"Hail Caesar Battle of Hastings 1066" Topic

I'm new to posting on TMP and since I've been reviewing my favorite games from 2012 I'd thought I'd share. My eldest nephew asked to play a battle of Hastings game during a visit. In record time we put away the Napoleonic game and set up appropriate terrain and laid out the armies. I put together the troops based on an infantry unit roughly being 800 – 1000 strong as standard, getting my figures from the Osprey Campaign series book. I checked quickly with the Hail Caesar army list 2 to ensure I had it balanced, which it roughly was. We played on and off for 3 days to get a conclusion and we had a blast. I wrote up the game on my blog see the link:

thewargamingmegalomaniac.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/hail-caesar-battle-of-hastings-1066.html

Nice batrep.

Very kewl.

Thanks

Very nice AAR of what sounds like a great game – it certainly looks the part!

Doug

Thanks for sharing. How many hours of play did this game constitute?

Your batrep is great. Your background is hideous. :)

Nice writeup. I have a few points to make; first a question: "Gyfrith"? What happened to Gyrth?

The terrain seems far too open and featureless/flat to be the battlefield as described, wherever that actually was. Marshes and low ground flanked the English army on a ridgeline, with forest at their backs; of course, forest can be assumed off-table. There was no "turning the flanks" option for William; the English flanks were covered by the terrain. Not until the English lost their flanks to useless pursuits, could the invaders use their cavalry to threaten and attack the shortened English line in the flanks or even in the rear.

If each of those units is c. 800 to 1,000 men, those are big armies! I tend toward c. 10K per side myself. But 11K to 16K is certainly possible….

I agree the terrain wasn't perfect, I put it together in a rush. All the names and numbers came from the Osprey Campaign book.

In getting your fun-looking game "together in a rush", I think you must have gone on memory of the Osprey Campaign Series no. 13 book. You might want to check out your numbers and names again. Just a suggestion, because you can always edit your own blog post….

Gyfrith is my error. I checked my books and they all state Gyrth. I've no idea where I dreamt up Gyfrith, anyway I have hopefully changed this on the blog. Cheers.