As a faction, the strength of Total War: Warhammer 3’s Bretonnia lies in their knightly calvary. The peasant infantry is basically just there to squishily hold the enemy in place for charges. However, I’m feeling revolutionary today, so we’re staging a serf uprising. Let’s see how long we last. Pretty simple rules here, then. No knights. No horses. Conquer the entirety of Bretonnia. Defeat every horse I see in one-on-one combat.
Indeed, the serfs of Carcassonne had suffered too long under feudalism’s gussied-up protection racket, and the battle fought for their freedom had been long and bloody. Bretonnia’s knightly class were better armed and better trained, their bodies nourished and strong. The bones of the common folk creaked from years of tireless field work. Their frames were frail from a diet of nettles, bruised turnips, and a wide selection of delectable artisanal French pastries which they all refused to eat, French being the language of their oppressors.
They had one thing their lords did not, however. Guns. Just an absolute bastard ton of Dwarfish gunpowder lent to them by the mountain holds, partly in exchange for some leftover pastries, but mostly because a Grail Knight had unfavourably compared Dwarfen beer to Bretonnian Wine several hundred years ago, and the Dwarfs were still frothing about it.
They’d dispatched the nobles in short order, then slipped Morgiana the Fay Enchantress a tenner to be cool about it. Now, they’d tracked down the last Paladin in Carcassonne, and were ready to dispense some field justice (disband him). The mob cheered as the final pitchfork pierced the Paladin’s chest, but their revelry was soon cut short by a whinnying chuckle.
Watch on YouTube
“It was us along” laughed the Paladin’s horse. “We made you toil in the fields. We’re really into grain, you see. Also, we kept you poor because it was funny”. The horse laughed again, as if to illustrate the point, then galloped off before they could batter it. Their quest was clear: liberate the rest of Bretonnia from these hooven dastards and build a new land – one where the feet of the people touched the ground at all times. “If it neighs, it pays!” the crowds chanted, as they bravely slew every horse in Carcassonne. They then spent two weeks walking back to the castle, which only strengthened their resolve that the horses were to blame for everything, having plotted to allow their legs to become unaccustomed to long treks.
Uh, also the dwarfs came to get their guns back. “Warhammer again?” they asked. “Isn’t there something a bit more interesting to do a diary feature on”. Sure, the peasants replied, but we’re right into the weeds of Tides Of Torment’s hype cycle now and it’ll hopefully be slightly better for traffic. The dwarfs looked at the camera, shrugged their shoulders, then nodded solemnly and left without a word of complaint.
The main mod I’ll be using is Lily’s Bretonnia Overhaul, mostly to give my infantry a fighting chance with the new technology. Also old faithful, but that’s a given. There is no truth to the rumour that I’ve also installed an additional mystery mod to shake up the midgame. None at all.
Before any of that though, we need to deal with the local goblins. They don’t ride horses, but they do ride wolves, which are basically cave horses. We disband a unit of Grail Knights that have somehow snuck into our lines, feast on the evil blood of their bastard horses, and charge very slowly at the gobbos.
Being a tutorial battle, it’s given the goblins the strongest artillery unit in their roster as a primer on how to effectively use our starting calvary, whomst we just ate. This would be an issue, but our own blessed trebuchet outranges it by 40 metres, as well as its projectiles not harming our own troops. I opt for the award-winning “Battle Of Winterfell” strategy and set up my trebuchet (French for ‘very bucket’, I believe) in front of my lines, meaning my troops are out of reach of their artillery. At the same time, I send a very slow unit of spearmen through the forest to deal with it. We’ll still take some losses, but between the Fay’s healing and the fact that we can now shut it down before it uses all its ammunition, they won’t be too bad. I could get it an artillery duel with it, of course, but I’ll need my trebuchet to soften up their infantry, my own being completely pitiful.
As expected, we take a bit of beating, but if it gets us closer to nation-wide horselessness, it’s worth the sacrifice. I declare. From a safe distance. We research some of the mod’s new technology to give non-knight units a few buffs, as well as expand our peasant capacity. Bretonnia’s economy suffers if there’s not enough peasants to work the fields. The peasants we do have working the field are naturally curious about why they’re still doing it following a bloody revolution, but we give some fancy sashes to wear while they’re doing it and mumble something about the sweat of the proletariat, then leave them to get on with it.
Grom is already starting to munch his way through the country. As much as we enjoy the thought of him eating several times his own weight in horses, it’d be prudent to put a stop to him before his green flesh grows too ample for our pitchforks to pierce, so we make preparations to reclaim Aquataine. The town falls without much trouble, but now we’ve got Grom himself to deal with.
We recruit a new prophetess to lead a defensive army back at the castle (Liora Hoofsbane), arrange our lines, and steel ourselves for the arduous clash ahead. It’s then a single unit of spearmen step forward and volunteer to sacrifice themselves to win the battle on our behalf. Initially, we refuse. It’ll never work, anyway. They’ve got a lore of death troll hag. There’s no way the sacrifice of a single unit of spearmen can possibly overcome…
Oh. Alright then. Cheers for that, lads.
With Grom dealt with, we trade Aquitaine back to its original owners for a tidy sum. Don’t worry, we’ll be back for their horses soon. We fill up Liora Hoofsbane’s army with whatever rabble we can scrape together, then march on Masif Orcal, stopping briefly to ambush some more goblins. We arrive at the lattices of woven dung that passes for gates in greenskin settlements, allow ourselves to enjoy the fact we won’t have to use any useless knights in the siege, and prepare to batter some cave horses. We’ll pretend the squigs are horses, too. Just for funsies.