Battle Report: Renegades Raid Bretonnia’s Borderlands
Battle Report: Renegades Raid Bretonnia’s Borderlands
We managed to squeeze in a fast Warhammer: The Old World game this morning, and it turned into a very cinematic clash on the borders of Bretonnia. On one side, a Renegade Prince joined forces with an Outlaw Wizard to plunder a castle belonging to a Bretonnian lord. On the other, Bretonnia rode out to meet them with knights, pegasi, and a Damsel — with the Green Knight lurking somewhere in the misty woods nearby.
As Wilini later clarified: it wasn’t actually a Duke on the table, but a Paladin on Pegasus using a Duke model. Very important for the historical record of the Old World. :D
Right from the start, the battlefield looked great and had that proper storybook-Bretonnia-meets-total-chaos energy.
The opening shots
The Bretonnian Damsel had an absolutely miserable day. Before she could really do anything, she was shot down by scouting Brigands armed with blunderbusses. A brutal early blow, and one that immediately set the tone for the game.
Meanwhile, the Renegade Giant got to work in the way giants do best: by causing complete panic and eating cavalry. In the first turn alone, he munched through three mounted knights, and by the end of that same turn he had stomped two more into the ground. That flank became a horror show very quickly.
The grind in the centre
In the middle of the table, things turned into a proper scrum. Pegasus Knights together with another mounted unit managed to squeeze a block of 30 great weapon boys from two sides. It was one of those classic moments where a big infantry unit gets stuck in and just tries to survive on sheer stubbornness.
And to be fair, the boys held on bravely for a while.
Then things got much worse.
A spectral apparition materialised behind them, and that was basically the moment their fate was sealed. Between pressure from the front and something ghostly at their backs, the unit was eventually wiped out.
Giant problems continue
If anyone in Bretonnia was hoping the giant would calm down after his first course, they were disappointed. He eventually munched the last knight on that side as well, fully establishing himself as one of the MVPs of the game.
At the same time, the Bretonnian cannon had a very mixed performance. It misfired once, on another shot it only managed to kill two boys, and on yet another the cannonball just buried itself in the ground instead of carrying on. Not exactly a legendary showing.
Revenge for the Damsel
Bretonnia did get some revenge. The fallen Damsel was avenged by peasants and pegasi, who went after the Brigands and left none alive. That was one of the cleaner bits of justice on the table, and probably very satisfying after the opening blunderbuss ambush.
A little later, the knights also managed to take down the cannon — only to be rewarded by getting partially hammered into the earth by the Giant soon after. A very Old World sequence of events, honestly.
The endgame duels
The final act featured exactly the kind of dramatic character fights we always remember after the game.
At the very end, the Green Knight killed the wizard and three hirelings in a duel-heavy closing sequence, while the Paladin fell in single combat against the Renegade Prince.
That left the final result at 11:9 for the Renegades.
It was also a pretty brisk game by our standards: even with a food break, we wrapped it up in about 2.5 hours, which felt great.
Post-game thoughts
A lot of the post-battle chat revolved around two things:
- Ethereal units being extremely strong, or at least a very interesting mechanic that forces you to build and think about your army differently.
- The Green Knight teleporting between forests, which is just outrageously cool.
On the other side of the table, the Renegade Prince with a 2+ save and an Ogre Blade looked seriously nasty. Once we double-checked that save, the consensus was basically: yes, it really is like that. And yes, it’s very strong.
We also had some mixed feelings about duels/challenges. The overall impression of The Old World is still very positive — “the rest is great” sums it up nicely — but those character duel mechanics are definitely something we’re still feeling out.
Still, this was a really fun one: a giant eating knights, brigands deleting a Damsel, ghostly interference in the centre, and the Green Knight doing Green Knight things. Hard to ask for a more flavorful Bretonnia vs Renegades game than that.
If this is what border security in Bretonnia looks like, we fully understand why everyone lives in castles.