"Hail Caesar and Warbands" Topic

How have HC players found the treatment of war-bands against Roman cohorts? I'm about to embark on purchasing my Gauls/Celts to face my collected but not yet painted Roman Army. I was thinking of using Tactica for this however, the number of figures required for this is daunting. How many figures/units/bases for both war-bands and Romans are required in HC to put on a good game? I plan on getting the Celts I need at Cold Wars next month. Thanks in advance.

In the rule book it mentions that war-bands are 4 deep infantry formations.
standard size= 32-40 models, large size= 60-80, small size=20-24 models.

The people that ah play with consider the frontage more important. My figs are individually based (about 20X20). My regular celt warbands are 10 figa wide by 2 deep and Romans are 8 wide by 2 deep. Doesn't look bad on the table.

As for the treatment of warbands, if you can catch a cohort in bad terrain, you will destroy them.
If a cohort can catch a warbands in open terrain, it's over.
I think that overall they are treated quite nicely, although they can be a bit overpowered in a terrain heavy board.
I play in 1 72, and have my Romans based 6 wide, 2 deep, and my warbands 7ish (I have them all over the base) wide, 3 deep.

Thanks
Austin

I've played a grand total of one game of HC. Ancient British v Trajanic Romans. A minimum of terrain and it was a very close game. I ran my warbands 3 deep which was only 18 figures each. I thought it was very well balanced.

Thanks guys, so I take it that HC does not have any hard and fast rules for how to base warbands?

Larry,

Just base them deeper than your legions and you won't have a problem. (The idea is they were easy to outflank)

Thanks
Austin

Thanks Austin, how about frontage?

Larry,

HC is very flexible about frontages, which is great since it allows people to use their 6mm armies or their 28mm armies without re-basing (not in the same battle, though!).

Units are classed as tiny, small, medium, large frontages. Medium is the 'normal' frontage, so if you size the other categories proportionally in relation to a medium in it will work fine.

One thing, though, is that if you are using unit frontages that are a lot narrower that what they list in the rules, then it is probably best to adjust the movement and shooting ranges proportionally.

Larry,

Pattus nailed it on the head.
Just go with what "looks right" for medium, then scale appropriately.
My bases are 8cm×4cm, my large units are 12×6 , and my small are 4x2 (wrg standard)

For skirmishers I use 2 wrg bases.

Thanks
Austin

Common base width and not the number of figures is what matters. As long as both sides have an agreed upon standard width, you are good. Depth is lesser important, but is recommended you make war bands deeper than line infantry.

For war bands, you can make 160mm x 80mm the size of your base and then place the figures in a cuneus style formation with row count like 4,6,6,8 or take 24 to 32 figures and put them on an unordered manner to make it look like an unorganized mob. For imagery you do not want to look like orderly line infantry and have it look more like a mass of barbarians. Different options to do this. The rule book has pictures of some war bands as does the Warlord Games web site.

Great responses guys thanks. Since I haven't based my war bands yet, I was looking at doing exactly what Diocletian284 said. So I take it casualties are not tallied out by eaches. Thanks again!

I recommend buying these markers to keep track of casualties for the game.
link

Thanks
Austin

Thanks Austin!

Thanks guys, so I take it that HC does not have any hard and fast rules for how to base warbands?

No, it's all about unit frontage – doesn't matter as long as both sides are using the same frontage guides. Base depth isn't specifically addressed.

With regards to HC, As far as warbands vs Roman cohorts…..I have found that the first round of combat is critical …..if the warbands with its large number of "clash" dice can hurt the cohort in that first round, it has an excellent chance of destroying the cohort. If not, the cohort should win in a multi-round combat. I usually add the Wild Fighters rule as well, which makes warbands very dangerous indeed in that first clash. I think it models the wild and ferocious nature of a warband well…..as well as the more disciplined endurance of a Roman unit in combat.

I've recently been painting warbands for HC. What I've done is to put 3 figures on a 40x40mm base in various configurations. That way a warband of 4 bases wide by 2 deep is only 24 figures. Not too many figures and adjustable for use with other games.

The beauty of the system is that you don't have to rebase anything

Austin

For Hail Caesar in 28mm my typical unit is 8 across by 3 deep. So for my Ancient German warbands I like to have 10 across by 4 deep. Some elite warbands are a bit smaller, 8 across by 4 deep.

Again, HC is very forgiving to different sizes. I just use these as they look good to my eye. It does require a lot of figures though.

However, I doubt I would have any problem playing with any of the players above and their various basing methods. That's the good thing with HC.

I field my 18 mm HC warbands in units roughly 24 figures strong, deployed roughly 4 figures deep in a semi-random looking mob.

This is a standard size warband 160mm x 50mm deep. I usually use two bases deep.I only care about the base size , I add the amount of minis that look good.

Another look

Based upon Caesar's Gallic wars in which his legions were often outnumbered several time over. With a cohort of 24 figures and 240 for a legion. Is there a reasonable number of figures for a Gallic warband/army. I realize this could be a lot of figures, but I do like realism in the games.

EdwardR, I do my cohorts 24 figures strong:

And my warbands, also, but deployed in 2 rows of 2 bases, instead of a line of 4 bases:

I'll be making about 30% more warbands than I have cohorts, to compensate for their difference in point costs, in the game.

As a whole, an army of cohorts 24-men strong looks like this (you can check more pics here link

Based upon Caesar's Gallic wars in which his legions were often outnumbered several time over.

But of course he would write that!

Mateus,
Thanks for the input. Your figures look great. The only difference is that I mount my Romans 8x3 instead of 6x4, but I don't think this is a problem. With a 30% increase for the warband it would bring them to a little over 300-325 plus, to allow for the extra Roman command, artillery etc.
Thanks again
Ed

Bowman,
You are absolutely correct, he would write that. After all it was written to impress the Senate and help him politically, but lends imagination to gaming.

My Romans and Gauls are based for DBA etc, so would you go two stands wide, two stands deep for Legions (16 figs) and the two stands wide, three stands deep for the Gauls (18 figs)? Base width is the same for each stand of course at 60mm (for 28mm figures).

Bob,

Using 120mm-wide standard units such as you describe should work perfectly well for Hail Caesar. As Pattus Magnus mentioned above, when playing HC using 28mm figures in units with relatively narrow frontages on a smaller tabletop battlefield, you may want to consider also reducing the movement and shooting distances accordingly..

Cheers,
Scott

Actually I was thinking for the proper HC effect I should go three base widths ie 180mm wide, that's 24 Romans in a two rank unit (four to a base) and 27 in a three rank Gallic unit (three to a base). That sounds about right, no?

Yes, definitely that would work with the unmodified rules and that number of figs per unit would look pretty spectacular!

Yep, that should work very well with the rules as written. HC does tend to encourage spectacular looking tabletop armies!

What's a typical number of units in an average sized game? I currently have 48 stands of warband ready to go, that would give me 5 units for HC (using the 9 bases per unit method). Add in two units of cavalry (three DBA bases per unit, that sound about right?) and some skirmishers, would that give a good game? More warbands?

In the games I've played we have had about 10-15 units per side, split up into 3 or 4 divisions.

Those gams were quite enjoyable and having several divisions per player meant that failing one, or even two, command rolls in my turn wasn't (usually) disasterous.

That said, I think the game is meant to allow you to structure the army to fit how you think the historical example worked.

For example, with a "barbarian" army with command structure based on the retinues of powerful chieftains you could have a large number of divisions (maybe 6), each with only 1 or 2 units. Which would be nearly impossible to coordinate, as some of the divisions would stand around while others charge across the table. Alternatively, you could assume that the barbarians follow a herd mentality and so put all of the infantry warbands in a single very large division under one commander, with the small flanking forces each given a commander.

For the romans, with a well structured command system, the same number of units could be split between 3 divisions, each with a mix of troops, plus have a detatched commander-in-chief who can issue commands to troops from any of the divisions…

I think the force mix you describe (5 warband units, plus 2 of cavalry and a couple of skirmishers) will let you have a some good games and provide a good base to build from. With a couple more cavalry units so that both flanks are screened, and a couple more warbands you'll have a very solid force.

One thing, though – I've found that the games are more fun if the table is big enough to have some room on the flanks for manoeuvres, otherwise it tends to get into an infantry slog. I feel strongly enough about that point that I would advise setting the number of units in the game to fit the table size (on my 4x6 table more than 12 units with 12 cm frontages is likely to result in a slog… an 8 foot table is my dream).

Good to know, Pattus, thanks! I should be able to scare up an 8ft table I think even at the store I play at. Obviously 6ft is more normal but I think he has some 'half size' tables in the back, we could tack one of them onto the end to get the extra couple of feet. Battlemats are no problem at all, I have at least three myself lol.

Thanks also for the suggestions for breaking down the divisions, I can see both options working historically for the barbarians though I would rather play the herd mentality method myself lol.