Hello to all.

I re-started with the Warhammer in december 2007 (I played shortly during 1997) and the Bretonnians is the first army I collect, paint and play. I had no previous experience with miniature painting, and my first ones (3 older edition [email protected]) were done just after the last christmas. My skills have slowly advanced from there on.

I decided to put a small blog up here to show my advances and get some feed-back. I am a slow painter and as I use a friend (and her camera) to shoot my work the posting will be propably even more slower than my painting.

Anyway - some months ago I posted my first non-border patrol list draft here. It is a 1250 points one, with the help and know-how of some forum members I redesigned some minor aspects, and so the following is the list I plan to complete hopefully for the autumn:

Damsel of the Lady @ 134 pts
+ bretonnian warhorse
+ barding
+ 2 x dispel scrolls

Notes: General of the army. She goes into grail knight unit to give them the magic resistance. I will mostly use her for magic defense but hope to get an offensive spell or two through during the battle with any luck. She will use the Lore of Life.

Paladin BSB @ 119 pts
+ barded Bretonnian warhorse
+ Gromril great helm
+ Virtue of Discipline

Notes: He goes into knight errant unit to give them a better leadership, a slightly added punch and +2 to CR. The gromril helm is to lengthen his survival during the battle.

6 x Knights of the Realm @ 168 pts
+ full command

5 x Knight Errants @ 141 pts
+ full command
+ Errantry Banner

18 x Skirmishing Bowmen @ 131 pts
+skirmishers
+musician

22 x Men-at-arms @ 125 pts
+musician
+standard bearer

Notes: I believe strongly that Bretonnian peasants should always be upgraded with standard. That upgrade is usually cheap and the loss of the standard awards the opponent with no points. Sadly I had no points left to upgrade the skirmishers (as I wanted at least 18 of those peasants).

4 x Pegasus Knights @ 230 pts
+musician

Notes: I know they cost a lot but so far the Pegasus Knights have proven very capable and versatile unit. Why 4 of them? I know they cost a lot but with 4 of them the unit is still strenght 5+ after the loss of single one.

5 x grail knights @ 200
+Banner of Chalons

TOTAL: 1248

Some notes about tactics: I have 4 lances to attack, one of them is a flyer with good range and all-around vision. The KotR and the KE are to be used together against the same enemy unit (the trick where I declare the charge with KotR only, if it is in range the KE can fail their Impetous, if not the KE can still be used as a counter-charge unit my next turn). The grail knight is my "super-hammer". For defensive purposes (especially against surprises in my flank or rear) I have the pegasus knights and skirmishers. The men-at-arms are to be used as a back-up charge unit, hopefully as a weak tarpit and at least as a table-quarter taker.

I started painting the cheaper models (the ugly peasants) to refine my skills before I start with the knights. So far I have completed my first two units - skirmishing bowmen and men-at-arms (well they are not abolutely completed yet - they still need heraldry and lacquering but I will not do that before the knights are done).

My men-at-arms:

My skirmishers:

And the famous Merry Men of my archers (the best ones I have completed so far):





So, how does that look so far?

Best regards,

Rafael de Bois et Guilbert

I like the triptych the archer (I assume standard bearer) is carrying. Is that a conversion or did it come with the model? I haven't got around to buying archers yet... next month though.

And I like the general color scheme on the archers. whenever I try mixing green and yellow they come out looking like John Deere tractors...

The iconbearer is made from standard pieces of bretonnian peasants command sprue (found both in bowmen and men-at-arms boxes).

Here are larger pics of the guy:







Best Regards,

Rafael de Bois et Guilbert

Oh, and about the main colours - I tried many slightly different versions, the last and the best one is the following:

Yellow - Lyanden darksun foundation paint. Highlighted with Sunburst yellow. Inked with watered down bestial brown. Very light highlight with sunburst yellow mixed with small amount of Skull white.

For green I used Dark angels green - first painting is mixed with chaos black (about 1:1), then just dark angels green, followed by 2-4 highlights with small amounts of skull white added.

Best Regards,

Rafael de Bois et Guilbert

Next week - when I am back from the vacation at the beach, I will start painting my first two or three Knight Errants. I will try to keep You updated on the progress.

Anyway - give me feedback and pointers to improve my skills...

Best Regards,

Rafael de Bois et Guilbert

It took some time ( a lot longer than I first imagined) but my first Knight Errant is painted. It was sort of a test-painting for me - first horse, first wash (flesh wash on the horse), first lacquering, thus many small mistakes are visible. I hope I have learned some lessons from that one and my next Knight Errant will be of better quality and faster completed.

I had a theme worked out for my Knights Errant - in my army they are Young'uns who have not earned their personal coat of arms and are thus not allowed to wear personal colours. They are allowed by their lord to wear their family crest, but it must be worn in single colour on white shield, and that colour is the only one these knights are allowed to wear as personal identifying marks. Thus my knight has some red ribbons on himself.

As the Knights Errant are not wealthy enough to buy their own equipment they are sponsored by their lord - he gives them armor and horses. As the lord is not extremely wealthy or generous these are not the best quality there is - the armor is not too shiny, the ornamentatons are not in gold but bronze, and the horse - well as You can see on the picture the animal is not the best purebreed there is. As the lord is their sponsor the Knights Errant in my army have to wear his colours - blue and yellow.

All that explains why this knight looks as it is.

I hope thus painted the Knights Errants will be clearly identifiable on the battlefield - both for myself and my opponents.

Anyway - please tell me how this looks so far.

Best Regards,

Rafael de Bois et Guilbert















PS! I found out I hate painting horses. The really frustrating part

Greetings my noble brother Rafael,

Nice job on the models. I like your explanation about the KE armour. You gave me an idea there so thanks.

Then the peasants. They look rather clean right now. Maybe you can make them look a little dirtier. I did the same with my peasants and it improved them.

keep up the good work.

Very nice indeed.

Aragorn wrote:
Nice job on the models. I like your explanation about the KE armour. You gave me an idea there so thanks.

Then the peasants. They look rather clean right now. Maybe you can make them look a little dirtier. I did the same with my peasants and it improved them.

keep up the good work.

Glad I could help with my idea about KE

The peasant are not fully finished - they still need their sovereigns coat-of-arms and lacquering. I will re-visit them with my brush and add some more dirt on them when I finish my first unit of knights.

Best Regards,

Rafael de Bois et Guilbert

Excellent clean and neat painting sir.

Well done

I humbly thank You all for Your good words about my work.

Knight Errant no 2 is almost ready, it took me approximately 1 week to complete him (about 50% of the time I needed for the first one). There were still some minor mess-ups (I started the light brown horse with too bright undertone, etc.) but the third knight in the unit should already be mistake-free

I hope to start the painting of the next knight during monday.

If anything goes as planned I will take some new pictures during the next weekend. I will post them here as fast as I can.

Best Regards,

Rafael de Bois et Guilbert

A small update:

I have finished 4 Knight Errant models, 3 rank-and-file models and a musician. I took some pictures yesterday but due to bad lighting conditions (it has constantly been bloody raining for three days in a row) we had to use artificial light. As we found out later the yellow light totally screwed up the colours and the pictures have to be re-shoot. Hopefully tomorrow will be somewhat better weather.

So far I can post three pictures of Knight Errant musician, these were taken before the model was finished:







The photo quality is not the best, hopefully next set will be of superior quality again. On that model I practiced some freehand (the horse barding has some lines drawn on it) and tested the new face painting system (dheneb stone foundation paint and ogryn flesh wash used for a base).

Best Regards,

Rafael de Bois et Guilbert