Ready for Battle: Bretonnians in Kings of War

Phase 1 of my new army is complete! Sort of. The units aren’t based but they have their basecoat of paint and are ready for battle.

 Note: this blog post isn’t intended as a painting guide but to discuss the origin of my army’s colour scheme. The paint jobs here are just basecoats to avoid fielding a bunch of grey plastic.

I’ll probably go through some step-by-step painting at a later stage. Maybe for one of the character models.

Order of the One God

Since my 2025 army project isn’t a true Bretonnian army but an attempt to replicate the 5th edition Bretonnians in Kings of War, I haven’t stuck to the ‘every knight has unique heraldry’ motif of 5th edition Bretonnians. Instead, they are based on the heraldry of one of the religious orders from my fantasy novel, The Forecast Ascension.

In this setting, I’ve described four ranks of the order: initiates, knights, captains, commanders. For the purposes of painting my units, I’ve mapped these ranks to the types of Bretonnian knights.

Initiates

Colour scheme – grey and blue.

Equivalent to the knights errant of a Bretonnian army. This colour scheme would also apply to any formally enlisted peasant soldiery, such as bowmen.

In The Forecast Ascension, Arvad Aaltiyah joins the order as an initiate and receives a grey tunic to represent his station. In addition, many initiates get blue surcoats and cloaks as they progress through their training.

For peasants, much of their gear would be handed out from a temple’s armoury during a mobilisation and consist of grey and blue tunics, gambesons, surcoats, etc. On rare occasions, the equipment might be owned by a family member who has passed it down the family line, resulting in the occasional hauberk or leather armour pieces among the rank and file.

Knights

Colour scheme – yellow and blue.

As the bulk of the Order of the One God’s forces, the knight rank is closest to the Bretonnian knight of the realm. After completing their training, Initiates trade out their grey tunics for yellow tunics and gain yellow cloaks. Being the unifying item of the order, they retain their blue surcoats (as do the later ranks).

I didn’t realise that I missed the eyes of some of the horses until I uploaded this photograph. Luckily, it’s just the first coat of paint to avoid a bunch of grey plastic. and not the finished product.

When mounted, knights of the order ride steeds with yellow barding. In universe, initiates rarely ride horses so would ‘borrow’ the yellow barding of the knight rank if mounted.

Occasionally, the order uses battle wagons to transport troops and supplies, with the initiates taking turns to ride in the battle wagons to reduce fatigue on long marches. In game, these wagons could be represented by chariots, but that’s getting ahead of myself.

Captains

Colour scheme – blue and white.

There are several ranks of captain within the order to reflect the different command positions of their military branch. Each rank has the same uniform of blue tunic, blue surcoat and white cloak.

Captains are most commonly found leading units of initiates or knights. The rare occasions they would group together as a single unit would be if an elite squad is needed to take down a dangerous foe. In game, this would be reflected by the captains taking on the role of the questing knights.

Both captains and commanders ride horses with white barding to help the common soldiers identify their leaders on the march and in the confusion of battle.

Commanders

Colour scheme - white and blue.

When a captain excels, they are given the rank of commander. Although many continue to lead armies into battle, the commanders of the order are also heavily involved in the politics of the order, representing the interests of the military among the priesthood.

Commanders retain the blue surcoat of the order’s military but the rest of their equipment is white.

There are no instances of commanders riding together as a single unit. If they did, it would make sense they would be the equivalent of a grail knight unit taking to the field.

 A 500 point army is a touch too small to be fielding the highest ranked characters so no picture to go with this rank.

 Ready for battle?

Now the units have a rough base coat, have my thoughts on the models changed? Not really.

As a proxy Bretonnian army, the models do the trick. The main difference between my army and a Bretonnian starter force is a distinct lack of plate armour. This can be explained away by saying it’s under the cloth armour.

As for representing the units from my books, they are close enough. The Order of the One God recruits from all over the fantasy equivalent of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. As it stands, the army is representative of the garrisons from my fantasy version of Eastern Europe.

To incorporate some of the Middle East aesthetic, I’ll need to do some conversion work on later units. This doesn’t need to be major since the order has a common uniform of tunics, gambesons, surcoats, and hauberks. Some head swaps to incorporate some headscarves and some variations in sword styles would be all that is needed to shift the aesthetic from Bretonnian/crusader to something closer to the aesthetic of the order.

Now I just need somebody for them to fight.