Thought I'd give these a try so I bought the starter box. I didn't get the pre order special so no personality figures or 'Glory Halleluiah' but otherwise the same. My preferred rules are 'Pickets Charge' so that's not a big loss but the command figures would have been nice (that will teach me to um and arr on purchase).
The box comes with 24 sprues, each containing 100 infantry, a gun and crew and a mounted officer. This amounts to over 2400 figures ! Add to this a building and fences from Sarrissa, a 'Black Powder' rule book and some d6 and it comes out at quite a bargain for the £90 that I paid (since found it for £71 !) Also supplied is a flag sheet, but I prefer to paint my own flags so will not be using it.

Their suggestion is units of 5 bases but I, like most others it seems, will be using 3 for a standard regiment, 2 for a small and 4 for large. I've not decided how I'm representing the 4/6 gun batteries yet.
They are an in between scale of about 13mm, matching 'ok' with kalistra's range, more of which later.

Painting wise I found them not as quick to paint as you might expect being 10 in a row. The problem is the each one is different so its hard to get in to a flow as I can when painting Pendraken figures by putting the same pose together on a stick and moving along in the same motion. However, the Confederates now take about the same time as the Union. There has been some YouTube posts using Contrast paint but its not for me really.

This is how a standard regiment will look






I cut the 60mm bases down to 55mm as I thought the look was better without the gaps between the figures on each base and looked more of a cohesive unit.

Now for the downside. The 2nd and 3rd wave. I ordered the Iron Brigade and Zouaves just for some variety. They worked out to be a bit on the expensive side but within the realms of value, just. Also the Cavalry that wasn't, but the offer of all 3 came with casualty markers so....yeah ok, but I won't be buying any more.
There is, however, no way I'm buying anything from wave 3 as they are a total rip off. Kalistra are in most cases, half the price so anything I need will come from them.

I think Warlord missed a trick here. I really like the dense packed look of the infantry and the price of the plastic sprues are very competitive. The Iron Brigade and Zouaves are in resin. I've not had any resin figures before so I'll reserve judgement.
On the announcement of this range I was excited for future releases in other periods but having seen how the follow ups for ACW have been priced, then it is extremely unlikely I will buy any until the ranges are complete and the full cost implication is known.

I came close to buying the starter set, largely due to the thought of getting 2400 figures for somewhere between £70 and £90 depending on where you buy from.  Then the reality of painting 2400 figures dawned on me and my enthusiasm waned somewhat.  Shortly afterwards Honour games released their LaSalle 2 rules and I decided that if I was going to do a large project Napoleonics in 10mm appealed to me more.  So I cancelled the Warlord order an invested in a fairly substantial number of Pendraken Napoleonics and haven't regretted the decision.  OK painting the variety of Napoleonic units is significantly more complicated, but variety is the spice of life and I suspect that painting huge numbers of the almost identical Warlord blocks would get boring quite quickly, at least now I can ring the changes more when I get fed up with a particular troop type.  Plus the starter set looks very much like a loss leader to hook you into the system and what you are saying about the costs of subsequent waves seems to bear that out.

I should also say well done on your paint job, they look good.

 

The densely packed figures do look very effective when painted this well

The figure with his rifle at the port on the end of the rank with the standard and officers seems a strange pose choice and breaks up the tight formation

I got the Wargames Illustrated magazine with the free sprue and painted up some Union. Firstly, I agree, they take longer to paint than you first think. There is plenty of detail to paint, which does take time, but when you put the base down, at normal viewing distances that detail largely disappears, so somebalance between painting detail and doing fast painting to get through so many figs is needed.

Secondly, I find the gap between bases jarring to my eye, your solution to cut down to 55mm looks very effective.

The guy with his rifle stuck out is a troublemaker!

Look great.

Nice stuff

Fantastic looking units and nice thoughts on the pros and cons of this range.

Are the original (phase 1) infantry resin as well?

Looks very impressive - good job.

I like the idea of close mass caste figures - long ago I had some Falcon Miniatures Hussite wagons with the fighting crew cast in a block it was a great way to depict them.
I can also see an opportunity with Fantasy armies to create shambling hordes in a similar manner - I've been looking for something similar I can use for my 'Pits of Hell' fantasy army.

phase one are all plastic as are the expansion standard infantry boxes (£20 for 300 in 3 regiments of 100). A few historical inaccuracies but not so bad I cant get around them.
I agree about the port arms figure on the command strip, he must have misheard the order or something. I did consider cutting him off and replacing with another figure, but decided against the extra work

Don't forget Leon will do 55mm bases if you ask him nicely. But not perhaps this week, He claims he is busy??

Quote from: Orcs on 31 March 2021, 10:25:04 AM
He claims he is busy??

Wonder why, only took me 3 months to move

How do these fit with other 10mm figures, Pendraken's for example?

I'm working on my second test-regiment (Union this time) and I'm still not sure whether to continue down this road or not... I stand a fair chance of winning a starter box ( I hope to convince myself at least...) and that might push me over the edge but otherwise I don't think I'll invest in a new scale this round. Painting time was indeed much higher than I expected too because of the detail.
Pendraken won't work with these; the difference between 10mm and 13mm is just too much. As said by Redstef; Kallistra would be the way to go. If I continue with this project I would definitely replace the artillery and add some new command figures too for some variety.
The figures look good en masse and the casting is pretty crisp but on closer inspection kit and the manual of arms positions are pretty bad... everybody seems to be holding his rifle any way he wants which is totally inaccurate for a unit in line. Marching is a bit of a shambles too with some left foot front, others right foot front. The kit they're wearing and how they wear it also defies belief. You would have thought that a company like WG would do some research before spending all this money on such a project. Then again; how can one possibly come by the right information this day and age! 

Ah well, let's see if I can get some for free and then decide on how to go from here!

Cheers,
Rob

Oh, by the way Redstef; where are your flags from?
They look the part as do your units. My compliments on those!

Cheers,
Rob