Warlord Epic Battles - General Views?

[TheBlackCrane]

Warlord's pre-order release of their Pike&Shot Epic Battles has got me back on ECW again. It's a period I have never yet done but am forever coming back to.

To which end, any general views on the Epic Battles range so far? How do they play, etc?

I've had a browse through other threads on the forum around the previous releases.

Obviously could use the figures with any rules. Intetested in how they (the ACW and Waterloo figures) paint up, too. I'm not sure about having units on the tabletop which are basically the same save for banners/painting - 15mm offers more variability and aesthetic I'm thinking. I enjoy painting individuals, so are the epic units more of a conveyor belt?

But, Epic Battles is an 'easy' way in, and I have limited space, so it is tempting.

Just interested in what people think of the range in general? recommended

[fastolfrus]

look interesting but perhaps just as the core of a force - the bog standard troops rather than the more favoured units (everyone has their own preferences). But the stuff I've seen all has a pike:shot ratio of 1:1.
I was under the impression that most forces hoped to reach a ratio of 1:2, so these would need a provision for adding extra shot. Also the horse include a few cuirassiers, ok to have a few for ECW but they were rare early on and vanished entirely for the later part of the war. I thought they were more common in some of the European forces for the TYW.

Just a few pedantic thoughts. But there are lots of figures in that starter box....

will wait to see the free sprue on Wargames Illustrated to check how they look in the wild.

[Ninefingers]

I think they're going to run out of conflicts where both sides are dressed the same.

[Gibby]

The large unit frontages of the Warlord Epic ranges means a standard 6x4 table would be crowded pretty quickly, which to my mind robs the smaller scale of one of its major advantages. The figures look really nice, though.

[fred]

The large unit frontages of the Warlord Epic ranges means a standard 6x4 table would be crowded pretty quickly, which to my mind robs the smaller scale of one of its major advantages. The figures look really nice, though.

This is very true. Most of my 10mm figures are based on 40mm square bases, and for ECW we use 3 bases together, so a 120mm frontage, and 40mm depth. I think the Warlord epic stuff is 180mm frontage, and just 20mm depth. Feels a bit long and skinny for ECW, but probably fine for Naps or ACW.

The scale of these figures is just annoying. Too big to fit with 10mm too small to fit with most 15mm,

The rules are just the core rules from the existing Pike and Shotte rules - so based around Black Powder / Hail Ceaser. I found the treatment of pike and shot rather odd - basically each is independent of each other, not dealt with as a single battalia.

[Elbows]

No experience with them (yet, my buddy picked up the Civil War starter box).  One thing I noticed when they first released the Civil War stuff was the initial plastic sprues for the boxed game were "well" priced.  However they were originally supported by only resin support boxes which were astronomically (like..."pants-on-head stupid') priced.

Having glanced recently they did seem to replace some of those with plastic.

They seemed to learn from that and the Napoleonic stuff looks better than the Civil War stuff.  I do like the scale, but I have no other stuff.  I have heard certain 10mm scales match very well with their weird 12.5mm scale or whatever they were thinking of.

Coming from someone who is not engaged in a scale, I like the "big base of infantry as one piece" concept, etc.  Their prices for the expansions are still somewhat comical, so I don't think I'd get into any of their systems, sadly.  I also find Blackpowder pretty boring as a rule system, but it's easy to whip up some more interesting rules.

[Major_Gilbear]

I have limited space, so it is tempting.

The game still seems to assume it's for 28mm size models on 60m wide bases, despite using small models in a weird scale, so you still need the same table size as for larger games (i.e., 6'x4' minimum). Also, the models are moulded together in strips, which are difficult to split up to use for smaller bases, so you're stuck with them as-sold. The ruleset is functional, but pretty dull. And due to the weird scale, you are somewhat locked into that specific range (or otherwise 3D printing).

If money and space are tight, do yourself a favour and look at actual 10mm or 15mm scale models, and cast around for a ruleset you like. Whilst you prep and paint your figures, you can test out your chosen rules using cardboard rectangles. That way, by the time your core figures are ready to be based, you'll know what you want your armies to be composed of, and what size bases you have room for. Loose figures, in small scale, on 40mm (or perhaps smaller) wide bases are far more flexible, economical, and limited-space friendly.

Also, since most of the Warlord Epic Battles ranges to date feature armies that were very similar on both sides (certainly the two Civil Wars), it's not too much of a stretch to build up two of your own forces side-by-side as you go, so that you always have an OpFor. Collecting two sides like this is the best way to pretty much guarantee you get to play games with them, since all you need then is a willing volunteer/opponent who doesn't need to do much besides show up and play the game with you.

[CapnJim]

I played my first game with them Feb. 10.  ACW.  My wargaming bud Ted ran the game, and used the following unit sizes:

     Tiny unit:  2 bases.
     Small unit:  3 bases.
     Standard unit:  4 bases.
     Large unit:  5 stands.

I thought it worked out well, and we played on a 6'x4' table.  We fought up/down the long length of the table.  I did an AAR of the battle on My "CapnJim's ACW Stuff" thread up in the "Age of the Big Battalions" board.

[Norm]

Creating this stuff is very expensive, just doing 1 plastic sprue comes in at £15 to £20k. So when one talks about the original ACW, it has to be seen in the context of a marketing experiment. Would it be popular enough, hence 1 sprue that covered both sides and the commitment to give further support had to be made in metal / resin because of sprue cost.

However, it was a roaring success and quickly had to be reprinted. The consequence of that alone means that they have been able to do another plastic sprue to support ACW, so now all is covered in sprues except the Iron Brigade AND the follow up project,, Napoleonics was done with 9 planned sprues, which is a huge investment and show of confidence and gives us the 3 armies of Waterloo. They have also committed to doing the Austrian and Russian armies.

This time around the rumours were ECW or Rome / Carthage. We got ECW, one of John Stallard’s (CEO) favoured periods. But even the mention of Rome / Carthage shows where Epic might go.

I doubt having ‘matching armies’ was the prime driver for ECW, but it helps - Epic doesn’t seem to need that anymore, the biggest selling product at Warlord Games last year was EPIC British napoleonic, this series seems able to stand on its own two feet and looks to have a future. In te words of John Stallard “there will always be Epic”.

When you ask for peoples views on the Epic line, you will automatically attract comments from people who don’t like it because it is viewed as a propriety scale (In truth, if they could have gone with any one of the claimed 15mm scales, it still would not fit with a swath of peoples collections and the tightly packed 10 man blocks even less so) and those that don’t like the marketing of Warlord Games. You need to look at posts that actually tell you what matters as a prospective buyer.

My experience has been - The models in hard plastic show very good detail and the smaller bits like bayonets are robust enough for wargamers. The detail means that I am taking a while to paint them, as I am used to painting bigger figures and I can’t break away from the habit of painting detail, I wish I could develop a more impressionistic style for faster painting output, they would look fine at the 3’ rule for that and for me, this feels like a lot of painting, especially as I have all the `epic stuff so far.

I don’t like that the infantry is basically a 55mm block and the supplied base is 60mm, because when ranked up, there is a gap between the block that catches my eye. This is just a personal thing. My solution has been to trim off the base at each end of the figure block (easy) and buy MDF bases at 55mm frontage by 20mm deep and so there is a more seamless fit.

This does have a slight problem in the ACW set as the command strip has a guy on the end who has his rifle stuck out to the side - but I live with that.

Overall I wish they would have gone with 30mm bases, as I think that would be a better universal fit for more peoples tables and a wider variety of rule sets, though I have seen people trim down the blocks by halving them.

Another problem (for me) as I use a domestic sized table is that this project was originally envisaged as EPIC, i.e. just like their normal black powder, but with more heads …. To look amazing! However, that did not take into account that many wargamers would automatically see this scale as being something that would help with their small playing space and so the 5 bases in a regular unit (ACW) took up as much room as a 28mm unit footprint.

The solution is obvious, have fewer bases in your unit. Most people seem to have gone for 3, I went with 2 with ACW. That is fine and it gets your game into a smaller space. The downside is that by creating more smaller units, you don’t have enough command stands to do one per unit. For ACW, Warlord games responded by producing separate metal command stands that you could buy.

They have not to date done this for napoleonics, probably commercially not viable because there are too many types and also in the Napoleonic sets, they have 4 bases per unit. In my napoleonic games, I am using 2 bases per unit, but I can live with some units not being flagged etc and I use the flagged / non-flagged to help me visualise unit types such as elite / Landwehr etc.

WG have certainly gone through a learning curve with all of this, their new Epic specific rules talk about the smaller table and converting inches to centimetres or half inches. I wonder if starting out now, whether they would travel a different road, but to an extent, they find themselves where they are and are probably surprised that they have so successfully attracted the ‘small table’ gamer.

For terrain. I think 10mm buildings look good on one of these battlefields and I would draw your attention to Battlescale, who do very good resins.

I don’t hold with the view that this is a good ‘entry’ point for a new period to explore it. The investment in army building is mainly behind painting time. Once you are are in, you are in and it is pointless to get this set in the knowledge that you are getting this set to try it and then move on to another scale of preferred choice, I think you are signing up to this as your main attempt at the period.

One good thing … (look away now the Painting Police) your painting investment can be zero. The armies come in different colours and and you can use them in their raw plastic state (yes, you really can!). I prefer painted and so my goal will be to paint, but along the way, to explore rules and the period etc, I start off with my armies all based on the official plastic bases with temporary glue and game with them that way, while a unit is always ‘away’ on painting sticks and then getting rotated back into the game when done. It gives me the best of both worlds - it is a problem to spend ages just painting without getting a game -  that can be a real project killer.

The plastic material is robust and light and pretty much wargamer proof. They are using their Siocast (resin) for specialist figures such as commander packs that you buy separately. Siocast does have its issues, however, WG have just announced a new formula which is meant to be better. I must say, I have all of the Napoleonic command packs, done in the original siocast and they are excellent.

Anyway, I hope some of this helps. In brief, they are good figures. The propriety scale is not such an issue and onward support is pretty good and many gamers just want core armies anyway, wave 2 for ECW is already being talked about, a bigger issue might be whether 60mm base frontages suit you. Budget is a big thing, so getting so many figures for this price and having ’out of the box’ armies might be a decision point. There is good detail, but detail might demand painting it, depending upon how you go about such things.

For napoleonics, I am using the free Valour & Fortitude rules on the Perry website, so you are not locked in to WG rules, BUT, if you don’t want their rules or building (I prefer a smaller scale building), then it may be more cost effective to not go for the main starter set but instead buy the small boxes, but you would need 4 of them (for ECW) to get going and would likely want more, so the starter is more cost effective in the longer run.

It might sound here like I am a huge Epic fan, that is not true, I am at present in my own quandry of what scale of figure to go for, as i would like all my collections, especially terrain to be streamlined down to one scale, so at the moment, for my napoleonics for example I am testing Epic, 20mm and 28mm and disappointingly :-) they all have their strengths - not an easy choice for me, but others who are more decisive may think that is a strange thing. It is quite possible that I will not proceed with Epic and will sell it off if I come to a different scale conclusion.

Of course, if I decide to stay with the smaller scale, then I will be quite happy with Epic armies for whatever periods they produce and going with Victrix / Pendraken for my WWII 10mm / 12mm, with all terrain at the 10mm scale.

Hopefully because I am trying to make choices myself, you will find my comments above fair rather than biased - good luck with whatever you choose.

[TheBlackCrane]

Thanks all, appreciate the considered views - though I am still torn!

Hadn't really appreciated the notion of it being epic scale as designed for normal 28mm space (although it makes sense now I think about it) - although sure could reduce the size of the bases/units, and I'm not sure I'd necessarily be using the BP rules anyway.

One of the draws for the scale for me is also is the terrain - including the Battlescale buildings mentioned. But, I've been painting some sample figures from Pendraken's League of Augsberg range with half a mind to doing the Monmouth Rebellion in 10mm, using 40mm square bases, so that kind of chimes with ECW too.

Must admit, there is a certain draw from getting starter armies in a box - not least because I like building armies from scratch but I usually get distracted before I finish 'enough', so with getting forces on the tabletop in mind it has its advantages.

Think it will be worth more of a muse, but this has given me things to consider, thanks!