Hail, Caesar!

No not the rules but the man.  Caesar was painted for me by Andres at Einar Olafson, who has done a stunning job!  Please have a click.

Caesar himself is an interesting piece.  His horse is Foundry, his body Aventine, and his head Warlord.  

I painted the standard bearer.  In the heat of the action, he is carrying his shield the wrong way up...  The Aventine vexilla is really useful, I must have used 2 dozen of them, so far..  

So... Caesar will be leading the action on Sunday at SELWG.  If you are coming along and want to play in the very large Thapsus battle I'll be running twice (once each AM and PM), please drop me a line at the email address on the front page of my blog, and I'll book you in!  

Rumble by the Rhine

On Tuesday we played another Hail Caesar game, another battle between revolting Batavian and German auxiliaries, and their savage German allies, and a regular Roman/auxiliary force who were trying to relieve a small fort (one of Paul Darnell's lovely models, above, with some great buildings by John Smillie).

Above are my loyal auxiliaries; Britons, Gauls and Raetians, with some Praetorian cavalry.  The legionary cohorts were deployed (below) off to my right, just beyond a small wood that turned out to be a terrific PITA.

Ianicus commanded the Germans.  Above are some of the savage German warbands; mostly Dr Simon's minis.  Below are his German and Batavian mutineers.

The battle started with Dr Simon seizing the vicus, just outside the fort, with his auxiliary archers, and (imaginatively) with dismounted legionary cavalry (you can just make them out in the photo at the top of the post).  Ianicus countered by seizing the central wood (below) with his javelinmen. 

This was an issue for us, because in Hail Caesar close order troops cannot enter a wood; we had nothing to pry the skirmishers out with.  Moreover the HC proximity rule (of which more in a later post) required our legionaries to face the LI, even though they had no missile weapons that could harm them and could not even melee them.  So the better half our army was useless!

I decided that the only thing I could do was move forward my auxilia to throw javelins at them.  Meanwhile Ianicus was trying to manoeuvre around my left flank... click on the map, below, to see the situation at this stage.

After this I'm afraid it all went a bit pear shaped for the Empire.  Dr Simon laboriously manoeuvred his legionaries around behind the wood on our baseline, and then behind my lines, to face the outflanking mutineers approaching from my left.  Ianicus attacked with his Germans, and these, after a very tough fight, my surviving troops were pushed back onto Simon's columns and destroyed (a photo of the traffic jam is below).  The legions might have still have recovered it, I suppose, but it was late and we called the game.

We found the rules very frustrating; the proximity rule, in particular, is badly worded, and we struggled with various other rules, plus the poor layout of the rule set.  It is safe to say that Hail Caesar's "more friendly style of gaming" came under considerable strain, on Tuesday; it got competitive, and these rules just cannot cope with competitive! 

Still, on the plus side it looked good, and played fast.  The combat system is good, and I like the way that ordering works.  We are starting to get a reasonable grasp of the core mechanics.  Will have another crack in a week or so...

George's Rule

Muswell Militia have recently started to play Hail Caesar and Black Powder.  One problem with these rules is that it is possible to miss multiple turns, by repeatedly failing one's command roll.  After George missed 3 turns in a row during a game of Black Powder, I came up with the idea of giving generals who fail their first activatation of a turn a marker, entitling them to a +1 on the following turn's dice roll, which should reduce the chance of multiple failures.  I call this "George's Rule".

This is the Confused General from the cover of the DBA rulebook, who I've re-based for use in this capacity.  He's scanning his scroll of Hail Caesar, trying to find a missing rule point, lost amongst all the pretty pictures and military anecdotes.  ;-)

Hail Caesar; First Blood part le Deux

So here is a quick recap after last night's post; the Flavians are advancing from the top of the page (mostly free moves because they are in columns on a road; they struggled to make any command rolls).  The Villellian right wing has rushed forward and left wing is edging out of the olive grove; intending to hop over that ridge and rout the unwitting column of enemy legionaries.  The Vitellian right can just be seen at the top of the photo; it has rushed forward in a right hook, flanking the Flavians.

So all the Vitellian left needs is a decent command roll; instead they get a double 6 (fumble!).  Rolling a further 1, Ianicus consults the fumble table and... (below)

...rather more than half of his army routs off the table.  Did we laugh?  Did we hell!

Still Ianicus had three his remaining units on the right, and these tore into the Flavians, wth their cavalry catching a cohort still in March column (below, at rear).  With a 9 dice to 1 advantage, could they rout it?  Nope.  Couldn't even beat it.  The dice were taking a distinctly Flavian turn.  However, they did manage to destroy a cohort of Flavian auxiliaries, and a numerus of skirmishers.  Meanwhile, half of the Flavian army were still advancing in their original direction, toward the fleeing, unseen ambushers (failed command rolls).
  

In the following turn, however, the Flavians rolled a very low dice and were able to make a triple move to counterattack.  Their legionary cavalry were able to hit the exposed flank of Ianicus left-most cohort, at the same time as a cohort of legionaries piled into its front.  The very large pile of white skull casualty markers behind it, did not bode well for the reaction test; predictably they fled, and we called the game.

 

The rules worked well, in part because we are very familiar with Black Powder.  I think the game would best be first played with someone who has played before.  I umpired, and had to rush back and forth forward through the rulebook a fair bit, and had some difficulty finding things.  There was also one point where we couldn't find what to do and had to make it up; I think this will happen a lot and an umpire would be no bad thing.  But we did love the rules, and I am sure will get a great deal of use out of them.  In particular, they are perfect for the Early Imperial Roman campaign I've always wanted to run, and will encourage me to finish the rest of the troops I have planned.

Hail Caesar; First Blood

Tonight we had our first crack for the first time at Hail Caesar.  We fought a skirmish, set somewhere in Northern Italy, between a Flavian force of legionaries and auxiliaries, and a Vittelian ambush consisting of tough British and German auxiliaries, and a unit of armed gladiators.  The figures depicted  around 3000 troops on each side.

Above are the 2 Flavian Generals and their forces.  I could not fail to notice that one of the Roman commanders bore a strong resemblance to another illustrious Roman General:

Dr. Simon

Scipio Africanus the Elder

His co-commander was Chrispus.  Their forces were deployed with the legionaries marching along the road in two columns, with cavalry and light infantry scouting ahead, and auxiliaries on their left wing (below).

The Vitellians were commanded by Ianicus (not shown).  His ambushing forces were hidden behind a low ridge and in an olive grove (below).  The gladiators are at the front, on the left, and the cavalry are in the background.

Tomorrow night I'll write an account of the battle which, it has to be said, was a blast.