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!

Scipio

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?

Marcus enjoys playing Bolt Action, buying models he swears he'll paint one day, and hitting people with swords at the weekend. His proudest hobby moment was when Rick Priestley told him he was rubbish at rolling dice.

32 comments

  2. These look excellent! As an Epic 40k fan and a Total War:Rome fan….what more could you ask for?!

  3. So excited by this new release in the Epic Range! Ancient warfare lends itself to this scale so well. And with the Carthaginian Army being so diverse a set of allies, there is also plenty of scope for other battles, for example between the Republican Romans and Gallic Celts…

  4. Will rule sets be available seperately? This sounds just what my gaming group has been looking for.

  5. Hi, great news ! Do you plan to make other armies in this era if the game is successfull ?

      1. I would guess either Syracusan Greeks, or maybe Macedonians, since the Third Macedon War runs concurrent with the Punic Wars.

      2. I expected that too. And macedonians vs persians. What about alexander vs dario. It would looked wonderfull, would not?

  7. Wow, this announcement is truly epic! I am so excited and can’t wait to get my hands on these models. The addition of the Punic Wars to the Epic Battles line is something I have been waiting for, and it’s clear that a lot of thought and creativity have gone into making these sets as immersive and detailed as possible. The innovative design of the Roman infantry blocks is particularly impressive – it sounds like they’ll make assembling and painting large armies much more feasible. Plus, who could resist the excitement of war elephants? I can’t wait to see these miniatures in action.

  9. With those Gallic infantry. There hope for a few additions to make a full garlic and Briton army. Some of the Roman’s I can use as Ceasarians. (I’m not a purist).

    1. I also wish to have a nice Garlic and Briton Army. They go nice with Breadsticks and a nice pasta! 😀 😀 😀

  11. Take my money! The Rome: Total War auditory memory was definitely activated, well done. Can’t wait!

  12. I think that the expansion of the Epic scale is very good news. I love the idea and I am looking forward for more periods as well. Indeed the miniatures look great although I am afraid they will be tiny 15mm and incompatible with my existing miniatures (even though the last releases were getting bigger and bigger and getting closer to 15mm).
    On the other hand the “innovation”with the Romans’ sprue is based on a false statement, that Romans fought in denser formations than Carthaginians (that only happened in Cannae, with disastrous results, but the way. Precisely the key point of Roman maniples was its flexibility and capacity to relieve each other, for what you need a flexible and open order. I hope that the range does not go more on that side (even with the Macedonian phalanx, in which it would be more justified), because it takes away from the player taking decisions on how to use those miniatures.

  13. Warlord is just killing it with the Epic scale! I don’t know much about this period, but I will be investing into it heavily like I have with the other Epic battle sets. I appreciate the booklet that contains the rules and some history about the period. The miniatures look absolutely stunning and I can’t wait for this to be released. Well done Warlord keep up the great work! Bring on Borodino or anything else Napoleonic soon.

  14. Great looking set, although shame about the elephants (Carthaginian armies used smaller African elephants without howdahs). I shall watch the development of this collection with interest.

    1. That topic is still debated and not concluded . The Army of Juba I of Numidia in 46 BC included Africa elephants with towers.

  15. I haven’t been this excited since I was 5 years old on Xmas eve. I was at Salute 51 and took lots of pictures of the Epic Punic Wars display models and sprues Didn’t see a sprue for the celts or leaders, but the others were all there: Carthaginians, Romans, and Allies, and the war elephant sprues, and they look amazing.

  16. Been waiting for this! Clearing credit card in preparation! The secret one that is, the one used for model kits and wargames! What next? Spartans and Persian? Greek Phalanx – that would be something! Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela!

    1. Would expect Greek and Hellenistic Armies for Syracusai and Massalia, and Pyrrhus of Epirus alike.

  17. I noticed that the Libo-Phoenician Hoplites come with Chainmail?

    Are those Hannibals Veterans and will we see some in Linothorax too?

  18. Bloody excited for this. Haven’t dived into epic yet, but this time period will definitely be the one for me. Looking forward to a (hopefully) Gallic Wars expansion.

  19. I look forward to this expanding into the Greeks and Persians but Romans is a good start and it will be good to see a Boadicae set and a model of Colchester Castle maybe.

  20. Looking at the examples on this post and having seen them at Salute51, another encouraging aspect to these Ancient epic scale miniatures is that as well as being amazing looking sculpts most look like they will be quite easy and quick to paint up. Building epic scale Napoleonics was daunting as most figures would require 12 or 13 different colours and could be fiddly (therefore time consuming) to do – if you’ve painted Scottish Highlanders you’ll know what I mean. Many of these (Celts aside) look like only 5 or 6 different colours per figure are required. It takes the edge off that feeling of apprehension I’m sure we all get on opening a boxset and wondering how on earth we’ll find time to paint so many figures needed to build our epic scale armies!

  21. I have been impressed by the warlord epic collections. they do fit quite nicely with the command and conquer games too. I would love to see the full range of hail caesar ancients coming out in due course.

    One missing element I think is late roman army and their antagonists e.g. picts, scotti, early saxons/ franks etc would love to see that as part of this range.

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