Warlord Games Epic Battles Waterloo - Napoleon's Guard Cavalry Unboxing & Review

[@squigs1917]

Thanks for the review. I have received my sets and too be honest I’m more than happy with them, I feel they’re priced fine. Plastics for these would be way too expensive to get into production versus the amount of sales. But you can’t please all the people all the time as I well know when I had my figure business. I have only found a small amount of flash on the Gendarmes but easily cleaned off. They are going to look really nice once painted

[@MiniatureRealms]

With you all the way here Graham. Based on my set (and everyone else that’s told me theirs are good too), then I’d say it would be a bit unfair to criticise Warlord here for quality or price. Aside from cleaning up the bendy swords and Lances I see no issues at all.

[@gameofemperors1609]

I just started working my way through these sets too! Thanks for the video

[@MiniatureRealms]

I fear mine will be in the box for a while, thank you for watching 🙂

[@leonleese4919]

10 minutes 40 seconds in you were mentioning complaints about flash and I noticed the mounted figure you were holding. The detail was stunning.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Absolutely, these are examples of Siocast done well.

[@stephenritchie9581]

Very informative as always Stu. Can’t wait to see ur painted version of these. Bought the Imperial grenadier cavalry box only at the moment as still got loads of cavalry from the box sets to paint and don’t need more. Plus, cavalry version of the Old Guard is good enough for me 😜. Wonder if they will be releasing next a bundle of Allied Cavalry extras or if this is it - would still love to see horse limbers and wagons. Great as always Stu 👍

[@MiniatureRealms]

I’d guess that limbers and extras like that may be more likely that allied cavalry, but I could be wrong.

[@colinplatt1963]

Really looking forward to see how these paint up. I get that people are upset over price, but my own feeling is that unless someone figures out painting conversions (something I am woefully bad at) Warlord Games will only ever sell ONE regiment of Empress Dragoons or Grenadiers a Chevel to any given customer, cos, well, there was only one regiment of each in the Imperial Guard. I'm simply grateful we have the option to buy them. Merely my 2 cents on the issue.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Yep agree completely, and I imagine that was a big factor in the decision to go with resin rather than invest in plastic.

[@ratelmike8825]

Frankly, this out with the bloody violin whining about price, is really becoming tiresome as well as boring. The same lot bleat about everything it seems. Nothing is ever good enough or cheap enough. I call them the bitching and moaning brigade. I just ignore it nowadays and just carry on with the hobby. Every hobby costs something and not many you could put in the cheap category. I picked up my bundle on the open day. The resin is not my favourite material but I'm very happy with the quality as shown in this great video. Clean up doesn't bother me and I think it's well worth the money.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Couldn’t agree more

[@Peteroot007]

Looking forward to getting mine

[@MiniatureRealms]

Fingers crossed they won’t be long now for you .

[@legrambo]

Another great video Stuart and very timely as this same box is winging it's way to me to be painted for a customer so it's nice to get a bit of a preview of them. They do look very good and should paint up a treat. I suppose my one slight concern is just how soft and bendy the sword is and the possibility of paint flaking off, but with careful handling I'm sure they will be fine. I think the price point is just fine for what you get. When I do get round to doing some for myself eventually I'll have to find another gamer who is NOT playing Black Powder (I'm a DBN man) to share them with as I only need single 5 or 6 figure cavalry bases :) Keep the videos coming, cheers, Lee (Gramson) from the FB group!

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thank you Lee. I’ve not had any issues with paint flaking off any of the commanders, including the Epic ACW limited edition commanders, so think they should be ok if varnished and handled well.

[@joken-actual]

Great video as always Stu. When I get to my French I will be doing a couple of regiments of Imperial Guard (at 3 bases to a regiment I’ll probably get by with two sprues rather than all 3 from the box) and I’ll add one pack of Guard cavalry to round out the force. As my French focus will be the left side of D’Erlons attack I’m really only getting some Old Guard for other Napoleonic scenarios I’ll play. With Epic battles I’m trying to only buy what I think I’ll use rather than be a completist with piles of unpainted units sitting idly about in boxes.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thank you John. A very sensible approach, I’m very much stocking up for the long haul 😅

[@kelvinhawkins9535]

A great review. They really are great miniatures and you can tell Warlords have a passion for the era. They're not something I will be getting anytime soon because they had zero relevance to the part of the battle I am looking to re-create - but they may be a future purchase. You just cannot knock their detail! I've really loved the whole Waterloo Epic range tbh. The pricing is interesting and I can understand some people's plights - I personally think it is fine. For 17.50 you are technically getting more than what some other companies offer you for a similar price - EG, a singular model. Let's face it though, everything is going up at the moment not just our beloved army soldiers.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Yep couldn’t agree more Kelvin

[@2epete]

Thanks for the review. Price wise they are a little cheeper per figure than the commanders sets that they just released, and while I'd prefer hard plastic, you don't get the same detail they can reproduce using resin. I bought the commanders and wounded markers after your last review, and Those commanders are beautifully molded. So I'll probably pick up these also. Cleanup and mold longevity are more of a concern for me. I won't be happy if I get a copy where the molds have deteriorated to the point there is an excessive amount of flash to clean up.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Yep my fear with these, I was really worried they’d be bad, another reason I got them now before the moulds aged.

[@norm977]

Thanks, they look very good and the siocast seems a good solution to making forces that won’t sell enough to justify doing a plastic sprue.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Yep I think that’s it, and if they’re of this quality I can live with that.

[@Rusty_Gold85]

Put a new blade in the Exacto knife time. I havn't touched these yet but i am sure at 13mm and at arms length across the table they will be ok after trimming and Painting . It is strange there was no product labels in them, but as I always say people will complain if you handed out Gold Nuggets to them for free. Thanks for doing another great review

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thank you 😊

[@ShakosAndSprues]

Great detailed review as always, like you I much prefer the sculpting on warlords epic range to most other manufactures at this scale. Good to hear this are well cast, I'm not a huge fan of siocast (warlord resin) but that's only due to the cleanup, if these are crisp sculpts then they look great, once your past that it's a great material that durable and just as easy to paint. As for the price, feels a tad expensive but then it does work out comparatively good value, it would make me pause for though but wouldn't put me off. My main bugbear would be warlord price siocast the same as their metals yet have said in the past the production costs are much lower so feels a bit of a money grab in that regard. All in all if your after epic guard cavalry this seems a great offering. As for mold, they last a few hundred castings I believe before being remade, this is why you sometimes see different sprue gate layouts and quality can vary as each one is made by hand. They last longer than the hard cast resin but nowhere near as long as metal molds. The difference in colour is probably down to the mold and the individual settings that need to tuned in for it, I suspect you migh have two separate molds in your packs. You can see this quite a bit in Battlefronts siocast minis, the early ones are shocking but the latest are pretty amazing in detail, and you also offer see differing sprue layouts in packs

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thank you James, I think we see this pretty much the same way. Thank you for the extra info on Siocast as well, I’d really hoped to make it to the open day to ask lots of questions about it, as it’s clearly not going away so hope remains that it keeps improving. Totally with you on the Battlefront stuff, the newer stuff (has a blue grey colour) is pretty amazing compared to what I’ve seen before, less bend, and super clean, I’d settle for that with all my miniatures.

[@peezebeuponyou3774]

Are all these resin releases basically the same sculpts as the plastic versions?

[@MiniatureRealms]

No they’ve not made these ones in plastic, these are Imperial Guard regiments, the plastic heavy and light cavalry variants are regular Dragoons, Hussars and Lancers etc.

[@peezebeuponyou3774]

@@MiniatureRealms Brilliant- thanks. Do we know if they're re-doing any of the plastics in resin?

[@MiniatureRealms]

I doubt they will change anything from plastic to resin, it costs so much for the tooling to have the metal master for plastic that once it created they will want to stick with plastic and sell as much as possible. The resin stuff is for their slower selling items, and with the rising costs of metal, is more likely to replace that.

[@JohnMarkM]

Have you had any issues with paint cracking or flaking off of the thinner bendy parts of the miniatures? I have painted soft miniatures before and that was a major issue.

[@MiniatureRealms]

No not at all actually, while they’re bendy on the long thin weapons, the rest feels and behaves like a regular resin miniature (aside from clean up). You don’t get the same effect you can do with Airfix 1.72 models and things like that - well not that I’ve experienced so far.

[@martinradcliffe4798]

Very fair review. They do seem a tad expensive- but maybe the plastics are just cheap.

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thank you Martin. It’s difficult to tell isn’t it, especially having no idea how much this kind of resin costs to produce Vs the cost of plastics once tooled. If they were much higher than cost of MiniFigs versions then it would have made me question the price more. I guess, as with many things in life, perception is key, and this probably explains the initial reaction to the price. I’m sure some will say that if they were in metal it would be fine, but loads still complained about the wave 2 Epic ACW prices and they were metal (and compared well with competition per mini).

[@martinradcliffe4798]

@@MiniatureRealms Well, some people just like to complain, and no -one likes paying more- including me.. I do know making moulds etc. is an expensive business and nothing is getting cheaper at the moment.

[@Edward-Plantagenet]

They look OK to me, painted up I think they'll look even better, provided the moulds don't go to rats over time, but that's the same with any figures. Pity the bundle doesn't come with just a couple of HA batteries at around the £80 mark, no way do I need 4 but others might. £10 for the Gendarmes is a bit rich too given they are exactly half the size of the other regiments, that said, Warlord isn't the only company to have somewhat illogical pricing but they don't do themselves any favours on that front. Overall though I don't like rubber minis (Siocast) at all in this kind of quantity but will probably buy them simply because they are probably going to be better than the metal alternatives out there.

[@MiniatureRealms]

I’m hoping the new resin formula can be used on Epic scale stuff soon.

[@joeswift403]

The number of miniatures that can be repeatedly cast from a mould using this technique is significantly less than a more traditional resin or metal casting. It's also worth bearing in mind that a 28mm cast in this material would be more forgiving, and easier to clean up than a 15mm miniature, for this reason they might be even more limited in mould use if they want to retain quality. The cost is high, no disagreement there, I think there needs to be a better understanding of the processes involved in manufacturer which many channels seem to bypass in favour of shouting and jumping up and down

[@MiniatureRealms]

Thank you Joe, I’m learning more about this material. Personally I think I prefer the material in the smaller scale, at least if it is a bit hard to clean up it doesn’t show up as much as on a 28mm mini. That does depend a lot on the sculpt though, and how many thin weapons there are etc.

[@MichaelAinge]

I have tried superglueing these onto mdf and it never sets. What glue do you suggest for these?

[@MiniatureRealms]

That’s very odd, maybe the glue you’re using is very thin and soaks into the mdf, saying that I’ve never had issues supergluing mdf. I mostly use Everbuild Mitre Fast and Activator from Amazon, but anything similar is good, Mitrebond is another brand. You get loads as well, none of these dinky hobby sized pots.

[@Rusty_Gold85]

see if you can get Helmar 450 . It will do the job

[@colinspeirs]

Rather you than me. I will get round to my "Travel Battle" Napoleonics one day, and they are much simpler, and they scare me I was wondering if you will drill out the gap under the horses' heads and the reins on some. Or what technique you will use to disguise the fill

[@MiniatureRealms]

The gap is filled on the plastic as well, it’s not too noticeable if you leave it dark/paint it black at this scale.

[@TheRealSonBae]

Not making them in plastic confuses me….Guard units should be very popular to collect and build. Hopefully it’s just aiming thing and plastic sprues will come in the future.

[@MiniatureRealms]

I think they’d have made a calculation about how many would buy them Vs how many plastic frames it would take. If they produced one Guard Cavalry frame then you’d hardly get any of each, needing multiple boxes to make units. They could have maybe gone with a coupon of units per frame, but then that’s 3 frames at what they have said is 20k tooling cost for each, and some people would have compline’s because they didn’t like the way they were matched on frames/the two types they wanted were on different frames etc. I’d have loved plastic as well, but understand what they’ve done here, based on what they’ve said I’d have done the same if it were my business. Would be great if they were so popular they did live to plastic, but I doubt it.

[@haroldhardrada7449]

@@MiniatureRealms One cavalry frame can have at least 20 miniatures, that's five each of Grenadiers, Dragoons, Chasseurs, and Lancers - which is 15 per box - and that is a standard regiment. The Gendarmes in 1815 were only one squadron and wore a different uniform than normal, which was almost the same as the Grenadiers. The biggest disadvantage of the single sprue are the lancers, which can potentially used for many lancer regiments.

[@MiniatureRealms]

That’s still two frames if you assume the Gendarmes and Guard Horse Artillery go on the second, then you’d get complaints that there were too many Gendarmes. You’re right you maybe could have the one Guard Cavalry frame, and the rest resin. But I think cost of the tooling Vs the amount they expect to sell is the biggest factor.

[@haroldhardrada7449]

@@MiniatureRealms It's 20 cavalry figures, plus a gun and crew on one sprue. I would ignore the Gendarmes in the same way they ignored the mamaluks (there were about 100 of each in the campaign), and if someone really wanted the Gendarmes they could the horse grenadiers (in the way they were equipped from 1805-14 or use carabinier heads for 1815). The helmet was a part of the royalist changes before Napoleon returned.

[@MiniatureRealms]

True that could have worked, I guess the 20k tooling cost they quote for a plastic frame was the biggest factor for them then. But we have them, they’re pretty nice (in my opinion) and clean casts, they’re also cheaper than buying them in metal from other companies - so mostly positive I’d say.

[@leonleese4919]

That’s about the same cost as 10mm lead figures. Bearing in mind my 78 year old eyes need well detailed minis to aid painting

[@MiniatureRealms]

Yep they’re really not too bad price wise on reflection

[@Subcomandante73]

Siocast...no thanks.

[@MiniatureRealms]

That’s understandable