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/
