Hail Caesar Skirmish #4: Marian Romans vs. Early Germans

With Historicon fast approaching, my pal Mike and I got together for a rapid fire series of games to brush up on some rules. This was Mike's first time playing Hail Caesar, so he took a larger force of Romans to face off against my early Germans. Pics and a battle report after the jump.

This was the first time taking a bunch of freshly painted figures for a spin, and the first time adding commanders to the table.  I'm still counting this as a skirmish, but I'm up to about half of the number of units recommended in the Hail Caesar rules. Here's what we had hitting the table:

Marian Romans

• 6 Heavy Infantry Legionnaires
• 1 small Numidian Light Cavalry
• 1 General

Early Germans

• 4 Warbands
• 1 Medium Cavalry
• 2 small light infantry archers
• 1 General

Initial Deployment

The Romans formed up in two tight formations, one positioned to take the high ground on their left, and one to tackle the warbands in the center of the battlefield.  The Germans formed a line intending to anchor their left flank in some rough ground and their right with the hill. The medium cavalry were poised to take the hill, while the light archers on the German left were set to rush into the rough ground on the German left.

Early Germans Move Out

As the German general, I made some initial conservative moves with my warbands and cavalry.  I was concerned about the Numidian cavalry moving on my flanks and wanted to secure my left with my archers before charging. Unfortunately, my archers only pulled a single move from their command roll, failing to reach the rough ground.

The Romans moved forward, attempting a similar headlong rush to take the hill on my right flank. Seeing the threat they'd pose, I committed my cavalry to taking the hill and scored a triple move, taking it easily.

First Blood

Concerned about the archers working the flank, the Romans sent one wing to take the hill and another to lock up the warbands in the center. Now within charge range, and wanting to take advantage of the +1 charge bonus, I sent my howling hairy hordes into battle.

The two Roman wings collide with their opponents, the hill battle in the distance.

Each side inflicted some casualties, with the Romans losing two units quickly but the battle atop the hill went disastrously for the Germans. The cavalry were defeated in combat and failing their Break test, recoiled disordered off the top of the hill.  My right flank was now open, my left was weakening under the Roman onslaught and my archers were delivering ineffectual harassing fire to the Roman flank. Things were looking bad.

German cavalry thrown back

Moving In For the Kill

On the Romans following turn they managed to crush my left flank, and 'roll up the line' with their victorious move.

Romans bowl over the German flank

As my line collapsed I threw my general into the melee in an attempt to sway the battle, but he failed to have much of an impact and ended up getting wounded in the clash.

The Romans broke the center divisions and then turned to mop up the last German warband. The Romans committed their general and scored a total of 12 hits from the 15 dice thrown in the final battle. Instantly broken, the Germans left the field.

Aftermath

I still dig Hail Caesar a lot.  I was hoping to get a few more stands of light troops painted and on the field, but ran out of time.  I think the larger number of units and the wider variety of troop types will lead to more intricate tactics. Although at a disadvantage, the battle initially looked to be going my way. Only after losing the hill, allowing the Romans on my right to take the hill and throw in some support on their buddies in the center did things swing towards the Romans.

It's been a few months since I played last, and I forgot numerous rules that we had to make judgement calls on during play.  Checking for who won battles (for determining break tests), if Wild Fighters ability comes into play for support dice, how to use commanders, etc.  Still I had fun, and looking forward to playing again.

Black Tree Designs Ancient Germans

I finally managed to polish off a number of projects that had been lingering on my workbench for months, the biggest of which were fleshing out a pair of ancient German warbands for Hail Caesar. Thanks to the Black Tree Designs big Summer sale I was able to pick up two dozen barbarians and sped through painting them to table standard. Despite the rush, I think they turned out well (more a credit to the sculpts than my paint job). More pics and thoughts after the jump.

I acquired a few Black Tree Designs figures in a lot of barbarians about a year ago. I used many of them for a stand of Celts, but mixed in with the lot were a handful of BTD ancient Germans, German savages, and Picts. Trying to scrape together some stands I combined them with some Foundry Germans into a hodge podge of "german barbarians".  With the BTD sale I was able to expand on my existing figures to create a single warband of naked savages and a single warband of clothed Germans.

BTD Picts on the left, German savages on the right

Review of Black Tree Designs Germans

Having a few Black Tree Designs on hand, I thought I knew what I'd be getting.  After getting a pack of German Savages, Chieftains and Warriors recently I found there were marked differences within the range.  The Chieftains were great: crisp detail, expressive, little flash.  The warriors were of the same quality, but I was surprised that they required drilling to open their hands to accept spears.  The savages I received all bore clubs, but I noticed a number had either weak detail or were miscast. Luckily all casting errors would be covered up by their shields but it was a bit surprising. 


Also, the Warriors had knobs or posts for mounting their shields jutting from their elbows.  Since these large tribal shields were held from a handle centered behind the boss, affixing them to the posts would have looked incorrect.  I simply removed the elbow posts and glued the shields to their fists properly.


Despite these drawbacks, I was still very happy with the figures. They mixed well with my existing forces and the sale price could not be beat. 

Black Tree Designs German Savages

Ancient German Shield Assembly Line

Shields seem to be my bane. I seem to spend more time on an individual shields than I do on the figure holding it. With about 20 more ancient germans to go to finish off a pair of understrength warbands I decided to attack their shields with a painting system to churn them out as quickly as possible. My system after the jump.

First step was priming the backs of all the shields brown. The shield faces got either a coat of brown or bone white primer. I gave the wood grain backs a quick drybrush of desert yellow and bone white, while the bone white faces received a quick highlight of white.

Next I laid out a grid of wall-tac putty, 4 columns wide and 6 rows deep. Keeping my earlier shield design file handy I chose one color for each column: red, blue, green and black.

Starting at the top of each column, I moved down each row painting a unique design on each shield with that column's chosen color. I found that using three colors per shield gave them a bit more visual interest so most shields got an accent color as well.

With a ton of minis to get painted up for a game later this month, I strived for a tabletop standard rather than showpieces. The last time I attempted hand painted shields they took my close to a week to finally get finished.  With this system, moving rapidly, and not stressing about the fiddly little details I was able to knock all two dozen shields out in a night. They could still use an ink wash to pop the center spine out and some weathering on their lower edge, but overall these are done.

Warlord Games Roman and Celtic General

Finished up the basing on my Warlord Games mounted Roman general and Celtic chieftain.  The Celt general will be serving as a leader for my ancient Germans rather than the Gauls, but they're all a bunch of hairy barbarians with snazzy fashion sense so I think he'll be interchangeable between a number of armies.

Warlord Games "Hold the Line!" mounted general

The Warlord Games chieftain didn't appear to have a lot of tell tale Celtic influences, so I thought he'd make a good leader for my ancient Germans. The standard bearer is a Black Tree Designs ancient German I believe. I didn't have any barbarian standards on hand, but I had a bunch of aquila left over from my Wargames Factory Romans. I asked about barbarians using captured Roman standards in battle on TMP and received a bunch of suggestions of additions the hairy horribles would have made to their trophy. I really liked the idea of the Germans adding antlers, pelts, severed heads and other trophies to the standard.  I added a Space Wolf ornament and the antlers clipped from an old plastic Bretonnian knight to the standard to give it a unique barbarian character.

Warlord Games Celtic chieftain and BTD standard bearer

Warlord Games Generals WIP 2

I was hoping to finish these up this weekend, but ran out of time.  The mounted Roman general is done, save for basing.  The Germanic chief (from WG Celtic Chieftains) and his standard bearer (BTD I think) are awaiting their final coat of Army Painter to dry, before dull coating and basing.

Hail Caesar Skirmish #3!

My wife and I played another Hail Caesar skirmish. The addition of my newly painted Celts brought our tiny forces up to the same point total (although I just eyeballed it when setting up the game). Having lost every Hail Caesar skirmish to date, I was hoping to eek out a win. I also wanted to add some more terrain to the field to see how it altered the battle. The Roman legionnaires would be facing off against their barbarian adversaries lurking in the dense forests of Germania. Check out our skirmish after the jump.


INITIAL DEPLOYMENT

The Romans

3 Heavy Infantry (Elite, Drilled, Pilum)
1 Small Light Cavalry (Feigned Flight)

The Germanic Barbarians
3 Warbands (Wild Fighters)
2 Small Light Infantry Archers

The Romans deployed two units deep in the center flanked by their cavalry. One unit of infantry deployed on the Roman left. The barbarians deployed in the right half of the field, between some rough ground to their left and the table edge. Their archers deployed in the woods beyond the rough ground.


Neither my wife nor I knew how the woods would impact the battle. The Roman plan was to send their single heavy infantry into the woods to act as bait and pull the barbarians towards it. My wife had learned how fragile her cavalry were from our last encounter and decided to use them to advance into the gap between the woods near the center of the field and harass the barbarians with javalins. Ideally this would allow the main Roman units to follow up into the gap and hopefully attack the barbarian flank. 


As the barbarians, I planned to send my archers to the top of the hill in the center-left of the field while my warbands moved in line into the gap, using the woods on their left and right to hold the flanks. I expected the Romans would steer clear of the woods and be forced to face me head on. When they did so I meant to take the first opportunity to charge them to gain the +1 charging bonus and make the best use of my Wild Fighters ability.


I really should have looked up the rules on woods before the game.


TURN 1: EVERYTHING GOES CRAZY
Neither of us were able to get our light forces moving, but my wife was first in getting her Romans into the woods. Surprise! Not knowing the rules well, we allowed units to switch to Open Formation if they entered woods automatically (oops!).

Seeing a single Roman unit drop into a vulnerable Open formation, alone in the woods, I took the bait and threw all of my barbarians forward in a head long rush to catch them before their allies could reach them. Sadly I only rolled two moves instead of the the three I needed and my barbarians wound up in the woods, but inches short of making contact.

PEPPERED WITH PILA
Buying time for the main Roman legionnaires and  cavalry to arrive, the Romans held back and pelted the barbarians with short range attacks, managing to force them out of the woods.

The single barbarian warband remaining in close formation was charged by the Romans in the open. As my wife was moving her Romans forward into contact I noticed she had started whistling a song: The Imperial Death March from Star Wars.



The barbarians fared poorly, taking heavy casualties, being Shaken and forced to recoil, back into the woods to their rear and automatically dropped into Open Order (though we may have botched that rule as well). Luckily, the barbarians had dealt a hefty blow to the Romans before retiring, handing them 4 casualties before retreating.  Eager to get her wounded Romans into a supporting role and off the front line, my wife elected to use their Victory Move to fallback in order to rotate their lines out of harms way on her next turn.


TRYING TO SALVAGE THE SITUATION
Things were looking grim for the German hordes. One of my warbands was shaken, two had taken some hits from pila and been forced back to nearly my starting position, my archers were stuck in the woods having not moved at all. I consolidated my barbarians back into close order in an effort to get my horde back into position to face the Romans. I finally managed to get my archers out of the woods and onto the hill. From that point I hoped to either whittle away the Roman cavalry, or get set up for a flank attack should the Romans manage to get into contact with my warbands.

The archers succeeded in diverting the attention of the Numidian cavalry and in a protracted (but uninteresting) javelin duel would eventually force the Numidians to back off. Meanwhile, attempting to rotate their lines by passing through each other, BOTH Roman units became Disordered. Hoping to stall the barbarians from attacking them in their Disordered state , the Romans in the woods advanced, charging the barbarians in front of them. The Romans inflicted some casualties, but the barbarians rolled 12 dice against them. 9 of them hit. The Romans rolled their 9 morale saves, needing a 4+ to save.  They only made a single save. Losing the combat, Shaken and with a heavy casualty difference, the Romans rolled and failed a Break test.  Shattered, a few survivors fled into the woods, never to be seen again.


She wasn't whistling anymore.

THE PAIN TRAIN
The Romans in the center recovered from their Disordered state and elected to fall back again to give their cavalry room to maneuver so they could close with the barbarians and inflict a few casualties before the barbarians were able to charge the remaining Romans.


Issuing the order to fallback as far as possible, my wife rolled 2d6 for command and got.... boxcars. The tide of battle had finally swung! She rolled for the blunder results and got "Fall back two moves, retain facing".  Exactly what she had been attempting!


With her turn over, I rolled my own command roll to get my barbarians turned and moving into the gap vacated by the retreating legionairres. I rolled and got... boxcars! Two command rolls, two blunders in a row. I rolled on the blunder result table and got "Uncontrolled Advance. Advance forward three moves charging if possible.", exactly what I wanted.  Too weird!  

Directly in front of the uncontrolled barbarians was a woodland, which didn't seem to make sense. We talked it over, and the free form HC rules really shined at this point. The barbarians, seeing the Romans falling back, would obviously see this as a sign of weakness and throw themselves forward after them.  Being uncontrolled, they would naturally end up thrashing through the woods that flanked the gap in front of their foes and be forced to drop into Open Order to reach their enemies.  We both agreed this made sense based on the events of the game. Suddenly my wife found herself staring down an frighteningly large horde of semi naked barbarians.

"I notice you aren't whistling the Darth Vader theme anymore."
"No, but look at all those guys coming at me! You should see this. It's scary! 'Stay on target!'"
"Stay on target?"
"Yeah, you know in Star Wars when they're in the trench and Darth Vader is bearing down on them and they're trying to hold it together? That's what this feels like."
"I'm going to put that in my blog."
"Whatever. That's fine. Just don't make me sound like an idiot like you did last time."


AND THEN SHE LOST
The barbarians and Romans hurled themselves at each other, the Romans just barely inflicting enough casualties to win the combat, forcing a Break test and seeing their enemies scattered before them.

But for Rome it was ironically, a Pyrrhic victory. In the combat the barbarians dealt six casualties, leaving the last Roman unit Shaken. with all three of her remaining units Shaken victory went to the barbarians.


WHAT DID WE LEARN
1) Hail Caesar is fun. Even if all of your troops get stuck tangling in one corner of the board and you don't know the rules for dealing with woods, it's a fun, tense game. I really like it.
2) Woods! Ok, here's the deal. If you are in close order and you reach the edge of a wood, stop. You are done. Next round you can switch to Open Order, but a formation change like that uses your entire unit's movement. The following round, now that you are in Open Order, you can move into and through the woods. That's three rounds to move through a stand of woods.
3) My status markers worked really well! Just need a few for the Romans.
4) I need to paint more. I'm itching to get more forces on the table. Getting twice as many Romans on the board as we have now should start to open up more of the tactical decisions in the game.

Ancient German Archers

Got the bases finished off on some Crusader Ancient German archers. Pretty quick paint job to get these on the table quickly.

Crusader Miniatures Ancient German Archers

Wargames Factory Painting Contest

I noticed Wargames Factory was running a painting contest to gather painted examples of their figures. I've painted up some of their Romans and Ancient Germans, and though they aren't the best examples of painting skill, I thought it was worth a shot to enter them.

Wargames Factory Romans. The shield decals really make these figures.

Wargames Factory 28mm Romans

Wargames Factory Roman Cohort

Wargames Factory Ancient Germans

Hail Caesar Skirmish!

Hail Caesar Romans ready for battle

My buddy Mark was in town for the holidays, and with a handful of complete (or nearly complete) figures ready to go, we decided to take a shot at Hail Caesar to run through the rules, roll some dice and throw some barbarians and Romans together and see the sparks fly. Check it out after the jump...

Deployment

This was just a quick "skirmish" to figure out rules and the very basics. I ran the Romans (three units) who faced off against two units of German warbands and a unit of Numidian light cavalry. With so few units we played on very small table, with a scattering of woods on the left and right, and a hill in the center. I also didn't feel we needed actual commander figures so we simply incorporated the command rolls and ignored the rules concerning commander placement, or bolstering units.

I deployed two units in line with the third behind as a reserve. The barbarian hordes spread out to attack the Roman flanks.

Initial Deployment

Round 1
Having actually read the rules, I took the initiative and made my first tactical blunder.  Tempted by the +1 to hit bonus of fighting uphill, I gave my division the order "Take that hill boys!", made my command roll and then realized I had ordered the entire division, including my reserve. Doh! Oh well, I'd be able to back my reserve off the hill next round.

The hairy barbarians took advantage on my mistake.  The cavalry gained three moves on their command roll and moved into a position to attack the Roman rear (whoops! Second mistake was forgetting the proximity rule as the cavalry drew close to the Romans. I figured they were due a larger table and probably could have maneuvered into place so gave it to them).

The warband on the flank also managed to get moving, but those directly to the Roman front hung back, squeamish at the prospect of attacking uphill against their well defended adversaries (botched that command roll).

Round 1

Round 2

The Romans played conservatively in the next round, spending 2 moves to get their rear line turned around and in position to face the expected cavalry charge.

The barbarians had better luck, the cavalry and flanking warband charging into contact, while the barbarians to the Roman front still hung back with a failed command roll. The initial round of combat found both sides inflicting hits, but with no conclusive outcome, but the Romans in a much weaker tactical position.

Round 2

Round 3
I wasn't quite sure if the Romans being attacked from the flank could change position, and after a quick scan of the rules without luck decided to force them to stay in position and fend off their hairy, naked adversaries with half dice due to the flank contact.

Round 3, recoiling cavalry just before being driven off.

In the ensuing combats, the Roman rear guard managed to drive the light cavalry off the table, but the German warband crushed the right line and swept up the hill falling just short of contact with the remaining Romans.

Round 4
With the screaming hordes closing in on them the Romans withdrew off the hill, the rear guard failing a command roll to turn and get into position and managing only a single move backwards because of their Elite quality.

Round 4, Romans

The Germans charged down the hill, the flanking warband having to move into a support position behind their brethren. Combat found the Romans taking the worst of it, but holding strong.

Round 5
The Romans finally got the rear line into a rear support position, but the tide had turned. The next round of combat saw the Romans suffering an additional 6 hits (!), putting them at 10 total and forcing them to withdraw to the very edge of the battlefield.

Round 5, recoiling to the very edge of the table.

The Germans swept down after them and the final round of combat broke the Roman front line and saw the support unit fail their break test and flee off the table.

The death blow

 So, a resounding victory for the barbarians, but a fun game for all.  It was great to finally get some dice rolled, and I just need to do another review of the rules to check the bits I wasn't sure on.

I need to finish off a the cavalry and german bases and paint up some damage and disorder counters and a "winning side" victory marker. Looking forward to my next game. :)

My First Ancients, Finished and Based!

Finally got my first Ancients completed. Still have many, many figures to paint up, but this is an exciting milestone for me. More photos after the break.

Ancient Germans
First up are a whole buncha barbarians.  I picked up a number of Foundry Ancient Germans years ago. Most were clothed or bare chested, but there a pair who were naked. I bought a second hand lot of miniatures including a number of Celts, Germans and Picts.  I used them to flesh out a few Ancient German Fanatics bases. Also hand painted the shields based on the designs I worked up in a previous post.

Foundry Ancient Germans.

Foundry Ancient Germans

The shields are fairly basic geometric designs. I wanted to keep them simple to provide a contrast to the more intricate shields I have planned for the Celt warbands I'm going to put together.

German Fanatics

Most of these are actually Black Tree Designs Picts, with a few Foundry Germans.

I worked out a pretty quick method for painting these fleshy barbarians.  I primed them with Army Painter brown, and then gave them a quick coat of Army Painter flesh from a high angle to preserve darker tones in the undercuts out of the flesh spray zone. A basic Vallejo medium flesh tone to block out the major muscle groups, and a highlight of Vallejo light flesh finished off their skin.  After painting hair, eyebrows and any furs or capes I gave each figure a wash of Army Painter soft tone which really helped pull the entire miniature together. I was originally skeptical of the Army Painter dips, but now I find them essential.

Wiener Parade

Wargames Factory Romans
Next up are a few bases of Wargames Factory Romans. The detail is a little soft, and the command figures are pretty wonky, but overall I think they paint up rather respectably.

Wargames Factory Command

Wargames Factory Romans

I really liked the shield transfers that came with the set. They went on fairly easily, Wargames Factory provides extras, and they look nice.

Basing Trial and Error
Sadly, I did run into a few hiccups. These were the first really large bases I'd ever worked on, and with my first few attempts the results didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped.

R to L: Bad Base, Good Base

With the first few bases I started with a burnt umber, followed by a drybrush of yellow ochre, then a drybrush of gray and finally a very light drybrush of white. That didn't look to bad without flock, but once flocked the base looked dark, mottled and unrealistic.

I switched to a base of yellow ochre for the remaining bases, with a drybrush of yellow ochre + unbleached titanium white, and a final pass of straight unbleached titanium white. Once flocked I prefer the dry, sandy look of the base that provides a strong contrast both to the figures and the flock.

All in all, pretty happy overall and looking forward to rounding out a few more ancient Germans before moving on to either more Romans or some Warlord Games Celts.