Warlord Games | Pike & Shotte Epic Battles Infantry Sprue Review

Just returned from a few days away with the family, to find that Warlord Games have kindly sent me a couple of sprues for review for the upcoming Pike & Shotte Epic Battles.
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[@theenigmaticgamer]

Thanks for a very helpful review Stuart. I’ve taken the plunge and am waiting for the starter set. As a 28mm painter I am very much looking forward to your painting tutorials.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thank you 😊 I’ll try and get the first one in the works soon.

[@squigs1917]

Excellent review and more positive reports. I have a large 15mm ECW collection - just refought Edgehill but my gaming colleague wants to do a fictitious 30 year war set up, I’m happy with that. Starter set ordered. It’s certainly getting better with each release

[@MiniatureRealms]

That sounds like a fun little project, and a perfect excuse to buy in 😅

[@7thson726]

Top review mate 😁 I think I will still have to put my flags/command separately based from the charged pikes I think as the command was sent to the rear when they closed with the enemy and purely for my own taste I like the ability to move them. Looking forward to seeing more 👍

[@MiniatureRealms]

Cheers dude. You thinking of changing the basing system completely, or just for the Command/Pikes at Porte? I’ll be interested in what you do with that. Not sure I’ll deviate from the standard for these myself, but I’m definitely open to ideas.

[@7thson726]

@@MiniatureRealms not too sure, I considered the possibility of maybe basing the unit as a whole 🤔 musket wings and all as there are rules in the To Kill a King Supplement for treating it as one unit rather than 3 separate ones which is the default and at this scale it would speed things up 😁 I'm definitely going to be giving it some thought 😅

[@MiniatureRealms]

I wouldn’t at all be surprised if the mixed unit isn’t ‘recommended’ in the Epic version of the rulebook.

[@MillersMiniatures]

A great review on these mate. Loved that you took them off the sprue. Looking forward to seeing your painting videos on this. 😁👍

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thanks mate, really looking forward to getting some paint on then, just can’t make my mind up on a scheme to use.

[@sagebrother]

Wow, these little guys look great and these plus the cav look like a very nice 2023 project to tackle even though I promised myself nothing less than 28mm going forward! Thanks Stuart.

[@MiniatureRealms]

😅😂

[@allanburt5250]

Thanks Stuart much appreciated 👍

[@MiniatureRealms]

Cheers Allan 🙂

[@MrBlackear]

I knew you'd be getting something for review. 😉😁 Thanks for sharing, these are looking good. I think that makes my mind up on pre-ordering a starter set. Lookimh forward to seeing the cavalry video and tutorials in the future. Cheers matey.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Cheers mate 😊

[@Jammybee]

Excited for this release.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Can’t wait 🙂

[@johnclarke25]

Trouble is I'm not sure now whether I will ever get round now to my minifigs ecw armies I bought to paint in 1972 now these have arrived and still have five more 50 man regiments in 54mm to finish......so little time.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Oh time time time, every wargamers biggest enemy. I’m assuming you may be tempted to sell off the MiniFigs and just use these?

[@paulparker5456]

Thank you Stuart. Another great review😊

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thank you Paul

[@JackSargePainting]

Great stuff Stuart! Wish they'd send me a sample 😄 Would love to have a crack at painting these up 🙂👍

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thank you 🙂 Send them a message, that’s what I did before the Waterloo release, I mentioned all the videos I’d done for ACW and it open the conversation. Can’t hurt to try.

[@fogh]

Great to see your thoughts on them, especially as you’ve done so much work on the ACW and Naps. 👍

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thank you 😊

[@Andrew-se4tg]

Hey Stuart, great video as always man! I was wondering if you could do a tutorial of how to effectively paint windows on 15mm mdf buildings? I just got into epic battles acw and bought several of the mdf kits to go with it, thanks!👍🍻

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thank you Andrew. I think I covered that in my Manassas House tutorial, should be in the EPIC ACW & Tutorials Playlists.

[@stephenritchie9581]

Looks awesome Stu. Ordered the battlefield collection bundle and will no doubt get the commanders too. Also, looking forward to hopefully the Covenanters being released further down the line. Great job mate 👍

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thank you Stevie, looking forward to seeing your diorama for these.

[@Edward-Plantagenet]

Excellent review as usual. As we discussed, I think the benefit of this release (while tactically ECW appeals to me less than Naps) is that it’s the first Epic release that can be used with 18cm frontages by design, without making rules compromises. That will make it more viable on a 6*4 table. The downside I suppose is that if folks wanted use frontages that require splitting strips, that would be much harder with these than the Naps / ACW. The other bonus is, the size of a lot of ECW battles means you can probably get away with not much more than the starter and maybe 1 or 2 expansions (Cavalry etc). Tactically though, not being an ECW buff, I’m still not sure there’s enough mileage in the period for me to invest in. It’s not a big cost for sure, but it is if it never gets out of the box LOL. Looking forward to seeing how your project (how many is it now 😂) progresses.

[@MiniatureRealms]

😂 I don’t know what you mean, I’ve hardly any projects on the go 😅. Thank you 😊

[@haroldhardrada7449]

Thank you for the update. I had been hoping that pike & shot would be the next release in the epic line The key for me was being able to paint these quick, without fuss. Based on some French prints I had seen for troops toward the end of the period, it is clear that brown was (by far) the dominant color. Therefore, I tested a somewhat new (stream lined) technique on some epic ACW confederates and determined I could paint one stand to completion in an hour. As I plan to do three stand per unit I am fairly certain I can do a unit in a day. I am hoping cavalry should be able to be done in the same time frame. I might add a little more color, but units are smaller. Elite units will take longer, but these will be the exception.

[@MiniatureRealms]

I’m certainly going to be looking at the potential for some more generic colours for some of these so I can speed them up.

[@kelvinhawkins9535]

Thanks for the review this morning. They look great. Im not sure what to think of the individual models to form the frontline of the pikes - lots odf potential to have all sorts of weird shapes there, haha. Nothing there to stop me purchasing it though. Another great range by warlord I feel. Thanks again. Keep the awesome content coming.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thanks Kelvin. Yeah I can see that front tank of Pikes being the most time consuming to deal with, but I’m glad they went with them at Porte, and I guess not doing that would have been the only way of doing them as a strip.

[@boomtaylor8297]

Are they differant colours like the napoleonics red and blue?, I was Hoping they'd be at least grey and tan so I can still use them whilst gradually painting

[@MiniatureRealms]

Yes they’re grey and tan, these were early review frames so just had grey at the time, but you can see the tan in my starter set unboxing video.

[@mikebersiks3280]

I'm not getting into this as the period isn't really my thing but another excellent review. I agree that the figures look nice and I do detect that they really seem to be improving with each Epic offering which bodes well for the Napoleonic Austrians and Russians! If Steel Fist fit in well you could mix up that front rank with a few of their guys including officers/floppy hat pikemen etc. And if you want to play the many sets of rules like FK&P which differentiate the infantry battalions between ordinary, Pike-heavy and Musket heavy it's very simple to add a base of pike or remove it.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thanks Mike, and I agree, the continued improvement and experience with each of these releases gives me much hope for the future.

[@scoticvsgossage9378]

I'm so hyped for these, I've got the scenery + casualty + starter kit on pre order

[@MiniatureRealms]

I’ve been very restrained this time, just the basic starter for me right now. I need to make this a smaller project at first for me, so making two small armies from the starter. I’ll definitely add more, will likely need more cavalry, and I’m sure there will be stuff in later waves that I won’t be able to resist.

[@scoticvsgossage9378]

@@MiniatureRealms I decided to grab the scenery because it will go together with my Epic Prussians as well. I'm a practical ditch digger XD

[@MiniatureRealms]

I’ll probably grab some myself, for similar reasons, I can use it for much of my 15mm gaming. I have a few 10mm ones from Battlescale that I’ll be using as well.

[@scoticvsgossage9378]

@@MiniatureRealms Sounds like a plan!

[@norm977]

Thanks - good to see them off the sprue. Do you have any further thoughts on whether that front rank of porte pike add any awkwardness to the handling of the unit? With ACW and napoleonic in the stash, I am looking forwards to trying to develop a more impressionistic painting job on these and looking at the musketeers, they seem to have good raised detail that can easily be caught by the brush. As an aside the box art is really nice and I am overall liking the artwork that is supporting the series.

[@MiniatureRealms]

I don’t think the front tank will be too much of an issue, though I can imagine some may want to put them on an extended base to protect them more. They definitely don’t feel brittle or delicate, so as long as they’re transported safely I think they will be fine. Yep that detail is either a curse or a benefit 😂, but dry brushing will definitely work. I’ll be looking for schemes that offer quicker solutions I think, not too much fancy multicoloured uniforms. Love the box at for all these, the style is really nice.

[@davidwasilewski]

They do look good! How easy do you think it would be to cut each strip in half, to reduce the footprint of each unit?

[@MiniatureRealms]

I always thought it wouldn’t look good on the ACW or Waterloo strips, but it wasn’t too bad, you need to tidy up a bit with green stuff after. Best suggestion is to try and get a sprue to try it on and see if you’re happy with the results after.

[@Hucklesgotitall]

8 Ranks of 10 + Seperate Miniatures for such a cheap price is incredible. I can imagine why a lot of people would buy them for other Wargames, especially if you split the blocks and make 2 x 10 Miniature Units out of them.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Yep exactly this, so many have done this with the ACW and Waterloo ranges as well. Great value for many game systems.