"Warlord P&S Epic Battles" Topic

Another P&S Epic preview? Sort of, I do compare them to the smaller 15mm figures that are currently available. I have also tested pikes to destruction and seen if it's feasible to replace pikes with wire ones. link

Fantastic article and information!

Peter Pig figs look so close in size and sculpting – close to a 'shoe-in' if needed.

TY for taking the time to prepare this article, and then linking it here for the membership.

Very nice review. Thanks for that!

Nice review. looks like the Chariot line from Magister Militum would match up well.

Thanks all.

Unfortunately so much of Chariot line (Magister Militum) isn't suitable for the 1640s, clothing is very much appropriate for the 1670s+

(Not just a minimal difference, a major difference in clothing style)

There are a few goodies tucked away in the range, my favourite is dismounted dragoons firing

Many thanks, invaluable resource as always!

Until the sprues started doing the rounds I thought these might be made in the Warlord Resin stuff. Looks like that is the preserve of Bolt Action ranges for now.

Nice post.

PP is considered a good supplement for their ACW range, so it is not surprising that they fit here as well.

I appreciate the appreciation. If I didn't already have 1000's of other "15s" These would be an economical place to start.

Thanks again. I know what you mean S'nasty. A very good price point for a lot of pretty good toys. If you have certain must haves on your shopping list there are plenty of other manufacturers around who may make what you want. I think my armies could happily take the field against Epic without the very slight difference in size being particularly noticeable. But more importantly if it gets more interest in the period I love so much even better – and who knows it might drive production of new scenery and a few of the more esoteric figures that we don't actually need but can't live without

I found several of the buildings on offer to be most interesting.

That's one of my big hopes are new buildings. Size is a big issue as most of my buildings are Hovels and TBM which are 15mm proportioned but with a reduced footprint. So finding stuff that marries up style wise might be difficult.

The Epic buildings look good, but are a bit too square and neat. MDF building kits are great but lack the character of resin – sagging rooves, slightly twisted timber frames, the general 'almost squareness' of early modern buildings.

As there is a small market of Epic compatible 3D printed terrain available on places such as Etsy I have high hopes that some enterprising creators produce some characterful buildings

Interesting, for some reason I thought Epic were much smaller than 15mm.

How do you think they would do with mid-sized '15mm' eg Essex, Minifigs, Matchlock etc?

In a nutshell: I don't think they will work.

Matchlock vary in size, some are true 15mm in height but will be very very well fed in comparison

Minifigs vary in height too. The artillery crew will be a better size and might work.

Essex? Too tall, very stylised poses which will look very out of place next to the poses of the strips.

First choice: Steel Fist and Magister Militum (Naismith too if you can get hold of them)
Second choice: Peter Pig

Great article mate .

Having just got some Steel Fist Commanders , I can concur that they size up well . I compared them to a French Napoleaonic Cavalry Sprue and they matched up perfectly .

Steel Fist miniatures which are very nice sculpts in my opinion can be handy for customising your units and adding different posed commanders .I do like the Earl Of Manchester scuplt in their range which will not be in the Warlord range going off the videos I have seen

@Keepyourpowderdry.

When you say Magister Militum ,are you referring to the ECW line or the former Chariot miniatures later 1600s range?

I am looking for models to represent Cromwells Ironsides and there are some in the Magister Militum ECW range, I have taken a fancy too if they match sizewise.

MM ECW range.

When you say 'ironsides' do you mean harquebusiers? The Epic cavalry in English three bar pot are just fine for Cromwell's cavalry

Yes .I have been looking for cavalry models helmeted with armoured Cuirass to represent Cromwells cavalry . The standard Warlord cavalry dont quite do it for me for that unit .They may bring this type of cavalry out in the future but I am not a fan of that flexible "super" cast type resin .

I am looking at LAC9 in the MM range .

I am also looking at the Dragoon Horse Holders and whilst not necessary for the game ,I think will look good on the gaming board

I have had second thoughts over MM LAC9 . I wanted a more dynamic type unit and may opt for Steeled Fist set ECWH04 strengthened with a few Warlord models.

MMLAC9 are the wrong period, coats are too long to be 1640s. Warlords harquebusiers are good, but if they don't do it for you they don't do it for you…
ECWH04 are fine.

Dragoons – depends how you want to represent them. How I've done mine link

Thanks and thanks for the link .You have given me some ideas to think about .

Careful mysteron, I think you are talking yourself into building armies using Steel Fist figures rather than Epic :-)

I've ordered a couple of boxes to see what the fuss is about.

I had a stab at painting them, quite a different experience to painting my usual figures link

@Keepyourpowderdry

Yes I do like Steel Fist very much . Just got a delivery of cavalry . I think I will keep the Steel Fist in their own Units as there will be some slight sizing differences. The detail on these figures is quite remarkable bearing in mind the size .

A new period for me as I am very much a WW2 and Cold War gamer in 12mm . and so I have quite a lot to learn .

There are a couple of Ex Sealed Knot Veterans in our club and I am getting a lot of encouragement and reading material .Of course they are collecting armies too . At the moment they are collecting Royalist and me Parliamentarian. In the future I intend doing a royalist force as well .

Mysteron if you have any questions that I can help with, please ask away. Although you may regret it as I do go on at times. Hopefully you have discovered my researched paint palette and referenced clothing issue colours on the blog?

Thanks mate and your blog is excellent .

One question though . Lord Fairfaxes Lifeguard Cavalry. Would you paint these in "standard colours" or go for a red to make them stand out ?

If you mean Lord Ferdinando 's Lifeguard I could be tempted to throw a few cuirassiers into the mix. If you mean Lord General, Sir Thomas I'd go for archetypal harquebusiers in buff and chest plates.

In other words we don't know: no known coat issues to either unit other than buff coats and sleeves.

So you can do whatever you want

Okay .Thanks mate . :)

@Keepyourpowderdry.

Another question mate if you will and it will be helpful to others when it comes to allocating flags to their units .

I dont think it matters if its Parliamentarian or Royalist but my force will be parliamentarian should it make a difference.

On the field ( wargames board) I would want to brigade 3 regiments of Foote together .
I choose my 3 regiments and I am now looking for a Brigade Commander to place beside them
Will he be appointed from one of the 3 regiments ie a Colonel?. If so his colours will also go with him rather than staying with his regiment is this correct ? The flag of the Colonel as I understand it will be a plain field coloured flag ie just red for a red regiment and therefore a flag with the red cross of StGeorge will be now show for the senior company with the Leutenant Colonel and the Major's flag thereafter .( I am going on the Warlord organisation here of 2 Ensigns per Foote regiment . Am I near here with my new learned understanding ?
Thanks Buddy :)

Mysteron,

I'm not going into details as KYPD will have a bucket load of those on offer but just to say forget the "Warlord organisation here of 2 Ensigns per Foote regiment" bit. Its there for show.

I have know idea to what extent it was adhered to but what's left of my memory cells seem to recall there could be three times that number of flags per unit (7 in all I think).

Colonel, Lieutenant Col, Major and four Captains.

Like I said KYPD will no doubt have an idea on the likely hood of this in use. Its a lot of cloth and sewing for smaller patrons to consider!

@ Trajanus- Thanks mate . My main question really surrounds the Brigade Commander as I want to place an appropriate flag with him .

Your right. Each company would have had a flag and there are 10 of those approx per regiment . Its just my thing that I want to use the most senior flags for the 2 Ensigns on the models within the modelled regiment if that makes sense :)

Trajanus is right, the 2 ensigns thing on the Epic command strip is just because the design team thought it would look nice. It's a pastiche, have a look at the beautiful 28mm RoF on Big Red Bat's For King and Parliament blog. It's artistic interpretation, he's gone for lots of flags whereas I have just gone for one. No right, no wrong answer. It is not like Napoleonic British Regiments that always (in theory) have a King's colour and a regimental colour present.

A company would have 1 flag (theoretically 100 men). At Marston Moor the regiments in the field seem to be about 600 men strong – theoretically 6 companies so 6 flags. If that 600 figure is made up of understrength companies there might be more. 14 flags from one RoF were captured att Marston Moor (which are believed to be Newcastle's).

I picked flags that I thought would look good and a bit different. The last RoF I painted was the LTB yellow auxiliaries because I liked the flag.

Would a brigade commander take his flag? Maybe, maybe not. Depends if his company is present – those senior officers with a RoF, and a RoH would delegate their company command to a captain lieutenant.

Brigades are a bit complicated as the documented examples don't necessarily fit the theoretically way they were supposed to be. Edgehill is closest to being 'correct': brigade commanders have their RoF present, so we can presume that their colonel's colours were present.

The Scots at Marston Moor -their brigade commanders appear to be random noblemen with the rank of general.

My advice – pick what you fancy. The variety of designs available within a RoF is great – pick whatever you think looks good. If I had gone for more than one flag I'd probably have gone for one of the senior companies and one of the captains' companies.

Did commanders have flags (in the style of Wars of the Roses commanders)? No real evidence for it other than Charles and Rupert both having banners. Rupert's was captured at Edgehill (I think).

Of course that hasn't stopped me giving my senior command flags – I've given them cavalry cornets.

Thinking about how Warlord have designed their packs I can see your train of thought. Do whatever makes you happy 😊

Thanks buddy again :)

29th April I am hearing as the release date. I was advised this by my local Warlord stockist. I suspect those who preordered could get your items before this date

Whilst I have ordered a Cavalry Wing from Warlord ,my starter set , may have to wait a little longer as I have ordered this from my local Wargames Store . In the UK in particular ,it is important to support your local store as many shops along with pubs are disappearing from the High Street . If you dont use it you will lose it as the saying goes .

So for infantry to get me going, I have ordered 4 editions of the next Wargames Illustrated again from my local wargames store ,which comes out at the beginning of April. At just under £6.00 GBP each could be a cheap way to start ,if you are not using the bases . I am using MDF bases and have these in readiness .

Mysto Old Mate, you are having a laugh!

"Local Wargames Store"? I haven't seen one of those for three decades at least!

You have been playing in the Tardis again, haven't you?

The Doctor won't be pleased!

Although really excited about this release, I've waited to see if my local store (a brick and mortar outlet for the Miniature Market mail order business based here in the Midwest USA) would be stocking these Epic sets. After two weeks of correspondence from the M-Markets customer service rep charged with my "ticket", she ultimately got back to me with a "regretfully not at this time" notification.

That's a disappointment, but this is impactful for hopes of seeing potential interest with my initial plans – if there isn't something on the shelf to reinforce local availability, I'll probably, realistically be looking at doing this as another solo project "for the cause".

Mysteron in the UK, seems to be doing what he can for his Epic cause, but such hobby difficulties seem compounded for us Colonials over here.

Warlord has done a terrific job of making these epic historical periods accessible with their battlefields in a box concept, couldn't be made much easier (but historicals haven't been that easy to sell as casual gaming fun).

@Trajanus . I know I am lucky in having a wargames store in less than 20 mins walk for me . Thats why I always try to order through my store first before going to Online buying.

20 minutes!

You may as well move in! 🤣

I have been wondering a little more about company colours and how they were positioned within the pike block. I've done a little digging and found that there was an order to how they were positioned.

Colonel Rainsborough's RoF (NMA) paraded through London on 7th August 1647, and their flag formation was recorded in Elton's The Compleat Body of the Art Military.

Hang on KYPD,

Was that in March, or when deployed? If Marching in what direction?

When deployed in Dutch fashion, as was the way during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Flags are arrayed at the front of the formation

That's interesting.

If I'm reading it correctly, it looks to obey deployment laws of Seniority that applied way before the period, right up until armies stopped fighting in lines.

So reading left to right in Seniority 2 4 5 3 1 ? Or have I got that totally wrong?

Seniority of company flags l-r

2,6,10,7,3,4,8,9,5,1

OK, That makes sense. I must confess I was thinking more in terms of the position of the pike blocks rather than the flags which I was just using as a guide in that regard.

I've always found it interesting and puzzling, how the designation of companies continued on into the British army organisation, with the Colonel, Lt Colonel, Major and various Captains right through the 18th – 19th Century. To the point where use and terminology became almost impenetrable.

The ECW seems to have been the start of it all.

Hi KYPD, mind if I nick that pic for the BCW wiki?

All the best
Tim

Hi Tim, do you want the full image with the wings of musketeers?

Sounds great if you have it :-)

Tim – will email it to you later today. Interestingly it also shows positions of officers.