Doing an Empire/English Civil War Army -- Episode Two: Cavalry

Posted by Ranillon on 23. August 2010 21:41

This week I take a look at Warlord Game's English Civil War basic cavalry set, compare them to their Games Workshop equivalents, and give a little history about how their real life counterparts worked.

Cavalry in the Era of the English Civil War

By the mid-16th century cavalry had nearly completely transitioned from the heavy armored, lance wielding knights of the High Middle Ages to the more lightly armored pistol and sword strike force.  With the invention of the wheellock a practical pistol gunpowder weapon became available to mounted troops and in the process altered their battlefield role.  Unlike the matchlock harquebus of the infantry which was large, bulky, and required you to load your weapon while clutching a burning match cord -- gunpowder and open flames don't mix well, especially at the gallop -- the wheellock was compact, dependable, and safer.  It allowed you to carry pistols that could be pulled out and fired at a moment's notice.  That meant that cavalry could now be lethal at range without necessarily requiring you to get stuck in.
 
Likewise, given the power of gunpowder weapons heavy suits of armor became more trouble -- and especially more expense -- than they were generally worth, although you could still see some units in plate armor (cuirassiers) even in the early part of the English Civil War and Thirty Years War (this type of armored cavalryman would never quite go away and would in fact enjoy a revival of sorts in the 18th and 19th centuries, although in a significantly altered form).  Accordingly, speed and maneuverability became more important while the armor a mounted soldier typically carried into battle was reduced to a chest plate and helmet.

By the time of the English Civil War there were two main ways to use standard cavalry.  The first was the caracole, a tactic where the pistol armed cavalrymen would ride up toward their target only to angle away once they came within range, fire at the enemy in turn, and then retire back the way they came to reload and start the process all over again.  In the era before the Civil War this had the advantage of allowing the cavalry to use their superior firepower -- pistols could be fired faster and more dependably, plus you could take more than one -- to whittle down opposing infantry, but as the organization and weapons of the harquebusier improved this method of attack became increasingly ineffective.

The second common tactic was a return to the cavalry charge, but in this case one backed up with gunpowder fueled firepower.  The rider would gallop into battle with sword and pistol, enhancing the impact of his charge by using his firearm at close range (sometimes by placing it right up against his enemy's body before pulling the trigger!).  This approach gave back the cavalry its 'shock and awe' role in battle, enabling it to once again be the unit of decision.  Both sides in the Civil War tended to prefer this type of cavalry -- Prince Rupert, the famous Royalist general, was a renowned cavalryman while the ultimately even more famous Oliver Cromwell made his name leading his horsemen to victory in a number of crucial battles.

The ECW Cavalry Models

The Warlord Games English Civil War cavalry box comes with 12 plastic models and costs around $28 (depending on the exchange rate at the time).  As you can see these models best fit the role of Pistoliers within the Empire army -- guys on unbarded horses with light armor and wheellock pistols.  It costs $22 for just five plastic Empire Pistoliers.  That is an average cost of $4.40 a model compared to just $2.33 for the Warlord equivalents.

Yet, what does it matter if the models look like garbage, right?  Well, here are some images of a completed group of eight ECW cavalry figures:

Taste is of course a subjective thing, but I think these models stack up rather well against Games Workshop pistoliers.  Admittedly, with GW you have the option of Pistoliers or Outriders, but in the end you are left with just five models for $22.  I don't see how anyone could contend that the Warlord figures or the box set as a whole are only half as good as a similar GW set.  The Warlord figures obviously do not come with GW bases so you'll need to purchase those separately.

The models themselves usually only require about five pieces each, thereby making construction pretty fast.  While the GW Pistoliers can be posed in a wider range of positions most are just minor variations of the same thing (like the angle at which an arm is pointed) so in the case the differences don't add up to very much.  Beyond that these Warlord cavalry figures are the same scale as Empire Pistoliers and have much the same look (if admittedly missing the poofy sleeves).  If your playing partner doesn't look closely he won't even notice the difference.

Note that while you can buy "Royalist" or "Parlimentary" cavalry in separate box sets both use the exact same models.  The only difference is that the paper flags that come with either fit the side listed on the box.

Wargames Factory Shock Troops Review + Sprues

Posted by Ranillon on 21. August 2010 01:00

One of the things that caught my attention at Gen Con were these new Wargames Factory "Greatcoat Shock Troops" plastic models (especially when the Warstore was offering them for just $15).  I got a box just because I thought they were cool and the price was right, but when I talked about them with others afterwards the first thing everyone brought up was how they would make perfect Imperial Guard.  In particular, Death Corps.

In fact, I find it hard to believe that Wargames Factory didn't have them in mind when they decided to make these models.  They are the same scale, nearly the same look, and have weapons as close as you can get to GW without risking copyright lawsuits.  Not that I think that is a problem here -- the quality of the plastics are generally equal to Games Workshop while being much cheaper -- even at their standard $20 cost that is still just $1.11 per model.  Equivalent GW plastics are twice that average.

Basically, when it comes to look and quality I think these would in general be a great choice for Imperial Guard.  Only problem is that they are unlikely to be tournament legal.  If you were to switch out their guns with GW lasguns that would make them entirely WYSIWYG and thus perhaps open up many independent tournaments.  However, any that require "only" GW or "mostly" GW would still be no-go.

Of course, maybe you don't care or want to use these for other purposes, so here pictures of the sprues to allow you to see everything in detail.  Just click the thumbnails to biggie-size them.

As you can see these definitely fit Imperial Guard -- and, no doubt entirely coincidentally, their special weapons just happen to be a flamer and grenade launcher. 

Visiting Gen Con 2010

Posted by Ranillon on 17. August 2010 10:58

"Why, yes, I am staring at you"

Went to Gen Con last week (and then spent a week busy at work) as I always do since the convention is just down the road and is, by far, the largest gaming convention in the world.

That said, the amount of Games Workshop gaming to be had there has been meager and generally getting worse over the years.  About five or six years ago I went to a Warhammer 40K tournament there, but there hasn't been any GW game tournaments since then as far as I've been able to find.  Then again, beyond featured events like the Privateer Press sponsored Warmachine tournaments miniature gaming is pretty disappointing in general.

Proof at least one 40K game was played at Gen Con

Now, if you wanted to play collectable card games Gen Con is the place -- there was an entire huge room full of players pretty much 24 hours each day.  There was also, of course, plenty of role-playing, just not usually in one place.  Then, perhaps more importantly than anything else, there was the shopping.

Click to Super-Size

I only went for two days this time so I spent most of my time in the dealer's room.  Like always it was well worth the visit.  There were only two places really selling GW products, however.  Again, why doesn't GW think they shouldn't show up at the world's largest gaming convention?

Along with the shopping I came upon some cool miniatures.  Here are the pictures...

"No, we are not Vulcans"

First up are some Warmachine miniatures, specifically some of Privateer Press' "Retribution of Scyrah" line -- basically, elves with attitude.  I have to say that I really like the miniatures (with the possible exception of their poofy clown pants).  One thing which occurred to me is that despite being "fantasy" models you could even use them in a sci-fi setting as the weapons are not all that directly "medieval" like.

"Arrrgghhh!  They were all out of Happy Meals!  Someone
must die!"

This is a picture of some Reaper minis.  For a long time Reaper was "just" the place you went to for your needed D+D adventurer figures, but they have by now a nice selection of stuff that could be proxies for GW armies.

Here are some selections I liked from the painting contest...

"My pet would like to have you over for dinner"

"No, for the final time -- we are not Vulcans!"

Finally, I had to take a pictures of a couple of the special Guest Stars that showed up.

Will Wheaton -- who has a hundred times the coolness of
Wesley Crusher

Felicia Day -- Who is just simply cool (and cute) -- This was,
BTW, probably the only moment during the whole con where
she wasn't smiling

In a humorous and entirely understandable moment, Felicia posed with her cosplay double standing there in front of her for pictures.  Naturally, Will immediately dropped what he was doing to take a picture along with everyone else around.

There were other pictures, but all that most of them do is show off my weaknesses as a photographer...so I think I will stop there.  Gen Con seemed as busy as ever, but nevertheless smaller.  For the first time ever I couldn't find a single seminar that sounded good enough to compel me to give it a try.  Likewise, for the first time ever I couldn't find a single talk on any historical military subject, always a favorite of mine.  Oh, well -- there is always next year.

Doing an Empire/English Civil War Army -- Episode One

Posted by Ranillon on 1. August 2010 23:18

Been a horribly busy week at work so I haven't had much time for posts, but I wanted to get into why and how I can get away with doing a historical English Civil War army and at the same time a Warhammer Fantasy Empire force.  The first example are the uniforms.

As you may or may not know the uniforms of the Empire in Fantasy are based on the Holy Roman Empire (effectively German) armies of the 16th century, most notably during the Italian Wars.  Here is a contemporary drawing of a German Landsknecht soldier:

"So, where are the Orks to fight?"

To anyone who has played or played against the Empire in Warhammer this sort of figure should be quite familiar.  Military dress of course varied (and was seldom "uniform" in the modern sense of the word), but this sort of puffy coated pikeman or swordman was a staple of the time.

Now compare him to this drawing off a Warlord box of English Civil War infantry:

"Which end of this do I point at the enemy again?"

You can see some smiliarities, but also changes.  The first "uniform" was a good hundred years older than the second, but they are close enough not to look out of place with each other.  That is especially true when talking about the small scale of wargaming figures.  Now add in the fact that the weapons being used are almost exactly the same -- pikes, matchlocks, cavalry -- and one force could double for the other without much problem.

More to come...