Changes coming to Warlord's support for exisiting games

[scribbs 14517xp 2]

I’ve also seen an image of the sprue for the British infantry (plus artillery). Very much in the same style as the ACW sprues, and you can read ‘Battle of Waterloo’ on the frame.

 

[limburger 22085xp 1]

@jamescutts I think that would be an excellent way for Warlord to do this sort of thing.
Those who are into the subjects (ACW / Napoleonics) already are likely to have armies and rules fit for that scale.
The newbies and less dedicated may find just enough depth so as not to drown while still able to enjoy the core features of the period.
And at the same time Warlord doesn’t need to stock an insane amount of product for the dedicated few …

I’ve noticed the recent newsletters had very short headers :
– Bolt Action / Black Powder / Hail Caesar / Project Z
We know that Project Z is of limited scope, so this may mean that the remaining systems will be Warlords’ focus.
There’s a chance that the Epic ACW and related products will remain as part of the Black Powder range in the same way that K’47 may remain a product within the Bolt Action line.

Unless Gates of Antares replaces the ‘Project Z’ bit I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re ending that line too (or at least make it ‘made to order’ / ‘web only’).

 

[jamescutts 6937xp 0]

Ah nice find @scibbs, id not seen one of the actual sprue yet. As you say same format as ACW, presumably with at least a British and French sprue.

I’m not super excited myself, mainly as I have a million 28mm figures and I most collect for painting not for gaming but I think this will be a good release for the hobby and hopefully a gateway into historicals and rank and file games for many.

[jamescutts 6937xp 0]

@limburger, yep excatly, these are fantastic entries into what is the confusing medley of historical games, systems, scales.

I cant see Gates of Antares going anywhere, the guys in the studio where pretty talkative and passionate about it on the studio tour, I suspect it might just not see many new release, and as you say it might filter out of the “warlord range” that you see in stores.

I think its pretty much a given they’ll give English Civil War the Epic Battles treatment (same 1 sprue a side formula as ACW) and John Stallard is a massive ECW fan. I think something ancient is probably going to get the same but as to what, who knows. Which Keeps both Hail Ceasar and Pike and Shotte in the game and expands the “epic battles” line, to be fair those games don’t really need releases given third parties ranges and the rulesets are solid and popular enough for those lines to stick around.

[limburger 22085xp 1]

that’s the problem with the entire Warlord range (except for ‘Gates of Antares’ and licensed products) : there are competing 3rd parties capable of providing similar minis and/or rules.

The only real difference is that Warlord offers easier points of entry for some of the products.

I’m pretty sure there’s people passionate about every product line at Warlord though. You can’t work at a company like that and not have a passion for some of the range.

 

[tankkommander 6454xp 2]

Warlord do seem to lack focus, throwing games against the wall to see what sticks. Poor support leads to poor sales leads to poor support…and wasting time and effort trying to change Blood Red Skies in to an Airfix game is odd to say the least.

[scribbs 14517xp 1]

Putting questions of scale aside, I will say something that I do like about those Epic Naps – the infantry are actually formed shoulder to shoulder. I don’t think any other models ranges manage to replicate the tight mass of soldiers as effectively as these strips.

[jamescutts 6937xp 1]

I think the Airfix Blood Red Skies set was a more just a collaboration to get some cross over sales for each company, It did look rather fun at the open day though as a standalone set, which i guess was the idea.

@scribbs I really like that look too, pretty unique and historically much more accurate for the time period, certainly makes production easier and I’d say painting is easier too. I’ve seen it done in 28mm for black powder and it looked epic, but boy that’s a lot of minis to paint if your going similar frontages to others.

[phaidknott 7250xp 0]

“Putting questions of scale aside, I will say something that I do like about those Epic Naps – the infantry are actually formed shoulder to shoulder. I don’t think any other models ranges manage to replicate the tight mass of soldiers as effectively as these strips.”

Actually Old Glory in the UK (and in the US) sell 10mm “strips” of figures shoulder to shoulder (although these are in strips of 5 figures). I’ve got some, and they are quite nice. The Cavalry, Skirmishers etc are all individual figures. At £16 for 100 infantry figures (the Cavalry cost £15 for 30) they aren’t too costly (the Warlord Plastics cost £25 for 300 figures, the metals cost £45 for 300 (so the metals cost about the same))  …..

https://www.oldgloryuk.com/10mm-french/28/89/259/261

..if that link works 🙁

If ONLY Warlord had gone with 10 or 15mm I’d be buying LOADS (particularly the plastic infantry for ACW). For me one of the other “niggle” is that fact Warlord do battalions/regiments of 5 bases (or you can make 3 base battalions/regiments by buying extra command strips). That’s ok for ACW and British Naps (where one base nicely represents two companies), but for the other nations using four or six companies to a battalion?  Most of the rules I use have you base up your battalions in the proper number of companies for that nation (I know that’s not an issue for Black Powder as it’s more small/medium/large battalions and number of figures represented).

 

[doktormatt84 858xp 1]

Isn’t v2 in the works for gates of Antares at moment and didn’t they just preview plastic isorians ? Should hopefully be a sign of positive future for it ? My bet would be on cruel seas going and sqor is just hail ceasar models anyway in bendy resin so that games future is probably rumbled …

[fightcitymayor 2106xp 2]

I see how Warlord would really like to expand their offerings without investing a ton of $$$ and time, but when things get unceremoniously chucked out the side door then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of “This is obviously a stab at leveraging mechanics/models we already have in order to establish a beach-head into areas other companies do better than we do,” and people can smell that coming a mile away.

Bolt Action is fun, Bolt Action is popular, so let’s leverage the rules to do sci-fi Bolt Action (Antares) and fantasy Bolt Action (Erewhon) and post-apoc Bolt Action (Konflikt ’47)  Wait, these other lines aren’t selling well, we need to pare back our offerings!  But was anyone really asking for those also-ran efforts anyway?

Cruel Seas was leveraged into Black Seas (which was then licensed to Mantic for Armada), then into Victory At Sea.

The problem is when all of these universe spinoff games are rarely asked for (was anyone really craving a fantasy version of Bolt Action?) and then treated like redheaded step-children (is that a figure of speech in the UK?) making consumers think “Well, this doesn’t seem to be treated like a priority, so I guess I’ll skip it too.”

[jamescutts 6937xp 0]

I think I saw some new plastics for Antares, but I’m not overly familiar with it to say what they were. Its one of those games I’ve always wanted to pick up, I think the bolt action mechanics are good (though they have there flaws as all systems) and the idea of that in sci-fi implementation as an alternative to that which must not be named appeals to me, just never got round to it.

But yeah the cheap repurposing of minis they own for other spin-offs i think has been problematic, SPQR is the prime example, the game system isn’t great, and I think warlord bought it after it was passed around a few places and turned down, very much a reaction to the market and a way to flog their hail Ceasar sprues. Erewhon seemed like a similar reaction to the market.

In slight fairness to the Warlord, Victory at sea was an existing game system that they have the license for now and the rule system is pretty solid it seems as it’s reasonably popular, so there mainly just producing minis for it. They have covered quite a lot already and I think by the sounds of it have quite a few designs ready to go or in the pipeline to round out most of the nations in the game, after that it doesn’t really need much “support”.

Konflict 47 is similar, I cant remember of the developer but they effectively license the IP for it to warlord, who use BA v1 rules and produce the minis, I think that started more as a fan project that had enough support to become a standalone game.

 

[limburger 22085xp 0]

@jamescutts  Clockwork Goblins ?
I think that’s a name that was mentioned..

Besides … every company has a core set of rules and/or a rules philosophy that they will apply to all of their products.
Sometimes it’s a bit of “hammer looking for nails”, but then there’s moments of synergy when the new system is used as an experiment for improvements in the prime system sellers.

Part of the ‘problem’ is that once a set of rules is released there isn’t any real need to sell new versions, unless you invent reasons to do so. Warlord don’t seem to be in that business.

There’s the overal problem of selling a new setting. You’re competing against the 9000 pound gorilla who’s had decades to refine their lore. K47 lacks the direction that a strong IP has. GoA is in a similar situation, although less tied to the real world you still need to convince people that the factions are worth caring about.

Mantic appear to have realised that they needed to update the lore for their game.
Maybe Warlord needs to do something similar for GoA and K47?
We don’t know if they’ve got the means to do so, but maybe they can get there by ditching some of their less successful products ?

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