Clash of Empires-1st impression

[Badbones777]

Took advantage of the offer on following the official loss of Warhammer Historical and
my stuff just arrived. Have only just had the briefest of skims through it as it's my day
off and am taking the missus and the little'un for a walk on the beach, but must say I am
impressed with it so far. Also, I was pleasantly surprised (obviously didn't read the offer
properly!) to find a mini bundled with the three books-And very nice he is too! Along
with Harald Steptoessen from the recent Hail Caesar army list release I may have to do a Viking
force now I have two obvious candidates for leader models!

As sad as it is the first thing I flipped to was the index-hate bad indices! The CoE Core book one looks
pretty solid and the layout of the book as a whole is pretty. A brief glance at the weapons list and it seems like
they are pretty detailed with plenty of rules (but they look simple enough to be worth the bother without getting
overly bogged down. Most excitingly, it also looks like I will be able to easily convert over any WaB stuff to this system as
well, so I am pretty much as excited as a geek can be based on a couple of minutes with the book before I dash out into
the real world (hideous, awful sunlight!)

[infinite_array]

Glad to see someone else give the CoE book and ruleset a thumbs up.

I'm currently working on putting together a couple of 1000 point lists for EIR and British, helpfully provided by one of the GEG guys on their forum.

[Badbones777]

Had a read through first couple of sections last night and am liking what I am seeing. I could stand to be corrected by those more
familiar with the game, but from what I've seen it looks like the basic framework of WABbut with deployment and movement playing
a much more important role. It looks like there's a real risk/reward system at work with the various maneuvers and I like that
skirmishers and open order troops look like having an important role to play, while still allowing for the dominance of the close order infantry
once the actual combat proper kicks off.

I can certainly recommend based on what I have seen so far, and the website looks like there is plenty of support offered - colour me happy!

[Griefbringer]

and the website looks like there is plenty of support offered - colour me happy!

It is certainly the first time I see somebody publish a dedicated army list for the 15th century Bretons!

[Badbones777]

It is certainly the first time I see somebody publish a dedicated army list for the 15th century Bretons!

Too true-I think it's possibly the first time outside of the relevant DBM book that I've ever seen a Hawaiian Islands list as well-while I have no idea how accurate it
is, as I am ashamed to say I know basically nothing of the history of the area, the Hawaiian Koa list is certainly in depth and not lacking in choices! Impressive stuff indeed.

Also as a side comment-I think all wargame producers should be henceforth duty bound to provide a pre-setup excel file for building army lists For verily, it rocketh
(as I suck at anything but basic stuff in Word!)

[PsychosisPC]

I'm roughly twenty pages in, in my copy of CoE. And I'm pleasantly surprised by it. I love the core Warhammer rules, and so far this looks like a good alternative to what I like, with some additional stuff. I had also heard about the Generals / Sub-commanders, so I skipped ahead to that section, characters definitely play a different role in this game, versus WAB. More things for me to build for my WAB/SAGA/CoE vikings.

[Badbones777]

Indeed, being essentially buff giving tokens (which is entirely apt in my opinion) it means you can go crazy and make dioramas or set piece models for the commanders and
really get creative given you essentially don't have to worry about it fitting into a unit. Good stuff I say

[PsychosisPC]

Never really had a problem being creative with my characters. One thing it does mean is that I must build more characters. My WAB characters become rank and file types when I play CoE.

[Tonny]

I never played a historical wargame, but I am planning to get the Victrix plastic hoplite sets. How should I base them to be legal in CoE? What kind of bases and how many models on it?

[Stuart-GreatEscapeGames]

Any way you want Tommy. I use mostly multi-bases (4 models on a 40mm x 40mm base), with a few singles in a unit. Standard size for infantry is 20mm x 20mm.

[Tonny]

Any way you want Tommy. I use mostly multi-bases (4 models on a 40mm x 40mm base), with a few singles in a unit. Standard size for infantry is 20mm x 20mm.

Thank you! So standard GW Warhammer bases are fine?

[Stuart-GreatEscapeGames]

Absolutely.

[PsychosisPC]

Yep. I use alot of GF9 magnetics for the metal armies and wooden bases for the plastics. Infantry on 20mms, Cav 25x50. This was standard with Warhammer Ancients also.

[Lars Porsenna]

ALL of my 28mm figures are Warhammer standard based, especially for plastics (so I do not have to use dissimilar glue...)

Damon.

[Badbones777]

Yep basing should in no way prove much of a headache with CoE- Even if you've got some stuff based up
for different systems it's no problem playing this at all.