The Kingdom of Bretonnia is a human realm whose armies and stories revolve around knightly service, the Lady of the Lake and the quest for the Grail. It is also a society in which noble cavalry depends on the labour and military service of commoners. Both sides belong in an account of the faction: the heraldic spectacle is not the whole army.[1][2]
The Lady, the Grail and the knightly ideal[edit]
The official Old World Almanack traces the kingdom's founding to Gilles le Breton. His encounter with the Lady and the Grail provides the model later knights seek to follow. The Code Chivalric gives that ideal a formal expression. The same account describes the mysterious Green Knight as a figure who tests Questing Knights and aids Bretonnia in times of need.[1]
The article presents several explanations for the Green Knight's identity. A reference should retain that uncertainty rather than converting one reported possibility into a settled answer. Likewise, descriptions of a knight's ideal do not establish that every noble consistently lives up to it.
Dukedoms and heraldry[edit]
The Old World development diary describes dukes ruling the kingdom's fourteen dukedoms, with barons beneath them. It also explains a practical painting option: troops serving a regional lord can share elements of that lord's heraldry. Elite knights may instead display individual devices.[3]
For a hobby project, this means a visually coherent army need not give every ordinary knight an entirely unrelated colour scheme. You can plan a common palette and reserve individualized heraldry for selected figures. This is a project-planning application of the published examples, not a rule requiring a particular painted scheme.
Knights and the supporting army[edit]
Bretonnia's tabletop identity prominently features knights, but the official range introduction also emphasizes peasant soldiers. The nobility cannot supply the whole army on its own. Infantry and supporting elements belong beside mounted warriors when understanding what the force represents.[2]
When looking through the units below, distinguish a unit's fictional social role from its current game role. A description such as “peasant levy” explains who the fighters are; it does not tell you their present points, restrictions or best use in a particular match.
Keep the historical period in view[edit]
Warhammer: The Old World takes place in an earlier period than the final era of Warhammer Fantasy Battles. The Almanack explicitly places its account in the year 2276 of the Imperial Calendar, with the Duke of Brionne riding to aid a Bretonnian border fortress against the Tomb Kings.[1] Preserve that date when connecting this introduction to other parts of the setting.
Related character entries may cover figures from the wider history of Bretonnia. Their presence in a reference roster does not assert that they are alive, ruling or legally playable at the same moment. Check the publication and period attached to a claim; where a page lacks that context, a focused correction is valuable.
Further reading and play[edit]
Start with the Almanack for setting context and the development diary for heraldry. Use the rules-checking guide to find current game documents. This overview does not reproduce army rules or promise that an older preview remains valid.
[1] Old World Almanack: Discover Bretonnia, a Land of Chivalry and Honour (27 December 2023). [2] Warhammer Day Preview: The Kingdom of Bretonnia Revealed (14 October 2023). [3] Old World Development Diary: On Bases and the Barons of Bretonnia (14 April 2023).
Units
- Battle PilgrimsSpecial · InfantryRagged commoners who follow a Grail Knight as a living saint, fighting with fanatic devotion to guard the holy relics they bear before them.
- Field TrebuchetRare · War MachineA massive siege engine hauled to the open field by cursing peasants, hurling boulders that smash knights and monsters flat in a single crushing blow.
- Foot SquiresCore · InfantryAspiring young noblemen who serve on foot as bodyguards to a Grail Knight, proving their worth in the shield-wall before they earn the right to ride.
- Grail KnightsRare · Heavy CavalryLiving saints of the Lady: knights who completed the Grail Quest and drank from the sacred cup, returning ageless, radiant, and terrible.
- Grail ReliquaeRare · InfantryA towering shrine of bones and relics (the remains of a Grail Knight) borne aloft by pilgrims whose faith drives them into an unstoppable frenzy.
- Knights ErrantCore · Heavy CavalryBretonnia's young knights, landless and starving for renown, who ride at the enemy as though glory were a race, because for them it is.
- Knights of the RealmCore · Heavy CavalryThe landed knighthood of Bretonnia and the thunder at the heart of every army: lance-armed heavy cavalry whose massed charge has decided a thousand years of battles.
- Men-at-ArmsCore · InfantryThe peasant infantry of Bretonnia: polearm-carrying commoners who hold the line, dig the camps, and do the unglamorous dying that keeps the knighthood glorious.
- Mounted YeomenCore · Light CavalryLowborn horsemen and huntsmen who scout the fields ahead of their lords' glorious charge, and are never, ever permitted to forget their place.
- Peasant BowmenCore · Missile InfantryCommoner archers with longbows and sharpened stakes: the weapon chivalry disdains, and the one that wins Bretonnia's battles before the charge ever lands.
- Pegasus KnightsSpecial · Flying CavalryKnights borne to war on the wild pegasi of the Grey Mountains, falling upon war machines and command posts out of a clear sky.
- Questing KnightsSpecial · Heavy CavalryKnights who have forsworn all comfort to seek the Grail, wielding great blades two-handed and asking no quarter until their sacred quest is done.
Characters
- Bertrand the BrigandThe BrigandAn outlaw hero who robs corrupt lords and defends the downtrodden peasantry from the greenwood, hunted as a criminal and beloved as a saviour.
- Louen LeoncoeurThe LionheartedThe grail-blessed King of Bretonnia: a warrior-king preserved in his prime by the Lady's cup, who rides the hippogryph Beaquis at the head of every charge he asks of others.
- Repanse de LyonesseThe MaidA humble peasant maiden granted a vision by the Lady, who took up sword and banner and led Bretonnia to victory in an age when its knights had all but despaired.
- Tancred, Duke of QuenellesThe Vampire's BaneThe grim Duke of Quenelles, whose bloodline swore an eternal grudge against the vampire Red Duke and who has spent his life hunting the undead across the southlands.
- The Fay EnchantressVoice of the LadyThe Lady of the Lake's living voice in Bretonnia: the prophetess before whom kings kneel, who blesses monarchs, claims the fay-touched children, and carries the goddess's word out of the otherworld.
- The Green KnightThe Living LegendBretonnia's deathless protector: a spectral knight who rises from mist and still water wherever the Lady's sacred places are threatened, and who cannot be slain because he is no longer quite mortal.
Subfactions
- BastonneThe cradle of the Uniter: Gilles le Breton was a son of Bastonne, and no dukedom carries his legend more heavily or more proudly. Its knights ride as though the founder himself were watching, and under dukes like Bohemond Beastslayer they have made Bastonne a byword for magnificent, unreasonable courage.
- BordeleauxThe great port dukedom of Bretonnia's western shore, rich in wine, salt, and ships, where chivalry has learned to keep its footing on a rolling deck. Bordeleaux's knights patrol sea lanes as well as marches, and its dukes hold that a lord owes his people plenty as well as protection.
- CouronneThe royal dukedom of Bretonnia's northern coast, seat of the king and the standard by which all chivalry in the Old World is measured. Couronne's white-and-silver knights guard the crown, the great tourney grounds, and a shoreline forever tested by Norscan longships, and they are expected, always, to be perfect.
- LyonesseA storm-hammered coastal dukedom whose knights are accounted the fiercest in Bretonnia, forever at war with raiders from the sea and rivals on land. Lyonesse was the home of Landuin, most perfect of the Grail Companions, and the memory of that unmatchable glory drives its knighthood to a pride that borders on fury.
Sources & further reading
- Old World Almanack: Discover Bretonnia, a Land of Chivalry and Honour. Warhammer Community, Founding, Grail, Green Knight and The Present Day. Accessed .Linked official source checked during the 2026-09-29 assisted audit; whole-page human review pending.
- Warhammer Day Preview: The Kingdom of Bretonnia Revealed. Warhammer Community, Knights and peasant soldiers. Accessed .Linked official source checked during the 2026-09-29 assisted audit; whole-page human review pending.
- Old World Development Diary: On Bases and the Barons of Bretonnia. Warhammer Community, Dukes, barons and regional army heraldry. Accessed .Linked official source checked during the 2026-09-29 assisted audit; whole-page human review pending.
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