This is the new Hail Caesar supplement from Warlord Games, with a focus on the late Republican period and the campaigns of Caesar in particular. This softback book is (currently) £17.50 GBP direct from Warlord and comes with a free metal optio figure.
The book is 60 pages long excluding contents and references, and opens with a short history of the late Roman Republic roughly from the Gracchi to its end, obviously with slightly more focus on the mid-first century. The history is basic and doubtless familiar to many, but nevertheless reasonably accurate and probably informative to newcomers to the period.
There follows a short description of the Roman army during the late Republic with an "army list" of suggested profiles for each unit. The list is perhaps slightly longer and more detailed than the list in the main rulebook or the army list book and contains a couple of new options (e.g. different quality of legionaries) although there are no points values and information on each unit type is minimal.
Interspersed throughout the book are profiles of some of Rome's greatest commanders during the period, together with a few barbarian leaders (Ariovistus, Vercingetorix and Juba) usually a half-page or so describing their career and suggesting command ratings for them in the game. Again, for a period veteran there will likely be no new information here, but it's nice to have, and at least purports to answer the question of what rating the Warlord guys think certain illustrious generals should have (the answer is usually 10, at least dependent on context), although I'm sure players will continue to debate the subject.
The bulk of the book, though – around 45 pages – is a "Caesar campaign" which traces his career from his initial invasion of Gaul to his mopping-up of the Pompeians. There is one page of suggested campaign rules and then five scenarios, representing Vesontio, the Sabis, Alesia, Caesar's right flank at Pharsalus, and Ruspina. The format will be familiar from the Hail Caesar rulebook: each battle and the surrounding campaign is introduced with a background section of around two pages, followed by army lists and scenario special rules, and then a battle report in the usual whimsical style.
The book must presumably tread a fine line between those who are familiar with the period already and are really just after Hail Caesar-specific content (as I am) and those who know little about it and need the histories of the period and campaigns themselves. The real problem is that there isn't as much HC-specific stuff as I would have liked. Outside the scenarios, there's only one period-specific army list, and little real detail on non-Roman armies during the period. The heavy focus on the scenarios leaves the book feeling somewhat unbalanced, and while the Warlord crew are encouraging as ever for players to go off-script and make up their own battles and scenarios I'm not sure to what extent the book truly enables them to do that absent independent research – in which case it could have been done with merely the rulebook (and maybe army list book) without the need for this supplement at all.
The optio model is nice.
Overall I do not regret the purchase, but I had been hoping for something a little meatier.
finally paints the first of his Gauls...
