March 2024 review
While longer than february, the month of march felt shorter. So what happened?
This month two deliveries of Stormbringer arrived, with most recently the 3rd shipment of magazine 8 to 13, we already covered on here.
Warhammer Fantasy – Classic Bretonnian Squires
Among the releases Games Workshop provided with one of the last waves for the Bretonnians in Warhammer The Old World were some not made-to-order classic miniatures, the Bretonnian Squires with Bows. I have used the metal casting for classic OOP miniatures in the past, most recently with some Bretonnian characters on foot and mounted on a Pegasus.
With the squires, I bought those blisters as well, but unlike in the past, it took quite long to deliver. Usually the items are sent out so that they arrive on release day, but it seems that is not the case more, in my case they even shipped them after the release day and only arrived a week later.
Made-to-Order Classic Bretonnian Characters
With some of the last waves for The Old World Games Workshop offered some models as made-to-order. I used this service in the past, for example with the Skaven characters or the Halfling Blood Bowl Team. Production time in the store is usually stated with 180 days, but they arrived within a few days after ordering, pre-brexit sometimes even the tuesday or wednesday after ordering them on a saturday.
Are they bargains? It depends on what you take as a baseline. They are certainly not cheap, but usually less than buying them on eBay and you don't have the remaining risk of buying an overpriced recast.
What is new about these, is that they actually have clam shell blister packs and not as often in the past, just the white boxes from the Mail Order. This leads me to believe, that at some point, we might see this in store and not just as a made-to-order / mail order exclusive product.
But what did I pick up? Under the new names they are Paladin with Hammer and Shield, Paladin with Sword and Shield and a Lord with Sword & Shield on Pegasus. The Paladins were 12 EUR each and the Pegasus 32,50 EUR. Certainly not cheap, the 12 EURs for the characters on foot is above what I would usually pay for these (about 6 Euros, maybe a bit more if unpainted and a pose that I really like), as for the Pegasus Lord, this one is rather uncommon and I have seen him usually above the 50 EUR bracket on eBay, so that was a reasonable offer and complete.
Warhammer The Old World – Who are the Bretonnians?
While the setting of Warhammer The Old World plays 200 years before the time Warhammer Fantasy was set in, the more important question is - who are the Bretonnians that didn't (quite) make it into new Age of Sigmar?
The introduction of the Old World itself, with a more elaborate lore, came with the release of the 3rd edition of Warhammer Fantasy and the supplement Warhammer Armies. Inside these books, the Bretonnian lore is brief and compact.
The Kingdom of Bretonnia is described in a similar way, the corrupt France as seen in the tales of d'Artagnan and the three Musketeers. A kingdom of proud cities and prosperous ports, who have fallen into ruin, due to widespread corruption, inefficiency and decay. Interestingly enough, that is the story of the Flesh-Eater Courts, who are based upon the pre-End-Times Bretonnians and degenerated into a realm of Undead cannibals. The threat of the undead is a theme, that was present during the 5th edition onward in the lore of Bretonnia, for example in the Dukedom of Mousillon or with the Red Duke.
Warhammer The Old World – Kingdom of Bretonnia Battle Standard Bearer on Royal Pegasus
And after covering the two heroes from the plastic sets, let us take a look at only new plastic hero, as the other new additions are made from Forge World resin - the Battle Standard Bearer on Royal Pegasus of the Kingdom of Bretonnia.
Initially I thought this would be built from the Duke/Baron kit, as they have the same mount. This is something that Games Workshop did in the past, have dual character sets of mounted and unmounted heroes, usually including banners, for example with the Empire General or High Elf Noble. But that was a misconception, this is just the Banner Bearer.
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.
Warhammer The Old World – Kingdom of Bretonnia Unboxing
We've talked about the upcoming Warhammer The Old World Pre-Order last Monday and today the vast list of items is ready to order, with delivery on January 20th (so in 2 weeks' time). As you might know, this new game won't come with a classic two army starter, but army bundles that include the new rulebook as a hardcover, and for the release there are two sets, the Kingdom of Bretonnia and the Tomb Kings of Khemri. We're going to cover both of them today, and start with the Kingdom of Bretonnia.
This is the cheaper one of the two and costs 206 EUR / 155 EUR, with a total of 76 miniatures. It is available in English, German and French.
It is a huge, stable box set with glossy prints on all sides. You can see the back below, and the lower part shows two of the painted units, the Men-at-arms and Knights of the Realm. As you can see, the Bretonnians look more uniform than they looked in "regular" Warhammer Fantasy. They go into detail on this in Warhammer Community and to a certain degree, this is the fantasy-counter-part of the pre-heresy paint jobs of some of the Legiones Astartes.
Warhammer The Old World – Welcome to the new year!
On New Year's Eve Games Workshop released the definitive announcement of the Warhammer - The Old World Returning for Pre-Order on January 6th, with most likely delivery on January 20th (simultaneously to an event at Warhammer World).
The return of the Old World will be available in English, German and French.
We won't see a "regular" starter set with two armies, but core sets covering a ~1.250 points army of either Tomb Kings or Bretonnians, including the full-sized hardcover (!) rulebook, templates, dice etc. and between ~70 to ~90 miniatures per box. And a bit to my surprise quite the wave of models, ranging from the 90s to the very last years of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, during the End Times in 2015. Some items will be available exclusively through Games Workshop (the Forge World Resins, some made-to-order items and some of the gaming accessories), while the core items (core sets + books) will be available through the independent traders as well.
Warmaster – Dukedom of Gisoreux Pt 3
With all the talk about the Old World, I feel the need to pick up my old-world themed Warmaster project of the Bretonnian Dukedom of Gisoreux.
The 10 plates were printed and cured in the mean time, costing me less than litre of resin and about a week of printing (the printing time will be less for people who use larger printers and/or newer once, with faster printing time). This would be 23 units, 10 heroes and two artillery pieces, so quite the stunning 3,000 points army.
Warmaster – Dukedom of Gisoreux Pt 2
We talked about the framework of this project, the Dukedom of Gisoreux, Bretonnians for Warmaster and now have to move on to the next steps, and that would be 3d printing at home.
How to approach this? I've talked about my start into 3d printing last year, and to be fair, you have to be honest about the costs as there is a lot of eye washing happening online. As mentioned earlier we have 115 EUR costs already for bases and STL files. What did the hardware and "consumable" cost for a start?
My resin printer is an Anycubic Photon Mono 4K (RRP of 260 EUR, but mostly on sale for 200 EUR). There are larger and newer generations available, but these cost quite a bit more. I think this is a reasonable choice to dip your toe into 3d printing. I got myself a bundle with the Wash & Cure 2.0 and a litre of resin for a total of 350 EUR. The litre would be sufficient to print the list of miniatures I wrote up earlier. But that is not all you need to start printing, as you will have some consumable items, like IPA, some safety gear etc. to clean up and further process your prints. Yes, you can do without the cure and wash, some sealable containers and you can re-purpose the IPA by filtering, to increase the mileage on these things, but I suggest getting a 5 to 10 litre container of IPA, which will set you back around 30 to 50 EURs depending on your source. Along with another 30 to 50 EURs for disposable gloves, containers, safety glasses, replacement FEP sheets, PTFE spray, kitchen tissue etc.
This adds another 450 EURs for the hardware to our initial 115 EUR buy-in for bases and STLS. Intermediate project costs: 565 EUR.
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