Epic Battles- Wishlisting

 


I recently picked up this month's copy of Wargames Illustrated, which came with a free cavalry sprue from the soon to be released Epic Battles: Waterloo from Warlord Games. The idea of having smaller scale miniatures in plastic is something I'm very much a fan of- and hoping will do well so that Warlord will continue to expand on the range.

The French Heavy Cavalry

In regards to the miniatures themselves, I think that they look really good in the flesh. Scale wise- they're meant to be 12.5mm or 13mm- the information on this seems quite contentious with some, saying that Warlord are attempting to create a new scale. When I compared them with a Battlefront miniature (15mm scale) there wasn't a noticeable difference. The main difference is going to be that these come in strips rather than single miniatures. Admittedly, they don't have quite as much detail that a metal miniature does at this scale- and they do have identical poses, but I think that the positives outweigh the negatives. They still hold fantastic detail- and for the cost and ease of working with plastic as a material (in my opinion) I would really like a collection. The issue then is that I'm not massively interested in the two ranges so far (American Civil War and Napoleonic)- though I have been tempted by the Waterloo range. 

Size comparison- really not so different to 15mm?

What next: Wishlisting ideas

Interviews from Warlord Games seem to strongly suggest that they are intending to expand the range into more historical periods. This is all provided that the range is doing well- but judging from what I have seen, it appears that it is selling well- certainly well enough that they are going almost fully plastic with the Waterloo range.

This got me thinking about what might be a good range in one of my favourite historical wargaming periods- Ancients. To follow with the current strategy (rather than wishlisting for absolutely anything) it needs a clear battle/conflict to focus the range around, rather than a range for the entire period. To me, one war stands out as having plenty of interesting battles, famous commanders and would be reasonably varied whilst having an interesting range of troops.

Epic Battles: Zama

Zama, and the Second Punic War, would be ideal for the range in my opinion. You would get to pit Hannibal against Scipio, and have the Republican Roman army face the Carthaginians and Mercenaries, as well as the big sellers: Elephants. 
The other advantage to this would be to make the remainder of the Second Punic War very easy to recreate- only a few other types of troop would be needed, and could easily be applied to the other Punic Wars too.

Now, I'm not an expert, and have no experience in model making- but based on the plastic sprues Warlord have made for their other games, these don't seem out of the question. By my workings, you could get both armies out of 4 sprues.
The Roman Sprues

With no need to form squares, there is no need to have 4 bases in a unit- so returning to the roots of Hail Caesar's origins in Warmaster, I would go back to 3 bases in a Unit. 
The warlord boxes come with 3 sprues. So the Infantry box would have 2 units of Velites, 2 units of Hastati, 1 unit of Principes and 1 unit of Triarii- allowing for the famous Roman formation of the period- the three lines. For the cavalry, the Romans would have 2 units of Numidian allies, 1 unit of Italian Allies and 1 unit of Equites. The Numidians had changed sides by the time of the Battle of Zuma, but these could quite easily be used with the Carthaginians for some of Hannibal's earlier battles.
The Carthaginian Sprues

Hannibal also formed 3 lines at Zama, so the infantry would be a mirroring of the Roman forces. 2 units of slingers/archers (or 1 unit of each), 2 units of Citizen Levies that Carthage raised to fight the Romans, 1 unit of Gallic mercenaries and 1 Unit of Hannibal's Veterans- some of the most experienced soldiers in the entirety of the ancient world.
The cavalry sprue would of course have to contain the Elephants which Hannibal is so famous for (though not the same Elephants as those at Zama). Though I don't know if the plastic sprue would be able to contain an Elephant- I don't see why it would be impossible. They certainly found a way to make the cannons on the Waterloo Sprues, so having an elephant in 2 halves might be doable. There would then be a single unit of Gallic Cavalry, Light Cavalry (skirmishers) and African Cavalry (Hannibal had less cavalry than the Romans at Zama, so fewer units shouldn't be an issue).


Whether anything for Hail Caesar makes its way into the Epic range remains to be seen- and it's unlikely to be Zama if I'm being honest (I expect it will be more likely Caesarian Romans based on Warlords 28mm range). Whatever it is though, I'm hoping they do move into Ancients for their Epic range- I think that the period and scale are perfectly matched, and would look forward to being able to get some of the miniatures if (or when) they release.


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