Voland’s Venators are a Regiment of Renown in the world of Warhammer Fantasy, and in a world of Dark Fantasy, where the “knight in shining armor” concept doesn’t exist outside of the minds of a select few inbred, elitist, hypocritical, obnoxiously French douchebags, these guys still manage to be looked down upon as the single most disreputable bunch of drunken brawling cavalry warriors to ever meander across the many battlefields of the Old World.

Taking their name from the Low Tilean word for “Hunters”, the Venators are a mixture of nobleman’s sons (usually second- or third-born at best, more frequently dispossessed and/or disgraced), renegade Imperial knights, fallen Bretonnian knights, and… well, anybody who can scrape together heavy armor, a sword and a sturdy steed and who decides that a life of drunken revelry and violence is their dream. Life, for a Venator, consists of drinking, brawling, and bloody acts of slaughter and warfare (usually whilst either still drunk out of their skulls or nursing a hangover that could impress a dwarf) to earn the money to pay for more drinking and brawling. If Khorne wasn’t so against enjoying wine by the gallon, you might almost think they were a wandering warband of his. Despite their total lack of anything resembling discipline or manners (something that saw them barred from Bretonnia on pain of death after they showed up drunk and filthy at the great jousting tourney of Couronne), they are also incredibly skilled fighters (said ban might have something to do with the fact that Venators competing in the tourney unhorsed a score of Bretonnia’s best knights, including the king’s personal champion) and so they consistently get work.

The leader of the Venators is Voland; a mysterious man of presumedly Imperial birth, he has never spoken about where he comes from, and has in fact ordered that all Venators must abandon their family crests and adopt new names as part of joining their ranks. It’s commonly rumored that he’s the disgraced and/or bastard son of an Imperial nobleman, perhaps even Emperor Karl Franz himself! But he’s not telling, so the rumors just keep getting wilder and stranger… though presumably the guys venturing that he’s the son of the Fay Enchantress of Bretonnia and an incredibly erudite one-eyed talking pig named Eric are called out as being too drunk even by the Venators.