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Excited to destroy carthage!

 TalonZahn wrote:
I'll file this under something I didn't know I needed but now really want.

Agreed!

But then, I think I've always know I wanted this...somewhat?

I'd have loved it if it even more if it were about Alexander the Great and his era...

That baggage train and siege engine convinced me I can, in fact, find some funds for this.

Incoming! Hail Caesar Epic Battles: The Punic Wars

Keen-eyed visitors to our stand at Salute and those with an ear to the ground on social media lately will have noticed some Epic developments beginning to issue forth from our Design Studio, and now it’s officially official – the next instalment in the Epic Battles line will be Hail Caesar – more specifically, the Punic Wars fought between the Roman Republic and Carthage from 264 to 146 BC! Let’s have a look at what you can expect from this awesome new range (spoiler alert – you can expect elephants… lots of elephants!).


War elephants sow chaos as they rampage through the Roman ranks.

So, right off the bat, it’s Hail Caesar… gone Epic! At its core, it’s the same great game (written by Rick Priestley, who knows a thing or two about designing wargames!) as its 28mm cousin which recently entered its second edition, just shrunk down to Epic Battles scale. This makes it incredibly simple for veteran Hail Caesar players to jump into this new scale, as the rules will all be familiar (the primary change being movement distances and ranges!), while being an absolute treat to jump right into for new players. With rules designed to make huge battles as fun and easy to manage without sacrificing the feel of the combat, Hail Caesar is ideally suited to Epic Battles, where the smaller models mean much, much bigger armies!

On the subject of big armies, Hail Caesar Epic Battles has been specifically designed with size in mind. The objective is very simple – to make it as easy as we can for you to get really, really big forces on the tabletop, looking awesome, in as little time as possible! Naturally, this means that the Hannibal battle set (more on that in a moment), army boxes, and more are all absolutely jam-packed with fantastic plastic sprues for this very purpose. We’ve taken it a step further than previous Epic Battles releases, however, as we want you to be able to represent the warfare of the period as correctly as possible. That means, for the Romans, tightly-packed formations of Hastati, Triarii, and Principes infantry (those of us who grew up playing Rome: Total War absolutely just experienced an intense auditory memory), which would be an absolute nightmare to achieve with traditional Epic Battles strips – there simply wouldn’t be room between the ranks to get your paintbrush in! To avoid this, our Design Studio sculptors have come up with an innovative new design for the Roman infantry blocks – check them out on a test sprue below, next to the finished example!


Republican Roman Principes

As you can see, there’s no wasted detail, and no awkward cramming of strips onto a base – the three sections of each block fit neatly together, making for easy assembly and quick painting, without any sacrifice of detail or quality – we reckon it’s the perfect solution for representing the massed ranks of the Roman army! For the Carthaginians, and the Gallic, Libyan, Iberian (and more!) mercenaries, who didn’t fight in such serried ranks, the ‘traditional’ Epic Battles style of strips and individual figures works just fine!


Libyan Heavy Infantry


Gallic Celt Infantry


Numidian Cavalry

The Punic Wars is a new period for us, and a fascinating one to wargame. One of the first conflicts between regional superpowers where enough documentation survives to have a really good idea of what happened and how, and one of the most important conflicts in the rise to dominance of Rome, it definitely deserves some special consideration when bringing it to the tabletop – it’s the perfect period for a new Epic Battles game!

The best way to dive into Hail Caesar Epic Battles right away will be with the Hannibal battle set which contains a whacking great force for each side, a rulebook, and another game!


The Hannibal battle set (final design subject to change).

For those generals whose loyalties to either Rome or Carthage cannot be denied, each faction will also launch with its own army box!

Wait, what, another game? Your eyes do not deceive you! Nestled within the Hannibal battle set, you’ll also find a copy of Scipio – this compact, quick-to-learn battle game allows players to recreate the unique ‘manipular’ tactics of the Roman army of the period, and can be played essentially ‘out of the box’ – just clip the miniatures out and put them on the bases! It’s just another way to use these fantastic figures, and is exclusive to the Hannibal battle set.


Carthaginian War Elephants

What’s not exclusive to the battle set are, of course, the elephants! Carthage made good use of elephants in war, with the most famous instance of course being Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps. Joining the fight in all their plastic glory, these multi-part monsters come two to a sprue, with a choice of howdah crew, and are the perfect centrepiece for every Carthaginian army – even in Epic Battles scale, these are big beasties (relative to the scale!), and we’ve all been incredibly excited here at Warlord Games HQ to get our hands on them!


Ambush! Roman forces are pressed back towards treacherous waters as Carthaginian forces break cover and press upon their position.

This is just the beginning – expect to see many more in-depth breakdowns of the new sprues, hobby tips and tricks to get you inspired, and of course plenty of elephant action, over the coming months! Pre-orders are expected to open this May – isn’t it time you addressed the elephant in the room?

https://warlord-community.warlordgames.com/incoming-hail-caesar-epic-battles-the-punic-wars/

There was more talk about the Punic Wars;

> Miniatures are ready

> The Minis, they showed at Salute are actual what we get with the starter Set, except the Characters

> Upcoming Wargames Illustrated Issue with taster Sprues for Romans and Punic/Gauls

> Printed content is still "WIP", Books are at the printing Stage

> Elephants are designed with Hellenistic Armies in mind

> There will be also Buildings in coop with Sarissa


More Epic Battles Project are in the work

> Another Battle of the Napoleonic Wars for BP, which is the next

> Gallic Wars for HC

> No further plans for Epic Battles P&S

Honestly, this looks beautiful

Amazing stuff. Going to hunt down a few copies of Wargames illustrated on release so I can begin testing paint schemes on a few sprues. I can hardly wait for this...

Hmm...

I'm not quite understanding what's going on with the Roman infantry bases. I think I'm going to need to see a video showing assembly and painting (not necessarily in that order).

A "regular" epic battles base is 2 strips of ~10 men fully sculpted out. Every figure is a mostly-complete mini, and if you wanted to split them in the middle you could for the most part barring awkward overhangs.

A "close order" base is a front, middle and rear strip that covers the entire base and looks like 30 men. However, it's really more of a box in the middle that has a front rank, a rear rank and then just a row of heads and spear-tops in the middle except for the sides that have a body on each end to hide the featureless box in the middle. Thus none of the strips features a complete miniature; they're all missing a facing and only together do they present the façade of being 30 miniatures.

Not a big deal if you intended to field them as designed, but decidedly less flexible for those who didn't want a 10-man frontage per base or wanted to switch to a column arrangement versus the "regular" setup.

Great release and looking forward to the figures
Hoping the Macedonians and Successors are next………….thinking a massed Seleucid Army for the battle of Magnesia

You can definitely tell the guiding hand of Rick Priestley in both this game and set (you can take the boy out of GW.. and I mean this as a compliment!): the self-contained starter set with all you need in the box, evocative setting (and good title!), ingeniously modelled and colourful minis etc.

For anyone wanting to get into historical gaming, I don't think you could make it any easier for someone to dip their toe into the water.

What is a bit strange to me. The Libo-Phoenician Hoplite Infantry comes all with Mail Armour instead of Linothorax.

I might get this just to try and tempt some folks into Ancients in my area.

Now the announcement is overshawoed by Bolt Action 3th...

They shoudl show more about EBHCTPW.

Looking forward to carrying this. Those republican romans look like a fun painting project.

Dunno how I feel about the middle ranks just being heads. Looks good in the photos, and certainly will be easier to paint, would like to see some in the flesh though because I think they'd look a bit odd when you can see them in 3D and from multiple angles.

Offcial Podcast about the Game:

https://soundcloud.com/whatsabattlepodcastnetwork/the-warlord-games-podcast-ep-55-hail-caesar-epic-battles-the-punic-wars?si=281144d221d74f99b59c2dcd6eebd399&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0rfVCYq_cQX_wbMaNM-PisvFc87_S5pY8gDOOgy_5o2h_FTgyGnc2D-9U_aem_AdxNkCbU_0piXvVXuVpuP8hZsuAeEMudCZEs6Xu9hFJ-C7wfTo8hz3i2Eo3YWTY9J3ROy9UAXwOYQNwc1_u6a2w5

Any hint about the price point?

https://us.warlordgames.com/collections/hail-caesar-epic-battles

Preorder is up. Prices are…aspirational? (Looks to be about ~70% more than the pike and shotte starter).

Either/Or wrote:
https://us.warlordgames.com/collections/hail-caesar-epic-battles

Preorder is up. Prices are…aspirational? (Looks to be about ~70% more than the pike and shotte starter).

I've always found Warlord Games webstore confusing, especially when I try to compare different boxes and bundles. The big box is expensive but the smaller boxes are priced almost the same as the pike and shotte boxes. It's almost hopeless to try and figure out what box or bundle gives the best price per sprue.

Almost hopeless? There's pretty clear contents and photos with sprue pics with counts of each sprue. The big box has 42 sprues and is £240. £5.70 per sprue, not counting all the other stuff in the box.

The individual boxes are 4 sprues for £31 (you don't get the sprue count but you can infer it from the contents; 4 mounted commanders, 1 per sprue). £7.75 per sprue

Billicus wrote:
Almost hopeless? There's pretty clear contents and photos with sprue pics with counts of each sprue. The big box has 42 sprues and is £240. £5.70 per sprue, not counting all the other stuff in the box.

The individual boxes are 4 sprues for £31 (you don't get the sprue count but you can infer it from the contents; 4 mounted commanders, 1 per sprue). £7.75 per sprue

Their store is awkward to navigate and they are often inconsistent in how they list content-sometimes stands, some time models, sometimes sprues, and sometimes number of dudes on the base. It’s not impossible to figure out the numbers as you said, but why do i have to go through all the pictures and add things up, it seems like number of sprues would be listed in the contents of this and the add on boxes. Their website also freezes often and is poorly designed for navigation, though this could be a browser/iOS issue.

Either/Or wrote:
https://us.warlordgames.com/collections/hail-caesar-epic-battles

Preorder is up. Prices are…aspirational? (Looks to be about ~70% more than the pike and shotte starter).

I picked up a french and a British starter army for about $90 each with free shipping on amazon about 3 months ago. The prices on warlords site for the same things were understandably higher. But the price on these ancients is Cocoa Puffs.

 privateer4hire wrote:

Either/Or wrote:
https://us.warlordgames.com/collections/hail-caesar-epic-battles

Preorder is up. Prices are…aspirational? (Looks to be about ~70% more than the pike and shotte starter).

I picked up a french and a British starter army for about $90 each with free shipping on amazon about 3 months ago. The prices on warlords site for the same things were understandably higher. But the price on these ancients is Cocoa Puffs.

The prices on the Battle Set work out to less than £1 per stand, without counting the rulebook at all. I think that's a pretty great price. It's a large cash sum but it's a huge amount of miniatures.

It's a predictable amount of sticker shock but really not expensive at all if you look at it with a trained eye, imo. That said, there's no reason to see the big box as the only way in, the faction starters are cheaper and if it's anything like Waterloo you get enough for a brigade from one £31 box, you can play a little game with two of those - can't really say that about many miniatures games

Billicus wrote:
It's a predictable amount of sticker shock but really not expensive at all if you look at it with a trained eye, imo. That said, there's no reason to see the big box as the only way in, the faction starters are cheaper and if it's anything like Waterloo you get enough for a brigade from one £31 box, you can play a little game with two of those - can't really say that about many miniatures games

Very true. I don't just yet have a committed opponent, so I need the two armies, but I don't mind. It's a lot of game play to my eye for the cost.

My impression is the previous big boxers were more like typical starter boxes for a miniature game. This big box is similar to the original big box for adeptus Titanicus that was more for the Grognards who knew they were going to heavily invest. Both are fine, but I think warlord would do themselves a favor by being clear how much more stuff this box contains than earlier sets. (~40 sprues vs ~ 20 sprues if my math is right).

Epic Battles ACW kind of got a starter set of the type you describe, but with way less variation in the sculpts in the box. Waterloo didn't, only army boxes. Pike & Shotte has one, it's £150, so a lower sticker price but only 20 sprues with less variety than Hail Caesar and a higher per-sprue price than the Hannibal box.

Billicus wrote:
Epic Battles ACW kind of got a starter set of the type you describe, but with way less variation in the sculpts in the box. Waterloo didn't, only army boxes. Pike & Shotte has one, it's £150, so a lower sticker price but only 20 sprues with less variety than Hail Caesar and a higher per-sprue price than the Hannibal box.

ACW's starter was also able to double as a big single army starter.

Billicus wrote:
Almost hopeless? There's pretty clear contents and photos with sprue pics with counts of each sprue. The big box has 42 sprues and is £240. £5.70 per sprue, not counting all the other stuff in the box.

The individual boxes are 4 sprues for £31 (you don't get the sprue count but you can infer it from the contents; 4 mounted commanders, 1 per sprue). £7.75 per sprue

Right now I'm trying to make sense of the Carthaginian Division: https://eu.warlordgames.com/products/hail-caesar-epic-battles-carthaginian-division

The sprue shows 11 cavalry models. The picture shows 26 cavalry models.
The sprue shows 3 strips of round-shield infantry. The picture shows 6 strips of round-shield infantry.
The sprue shows 3 strips of gallic-shield infantry. The pictures shows 18 strips of gallic-shield infantry.
The sprue shows 5 skirmishers. The picture shows 10 skirmishers.

The picture appears to show models from two different sprues and I can't find a way to match the contents in the picture with what's on 4 sprues. This confuses me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The Allied Troops Division is showing the wrong sprue and it's easy to misinterpret the picture of the contents. But once you realize what sprue is actually in there you can figure everything out.

https://eu.warlordgames.com/products/hail-caesar-epic-battles-allied-troops-division


The Republican Roman Division is the easiest to figure out. The only thing wrong with it is that the pictures show 2x5 cavalry when you actually get 2x8. The picture is probably showing a unit thats fits with the army composition rules or something.

https://eu.warlordgames.com/products/hail-caesar-epic-battles-republican-roman-division

There are evidently 2 different sprues in the Carthaginian one as the sprue pic doesn't have any slingers. At any rate between the contents photo and the listed contents, I don't know how you can be in any doubt as to what you're getting with either of those. Just tying yourself up trying to match the sprue pictures up with everything else


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eumerin wrote:

Billicus wrote:
Epic Battles ACW kind of got a starter set of the type you describe, but with way less variation in the sculpts in the box. Waterloo didn't, only army boxes. Pike & Shotte has one, it's £150, so a lower sticker price but only 20 sprues with less variety than Hail Caesar and a higher per-sprue price than the Hannibal box.

ACW's starter was also able to double as a big single army starter.

Honestly I built two reasonably-sized forces from about half that box and just chucked the rest on eBay when they announced Waterloo. The supplementary units were too expensive for my taste in ACW, they've learnt from that by launching the subsequent ranges with more plastic