haven’t read any old lore (only got into the hobby recently) but I agree that the current tomes are written in a very flat manner. There’s no mystery because things are described in a really black and white manner - I didn’t have to guess at the Morathi and Khaine relationship because they just spelled it out. Your description of the old army books sounds really compelling! 

[Lord of the Isle]

Mordheim was the best. (Does Warcry come close? Genuine question)

Feel Soulbound has potential to be nearly as fun tho

[EccentricCircle]

2 hours ago, Lord of the Isle said:

Mordheim was the best. (Does Warcry come close? Genuine question)

Feel Soulbound has potential to be nearly as fun tho

I never got mordheim alas, so can't directly compare. Warcry is about what you'd expect, well laid out with plenty of pages of lore, including quotes in the margins and all that jazz. While well written, it is as matter of fact as most battle tome lore. It tries to draw you in with evocative descriptions od mayhem, rather than weaving plot into the fabric of the book.I

 

to Ggom:

3 hours ago, Ggom said:

I haven’t read any old lore (only got into the hobby recently) but I agree that the current tomes are written in a very flat manner. There’s no mystery because things are described in a really black and white manner - I didn’t have to guess at the Morathi and Khaine relationship because they just spelled it out. Your description of the old army books sounds really compelling! 

Its possible that my feelings are somewhat coloured by nostalgia, but yeah they were good!  Best are the black library lore books like Liber Necris and Liber Chaotica. The 6th edition army books are then great at drawing you in to your chosen faction. The wfrp game also has some amazing stuff, like Old World Bestiary, which presents in universe descriptions of each creature from scholars, peasants, survivors and more, showing what different people think about them. The author then interviews a skaven assassin, so the last entry in each monsters description is just a breakdown of how best to poison them. One of the best rpg books ever.

[LordAlpharius]

On 7/17/2020 at 7:09 AM, zilberfrid said:

Yeah, there are more soul powered golems on the cover than living people. But there's a reason these cities were chosen: they don't do interesting gods.

It's nice there is a BT at all though.

Maybe in AoS 7 or 15 GW will do something worthwhile for Order humans, but first they'll kill off the remaining subfaction and a half.

Just play another game of the setting offends you that much.

[Kaleb Daark]

On 7/15/2020 at 2:01 PM, 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.

Nope.

The biggest problem that Brets had, which was not just unique to them in many ways was that GW had pigeon holed them into a corner.  Their golden age was 5th edition, where they were seen all over the place, and at many tournaments.

However, they were a one trick pony with one great manoeuvre, the lance formation, and come 6th edition of fantasy the new system meant that it was useless.

You then had another issue, and that was the rules writers.  They needed a new set of rules, but nobody picked up that rulebook, that historical pastiche had made them limited in their scope, and also their lore.  Sadly they'd even lost that parody of Holy grail and became a slave to a badly thought out arthurian myth rewrite.

Bretonnia had closed its doors well and truly to anything but a full retcon, and that wasn't likely to happen soon.

And so like sisters of battle and Drukhari, they slowly faded, die hard players were praying for an army book for over ten years, but nothing.  Nobody was willing to pick up the brets and give them a makeover, so they remained forever stuck in time.  They'd lost their mortars and cannon and various other bits, and all they had left was the trebuchet.

The perry twins yes did a lot of the original historical miniatures but the model line had  moved on along time by then.  It also didn't help that at the time GW had many armies that didn't have all the miniatures that were in the rulebooks - hence lots of third party companies filling the gaps.

Beastmen was a prime example - the cygor model was released over a year after the armybook - guess what, it didn't sell very well.  People had got bored and converted one from a giant model.

So you have an army that no writer picked up, no tournament players bought into because they just weren't competitive any more, they were a labour of love to paint up, and the model range was limited.  Like sisters of battle at the time, there was so much that just did it better that they fell into obscurity.

Falling into obscurity meant that to the accountants spreadsheet they are a line which isn't selling - axe it.  One perpetrates the other, poor sales, puts them to the back of the development/update  cue, which in turn means they don's sell, which in turn means eventually they're retired.  It's what's going to happen to regular space marines at some point when the primaris line is just so much bigger better faster more.  Its the way of things.

 

Brets can work in AoS, I firmly believe this, but they need a whole new flavour.  

It's easy be dismissive and to say that this factions unit already does the job of this and that unit on that army of that, but we have in the game many units across several armies that just overlap and pull the same tricks - but it's not the point, the point is the aesthetic and the lore that allows ups to buy into the army in the first place.

Aos Brets can be so much more gritty and darker, and of course in more AoS fashion more pumped up.

I'd always seen AoS brets working almost in a Narnia model - I've mentioned it in several posts in the past.  No, Narnia Brets wouldn't have talking animals and otters making tea, but there is a great capacity to rewrite them into something fantastical whilst keeping the medieval knight ideals.

The traditional enemy of the brets were the beasts and the lore could take this into account by having a place in the mortal realms where things like centaurs, and other fantastical creatures were not aligned to chaos, and were also fighting the taint of it on their lands.

Perhaps if they were in the realm of shadows, it would tie in nicely with the Bretonnians being hunted like game by the witch elves during the end times, and now there is a simmering hatred of the daughters.

The yoeman cavalry could be swapped out for centaurs, noble centaurs outraged at the perversions of chaos that are the beastmen and their centigors.

the Brettonian war horses were also supposed to be the mightiest of their breed, unique to brettonia and on par with a chaos steed.  Why not have brettonian Elite heavy cavalry on mounts the size of the varanguard mounts? - infact the grail knights would be an excellent mirror to a vanguard  - a one man army in his own right.  I once saw a man who had a whole unit of knights made up of green knight models and the scale and look was amazing.

The lady was proven false, and perhaps the new brettonians actually went back to a deeper magic, to use the Narnia, one with the realm they inhabit.  I think back to the film Excalibur and the scene where merlin summons 'the dragon', a dense mist which obscures all.  Replace the damsels with a druid and give him a henge of standing stones as his scenery piece.   An army aided as much by the land it treads as by its steel. 

His magic could be fogs and winds, which the brettonians would ride through unaffected, roots and thorns sprouting from the ground to tangle and slow foot troops but allow bretonnian feet to pass.

The pegasus knights could be enhanced with hippogriff knights, and the lords could be mounted on dragons.

And it gives us an order army of humans which is a very different feel to sigmarite Azyr or the renaissance freeguild.

We have a plethora of fantastical creatures in regular and FW model lines that could be summoned onto the tabletop to bolster the army, and for me that's the hook, a human  army which replaces technology with magic and fantastical creatures.

What of the green knight ? Lumineth have stolen him now...

ok, so how about this, the druid can summon the collective thoughts, memories and spirits of the fallen knights of old to give him a unit of spectral warriors.  Not souls or ghosts as such, so not undead or construct, but living manifestations of the ideals and spirit of bretonnia given form made from the faith of those who died before they could fulfil their vows. Even in death,  the vows or quests placed upon them while they were alive provides a conduit for the druids to summon and make manifest the intensity of their faith , devotion and duty into a non corporeal form.

But yes, I do feel that there's a place for another human faction that isn't chaos and that doesn't thing Sigmar is the alpha and the omega.

[JPjr]

1 hour ago, Kaleb Daark said:

No, Narnia Brets wouldn't have talking animals and otters making tea

Oooh and up until this point you were doing so well to convince me...