Warhammer The Old World – Kingdom of Bretonnia Duke on Royal Pegasus

The second new hero from the core sets of the Warhammer The Old World range is the combined Duke / Baron on Royal Pegasus from the Kingdom of Bretonnia set.

Just like the Necrolith Bone Dragon This model is currently only available as part of the starter set and will be released on January 20th as well.

There are minimal pictures of the baron variant of this kit. In the beginning I thought that the Battle Standard Bearer and Duke/Baron would be one kit, but they are two different sets. More on that further below. While we do not have a price for this model, it is very likely it will cost the same as the Battle Standard Bearer on Royal Pegasus, which is 55 EUR RRP.

The Duke/Baron kit is spread across two sprues, with a small one having the parts of the hero(es), and a second one with just the pieces for the Royal Pegasus. The surely used the space in the small sprue. Casting is crisp, nothing to argue there.

I don't quite understand, why Games Workshop didn't go with two medium sized sprues and have all the options in one kit, but go for three different sprues and having to manage two variants, as the later packaging etc. won't provide that much savings and tooling had to be done for all parts anyway. The additional costs for the plastic should be minimal and you would have to spend less shelf space and logistics (another article number) to have both kits, who are so close to being identical.

We begin building the Royal Pegasus on a 50mm square base. It does not fly, but stand on its back legs and is rearing up.

The Royal Pegasus is bigger than the regular horses or "regular" pegasi, and comes with a small base topper. A flying pose would have been nice as well. It is off for a bit of annoying start. The back of the barding is open, this is not a gap, but designed in a way that it almost looks like not properly closed. They could have done that differently. It will we covered up partially by the tail.

Next up the saddle, a small but sturdy build.

The next step is important. As you DON'T want to add the small fleur de lys to the back of the saddle. I wanted to build the mount and hero separately, to show you later and swap between them. Once you add this back part, you won't be able to add the hero. This is something that is sad for multiple reasons. First of all, it could be clearer in the instructions that you create a dead end, and it is not uncommon to leave mount and character separate for painting purposes. But that will be a bigger problem further below.

The connection for the strings of hair of the Pegasus mane is rather loosely, but should be properly done to not create problems further down the line while building for example with the reins.

The only, and really the only option for the Pegasus you have is either an armoured face plate or not. You can't pose the wings differently; you don't have alternate pose or something. It is the same face with either a face plate or not. This means if you buy the second hero on Royal Pegasus, he will ride a clone of your Duke/Baron's mount.

If you made the error like I did and added the back piece of the saddle, you can either try to remove it, trim the sides of the fleur or have to build the lower legs on top of the Pegasus for a work around. This is a really weird and unsatisfying design choice.

You can't build both Duke and Baron from this kit, as they come only with a single pair of legs. And as you couldn't swap them if they did, we have to decide which body to go with. As I find the Duke far more appealing than the Baron, we went with him.

Limited options, you either build the Baron or the Duke. You can't swap the pieces. You don't have variants for the helmets, no visor up, different coat of arms, just as it is. And the crest is rather fragile, so you take care of that while removing the mould lines. The duke has the Lance, the Baron the sword, you can't mix those unless you cut them.

A comparison with the legs of the Battle Standard Bearer, no alterations here. Basically, the same design.

Next up for the off hand, where the Duke has a shield. The step where part 38 is build is not shown, you add 38A to 38B and then assemble the reins. This is rather fine model building and absolutely not suggested for newcomers. Use a minimum amount of glue, make sure you have the pieces aligned. Once again, some parts of the rein are so fragile, that they broke while cleaning the mould lines.

I wouldn't suggest assembling this prior to painting, as you will have a hard time reaching all areas around the waist of the model.

While not pictured for him in the instructions, as the Duke is using his lance and has the shield in the off hand, I went with the sword in scabbard piece for a bit of decoration.

And the scale comparison of the Duke on Royal Pegasus next to the other models from the Bretonnian range as well as Bone Dragon. The proportions are leaner compared to the classic range, but it is not that visible from an arm's length.

This is how the Duke looks like painted by the 'Eavy Metal team.

Conclusion

This is a brilliant, stunning looking model. But that's it. It was frustrating to build. I really had to be cautious to not break some of the parts while removing them from the sprue, and after my mistake with the saddle, the assembly of the reins just created an overall rather frustrating experience.

The design of the Baron is so boring, that it was never an option in comparison with the Duke to be build, but I would have liked to show it to you in this review. But due to the shared pieces and construction of the saddle, I unfortunately couldn't. Beyond that, this is a kit, that you would probably buy, build and paint for a painting competition or a showcase, as a gaming piece I find it highly impractical. The aspect that it leaves to little room for individuality, when you have the Standard Bearer on Pegasus as well, on his identical mount, is a huge disappointment in my eyes. They had two medium sized sprues as a frame and went with something so inflexible, that's sad.

For me this shows a disconnection of the design team, that they don't play or don't share the point of view of the hobbyist. Because at least I wouldn't want to have the exact same model as everybody else for my heroes, let alone having clone in my own army, not in 2024. And as they didn't have to create a whole new range, as they used 20-year-old moulds for 90% of the boxed set, and even repurposed the majority of this boxed set for the second hero, they had the resource on hand.

This is a duke / baron combined set. Woo me with options. Give me weapon options in different poses, give me heads, with or without helmet, different crest. Give me the possibility to bring my own noblemen of Bretonnia to the table. For the same price you can get from Games Workshop a Vampire on Zombie dragon, with far more options and twice the size.

Warhammer The Old World is a brand by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.