"Warlord Epic Napoleonics" Topic

Hello all. I'm just becoming interested in the Napoleonic era and I know this is just shy of peering into the Grand Canyon while suffering vertigo!

What I'd like to know is, what can a person play with a starter British or French starter set from Warlord? Everything I search of seems to talk about "Epic Battles: Waterloo". Well, what about Epic Battles: Montenotte?!

In other words, can a sap like me purchase a couple of starter sets and actually field enough units to fight a historical battle? Are there historical scenarios in the starter sets?

And exactly how many units would one have to have to fight Waterloo!?

I'd worry less about having to do a historical engagement and just put on an engaging scenario.

It looks like there are 5 fairy large scenarios included in the set that comes with the starter boxes.

However, The Hundred Days book has 18 scenarios, some of them small.

You CAN play historic scenarios with a few units, but they aren't going to be Waterloo or Borodino. You can play part of a larger battle, such as the attack on Plancenoit at Waterloo, or find smaller actions from history.

And of course you can play generic scenarios to learn the game while building your army.

Lots of choices. Enjoy!

P.S. Visit the Warlord forum to find out more.

link

I have Epic Pike & Shotte, but it seems like a good way to get into Napoleonics. BTW, I love your comparison to the Grand Canyon! Right on mark, there!

You are also not obligated to use the bases if there is a different set of rules that you want to use.

Welcome to Napoleonics! There are historical battles of any size you want, and often part of a battle can be done separately. The trick is not to wind up with a scenario decided by one or two die rolls: the fewer the units you maneuver, the more robust the units need to be--changing formations and taking casualties. I'd also advise only going down to engagements with a single troop type when testing rule mechanisms. Most of the time you want both armies to have horse, foot and guns.

From the descriptions of the boxes, you'll have plenty of units. I'd say your biggest problem will be that you'll want British allies at some point. But I'm sure Warlord is working on it.

Come back with more questions as you go on. There are people here who can tell you more about the Napoleonic Wars than you will ever want to know. But we mean well.
Good luck

It comes down to how many figures you choose to use per unit, and what level of unit to depict. The Warlord boxes are evidently geared to 80 figures per line infantry unit or 20 per cavalry unit, but units could be battalions, regiments, brigades or divisions.

I think Warlord's assumption is regiments (or British infantry brigades) for Black Powder, in the neighborhood of 1:25.

What the ratio actually is when it comes to games is up to you.

The French or British box is a lot more than would be needed — assuming not being picky about representing relatively minor types — to field the respective force at Waterloo with brigade-sized units in the standard of De Bellis Napoleonicis, but people playing Blucher or Volley & Bayonet might commonly use more (on bases with 5-6 times the area).

Absolute Emperor I gather assumes division sized units, while Shako includes a formalism for going to that high level from its ordinarily lower battalion unit level.

At a division-unit level, Waterloo is something like 10 divisions in Wellington's army, 8 Prussian brigades (equivalent to divisions) in Blucher's, 16 divisions in Napoleon's. The artillery explicitly depicted at that level would probably be only corps heavy and horse.

Et Sans Resultat! gives base sizes for different ground scales, from 50 yards per inch to 200 yards per inch. The official line of ca. 10mm models from The Wargaming Company packages those in boxed sets geared to 1" = 150 yards, with a square base 30mm per side for each infantry battalion, artillery battery (apart from limbers 3 times as deep) or cavalry "squadron group" (I think typically 2-3 squadrons).

I reckon one of those Warlord boxes used with the same depiction — which is not particular as to number of models per base — would give an army of several corps, but I haven't worked out more specifics. Higher-level organizations — the formations (actual maneuver units in the game) made up of unit bases, and each player's force or command made up of formations — can vary.

Age of Eagles (Napoleonic spin-off from Fire & Fury) and venerable Napoleon's Battles are geared to players who want to put a lot of models on the table; In the Grandest Manner is even more so!

Other published rules sets are more suitable for people with smaller collections (and smaller tables, especially with bigger figures).

The example given above of number of divisions at Waterloo shows that one can model even very big battles on a modestly sized table with an appropriate level of abstraction and ground scale. If the latter is ca. 1:8000 or 8" = 1 mile, four feet on the table corresponds to six miles on the battlefield.

With figures smaller than 15s, one can of course fit more into the same area. Instead of packing them in to fill the space, it may be desirable to take a diorama approach that shows units in lines or columns with spaces between them, evoking actual arrangement within a brigade for a more realistic "bird's eye" view.

Since you're just starting out, you don't have a sunk-cost commitment to collecting a particular size or make of figures.

(Having not only hundreds already painted, but hundreds more awaiting paint, might amplify the weight of such an investment.)

Before buying figures, it's advisable first to consider what kinds of games you want to play, and what rules set(s) you want to use. Those factors — along with budgets of space, time and money — will inform plans for collecting figures.

I think it tends to be a false economy to go cheap instead of beautiful, but different people have different criteria for the latter! (Not that price should not weigh on the scale, but the look and feel one prefers ought to weigh enough not to make a lower price automatically decisive.)

Unless one's got enough money to hire a painter, a choice that's a poor fit can leave one uninspired to get that job done. An excellent fit can make one eager to put in the work.

WOW, everyone! You have truly blessed me with fantastic information, more than answering my original questions and beyond. THANK YOU! What a warm welcome to Napoleonics! I'll be saving (and even printing) this thread for reference.

At this point, the only thing keeping me from diving head first into the Grand Canyon is family: I want to see my son grow up, LOL!

Kidding aside, after spending a year on ACW armies in 10mm, I've taken a lot of time away from him…

ACW is for several reasons arguably the easiest subject with which to enter the hobby! After a year of preparing armies, one ought to have plenty of games ahead with those figures, so perhaps no need for haste in jumping into the vastness of Napoleonics.

Warlord Games evidently have chosen a notably eccentric scale, in between the large end of 10s and the small end of 15s. That may rather limit your options, which is more easily a significant problem in Napoleonics — the more so given the range available if _not_ locked into one vendor's effectively proprietary standard.

Where a larger scale for models becomes really significant is in representation of artillery. You can reach the point that, at a given ground scale, the space a model cannon needs — even without crew figures beside it — is an extraordinarily wide deployment for a single battery.

Many big-battle rules sets assume that one artillery base represents not 6 or 8 cannon, but between 12 and 24. Adjusting representation for an army may call for some lumping and splitting compared with more precise modeling of the historical order of battle.

When it becomes an issue with rules sets that get down to a single battery, I simply accept the wide deployment for the sake of sticking with that precision while fitting a larger battlefield on the table. (If width of beaten zone becomes a serious problem in terms of how the game works, I can limit fire to only a fraction of the base width.)

There are other 'epic' scale figures available from Hoplite Miniatures. They have the rights to manufacture the STL files.

They do Baden, Bavarian, Saxon, Austrian, Russian etc. Now I have not seen them, as my order is still being processed from 19th December, so I cannot advise on how good they are.