Knight Errant (Review)

 Knight Erant by Anthony Reynolds. 

At the time that this book was released (2008) it was the first Bretonnian novel and heralded as such. I bought it, but just never got around to reading it. Until now. The Old World game has been out a good while now, and yet only one unique novel set in it has been released through the Black Library. There have been a few older omnibus editions rereleased with The Old World branding, but hardly anything else. So while rooting through my library this one jumped out, and it seemed to fit my current tastes perfectly. 

Essentially the story is about a pair of young noble Knights who are freshly trained and eager to prove themselves in combat. The novel starts off simply enough as we are introduced to the brothers Calard and Bertelis who are happily dealing with a band of brigands (they're really just a scurvy group of peasents). It's a good visceral impression of the class divide that persists in Bretonia. Later we see the two brothers reporting to the Lord and Lady Garamont and we quickly learn how the younger brother is overly favored by the pair of them. Calard is always eager to prove himself to his father but the Lord has eyes only for Bertelis. As does his step-mother, Lady Calisse Garamont, who seems to utterly despise Calard.

What started off feeling like it was about to be a Cain and Able-like fable dressed up as knights thankfully never played out like this as throughout the story the two brothers really do seem to have each other's backs.  And this made for a far more interesting, and less predictable, read. 

During a banquet a knight arrives bearing a message from the the Duke of Bordeleaux that help is needed in a campaign to rid the realm of orc invaders. The two brothers are tasked to lead an army of Garamont knights and men-at-arms to aid the Duke. Tanebourc, a knight who has been having an affair with Lady Garamont, is set to accompany  them as well. However, in a wicked twist, we see an encounter between Tanebourc and Chamberlain Folcard where Folchard tells Tanebourc that the Lady would prefer that Calard does not return to Garamont upon completion of their quest. As the story progresses we find out that the reason for this is that the previous Lady Garamont died after an apparent miscarriage, and Calard's twin sister mysteriously disappeared whille they were still children. Regardless, the current Lady Garamont regards the siblings of the previous Lady Garamont as blighted stains on the Garamont name. We learn throughout the book that she is not alone in that belief. 

As the Garamont force sets out, other forces join their crusade, most notable being Baron Montcadas and his army. The Baron takes Calard and Bertelis under his wing. 

Also accompanying the two nobles sons is their life-long protector and mentor Gunther, who has overseen their weapons training. 

And they are also accompanyed by the envoy from the Empire, a noble named Dieter Weschler, a Captain from Reikland. He appears in this story to provide a counterpart for Bretonnian society and to compare it to the Empire with contrasting cultural observations. 

After almost a week of riding they arrive to the battle which is already in progress. Their reinforcement turns the tide of the battle and the orcs are vanquished. It is while hunting down the fleeing greenskins that enter the forest only to find that a more vile foe awaits them: beastmen. Things get more and more grim and challenging for Knights as the evil leader of the beastmen, a magic using fiend called the Gave, is manipulating events to set un the Bretonnians for a big final battle. however the Knights just can't see the tapestry for the threads and simply continue sorties to try to root out the beasts. 

On one such mission Calard's group is investigating a ruined castle when a Handmaiden of the Lady appears and tells him a lot of strange details regarding his mother. She quickly reveals that she is his long lost Sister Anara who has been training all this time with the handmaidens of the Lady to become what she is today, a magic wielding bad-ass. While processing all of this paradigm changing reveals, they are quickly forced to rejoin the rest of the Duke's army at their base camp because Anara has a vision of the impending beastmen attack. 

Knights of Bretonnia

The Grail Knight Lord Reolus is an interesting character in that he is revered and respected instantly by all who behold him. He even has a pose of fanatical pilgrims who follow him everywhere. One of the running subplots throughout this story is that of Chlod, a groady hunchbacked peasant with a pet rat who is constantly plotting for anyway to better his lot in life, or to simply avoid death. He gets pressed into a plot to try to kill Colard, and while avoiding justice, ends up pressed into joining the men-at-arms before ultimately becoming the spiritual leader of the Reolus' battle pilgrims. 

The bodycount in this story is high. The final battle in this story is less Warhammer and more Warmaster in it's scale and intensity. Some of the characters I have mentioned above do not survive it, and if they do, they don't do it unscathed. 

The Gave itself is a fascinating creature. At first I thought it was just a beastman shaman but as the you find out more you realize that this is a unique creature, and then the surprise reveal unveils this fiend's horrific truth and it's horroric origin. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

As old as this book is, I still hesitate to spoil the story's ending as I simply enjoyed this book and hope anyone iterested in it will as well. Even though half of it was lance-charge porn, it was well-written lance charge porn. There are a lot of reveals and surprise moments in this story, which I was quite happy with. The book is available via E Book through the Black Library and was also collected into an Omnibus along with the sequels and novellas I didn't know existed until I was almost done with this first book. So now the hunt is on to find them. 

• Did I like it? I really did. 
• Was it hard to put down? It was a very easy and engaging read, but with my work schedule and life in general, sometimes i have to put a book down for weeks at a time. This story was the kind of book where I could do that and pick it right back up without missing a beat. 
• Could I care about the characters? yes and know. These are haughty nobles and although we follow them as the main protagonists the way the peasant class is treated makes one hope that the "Bretonnian Revolution" happens sooner than later. Having said that, the characters I felt the most invested in was Anara, who I hope we learn more about in the sequels, and Chlod, who is the avatar of shit on the bottom of a shoe. I can't say that I care about Chlod, I am very interested to see how his fate unwinds. 
• Did the writer truly grasp how the 'world' of Warhammer functions a genre? Yes, especially in regards to the way the Bretonnian classes interact. One particular moment stands out to me as the Knights defeat a group of beastmen who had just sacked a peasent village: 

Peasant women wailed over the mutilated corpses of fathers, husbands and sons, while others struggled to contain the fires that still raged, but Calard was oblivious to their suffering, focused completely on his own victory. He had been tested in the forge of battle and had proven himself worthy. 

• Was I being talked down too? No, the tone was very well crafted and I found that the book was easy to engage with. An aspect of the book that I do have a complaint about, which has nothing to do with the writing,  is the map. It looks like a good map, but with all the gray tone washes and the small print size, it is virtually unreadable.
• How predictable is this story? At first it started off almost like a dark Disney cartoon, but it got way more intriguing and darker as the story went on. Quite frankly, the fact that any knights survived this story is miraculous considering the odds that we against them. 
• Do I recommend this book? I do. It is a good story to introduce someone who is new to this setting as well. 

"Bring Out Your Dead! " (Part 1)

Here is something odd I found on Temu: it's a classic Monty Python style dead cart. It looked like a fun model, and it was cheap, so I went ahead and ordered it. When it arrived I was pleased with how well it scales up with Warhammer Fantasy miniatures. 

It fits perfectly on a 40mm round base which means this will be suitable as an objective marker.  And that's as far as I have gotten with it, as it's just been a crazy summer here in Neverness Land. 

Hopefully I will make progress with this model soon. My immediate challenge is finding time to prime miniatures where the outside humidity won't be a problem. 

Knightly Order of the Blazing Sun (Part 4)

 And now for the 3rd unit of this Knightly Order: The Inner Circle Knights.  These guys are all the same but I am going to slightly alter some aspects of each one's paint scheme in an effort to inject a bit of individuality to each knight while also maintaining their unit conformity.  

I knew early on that I wanted to add stripes to this unit's lances. I knew I could simply do it by hand, but I wanted to experiment with a short cut. Enter 'art tape'. In the past I have mostly used this for making grids on a dry erase board for work, but I know some people that  have used it to masking their art. Typically you can find this product in art and office supply stores. 

It was not my original plan, but after I accidentally painted all of the Knights shields yellow, I decided to divide them with a black and yellow side. So my first use of this art tape was on these shields. And it worked out well. The only issue was user-error on my part by not getting the dividing line ust right, but I was able to fix this without much effort.

Next, the lances. This was a bit trickier as the tape seemed to want to fight me with regards to going onto the model. I found that the longer the piece, the better i was at getting it to stick. being conservative about how big a piece i needed was not a good idea. 

In fact i have once piece slide up as I was painting the black on. i caught in time so the damage was minimal. 

After touch-ups, I think this might work out 

I need to get the other three miniatures painted up this way, and work out a few other details and these guys will be done. 

Knightly Order of the Blazing Sun (Part 3)

 

Unit two ready for action.

I have set my sights on getting more units for this army completed. In particular the second group of Knights. I took a different approach with these models at the priming stage. Instead of painting the whole model white, I instead only painted the riders white and primed the steeds black.  I painted the areas I wanted to paint with Contrast Paints using Corax White. 

Primed black with areas picked out Contrast Paints.

Everything else pretty much follows the same steps that I used on the first unit which I go into detail about in Part 1 and Part 2. The exception being that the unit champion for this unit has yellow wing feathers and all of their lances are yellow instead of black.

A regal champ.

I gave these models a bit more grass tufts on their bases than the first unit and I also added some fallen leaves as well. 

Sally forth! 

On to the next unit! 

Stormweaver on Unicon (Part 2)

 Between all the other projects I have going on, I dabbled some more on this model. Here is the current work in progress from where we left it off in Part 1 up to the present. 

As I stated I would do in Part 1, green stuff was applied to the most grievous of gaps left over after assembly. Then it was mounted to it's base. For some reason, it's left letgs peg kept trying to pop out of the hole. This resulted in it appearing a bit more elevated than intended. 

I hid this weird feature with grit and rocks. And when the miniature is fully painted I will hide it more with grass tufts and leaves. 

I had one of those rocks form a kind of a ledge that I hid a skull under. I dig weird little details like this, as they hint at a bigger story or event  which might have happened beforehand.

So I primed the miniatures and was pleased that my green stuff work seems to have been a success. Then I painted up the base.  I used Skeleton Horde on the hooves and horn. Then I.... realized that I needed to figure out the unicorn's color scheme before I could continue further.  

Check back in Part 3 to see what I do next with this miniature. 

Something is Stirring in the Dark Lands

 

The forges have been reignited, acrid smoke billows into the foul air, and flying cattle take to the air. Yes, the Chaos Dwarfs have arrived to the Neverness Hobby Chronicle. 

A box 'o Chaos stunties.

...and they arrived all jumbled inside of a card box. I got these guys from a local shop (thanks Remington!) In the fall  of 2024 and it wasn't until the spring of this past year (2025) that I had the opportunity to strip off their paint. Unlike the dwarfs that I picked up in the  summer, of 2024,  simply painting over the existing paint was not an option for these guys. The existing paint was practically smothered onto them frosting over a lot of detals.  It would all need to be stripped off.

After a long and drawn out paint stripping process, that took up much of the later part of Spring and well into Summer of 2025, I was finally happy with the state of these guys. The first miniatures I stripped were the Hobgoblins. I wanted to ease into this army by focusing on the fodder units first. 

The first units completed were not part of this acquisition. The AOS Hobgrots were done as a sort of experiment which has led me to working on some of Hobgoblins included in this lot.  I got a Khan done as well.. The next unit for this army, the Black Orcs, were also picked up after the fact, but I felt they were necessary, and they have the bonus of being able to be used by my Ocs & Goblins as well. 

There are definitely some more old Chaos Dwarfs to be revealed from this haul and over the course of this year and beyond* I hope to finish and share them here when I do. 

*I would put your money on 'beyond'.

Stumped

Recently I decided that I wanted to add more woodland details to some of my miniatures.  That was when I remembered the stumps that Woodland Scenics made. For years, many years, I would see these things in hobby stores and model train shops and think about how they might work as basing material. Well, I think it's time to put them to the test. Of course, after seeing them for years in various hobby stores across the land, when I wanted to finally get a pack they were nowhere to be found. Luckily I found them on eBay for less than $20 after shipping. 

This pack contains a variety of pewter stumps in various sizes. They have stubs on the bottom to allow you to plug them into whatever material you were making your model out of. For the purposes of the wargaming hobbyist those studs fit near perfectly into the round mounting holes that a lot of 40mm (and larger) GW bases have. I did have to clip some of them down a bit though, as you can see in the pic below. And

These sexy minotaurs were more than gracious enough to model these stumps for us. Indeed, I think these will greatly enhance their bases to give them the impression that they are smashing out of an old woodland area. This helps fill out these bases with detail as these older models feel a bit small on these 50mm bases. But I really enjoy modeling up bases so this was kind of it's own reward for me. 

Of course they will work great with Wood Elves and forestry based Empire forces. Really any fantasy models now that I think of it. The next stage for these minotaurs is to enhance their bases further with rocks, fallen brush, dead leaves and even a corpse or two. And skulls, always skulls. These model will likely be covered in their own post thread as I begin focusing more on them and their beastmen ilk. Meanwhile, I think I might try to locate another pack or two of stumps to have on hand as I continue to work on more fantasy miniatures.