The A5 sized Black Powder ruleset looks like a real winner, ideal for the gaming table. The current rules, although well organised and easy to read and play (see recent blogs from SteveJ) are hardback A4 making it a bit unwieldy unless used as a close assault weapon. The figures look like they match up well to Kallistra ACW. For a beginner this is a great set and perfect introduction, imaging being 12 years old and getting one of these for Christmas or a Birthday. For us grumpy old Grognards who are no doubt committed to our beloved metal ranges it does look like an odd decision, but then again we few Band of Brothers are not necessarily the target market.

The box certainly does fit in with the ideal Xmas or birthday present for a kid, with everything oyu ned in a box, bar the paints of course. Mind you when I was young, we would have played with the figures as is and not worried about it at all. The smaller rulebook does look to be useful and I imagine they might release it seperately at some point in the future.

The game in a box is a good point, and I think I read that the figures are cast in blue and grey plastic so giving you two sides straight away.

I have seen Warlord stuff in museum gift shops so they are clearly thinking wider than established gamers.

The size of these figures is odd, they look close height wise with Kallistra, but very skinny compared with them. But some Kallistra figures are really big - I've not seen their ACW so don't know about those.

When the Wargames Illustrated comes out it would be wonderful if some kind would with an extensive ACW collection could provide some comparison shots.

As for scale, a gander for 15 minutes out the window should evidence the fact we're a fairly diverse species. Commercial reasons seems to be the most obvious reason but they may have decided that was as small as they could mass produce in plastic (injection or whatever they use) to get the detail they want. Hopefully there will be a few other manufacturers they fit with.

Quote from: Leon on 21 December 2020, 10:01:51 PM
But they're obviously a much bigger company than us so they must know what they're doing!

I work for a very large multinational company - The general consensus of opinion in our department is they haven't got a clue what they are doing.

The latest change in our departent is costing £28K month in extra overtime, and left 10 of us twiddling our thumbs looking for something to do most of the time.  A colleague and I each had about 4 hours of actual work each  in the last set of 7 x 12 hour nights!. The rest of the time we were reading training manuals and watching presentations. which tend to blur into one another at 2 am.

Quote from: Leon on 21 December 2020, 10:01:51 PM
Another odd decision which seems to be more for commercial reasons than benefiting the hobby, but I suppose newcomers into wargaming might see it as a handy starting point to jump in?  I can't get my head around the scaling though, why choose something as random as 13.5mm?!  I've seen the updated images where it looks like they'll match up with Kallistra but I'd imagine that's more coincidence than any planned result.

But they're obviously a much bigger company than us so they must know what they're doing!

I'm not convinced that necessarily follows.

In my experience when working for a design consultancy, the bigger the company, the less clue they had about anything. Most people seemed to care about getting promotions and career advancement rather than the project itself! To say they were risk averse would be an understatement...

A minimum of 2,400 figures for £90.00? That's roughly £0.75 for 20 figures. That is a very powerful incentive. And that ignores the Black Powder based rule book, scenery items, etc., which are also included. 

Personally I wouldn't want 2,400 figures to paint or 100 figure units. I want more flexibility for basing, to form my own unit sizes and possibly figure pose. I wasn't very impressed with the artillery sculpts.

So if I was starting ACW afresh, I'm not convinced I would go for this. But if, say, Warlord starts to sell the pack contents individually in future (e.g., like individual sprues), I think that would be a more attractive option for the main stream wargamer with Kallistra also benefiting because of their close compatibility.   

Quote from: flamingpig0 on 22 December 2020, 08:02:08 AM
It is to stop people using their existing figures

That might be true, it might not.

Having seen the comparison pics of a strip next to Kallistra's "12mm" ACW they match almost exactly - certainly no problems on the battlefield, and if anything the only difference is that the lead is a bit "chunkier" and the plastics have a bit more realistic proportions.

I suspect Warlord have realised sweeping games of 28mm with a thousand figures a side are WAY beyond most of the hobby, and that this is a very easy way to expand into a market they otherwise can't touch.

The cost to figure ratio is eyewateringly good - I'm not sure even Commission's very nice 6mm MDF are as cheap, and I suspect we might see tooling come up for other periods on this....

Good concept.  Unfortunately it is about 40 years too late, and the wrong scale, to interest me.  I suspect, thought, that it is aimed at the younger, newcomer, market, rather than gamers who've been at it for half a century or more. 

For something that's a bit bigger than Pendraken's (and Cracker Line, which I have mixed with my Pendrakens) ACW line, the sculpts are no where near as good. I'll stick with my 10mms for ACW, thanks. They might be cheap, but the quality is really lacking. I've seen better 6mm sculpts than those.

Just had an email (twice) from Warlord, the figures do look rather nice. Problem with ACW is that it's one of the most boring periods to paint, at least for the USA,

Quote from: John Cook on 23 December 2020, 12:47:53 PM
Good concept.  Unfortunately it is about 40 years too late, and the wrong scale, to interest me.  I suspect, thought, that it is aimed at the younger, newcomer, market, rather than gamers who've been at it for half a century or more. 

It's definitely aimed at a "one stop shop" approach to push something akin to GW, IMO - it's the "Warlord Hobby" as it were.

Sort of proprietary scale (doubt Kallistra figures on their radar?), in incredibly cheapness, might tempt other scale gamers in anyway but that's secondary, as it will pick up everyone who isn't invested elsewhere in scales and rules...

Nick, I thought the figures looked pretty decent - their proportions look a bit thin, 'cos they're injection moulds and just won't have the chunky heft of lead.

Ian - would like blue with your blue?

Just had a look at the Warlord Wednesday email, where they are now previewing a wagon and dismounted cavalry. It also appears that the buildings and the like can be bought separately, eg the Seminary and cemetery gates for Gettysburg about E28. I have seen a painted up comparison photo with Kallistra of the Union artillery. To be fair the sculpts are pretty crisp and appear to paint up well. They also looked noticeably bigger than Kallistra and I would hazard probably closer to Peter Pig's original ACW range.

Andy

Hmm, the side by side shots I'd seen (Nick Eyre of Northstar & from WI) looked *very* closely compatible with Kallistra.

Although I suspect Kallistra are on the big side of 12mm and Peter Pig's old ACW on the small side of 15mm, so maybe there's a fair overlap...