 Imagine Joan of Arc. Now throw her into the beefiest fantasy setting possible. Oh no, you dropped her in Warhammer instead. Well, there's only one thing to do about it. Prepare the bloody horses, because we're playing Bretonnia, baby! Ah, repose the lioness. Is that how you pronounce it? I don't speak French. Was released some time back into the most wonderful of all Total Warhammers, Total Warhammer 2. My first time playing with Bretonnia was also the first time I experienced the questing life. The ten flavours of cavalry, the literal Pegasian, Hippogriffs that seem intent on drying out the coffers of lioness. I love the freedom this game offers. As a reponse I entered a bunch of wars that had little to do with any of the objectives set out for my victory. I marvel at the mind's ability to weave its own stories. It's half the fun of grand strategies. Like this one, every skirmish, trade deal and siege unfolds in the player's mind, and I personally add a whole lot of context and tiny details to the general turn of events that force me into action against one faction or another. Several factions are on repance's blacklist for a domination victory. In addition to the Tomb Kings who dominate the early game's struggles are valiant knights of Bretonnia phase. Worry you're not, I put the corpses back into the ground as thoroughly as possible. You also got Pirates of the Coast, not of the Caribbean, unfortunately. The Ratanistic faction, Clan Mauls, and my personal favourite folks to wage war on the Nagaron faction of extra pointy elves. But I mentioned entering into a bunch of unnecessary wars that had little to do with anything. I should expound on that. I went off killing some random pirate faction that had taken over half the bloody territory of my friends, the non-edgy elves. Did I become High King Tyrion's best friend? Not really, but only because the diplomacy of the Total Warhammer games is the absolute worst punchline of a joke that does not bear repeating. I pray to all the bloody gods that they do something about it in the third game. That dreadful system is the lone smudge on an otherwise fantastic grand strategy, RTS hybrid. I did become mates with the second High Elven faction led by El Ariel, the Ever Queen. But just as I was getting ready to write some fantastic fanfiction starring these two, El Ariel confederated with Tyrion into a monolithic elf state. Way to steal my girl's new girlfriend, Elfhead. And all the meanwhile I'd left my territories far, far behind, all to wage war on Nagaron. So that Repanz could ask her girl out on a nice pointy elf hunt. War without any supply lines did not go too well for me, I have to be honest about that. I feel that two of my best armies, the first personally led by Repanz and the second by a guy I fondly call in my mind at least, Lord Buckethead. I regret now that I didn't rename him in game as well as in my own mind. Though I opened the war with several early victories, the continued battle stood there tall in my army. No matter how many of the druki I killed, yes that's a word, it's another name for really pointy elves. No matter how many of them I maimed, clobbered and run over with my cavalry, they just kept on cunning. So I had to run. And what a run it was, the kind word here of one of those community montages from the D&D episode removed from Netflix because Chang painted himself as a draw elf. And that's somehow racist, I guess. Which leads into what I want to empathize here. I killed a lot of dark elves once I made my triumph and return. Before that, I built myself a nice base of operations in a province owned by some poor, underburied tomb kings. You might dislike the principle of what I can only describe as eternal religious hatred. Fighting the dark elves as a race different than the high elves was a thrill. And more difficult. They have some excellent anti-cavalry units, which forces the Britonian player to think outside the box to try and manage risks to involve that very inferior infantry into the mix. More so than usual. Speaking of that, playing cavalry demands a lot of micromanagement. One of the strongest cavalry units I had at my command were shock cavalry, which is to say the best use they saw was when trampling enemy platoons, pulling out with as few losses as possible, then doing it all over again. At my best, I was capable of devastating the enemy's swordsmen, artillery and ranged units while circumventing anti-cavalry and monstrous units. At my worst, I was mismanaging my cavalry, misplacing them in ways in which enemies were able to close their retreat route and create two prone attacks. And on an occasion, or five, managed to run some of my air cavalry into enormous lightning spells of my own design. The results were... ill-conceived, is what I'm going to go with. For all that, Bretonnia was a breath of fresh air, which forced me to learn a lot more about the way cavalry functions, on account of lacking the basic crutch upon which I fall whenever I can. Exquisite ranged units and slash or artillery. Neither of these are viable options for the Bretonnian boys and girls. The artillery is a very useful auxiliary, but the peasant bowmen are functional at best. Easy to break and rout at worst. The infantry is a touch more useful with foot squires, the absolute high point. Those will often be the backbone of your forces. The units that hold the line while you are busy doing all your fancy footwork with the five types of cavalry you'll want to have around for each and every occasion. Grail Reliqui, or a hero standing by the infantry, is key. The greatest weakness early on is the poor leadership minuses to all the peasants, and the Grail Reliqui is a support unit which has a leadership aura. In this way Bretonnia is very much a feudal dream come true, or a nightmare, if you have any sympathies towards the proletariat, as I do. Of the units over and now I found particularly use for the beast slayers of Bretonnia. For a fierce unit of foot squires wielding harbours instead of swords. Because of rather a few options where countering gigantic enemies are concerned, the beast slayers are a must have in case you run into someone with a leafed monstrosity. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the hero unit of the Paladin, which is enhanced as part of Rapunzel's factional bonuses to be an absolute armoured monster. A one man tank is a good way of describing him if tanks had swords instead of big guns, you know like medieval tanks, and by those I mean soldiers in plate. The amount of assassinations and chaos I brought to the world with my high level paladin in particular simply boggles the mind, but let's get back to my recounting of this fascinating adventure. Another enemy I had an absolute nightmare of a time was the Vampire Coast's main faction. I fielded two more armies, not against Nagaron, but in search of the most crumptious of all delicacies in the Warhammer fantasy universe, the Raton stick. Somehow I ended up being clobbered by the Vampire Coast's army, which had about 14 rotting leviotins, enormous undead crab monstrosities, which can hold their own against cavalry without much issue, and which made confetti of my infantry. I cheesed the game very hard to try and stop the Vampire Coast from pushing me back to mixed results. Though I didn't lose my foothold on that part of the map, I did lose several armies in a whole lot more time than was necessary. He then called Phil's advice, kids, don't you? It's as likely to double your frustrations as it is to solve them. Speaking of frustration, the most frustrated I was with my experience with Repance was when I finally won the final battle. And now I suppose because I repeated that bloody word four times. But also, the annoyance after that final battle was Ought to the fact that I did not get my achievement for having finished the campaign. Blimey that smarted. As to the final battles themselves, which for the record you gain access to when you've succeeded in a certain goal or series of goals. As Repance that goal had to do with reaching 2000 honour, a resource you gain from military excellence and lose when you're a craven coward. You can choose between two final battles. One with the Tomb Kings, which is clear outrageously easy and unmemorable. And one with the Vampire Coast, which was a challenge and a fairly long one at that. One army after another was deployed from multiple directions and most of them damned tricky to dispatch before the next joined in. There was the real chance that I would be clobbered in between several armies and you don't want to experience that as cavalry as I've already mentioned. I did have an AI controlled second army, which doubled as both helper and its kid sibling to look after. To follow up on the metaphor, by the fifth Vampire Coast army the kid was maimed gangrens and possessed by a terrible hucking cough and possibly a ghost. But we both survived, my point is. My own army wasn't doing much better. Knowing myself, most of the background footage of this video showcases this exact battle in all its 40 to 20 to 10 FPS glory. And so half of my campaign at least revolved around fighting pointy elf boys. I find it hilarious that Repance teleported some far off tropical island. Well, she teleported to it, she didn't teleport the island herself. Kicked some vampire coast arses and we might as well roll the credits after that. Grand strategies have never been great in terms of closure but total warhammer too is worse than most. Of course I could continue trampling around those dark elves. If I wanted to, I also get that domination victory I'd have to. But 230 turns is a good place to end my time with fantasy Joan of Arc. Some things you have to let burn. Thank you for watching. It'll probably be another half century before I finish another warhammer 2 campaign but if you enjoy this one please let me know. I had fun writing the video and I sure as hell had fun playing with Bretonnia. Weird Italian Frenchman that the faction is. If you're interested in some of the other things I do on the internet feel free to follow the WordPress or Twitter links in the description down below. I do a lot of work and novels of all sorts. Fantasy, science fiction, contemporary, history, even grammar. I made it interesting once. This thing I fancy. If you enjoyed it, also don't forget to like the video. Subscribe, share with your friends. Maybe dislike it if you did not enjoy it. I will one day do a total warhammer review or critique. I promise it's just that I have to play the games for another thousand hours before I gain the competencies necessary to do it justice. Now that I've won with one of the easier free DLC characters it's time for a nice little challenge. I think I'll tackle the dragon prince himself in brick next. That sounds like a doable thing, right? I'm going to have to sink at least another 1500 hours in this game around. Thank you everyone for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye!