In keeping with their recent turn towards non-historical offerings, like Test of Honor or Gates of Antares, UK-based brand Warlord Games continues to diversify their library with their newest entry, Warlords of Erehwon
Warlord Games has received a not-so insignificant amount of my money the past few years as I’ve returned to tabletop hobbies. The UK based company is probably best known for their Bolt Action and Black Powder rules and miniatures. Bolt Action is a squad based World War II combat game. Black Powder is a Napoleonic Era mass battle game (some of the most stunning tabletop displays, in my humble opinion, are ranked and ordered Napoleonic era wargames). These are in addition to their Hail Caesar and Pike and Shotte rules and miniatures, both mass battle historical rule sets.
Recently, Warlord seems to be taking a sharper turn into the non-historical and skirmish spaces. Their historical-lite (cinematic) Test of Honor is a samurai themed tabletop skirmish game with warbands ranging from 5-20 models, depending on the game. Gates of Antares, by the author of Warhammer 40k Rick Priestley, is a sci-fi offering that also features squad level combat.
Warlord’s newest offering is Warlords of Erehwon (from now on abbreviated WoE). Initially teased mid December with a trailer on YouTube, little information was available until mid-January. What we did know was WoE is a fantasy skirmish game utilizing “the d10 system developed for...Gates of Antares”. The initial model offering were models Warlord already had access to and had been selling, namely their Orcs and Skeletons, as sprues. There was little to be excited about at the time outside of the d10 system.
With their January 18th newsletter they announced that they are repackaging lines from Hail Caesar to create a barbarian faction (models taken from Gauls and Vikings). Additionally the Orcs and Skeletons are bundled even further and sold with a couple other miniatures to create larger forces. What caught my eye and inspired this impression was the introduction of models from Frostgrave and Oathmark, both offerings from Osprey and Northstar Miniatures. I took another look at the rule book’s description on the website, and the outlined factions are:Barbarians, Beastman, Dwarf, Elven, Gnoll War Party, Goblin, Halfing, Knightly Retinue, Olympian, Orc, Undead, and Monsters. Warlord appears to be pulling in more lines to explicitly flesh out what those factions could look like on the table, and not just from their existing ranges. I’m personally curious what they will do for the Olympian faction. Will Warlord pull from their existing Greek line? Will they sell products from Footsore miniatures (who is releasing an ancient Greece skirmish game of their own)?
Given that Warlord is still firing on all cylinders for its other ranges (this year saw the releases of Blood Red Skies, Cruel Seas, new historical figures, Shieldwall, etc.) I’ll be following to see what more comes of WoE, and how it can compete with Mantic’s Vanguard, a skirmish game using models from the mass battle system Kings of War. I’m not convinced there is anything new about WoE yet, but given the Antares-esque system it’s enough to keep me interested. Wargames in general seem to be headed more consistently into a skirmish space (See this video starting at 7:00) largely due to two main resourcing constraints: time (or attention) and money. Even with those constraints, it’s a pretty great time to be a tabletop wargamer, with about any model or rule set at our fingertips.
Also, if you’ve read this far, Warlords of Erewhon is a fantasy setting for everywhere and nowherE (see what Rick did there?).
Ross Blythe is a Chicago based gamer interested in all things tabletop. He enjoys reading history as well as fiction, and so has a soft spot for historical wargames like Pike & Shotte. For the campaigns he runs as a DM he often looks to history for inspiration, for the lessons of the past to challenge the players at his table.
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