The muster is called, the host assembles, and the peasants showed up as well!

After reappearing with a shameless plug for my first book, it's about time I got back to writing about slapping paint on unsuspecting miniatures. Writing, to be sure! I have not been sitting on my hands for the past months—quite the opposite: I have a finished projects backlog to write about. This is a marked contrast with my usual the pile of shame too unfinished to write about. Anyway, on to a lot of painted miniatures (not all at once). Here's my completely finished (cough—not quite—cough) Bretonnian muster.

If they had a mighty keep inside the Mighty Fortress, they wouldn't need tents to sleep in.

 

Some of the models in this lot might be familiar. I blogged about them back in August 2024 when I was busy wrapping up this army. I just couldn't resist shooting more pictures, especially as I had to build a rather convoluted frame to hold my large backdrop for wider-angled shots*. I still had to do quite a bit of sky editing to replace bits of present day living room with Old World backdrop :) With that said, I'll start at the top of the hierarchy and will work my way down to the peasants at the bottom, and blather along while showing the pictures.

* Take 'building a frame' with a large grain of salt, I actually placed a laundry drying rack on its side on the table to hold my backdrop. 

The lady of the lava-lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering asbestos, held aloft this red-hot sword for me.

I've themed this Bretonnian army around the last duke of Mousillon in the new The Old World setting. A voice from the warpstone-infused parts of my brain whispers to me that this'll be a great opportunity to make an undead mirror variant of this army one day. Here's Duke Maldred of Mousillon parking his flying horse on an ancient fortress, constructed from an almost magical material.

"Tower, this is Ghost Rider requesting a flyby."

I had planned to match the Pegasus Knights to the heraldry shown in one of the older Bretonnian Battle Tomes. That worked for Genelon on the right in this picture (red fleur-de-lis on a silver field), but I wanted the center one to match the sable fleur-de-lis on a golden field set against Maldred's blue field. So I went off-plan and just applied paint. When it came time to give the one on the left his shield, I discovered my knight's shields were all gone...most likely lost under endless piles of bits and detritus. I gave him a nineties Chaos Warrior's shield instead—probably a nice bit of foreshadowing there.

"I saw the grail! It's over there!"

The colorful host of knights have been given quite enough attention in my previous blog post. All I added to this unit was a bit of texture paint which I applied to the movement tray. 

"A grail you say? After them! For the Lady!"

 Here's the second unit of six knights, led by my Battle Standard Bearer. It took a lot of brass rod and green stuff (not to mention patience) to get that silly banner to stay upright and intact. It's quite solid now, and does draw an appropriate amount of attention. Mostly very violent attention. 

Malfleur rode ahead, veiled in red, her hand like moonlight, and the host followed gladly—never knowing they marched towards the howling laughter of mad gods.

Next up is my main damsel. She was supposed to be dressed in black with yellow contrast to represent Mallobaude, but I really wanted to paint her in a red dress. So I did. I'm quite chuffed with the blood-filled false grail in her hand. Considering the duke is also holding a grail, they could've reasoned out that their holy quest would later be known as 'The affair of the false grail'. 

 

"Sorry wrong grail, the real one's over there!"

I took this picture (and the next one) to make a lame joke in the caption. Aside from that, I don't really have anything to add. 

"Turn around, we're going the other way! For the Lady!"

As an aside, I've played quite a few The Old World battles by now (even some with this army). It's quite a lot of fun, but the nasty side effect is that I keep remembering ways in which these knights have been unhorsed and pounded into the ground (and most likely eaten).

 

They named her the Flower of Mousillon. Distracted by sapphire eyes, none saw the flies—or the roots reaching into Nurgle’s garden.

With the lame joke out of the way, here's my other damsel. It's a 3D print of an innocent civilian. I really like the simplicity of the model, making it work great as a simple level one wizard. Most of GW's old (and new) stuff tends to be overly skulled up or (in the case of the Bretonnian line) looks too powerful to be at the bottom rung of the wizardly ladder. 

When the lilies blacken and the heralds fall silent, the last song of Mousillon shall rise not from throat, but from tomb. The rivers will swell with mire, the walls will weep, and the lost duke shall feast upon what was once his court. In perfume and rot shall the city drown, and none shall name it noble again...in the meantime there will be a bit of marching and a lot of shouting, so do show up on time for the muster.

By the time I finished painting my knights and other characters I only had a single unit of peasants finished: the unit of archers I painted to kick the army off. Well, that lot and three rather famous brigands (whose leader is rumored to have a distinctly Lustrian accent (and an anachronistic sense of history)).

They call him a hero of the woods—but he still smells like the coop.

I got back to painting peasants by finishing a second unit of archers: the chicken farmers. As the leadership of the unit was dressed in green, I abandoned my plan to keep the peasants in brown and earth tones. This irreverent lot dresses in green. If any noble dares complain they'll rob him and then hide in the forest to avoid consequences (leaving their poor chickens unattended!).

"Let the world burn, let the nobles fall—we know who’ll be running Barter Town."

These are my original Bretonnian Arrer Boyz (the pig farmers). You can tell I was fresh and enthused about painting the army because the entire unit has been blacklined. I skipped that step on the other unit (and I think I've mostly gotten away with it (except that I see it every time I put them on the tabletop)).

"Beware the Brotherhood of the Twin-Striped Shield! We held the line at Goat Hill!"

With my noble knights and shooty peasants painted, I was almost ready to take the lot of them to the tabletop...except for one small detail: footsloggers. I needed a few units of Men-at-arms on hand to start fighting <insert your own Masters of the Universe joke here>. This is the first unit: they have two stripes on their shields...

"Goat Hill you say? Weren't we supposed to charge that day?"

...and this is the other unit. They have one stripe on their shields (feel free to applaud that smashing display of creativity). I decided to make my men at arms look slightly more like regular soldiers (the sculpts have armor and helmets, making it hard to go full on ragtag (I tried and it looked awful). I did revert to the brown and earthen tone rule for the lot. The only colors in the units are on the shields and on a few of the burghers leading the rabble.

A realistic rendition of the tactic most often displayed by these units...

As I was in a bit of a hurry to finish the larger part of the army and get to gaming, I tried a bit of speed building and speed painting. I built all forty models on a Sunday and painted the lot over the following week (finishing them on the next Sunday). They still look quite nice, I think (big shields covering sins helps). The most interesting trick I picked up in the process was painting the reddish-looking leather. It started out as a very ghastly looking grey-brown. Feeling all was lost anyway, I applied a drop of Liquitex ink (Chestnut). That worked out perfectly, I think, no extra steps needed. Contrast paints? Who needs them? (Me! Me! (Occasionally.))

"fetchez la vache."

The final finished model in the lot is owned by the cow farmers (a bunch of rich bastards (although the contraption is formally part of the land owned by their lord of course (as are they (and their cows)))). I have not had a chance to place this model on the tabletop. Going by my results with stone throwers in other armies that hasn't affected the number of casualties they caused. 

The knights called it a sacred contest—steel against steel for the honor of finding the Grail. But from the mud, it looked like two fools bleeding for a poisoned chalice.

With that I have presented everything I painted for the army. Sharp-eyed readers may have spotted some extra terrain as well. I'm planning to play a fresh take on the old 'Perilous Quest' module. To prepare I'm 3D-printing (and painting) the scenery described in the module. Pictured above is the tournament list. I've already used it in another scenario I'll hopefully find time to blog about soon. 

The tourney grounds shone with silk and sigil—but behind the canvas, honor was already rotting.

Second is this bunch of tents (including a small tent for the soothsayer). I'm considering leaving the Wood Elves out of the scenario, playing the missions as Bretonnians vs. Bretonnians (with the winner of the tournament getting robbed by the loser). I'll have to finish a few bits of terrain first though. 

Any fool bold enough to approach the coach could hear the driver muttering softly: ‘I must ignore the voices...keep the door closed...I shan't open it again...remember poor old Dan...I must ignore the voices.'

The final model for Perilous Quest will be this cart. It'll transport a holy relic through a forest. The cart itself is a PLA printed model. The horse and coachman are resin prints. The base itself is a heavily modified movement tray. I just couldn't resist sticking the coach on some kind of base and none of the standard sizes fit quite right. 

With that, I'll leave you all for now. Next up (soonish) either random pictures of random projects, a fresh bunch of greenskins or perhaps a small battle report.