Pike & Shotte: Epic Battles; New From Warlord Games! [Update]
February 17, 2023 by brennon
Warlord Games were not content with turning Waterloo and the American Civil War into an Epic Battles endeavour. They are now going to be delving into the heart of 17th Century Europe with Pike & Shotte: Epic Battles and a new set, Push Of Pikes.
Push Of Pike // Pike & Shotte: Epic Battles
Pre-Orders Available For Pike & Shotte: Epic Battles
The new set comes with a massive amount of figures in their 13.5mm scale. You get 1288 figures spread across the different units plus twelve artillery pieces. The sprues also come in two different colours (tan and grey) meaning that you can get started when playing Pike & Shotte without the need to get painting straight away.
Push Of Pike - Miniatures // Pike & Shotte: Epic Battles
This set focuses in on the English Civil War but also the Thirty Years' War which was raging across the Channel. You will find flags included with the set allowing you to make armies from both conflicts depending on where you want to start. You'll also notice that there is a laser-cut MDF kit in the mix as well which is going to be fought over by the two opposing armies.
The Push Of Pike set also comes with an A5 Rulebook which contains everything that you need to get playing. So, this is a solid starter set for Pike & Shotte that comes with a kitchen sink's worth of content for you to busy yourself with.
Additional Boxed Sets
As well as the new starter set in Push Of Pike, you will also be able to pick up more sets to help bolster your forces, whatever theatre of war you're playing in. There are new Infantry Battalia...
English Civil War Infantry Battalia // Pike & Shotte: Epic Battles
Thirty Years' War Infantry Battalia // Pike & Shotte: Epic Battles
There are loads and loads of miniatures across these two sets that cover the Royalists and Parliamentarians as well as the different countries fighting it out in Europe. That means pikemen and musketeers in equal measure. Plenty of cotton wool smoke clouds are called for!
You can also get your hands on some Cavalry options that cover the same theatres of war.
English Civil War Cavalry // Pike & Shotte: Epic Battles
Thirty Years' War Cavalry // Pike & Shotte: Epic Battles
These sets come with a selection of new options including thirty harquebusiers, six cuirassiers, three cornets, nine mounted dragoons, fifteen dismounted dragoons, eighteen commanded shotte, three saker medium guns, three falconet light guns, three mounted battalia commanders and three ensigns on foot. Bloody hell that's a lot packed into those boxes. The folks at Warlord Games didn't do things by halves!
MDF Scenery Sets
As well as the miniatures for both armies, two sets of terrain are also going to be available to snap up from this weekend.
Thatched Hamlet Scenery Pack // Pike & Shotte: Epic Battles
Village Scenery Pack // Pike & Shotte: Epic Battles
These are going to be very handy for those looking to build up the many villages, towns and such that got raided by all of the armies rampaging across the countryside. Whilst it's neat to have the Thirty Years' War miniatures and such, I think that I'm very much drawn to the English Civil War and playing out that battle between brothers with the Royalists and the Parliamentarians.
"Lord, I've Been Shot!"
Last but not least, we have a set of Casualty Markers that can be used alongside your units to show when they have taken damage during gameplay.
Casualty Markers // Pike & Shotte: Epic Battles
A nice bonus item included with the first raft of releases that keeps things looking all the more "in world" when you're playing games. These should be fine to paint up in short order and get onto the tabletop alongside the starter set and such.
I've always wavered on the idea of diving into the English Civil War but this might send me over the edge!
"There are loads and loads of miniatures..."
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I’m not really surprised that this is the next Warlord Epic range, as the re-use of the same basic sprues for all protagonists matches the approach for the ACW, and makes a lot of sense in terms of manufacturing costs. Interesting to see the branding for the different conflicts (ECW vs 30 Years) seems to essential boil down to the flags included in each set, but I guess it isn’t clear if that will mean different boxes or just one box with flag options. Great to see, be interesting if this spurs more interest in the period.
Not gonna lie, was hoping it was going to be Romans v Celts or similar.
Same here
Interesting. Might get a sample box or something
Not really surprised it isn’t ancients as there is just too much to cover I think
For economy reasons this period was always going to be high on the release schedule. I’m already looking forward to see what expansions come out for the range.
I was hoping they’d come out with ancients next. I have a large ECW collection in metal but if I was starting again, I’d be very interested in this set. So, looks good but I’ll be saving my wallet on this occasion.
The terrain looks great.
If you paint most of the troops in fairly generic colors and only the command figures faction-specific, you gain extra flexibility.
Very much intrigued by this. I’ve actually been wanting to dive into small scale (smaller than 28mm) Napoleonics and the Waterloo box is good value for money! I’m not so much interested in the battle of Waterloo or the Peninsular War, however (or, I find other battles in the eastern parts of Europe more interesting). The ECW/TYW set seems much more flexible though and would allow me to play out the late Eighty Years War as well as other battles set during the Thirty Years War.
Looks like an interesting product and certainly suits the limited casting variety available in this production method. I’m doing the really big battle stuff in 2mm at the moment so not sure this scale is going to make it onto my painting or gaming table soon. They certainly know how to make things look shiny though. Sorely tempted.
What’s the old adage? All wargamers end up playing the English Civil War?
This new release is detailed and packed with great offerings as we have come to expect. I honestly thought the next release would be Alexander the Great or Romans but I can see this doing well. I look forward to the addition of a covenentor / Scottish force along with Rupert and his little dog. If there was a tricorn period release I might consider giving up 6mm but until then….
As others have said, this is unexpected as I had thought we’d see ancients first.
Nonetheless the bare plastic looks good. I might be tempted. I may be even more tempted if they fit in with the Steel Fist ECW range but those may be a tad bigger.
I’d love to get into the ECW and this looks ideal. If there’s a Scots Covenanter release in the future (looks a simple enough conversion but I really don’t fancy chopping up hundreds of tiny hats) I’ll be all over it.
A bold choice BUT.. The ‘shotte’ are in FAR too close a formation for the drill of the period. This was NOT the shoulder to shoulder lines of the Black Powder era, the very nature of the matchlock musket necessitated not only open but DEEP files (at least 6 deep not 2). The Horse sculpts are not very inspiring either and frankly seem a little rushed compared to the pretty decent Epic scale Naps and ACW cav they’ve already released. To do Epic ECW/TYW i’d stick to 6mm from the likes of baccus. A real shame as Warlord’s plastic 28mm… Read more »
Why did they make the strips 60mm? Wouldnt 40mm be more useful? Or at least give you room to snip the strips down to 40mm..? The mind boggles.
Seems a bit daft to have double the amount of boxes for the sake of including both flag sheets. Going to cause problems with retailers having to hold double the amount of stock (or perhaps that IS the point), PLUS it raises the production costs with having to produce two sets of packaging. They didn’t feel the need to do so with their 28mm range of plastics, so why now? Still an obvious choice for the team at Warlord to give the period the “epic” treatment (with nearly all armies of the period having the same equipment and uniforms (although… Read more »
Not my era and and I am hoping for ancients. Maybe as other’s have said from a commercial perspective this is a safe era to go with as the core plastics need is limited. Good though to see Warlord having enough confidence in the range so far to keep expanding.
I quite like the whole coloured frame thing, any idea how that works with the expansion packs? Are they all just grey plastic?
they’ve shown the sprues as grey plastic, so it could be that the regular boxes are grey, or it could be early test shots. Just have to wait and see. It would be nice if they kept the colour since they have two boxes for each type being released with the same sprues. One for ECW and one for 30 Years War. If they colour matched those it would make it worth while
I would lie if I said I wasn’t tempted…
Get the Breitenfeld set, paint it, put it in the box and play it as a self-contained game ”boardgame style”?
Whoop! It all looks … well, Epic ?. While I already have a lot of 28 (and 15!) stuff for the period there are plenty of campaigns that I haven’t touched yet and so I think that I will be tempted to dip my toe in to this release. Post Salute though – must maintain focus!
Those look really good. I just know that I have neither the skill nor patience to paint them all to a standard I would be happy with.
Pike and shots will nicely blend in in to Fire and sword too as sweedish army fighting in Polish kingdom. I wonder scale wise is there any noticable diiference.