Bretonnia Keeps Growing, Even If the Duke Just Got Nerfed
We had one of those very Warhammer hobby conversations this week: part excitement about building an army, part rules confusion, part light panic after an update, and part immediate daydreaming about narrative battles we absolutely want to play.
Wilini is still pushing ahead with Bretonnia and, if the shift gods are kind, there should be more assembly happening soon. The plan for next week is even better: start getting some paint on the models. That always feels like the moment an army stops being “a project” and starts becoming our army.
Michał immediately summed up the mood best: this is going to be mega. And honestly, we agree.
The army is coming together
Right now the collection is still in that early, exciting stage where every new model changes the shape of the future list. Wilini mentioned that he wants to see how many points he can get assembled during the week, which is such a relatable stage of army-building: before final list tuning, before paint schemes are fully locked in, there is that very practical question of how much stuff can we actually get built?
We also got a small hero roll call. At the moment, apart from the Duke on Pegasus, there is also a Damsel in the collection. So this is still the beginning of the Bretonnian court, but it is already enough to start imagining where it all goes next.
And of course, because this is Warhammer, the moment you start assembling things, the rules have something to say about it.
The Duke drama
Wilini barely had time to even put the Duke on the table before the complaints started rolling in from the wider community: Sirienne’s Locket gone, Royal Pegasus now treated as a monster, and people already declaring that the Duke is suddenly bad.
Naturally, the response was immediate: what kind of scandal is this?
This was the point where the conversation turned into that classic post-update rules autopsy. Does the save cap apply to the Pegasus or to the Duke as well? If he is riding a Pegasus, is he automatically affected as a monster rider in the way people online are suggesting? Is the answer now to put him on a Hippogriff instead? Or maybe just go for a barded Pegasus build?
This is exactly the kind of moment every army project seems to hit eventually: you get excited about a cool centerpiece character, and then an FAQ, balance change, or rules clarification lands before the model has even had the chance to delete a single enemy unit.
Still, the group consensus was much healthier than the initial doomposting. As Staś pointed out, the Duke is probably still fine — just functioning like a mounted hero rather than some unstoppable terror. That may not be as glamorous as the pre-nerf dream version, but it is also a very familiar Warhammer story.
The universal pain of buying a unit right before it changes
Ender had a perfect example from another system entirely. He had exactly this experience with the Kharadron Overlords Aether-Khemist in Age of Sigmar: the model was considered amazing, he bought it together with Thunderers, and before he even got around to assembling it, it had already become much worse and much more expensive in-game. In the end, it mostly lived life as a proxy.
If you have been in the hobby long enough, you have almost certainly had your own version of this story.
That is also why we try not to let temporary rules swings kill hobby momentum. Cool models stay cool. Narrative ideas survive balance updates. And if a unit drops from “auto-include” to merely “good” or even just “playable,” that is still often enough for the kinds of games we actually enjoy.
We are already thinking about the story battle
The best part of the whole exchange was that the army is already inspiring scenarios.
Michał said he cannot wait to finish his Renegade Crowns force so we can play a narrative battle for the favor of the Lady of the Lake — proper knights on one side, rebellious outer provinces on the other. That is exactly the kind of campaign seed we love: a little dramatic, a little absurd, and very Bretonnian.
If that game happens the way we are imagining it right now, it is going to be far more memorable than whether the Duke currently caps at one armor save value or another.
Rules, tables, and learning the game
In the middle of all this, Staś also dropped one of those genuinely useful little learning tricks that help when you are still internalising the rules. His way of remembering the tables was simple: a big Orc is easy to hit because he is big, but hard to wound because he is tough. One table feels like multiplication, the other like subtraction, and phrases like “a bit easier” or “much harder” help anchor things in your head.
We love this sort of practical table-memory tech. Every group has its own shorthand for surviving old-school Warhammer charts.
A few snapshots from the rules panic phase
Below are the screenshots Wilini dropped while trying to figure out what exactly had happened to the Duke build:
Where the project stands now
So the current status is:
- Bretonnia assembly is continuing
- painting may start next week
- the Duke has caused a minor existential crisis
- the Damsel is ready to represent the magical side of the court
- and we are already planning a narrative clash over the Lady of the Lake
Honestly, that sounds like a pretty healthy army-building week.
The rules may wobble, online opinions may overreact, and beloved loadouts may disappear before they ever hit the table — but the project is alive, the story is forming, and we are very ready to see this Bretonnian force take shape.