"Success of Warlord Epic scale ranges?" Topic

Lately I have thought about the "Rebellion" range for AWI in Warlord's Epic Black Powder line, and it has me wondering what the overall success of this line has been. Warlord has put out the Waterloo Napoleonic range, an ACW range, the ECW range, the Punic Wars range, and now AWI.

My question is partially a "what is next?" question, but really I am simply curious whether people believe (or know) whether the sales and use of these ranges is relatively successful or not. (Or, the years from now, will people be discussing on forums topics like "Remember that whole Epic line, whatever happened to that?"

As an anecdote, while the game interests me greatly, the cost is just too high for my budget.

I've often wondered the same thing as they seemingly hop back and forth between eras with no hint if some of them will be expanded or not. The sales must have been good to develop several ranges, but I continue to question how many boxed sets actually get painted. You'll see a few postings here and there on various forums of painted armies and some actual battles on the tabletop, but not as many as one would think. IF I had to take a guess, their marketing campaign isn't necessarily geared towards existing historical gamers, but trying to draw in fantasy and sci-fi gamers along with those who might want to dabble in a new period. The boxed sets look enticing, especially with all the figures in them, but then reality sets in when you have to start painting them!

Haven't seen in play yet. I view it as a form of travel wargame… a suitcase version but going 10mm or so in scale stops the use of collected 15mm without rules adaptions.

I have looked at them longingly, but the scale doesn't appeal to me. Too big for 10mm, too small for 15mm. I get the appeal of a ‘mostly' in one box for a period I don't have miniatures for, but typically I prefer 28mm for skirmish and 10mm for large games.

Did they do a Samurai period yet? Seems like a good fit and for some reason I thought they did. I am frankly surprised they haven't done a World War Two set, though I get that would compete with Bolt Action and they likely don't want a sales competition there. World War One would make a lot of sense for this line. You could even add a couple of aircraft.

I would love a Russo Japanese War set, but doubt they'd go for it.

Similar in size to older minifig 15mm

Don't forget Crimean and other eras

(Assuming financial viability of Epic overall) I would think future expansions will focus on ancient/medieval eras, to complement their significant investment in Hail Caesar 28mm line. Any period they have a big 28mm footprint is a leading candidate for an Epic range.

I imagine Greeks, Persians, and Macedonians will come soon; arguably these would have been a better first release than the Punic Wars. Imperial Romans with barbarians and Parthians at some point. For medieval, presumably in some order a 1066 range, a Crusades range, and an Agincourt or else War of the Roses range. I bet at least two of these being produced before anything else post 1600. I would be stunned to see Crimean or WW1 before a couple more ancients/medieval ranges, and the best argument for SYW or WSS is that it would be easy for them to sculpt these two ranges by modifying from the AWI figures.

I think they have to be meeting sales targets overall, or they'd have quit by now. But you can probably measure the success of individual periods by the number of follow-up or supplemental boxes.

The whole project is part of my evidence for "dark wargaming" in the sense of physicists' "dark matter." Too much stuff appears to be a commercial success in that companies continue over a period of years to expand lines while I can't find players using it in major conventions or local game shops. My tentative hypothesis is that there are many small clusters of gamers, probably of a similar age who know each other from somewhere else--work, school, church--and have very little contact with the wider miniature wargaming world. It's subsidiary to my larger contention that there are about a million board and miniature wargamers on the planet.

Wargames Atlantic are doing similar with Samurai and Agincourt.

This size and style of figure presentation seems to be popular. Figures in strips are not new though. I can think of a number of companies offering them in various scales. Of course they are a bit like marmite. Some gamers love them, others hate them. I love them for ease of painting.

My thought is that SYW or WSS should be considered.

I recently purchased the rules for Punic War, Pike and Shotte, and Revolution, but I plan on using 18mm miniatures instead of the Epic Range. I don't like how close they are to eachother so I opted for other options.

I will say I have been tempted to reneg on this decision specifically for Pike and Shotte since apparently the Warlord Epic range matches well with Peter Pig and Steelfist. Decisions, decisions…

@robert piepenbrink—That is a very interesting subject, and one difficult to prove or disprove, but I agree that it makes you scratch your head when sales or companies continue to exist when you never see people playing them in the usual places.

One piece of evidence for your theory is that Games Workshop periodically reminds investors/public that the majority of their models are sold to collectors who do not play the games/rules. You would think the same could be true, sort of how so many of us wargamed with historical miniatures in the early days, that tons of people have historical collections of varying sizes that they buy, partially assemble and paint, and don't pursue historical gaming with others as an activity. And how many Warhammer, etc., players have a pile of historical plastics or lead that is just for their own amusement at home? Maybe a lot more than we think. There is no way that all of these expensive historical plastic kits could be produced if the only people buying them are current historical wargamers.

I have seen the Epic ranges on the table, and they do have the mass effect of say 6mm for large battles. The double ranked figures work well for linear warfare. Our group used the ACW Epic range with Fire & Fury rules and the games looked great. Now there are also some 3d printed ranges designed to complement the Epic ranges. I have seen the ECW range used at Historicon to demo a different set of rules as well. I also find the scale easier on the eyes to paint than 6mm.

Robert, my group is one of those clusters you're talking about. We are pretty much self contained and don't interact with other gamers. Not because we don't want to but mostly because the hobby shop we used to hang out at closed about 15 years ago. We used to meet a lot of like minded people there and a couple of our current group is guys we met there. I have a pretty elaborate setup in my basement but beyond a few pictures I post on various forums it never sees the light of day.

@Tgerritsen – Warlord might not do Epic Samurai but have you seen the Grand battle Scale Samurai from Wargames Atlantic?
link

BTW Epic TYW/ECW are used in Jan Karman's forthcoming demo game at Salute (Stralsund) as featured in Wargames illustrated.

I do wonder if part of their success is because 15mm is increasingly scarce and largely unknown to the newer generations of gamers?

FWIW, I have no interest in the Warlord rules, but I certainly am tempted by the Punic Wars and Pike & shot figures.

I would love to see the Zulu wars covered in this range. That would be an instant buy for me

You know BrockLanders, I may be a borderline case myself. Not a lot of my old group still alive and healthy enough to be convention-goers, and we never played in shops. I'm the only one who comes up on Internet sites, and I get drafted to help with casting disposal because the others are even more socially isolated in miniature warfare terms. A new wargamer in northern Indiana/southern Michigan would be hard-pressed to find us.

Not sure they'd want to, of course.

BillyNM, yeah, the Atlantic stuff looks great!

My clients refuse to buy epic 10mm flats. Even though the Worlds of Fun series look good imho.
However I sale the 3D 10mm like Wargames Atlantic fine.

I looked at the Epic figures for a TYW project I wanted to do. I was between 15mm and 10mm. The Epic figures were close in size,to the freikorps15 I had, nice figures with good details.

If you're someone who wants the complete project in one box it seems a good way to go but easy too get dragged into more figures than you need. FPW would surely suck me in.

I went with Pendraken 10mm as it gave me the look I wanted. Yes, I now have more figures than I need😀

As someone who has criticized the Epic ranges in the past, I have to confess that I now have hundreds of them. My criticisms were largely related to the odd scale, incompatibility with my existing 10mm and 15mm, the narrow offering of nations and the inflexibility of the 60mm strips for my favourite period of Napoleonics.
I was drawn in by a "freebie" sprue of Celtic warriors, which some of my club-mates soon added to. They are for a period (Punic Wars) that I did not have figures for, but I do have a couple of favourite sets of rules. Using large bases, the 60 mm strips are no longer an issue and I am looking forward to gaming with them.

Truly appreciate the epic models. Especially for commands and colors

link

Steamingdave2,
The World of Fun flats look good and has a lot of minor counties in &20 box sets .
A lot of wars Ancients and colonials.