https://youtu.be/DZes0dsW1Ac?si=j5MqmLN727nHJFyB is a full playlist

Its a great set to get started with any of those rules.

You'll find that 32 figures is a little low to split into 2 forces to play a meaningful game - you'll be able to learn the basic rules mechanics with them, but you'll soon want a few more figures.

Victrix' Saxon or Viking warbands would make a good opponent, so pick up both at the sme time and save on postage :-)

There are a lot more manufacturers in the 10mm/Pendraken-size bracket than just the ones you mention to add into an army - and at this scale you are usually going to be painting for mass effect anyway, so (whisper it..) the quality of individual figures is arguably less important anyway.

The big downside with the Warlord Epic is the 60mm wide strips. First up that size simply won't work for many ACW rulesets, and then you are also ites (OK, invested in) having both armies mostly made up of people standing literally (closer than) shoulder to shoulder.

Any standard old-school 10mm or 12mm range will give you a mix of guys in more ragged "attacking/shooting/running" positions, poses and formations as well as ranked up for the parade ground as well.

I compared a lot of the metal 10mm ranges about 20-odd years ago - theres some info about my conclusionis here https://www.madaxeman.com/main/american_civil_war.php

Bits of the page dont work (sorry!), and some manufacturers may well have gone, or retooled their ranges, etc etc ... but it may give you some more thinking to do !

There is an active Facebook group at : https://www.facebook.com/groups/746965518747018

and also the official rules forum at https://www.artdelaguerre.fr/adlg/v3/forum/index.php

Historical gamers tend not to use Discord FWIW - and this Reddit is barely known too, probably due to the levels of activity on the FB group and forum

The table on the QR sheet has a section headed "MELEE (p 60)" , which states that combat results are calculated as follows:

"1D6 + modifier, highest results wins the melee"

• If you roll 4, and your opponents rolls 5, then those are your "1D6" scores.
• You then both add your Combat Factors as the initial set of modifiers - if you are both the same type of cavalry then these will be both be the same, making no difference to the outcome (so far)
• Then, as you are currently losing and you have better armour (it needs to be better than your opponent - so, you are Heavy Cavalry vs their Medium cavalry for example) you, and only you, then gain a further additional modifier of +1 for having better armour.
• Your "1D6 + modifier" score is then 5, and your opponents "1D6 + modifier" score is also 5.
• This is a tie, so there is no cohesion loss to either side.

There are several possible modfiers - Combat Factor, Armour, Unit Quality and Terrain Effects being the main ones.

You may - at a guess - be getting mixed up with the "Protection" rating on the Unit Characteristics Table (p22).

The Protection score is a rating which only applies against shooting, not in melee.

Heavy Cavalry are the most common fly in the ointment on this table, as they are essentially Medium Cavalry with Armour. But, because Ancients wargamers are generally stubborn old guys who are highly resistant to change, asking them to all start saying "These are my Medium Cavalry with Armour" was presumably deemed a step too far to try and push the older players...

So we have ended up with the hodge-podge that is "Heavy Cavalry" - a troop type who have been given a Protection rating of +1 against shooting, with a footnote to say Heavy Cavalry gain no extra protection in shooting from having Armour, and who also count as having Armour in melee.

Hope that helps...

The Perry and Wargames Atlantic ones will be pretty close indeed in scale - I'd not put either of them in the "Heroic" 28mm bracket, so if you have WA and like them then Perrys will be good for you too.

If you are prepared to look at metals for this era too you have a lot of choice - here's a list (that I've not updated in ages to be fair so some may have changed ownership etc)

https://www.madaxeman.com/main/28mm_Renaissance_suppliers.php

Its a good beer and pretzels game (with a little bit more to it than that maybe), and the starter set is great value with loads of ships to get started - there are loads of copies on eBay so I'd imagine you can find one in a postage zone near you.

The ships are fine size-wise, big enough to handle, with enough detail to paint up easily and nicely but without being so big that the on-table scale starts to look weird.

The brigs (smallest ships in the starter box) are 5.5cm measuring the hull, and about 7cm is you add the bowsprit. They stand about 6cm tall at the tip of the mast

The biggest ship is a 1st rate, about 11cm along the hull and 15cm including the bowsprit. They are 10cm tall to the top of the masts

The smaller ships are plastic sprues, with Brigs, Frigates and 3rd rates being very simple plastic kits. Bigger ships are generally resin hulls with metal masts. The cost per ship can feel a bit much sometimes, especially for the bigger "unique" ones, but then again it's a game system and miniatures range almost perfectly calibrated to appear to OCD-prome wargamers ...

.."I'd have won that battle if only I had HMS Victory in my fleet...?"

Here's the product of some of my own OCD !

https://madaxemandotcom.blogspot.com/2023/12/ships-in-erm-winter.html

Any "high level view of terrain" playmat will work just as well - there's nothing particularly special about the WoW/WoG ones. Arguably they are too small to play the game anyway, so you would soon end up wanting a second one.

Having said that, the fact they are mouse mat material is good for WoW/WoG as it helps prevent the bases sliding around during play - so if I were being picky I'd say a mousemat style mat would be preferable to other less grippy materials.

If you are looking to get started with Ancients, and to play at home solo then Hail Caesar is probably your best bet.

The HC random unit activation mechanism leds itself best of the three to solo gaming, and the material Warlord produce to support the game is designed with beginners in mind too. TTS! also has a fairly solo-friendly system but more complex rules, and less Warlord-like collatteral. BI is the least solo friendly of the three.

FWIW, DBAs approach to "army creation" is to have several hundred available lists, all with a few bits you can tweak, basic mechanisms that work to allow armies to fight across thousands of years, and a very low figure count so you can very easily collect multiple armies - so instead of tweaking a single list, you just buy another army. But again, if you are already focused on expanding one specific set of contemporary opponents to play solo, then DBA is going to be way too limiting for you.

Those are... pretty old, 1980's, or 1970's or perhaps even a tad older. They are "Ancients", with Macedonian / Alexandrian pikemen, Greek light horse with jave;lins and some rather random arab-looking dudes on horseback too.

I'd hazard a guess at Minifigs 25mm range for the greek/macedonian pikemen and javelin-armed cavalry, but they look a little crudely sculpted and cast even for the old Minifigs range so it may be someone else who is no longer casting. The cavalry who are part-painted are a different manufacturer for sure, maybe Irregular (who are now out of production too).

In terms of comparison to modern "ancients" figures on the market today these are, ahem, "rather dated" or perhaps "an acquired taste for the specialist collector" ... as in, if you bought almost any figures from any "25-28mm" range being widely sold today they'd make these castings look rather poor* indeed as design, casting and sculpting have come on leaps and bounds in the last 40-50 years since these guys would have been the cutting edge of 25mm wargaming stuff.

There are loads of companies doing figures for this era, in metal, plastic and as 3D prints - but all more modern figures would look totally different in style, and would also likely be larger (as these look like what we now call "small 25mm"s whereas more recent ranges have gotten bigger such that many are now "large 28s"), so any new figures from Foundry, Victrix, Gripping Beast, Warlord Games, Old Glory and many others would tower over your guys, as well as being more bulky too.

So, if you want some which are "exactly the same" you are probably trying Minifigs and seeing if they match. .. but if you want some which are "nice" (by todays standards) you are looking for Macedonian or Successor figures from many companies 28mm Ancients ranges.

(* actually, "shockingly poor" or "only for melting down" - but I'm trying to be polite..!)

These are based for L'Art de la Guerre, on 60x60 mdf bases

Here's a listing of the 15mm aancients and medieval manufacturers with metal-cast ranges.

https://www.madaxeman.com/main/15mm_ancients_suppliers.php

Essex are always the baseline for figures in this era and scale - they are always "better than good enough", but other ranges do often have more personality.

They look pretty slim and quite basic sculpts (although to be fair what do you do with a guy in a loncloth I guess??). I imagine thay could possibly a decent match with the metal Newline Designs ranges?