"Slight historical issue with Epic Scale flag bearers" Topic

Finally got to the point where I'm ready to put some flags on the infantry stands that I have done for ACW Epic scale.

However I immediately noticed something that kind of irked me. Not a huge deal, but still one that I think some of you will definitely feel is important enough to remedy.

Warlord did a good job overall with the multi-basing strips. It's a great way to assemble quickly and paint in an assembly line way. The actual equipment that the soldiers are carrying is kind of bizarre and janky, definitely not correctly portrayed Civil War infantry gear, wildly inconsistent and placed very oddly. But at that scale it's small enough to blend in pretty much and still give a nice overall effect.

But with Warlord going totally generic with using the same exact sprues for both the Union and Confederates, there is a flag issue.

Warlord either didn't know, (or did know but couldn't be bothered with it) that many confederate regiments only carried ONE flag into battle with them. As opposed to Union regiments who generally always carried both a national flag and state flag.

From my own gathered knowledge and reference material I've accumulated over the years, as many of you already know as well, is that SOME confederate regiments DID indeed carry two flags into battle. But it certainly was not the norm as it was in Union regiments.

Unless I'm way off base – is it not correct that the majority if not the vast majority of confederate regiments carried only one flag?

Warlord's generic command sprues assume that everybody on both sides carried two flags. And I'm seeing lots and lots of Youtube hobby progress videos where modelers are just going along with it and putting two flags on every Confederate regiment. Most likely not knowing about the historical discrepancy.

What I'm going to do with my Confederate command stands is I will be cutting off one of the flag poles and converting that soldier into a musket-wielding soldier and then just use the remaining flag pole for the single flag.

Thoughts and comments?

Yes, that's what I would do. It should be an easy conversion.

Going with history is the right thing to do. My favorite Rebs,the 1st Texas, was a two flag unit.

You are exactly correct – while some units like the "Ragged Old First" carried two flags, most Confederate units only carried one – for my 15mm ACW units, essentially all of my Confederate infantry are one flag units

I've been converting some of mine – split the flag bearing stand and base the half with the drum, officer and one flag on one stand and place the mounted officer with the other flag on a second stand. Split a regular stand to fill in the ranks. Okay – I'm down a drummer but I get more command stands, some using those excess mounted officers, to allow the fielding of a larger number of smaller units.

I believe flag dimensions were different to unless my meds are acting up.

I think it is simply a production and packaging issue that they are leaving up to the buyer to figure out (if the buyer is even aware of the issue).

Thanks for the feedback guys, much appreciated!

Just to respond to one comment above by JSchutt . Yes indeed, the flags that Warlord provides are way too small. In fact looking at them now I would say they might even be 6mm, perhaps 10mm. But they sure as heck aren't anything close to 13.5 or 15mm scale.

Simple truth is they are waaaaay too small for the 13.5mm miniatures in the box.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I really don't want to invest any more money into this particular game than I already have and buy a whole bunch of new sets of 15mm flags. Although to be fair buying sets of 15mm flags wouldn't be all that expensive. GMB Designs sells 15mm flags in sets of 3 per package for a pretty reasonable price.

I might just end up using the flags that came with the game, despite them being too small.

But make no mistake. They are dreadfully undersized for Warlord's Epic scale. I was extremely disappointed to discover this when I first opened the box back in January.

Barnovich…yes you are correct.

1st Texas is the most well known for carrying two flags.
They carried their state colors,(also known as "The Wigfall Flag"), as well as a the "Cotton Issue" Bunting Confederate Battle Flag, (both lost in the cornfield at Sharpsburg).

Similar to the above, I've been splitting the command stands so that my Confederates have one flag per unit.

I'll also found that Signifier 15mm flags look right on the figures.

@skedaddle,

Thanks for the tip about Signifier flags. At the moment I didn't have any additional money to invest in buying flags so I found some free samples I was able to print out and resize.

I'm glad you mentioned that 15mm scale flags work with Epic Scale.

I tried to explain in two other posts about how the flags that Warlord provides in the starter box set are ridiculously too small for the models.

I got a lot of pushback and also some historical references that there is some discrepancy on how big Union infantry colors actually were.

Well, that's all fine and dandy! Nobody is saying there weren't variations between flag makers and therefore there may have been some size differences from the exact regulations of 6 ft. x 6.5 ft.

But that entirely misses my point. I've seen original flags in museums as well as original photo of Union soldiers holding infantry flags. None of them are as small as Warlord's flags. They are the wrong scale.

Check these guys out:

Sorry for the thread necromancy, but I'm going with two flags. I understand it's not historical, but I have two reasons: 1. I like the colors, and, 2. it helps me keep track of the different state troops.

Yes, the Union flags were big. We reenactors have to get some fairly strong guys to be our color bearers because trying to keep these things under control in a strong wind isn't easy!