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Hello there,

I'm looking at getting into Fantasy and starting a Bretonnian army. Has anyone got any pointers? I'm coming from a 40k background gotten a little bored of this edition.

Cheers

Good news for you! The next edition of 40k comes out in 6 days.

Pretty much the reason why I want to start a fantasy army

My advice would be to hold on for just a couple of months because Bretonnia is supposedly the next Fantasy release to come out. Of course with this being GW nobody knows for sure, but there's a fair amount of agreement between rumour-mongers and the latest Wood Elf book was quite heavy in mentioning them.

Otherwise, I'd start with models that are either already really lovely to look at, or unlikely to receive new models. You could get the Green Knight or Peasants quite safely...

About the Bret miniatures, my main advice is to NOT take GW miniatures as much as you can
I'll just paste one of my previous posts

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As the other said, look at historical ranges
They're as good looking (and often better-looking), offer more choice and are MUCH cheaper
The best are Perry Brothers, the plastic Cav has metal barding so they might not be what you want for your Knights (or it might be if you want French Gendarmes / Ordonnance), but the infantry fits earlier periods as well (I'm using the guys from the War of the Roses for the Brets, expanding into Empire with the "European" mercenaries)
They also have a very large metallic range (Azincourt fits the bill perfectly)
Then you have:
- FireForge (good plastic Teutonic / Templars)
- Gripping Beast (great ranges of metal, a few good plastic boxes too [Hastings period though])
- Kingmaker
- RAFM miniatures for the Trebuchet
- and so on

If you google it a bit, you will also find decals or sticker-style banners, barding and shield heraldry that are all designed to fit precisely for this or that range of miniatures (also designed to be resilient for gaming models)

Just a point but Brets are strongly rumoured to be getting an update this year - you'll also notice that even on hte GW website their army is lacking a good few options.

I'd suggest looking around local stores and online and ebay and picking up a couple of the battle-boxes. The core troops are unlikely to change in any great degree and considering how much of the army needs an update they are less likely to get new core boxed sets. Plus as they are "unpopular" at present you might well get a few non GW local stores or ebay sales for cheaper. (if you wait for the new codex to drop their prices will go up).

Yeah I noticed that they seem to be lacking any sort of army compared to the others. I'm mostly getting then because I'm a fan of medieval cavalry and I want to paint them in my family crest colours and depending on how I go I might even try to duplicate our family cost as well for say the knights etc (funnily enough my surname is Knight)

I would say that a box of knights would be a solid start. No matter how a possible new army book will be, you'll probably want to run a lot of knights, because it is, after all, Bretonnia.

If the book never comes or if it is awful, you could always run them as Empire or VC knights.

And since you say you're a fan of medieval cavalry, I think the choice is clear

What good is a Knight without a few men at arms and peasants to their name Plus the army box gives you a free knight on a winged horse!

Also check out the scenery, whilst GW dropped a good few of the neat fantasy scenery they still have their castle sections up for sale. Granted the whole siege thing in fantasy has been dropped (I recall when they sold siege towers) but if it takes its time in coming out you could at least build upa castle for your knights

I like the idea of the castle and a whole heap of archers... mmm its raining arrows again... i'll be getting their 'codex; (or whatever they are called for fantasy) tonight and i'll have a good read of it and pick my units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
they still have the siege towers

I'm going to second the 'don't bother getting GW Bretonnian minis'. There are a ton of options that not only look better, they're cheaper as well.

If you find a good deal like I did, GW minis are fine. I like the way they look, and you get a ton of extra bits to work with (unlike most companies). Just don't spend full retail price for anything GW. Look on the swap shop, stop by at your FLGS, or look online. Like another user mentioned, Bretonnia isn't exactly popular right now, so you can pick up a lot of stuff pretty cheaply.
Welcome to knighthood!

Cheers Gents

Just remember the current book is old and they are up for a new book some time soon hopefully. So don't get too attached to the rules - but yes check ebay you should be able to get models still on the sprue for less.

Do so now to pick up a few deals and try to pick up any special characters in metal (most special named characters don't go away, if they do they are oft good proxies for new special characters).

The Bret regiment isn't a bad deal. Two of them make a good start for an army.

Anyone have an idea on the size of the army in the starter box (points I mean)?

If it's 20 M@A, 16 bowmen, 8 Knights and a Peg
That's about 400 pts and a Peg (that cannot be fielded at less than 3 except as a mount)
For the same price I'd advise 2 Boxes of Fireforge/Perry Knights and 2 Boxes of Perry's "War of the roses" infantry
That give you 24 Knights and 88 Infantrymen that can be mixed between M@A & Bowmen
Triple the Cavalry and more than twice the infantry ... just saying

But you can't play at the local GW store with them

Most GW stores are small and they only want you to start playing in their stores, then they kick you out towards the retailers once you bought enough toys
So it doesn't really matter

Bretonnians, as it currently stands, is all about knights, and I don't really see that changing if and when the new army book comes out. I'd get two boxes of knits of the realm and start building. That gives you 16 knights to work on, and that's a good place to start.

I also like to use archers, so personally I'd suggest getting a box or two of archers as well. It's nice to have some dirty peasants to go along with your gallant knights.

I doubt that either knights or archers will change much with a new army book, so they can be pretty safe bets.

You will need a general, but you can either make one from your knight boxes, or find one on eBay or another model company. Eventually you'll probably want a damsel or two for magic.

GW no longer has any tournaments, and I never see anyone playing in their stores anymore, so I think you'd be fine purchasing non GW models for your army. The fireforge models look pretty good,

Good luck with your army.

Don't underestimate the filthy peasants ...
Bowmen are a pain to get rid off through shooting thanks to the stakes and their flaming potential can sometimes help a lot
M@A are fantastic, for their very low price tag they can be extremely durable once you give them the blessing of the lady. They also benefit a lot from Wyssan's (often more so than Knights)