Bretonnia
“There was no honor in war, less in killing, and none in dying. " Michael Scott
Bretonnia is one of the main factions in Warhammer Fantasy Battle. It is a human nation roughly modeled on a combination of medieval France, England and every medieval tale of chivalry ever (especially the legends of King Arthur). They are easily Games Workshop's least creative race, in any game, ever. And yes, that includes Judge Dredd Adeptus Arbites. One of their special characters is called The Green Knight, and their goddess is the Lady of the Lake (later revealed to also be part of the Elven pantheon). Even the name of the kingdom is derived from Britannia (Roman Empire-ruled Britain). Yeah. It's that lazy.
Bretonnian armies basically consist of knights. Lots and lots of knights. And everyone, from the lowliest Knight Errant to the living-god Grail Knights, rides the same. Damn. Horse. Except for the ones that ride Pegasi. There are also some lowly, filthy peasants that support the knights (by which we mean they're meatshields).
The army is currently very old and very out of date, although still readily available, there are some rumors concerning them though. This is unfortunate, since WFB 8th edition nerfed cavalry pretty hard. They're still workable, but they're hurting pretty badly. Some denizens of /tg/ argue that Bretonnia should just be squatted, as they don't have anything over any other army. Seriously, the Empire (ostensibly an infantry-based army) has better cavalry than these guys.
For what it's worth, they're still a major player in the fluff, arguably sharing the "protagonist" stage with the Empire (or at least being the co-star) in the Glottkin End Times book, though the plot material of "Thanquol" seems to have finally done in the nation as an independent entity.
As of 26/03/2016, the entire Bretonnian range has been added to Games Workshop's 'Last Chance to Buy' section, so it seems like the Brets are finally gone for good. Though due to the aforementioned fading relevance as an army, lack of creativity and stand-out characters, some actually arguing for squatting, and all that even before the End Times and Age of Sigmar, few can honestly say they didn’t see this coming. Compared to Tomb Kings, outrage over the loss seems to be rather lukewarm (likely because the Tomb Kings were the first to get axed, no-one was expecting it to happen, Tomb Kings were one of GW's more creative races, lorewise it makes more sense that at least some of the Tomb Kings would make it to Age of Sigmar than Bretonnians and it would've made sense to keep at least some Tomb Kings units in the new game setting, such as the Sphinxes, rather than axe them all. Some may say it's also because the Tomb Kings were more popular than the Brets but that's subjective).
Peasants
It's not easy being a peasant in Bretonnia. Peasants can only ever keep one tenth of what they earn, which means that either peasants earn a lot or they are all, in fact, undead, which would explain their lack of skill at arms; otherwise they wouldn't have enough to sustain themselves. Where the hell that other 90% ends up is a mystery, though this could be yet another example of Gdub making things unnecessarily Grimdark without any thought to reality. The splatbook for playing the first edition of the WHFB RPG in Brentonnia would go on to clarify this a little: as a peasant your lord does indeed take 90% of your harvest, but then redistributes part of it back to you so you can survive (sort of). He's probably still going to give you just enough to survive and don't think just because you grew something really nice he's not just going to give you a bag of low-quality grain and some knight spit to cook it in. So basically feudalism with a nice big flavoring of Stalin-era socialism.
If you are a peasant, you also live in complete filth with other peasants in disgusting holdings and you can't ever change your miserable position*. But hey, things are not so bad, you can always join your Lord's men-at-arms and receive enough shinies to set you for life! Or so they told you at the time, but they forgot to mention that you had to pay for all your equipment, so you were left with squat. Still, if you work hard enough, you might become a yeomen, which may earn you the privilege of riding the retarded/maimed horses no noble would dare to look at.
Naturally, under such conditions, many peasants simply snap. Some become bandits, but those who do not wish to be hunted down for the rest of their likely short lives instead find a ragtag band of other loonies, a dead grail knight and a pointy stick to become pilgrims, hoping to earn the blessing of the Lady (usually reserved only for nobles) by fighting for truth, justice and the Bretonnian way while carrying the dead knight around. If there is no dead grail knight around, I am sure that one over there won't recover from his wounds...
- Technically the King or the Fay Enchantress, the hot female pope of the Lady, can raise you to nobility, but this has only happened thrice in all history of Bretonnia (one case was a peasant named Huebald who saved a noblewoman from Beastmen; he was killed in his first battle, the second was Repanse de Lyonesse AKA Joan of Ark), and your children will still be peasants. It's also possible that pretentious nobles will dislike the upstarts and arrange for them to not survive their first battle.
Gallery
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RIP Bretonnia
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You Are Here
See Also
- Tactics/Bretonnia, in which we explain you how to best bash skulls in, chaos warrior style, only from a horse.
Links
- FUCK YEAH BRETONNIA - tumblrfaggot redeems self with decent topical blog about Bretonnia.