Green in Bretonnian heraldry

Green (or vert) is one of the traditional colours of British heraldry. The other three main colours - red (gules), black (sable) and blue (azure) - are all represented in Bretonnian heraldry, along with the two metals: white (argent) and yellow (or). So, what happened to green?

Back in 5th ed., green was indeed part of Bretonnian heraldry. Older pictures of the studio army show a large number of knights with green heraldry. But with the 6th ed. army book, we were told that the 'Eavy Metal team had chosen to paint the new studio army using only three colours, and green does not appear in any of the example shields. An accompanying White Dwarf article on 'How to Paint Bretonnians' told us that red, black and blue were now the only three colours used in Bretonnian heraldry, and that only the Green Knight used green.

The reason given for this was that green is a cheap colour, and knights don't want to use cheap colours. In the recent Black Library book, 'Knight Errant', this reason is repeated along with a second reason - green is the colour of the 'fay' (the Wood Elves), with whom a knight would not wish to be associated.

So what is behind this change in the background? Most of the changes between 5th ed. and 6th ed. Bretonnia are obviously linked to making the background darker and more fitted with the Warhammer World. Thus the knights are now crueller to their peasants (who are called peasants rather than commoners), the peasants worship the standard Old World pantheon rather than tha Lady of the Lake, etc. But removing the colour green doesn't seem to fit into this.

The reason, I believe, is changes to the Citadel Paints line-up. In the 5th ed. army book, the recommended colours are Blood Red, Chaos Black, Enchanted Blue and Emerald Green. Shortly after, Emerald Green disappeared from the Citadel Paints range. The recommendation at the time was to use Goblin Green instead. However, this is not as bright a colour and leads to a fairly dull green compared with the bright reds and blues. When the time came to paint up the 6th ed. army, therefore, the 'Eavy Metal team did not use this, and the background was changed to remove green from Bretonnian heraldry as a result.

So - what for those of us with older armies who have green-painted knights? The answer can be found in 'Knight Errant' - these knights (or their ancestors) have, somehow, won the favour of the Fay and wear their colour as a result. The statement that no knight would wish to be associated with the Fay is made in-character in the book, and others may well. have different opinions from the young knight speaking at the time. This would make green a rare, but not unknown, colour in Bretonnia.

Trumpet Blast!

Welcome to the Bretonnian Herald. I'll be making irregular posts here, sharing my thoughts on Bretonnia, Warhammer, and related topics.

If you don't know about it already, you should check out the Round Table of Bretonnia. This is the main website for all things Bretonnian (in my entirely unbiased opinion as one of the admins).

A bit about me:

I've been part of the on-line Bretonnian community for over eight years, and I've been a Bretonnian player for a bit longer than that. I was originally a member of Earl Cadfael's Bretonnian Army, which was re-launched as the Round Table of Bretonnia around three years ago. I was one of the Bretonnian members of the Strategic Council at the Conclave of the Light Alliance during the Storm of Chaos and I was also a moderator at Chateau Montreford, another Bretonnian site that ran for a bit over two years before being brought low by the forces of Chaos.

Before moving to playing Bretonnians, I played Eldar in Warhammer 40k for around four years. However, they didn't get used much after I got my Bretonnians, and I eventually sold them off a little over three years ago. I've also got some Battlefleet Gothic miniatures sat in a box somewhere, and I've recently acquired (and I'm currently painting) some Anglo-Dutch wars miniatures (from Langton Miniature's Anglo-Dutch series; www.rodlangton.com) and the Battle for Skull Pass set.