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Thursday, May 15, 2014

A Different Project: Bretonnia and Beastmen

Hey Reader!

So I posted something like this a few months ago, but every now and then I work on miniature projects that are not from The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, so I figured I'd do a Forge update to show you some of the things we've been working on over here at the How.  The following units are from GamesWorkshop's Fantasy series, and in the future (read: in six months or so) I'll also be doing a Forge update on my growing Infinity collection as well.



1.  Knights of Bretonnia

Based on the Arthurian Legend and the Knights of the Round Table, Bretonnia is GW's heavy cav-based army in their Fantasy series.  While other civs have heavy cav, Bretonnia uses them almost exclusively, ranging from pegasus and hippogryph knights to warriors on barded warhorses.  I'm planning on adding a block of men-at-arms to the army in the future (to cover the flank of the "lance" formations I'm running with my horsemen), and will also be adding five more pegasus knights to the mix.


Each of my knight units have been painted to match crusader orders from medieval history (with an emphasis on High Medieval, which is my favorite time period from history).  These Pegasus Knights are representatives of the Knights of St. John Hospitaller Order, and the next set of five knights that I paint will be in the later pattern of the "white cross on red" that the Knights of St. John were allowed to don in 1259 under Pope Alexander IV, so more on that in a future post (in six months, probably, :P ).


My Knights of the Realm (the backbone of most Bretonnian armies) are painted after the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, which was the defense force for Jerusalem (not all of them were mounted, despite the "equestrian" name in the order title).  They are paired with a damsel (caster) on a unicorn (which is what I use for the "barded warhorse" option for them), who will help to provide some magic support for the unit.  Painting the multiple crosses on everything was fun - almost as fun as trying to get gray plastic to actually look white via tons and tons of coats of white, :P  My men-at-arms block (about 30 infantry) will be copied after the Crusader Brethren (red cross on white) as well, so I'll have more fun doing that with their unit as well, :)


These Peg Knights are based on the Teutonic Knights, one of my favorite military orders (up there with the Hospitallers, hence why there are my peg knight units), and with the other two units of peg knights they'll form my flanker units.  You can also see my army general, a Bretonnian Lord on Royal Pegasus, in this picture as well.  While he cannot join the unit of peg knights (they have a rule against joining a group of flyers in Fantasy), I'll use him to provide some assisting damage and flanking with these guys.


This is a unit of Knights Errant, the more unruly side of the list (love charging and running into battle), though they can do more damage on the charge if you give them the Errantry Banner upgrade (which I do).  I painted them in a variety of patterns, as these knights haven't received their holdings yet, don't hold fealty to a particular lord yet, and are looking to gain attention and favor.


And finally, we've got two damsels (casters) and a paladin on foot, which will be placed in the men-at-arms unit once they're done.  My damsels will likely be rocking the Lore of Beasts and the Lore of Heavens (as those are my two favorite lores, though Lore of Life has been growing on me), so we'll see how that goes.

2.  Beastmen

Beastmen are high-armor, good speed units that have basically no reliable ranged damage (they've got some shortbows and some giants and other monsters that can throw things, but nothing special), so I'm building mine to just close distance and hit with magic to soften the enemy before impact.  This is just the beginning of this army (I haven't really invested in them yet), but to give you a flavor for what they do:


These are my unit of gors, the basic rank-and-file for a Beastman army.  They have a higher Toughness (read: defense) value than your average line infantry, so they're harder to kill (though they're also light on the armor, so they have to use their 6+ parry save more often than most line infantry).  I'll be adding another unit of 30 of them to the army, which will allow me to front one of them (this one) as my defense force and "anchor" for the army, while the other one will be held in reserve as an ambush for the enemy (random deployment that can be on their side of the board) at the start of the game.  They're durable, can hit hard, and they're chaff units for the army; I don't mind losing them if I wiff the rolls and they get killed off quick.


Bestigors are the heavy infantry with great weapons (think 2H weapons from LOTR), rocking both heavy armor and a good Strength value.  These guys will accompany one of my shamans (caster, which you see there in the middle of the front line) to keep him safe and to protect the unit from magical damage.


Centigors are your fast attack option: they start with a 4+ save (which is -1 for each Strength point a unit has over STR3, so don't charge them into STR6 units), and they're primarily designed to flank and tie down units until the larger units (like the next army troop) can come over to assist.  They're more experimental for me; I'm still not sure I like the unit, but we'll see.  And then there's these guys...


So, I pretty much invested in Beastmen because of the minotaurs, :)  These guys are solid tanks, with good movement, lots of hitpoints, and a ton of attacks with solid strength.  My leader will be with this group (heavy decked-out doombull), and they're the biting force of this army, designed to chomp through large units very quickly.  They're a lot of fun, :)

As we head into the summer, I'll be out and about for travel for the next few weeks, but I hope to be back up and running come the end of June with some more battle reports and posts (and possibly some other posts here and there before that), focusing on my new Angmar army and I want to get in some more games with my Easterling force, as I've missed using them.  Until then, you know where to find me,

Watching the stars,

Centaur

"Whose forest is it now, human?" ~ Bane, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

2 comments:

  1. I've nomintated you for a Liebster. http://scottswargaming.blogspot.co.nz/2014/05/ive-been-liebstered-again.html

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    1. *Blush* Wow, thanks Scott! And congrats on the Liebster nomination! Keep up the good work! We all love your blog, so keep the content coming! :)

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