"Hail Caesar Dark Ages..." Topic

Hi all,

Is anybody still playing Hail Caesar these days?

Last I played HC was over 5 years ago, and I remember liking it but not loving it. Well last weekend I got back into mass battles in the Dark Ages with my newly based and expanded Dark Ages armies (Vikings versus Saxons) and was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it.

I think the key is to have at least 2 divisions to command, so that when one of them fails it's first activation it's not turn over right away but just move on to the next division after the appropriate amount of fun swearing.

The Shieldwall rule from the shieldwall supplement seemed to work really well for making the lines a grinding shoving affair.

Got another game later this month and I'm planning on running some games of HC at a local convention in Nov.

Some more pics and ramblings on the blog if so inclined.
link

Now that my armies are all done up and looking pretty, I'll be on the lookout for other rules to try.

Nice game and cute kids – we went to Hail Caesar when Warhammer Ancients went belly up; like it as it moves along quickly with suitably unpredictable results; you have nailed it that you need a fairly big table to avoid it just being a pushing match between two lines of troops

Love your minis!

Thanks Frederick.

The kid bit is just a little human interest: life of a wargamer rift…

but yeah. 6x10 seems to be about the right size. My units on trays are around 5" wide and 4.5" deep (each has 10 miniatures on it). each army had 22 bases in it and the 6x10 seemed to provide enough room for options other than 'advance."

I like your idea of an ale wagon for your Vikings (or Saxons) and will have to make one of my own!

Grelber

Nice looking battle. My money is on the dinosaur.

Yes, everyone needs an ale cart. My cart is from gripping beast and I just added a bun of barrels on top. Not sure how well it shows in any photos.

The stuffed dinosaur might even be to scale.

I am part of a group that plays this each week. Although not my favorite historical era I have learned to enjoy the game system as it does offer many a surprise. Our GM and host has the game ready to go and we run two divisions as suggested along with our units all being labeled with complete statistics, making life ever so much easier. The only thing on the table is the QRS, figs, terrain and dice. Plays fast and we are done in about 3 hours.

Nice

thanks again folks.
I'm wondering about putting labels on the units. One player stated he could not tell a Bondi from a Hirdman unit though since it's my collection it's obvious to me. The actual differences are that viking Hirdmen and Saxon Thegns units have men in armor on the movement trays and Viking Bondi and Saxon Ceorls have men without armor…
though I get it. they're all just a bunch of beardy guys with shields.