Wednesday 5 October 2011

Somewhere along the Rhine...

We played a Hail Caesar game tonight, using my Early Imperial Romans, and some of Dr Simon's Germans.  It was a battle  between revolting Batavian auxiliaries led by Civilis, and loyal auxiliaries and legionaries.  I won't cover it in much depth, because it was a trial run and we plan to run it again next week, after which I'll do a write up.  Pic's courtesy of Dr Simon's camera phone.


Above; concerned legionaries watch the advance of therevolting Germans, from the relatve safety of their watchtower (one of Paul Darnell's).


Some of Dr Simon's freshly rebased Germans.


A veritable phalanx of auxiliaries advance towards a single line of auxiliaries.  The support rules are very important, and supported units had a big edge, winning almost all the combats.  We debated removing the extra dice for supporting units, in favour of a bonus on the dice roll for units losing combats.  May try that next week...


Above, a whole phalanx of German bodybuilders, hits the thin red line.  A unit led by the war leader broke through the central legionary cohort, and disordered their second line. 

Finally, below, a somewhat blown alae of Praetorian cavalry charged a Batavian Cohort in the rear, but the stalwart Dutchmen still managed to drive them off!


It was an entertaining, friendly game; HC worked out well.  I think the rules will work well for my projected campaign.

9 comments:

Paul O'G said...

Simply inspiring!

Cyrus said...

Looks like a great game Simon. HC are fun rules for large barbarians vs Romans games.

jmilesr said...

Great looking table and figures! The support rules are really the key to the game. Rather than reduce the support dice you might consider given some forms of Barbarians a higher shock die count which will give them a better chance to break the Roman line on first contact.

peter said...

Very nice report with some fine painted figures on the table!

Greetings
Peter
http://peterscave.blogspot.com/

BigRedBat said...

Thanks chaps!

jmilesr, it's the rear support that we aren't keen on; we are thinking that we might replace it with a bonus on rolls when one is beaten in combat.

Paul´s Bods said...

Marser, Chatten or Cherusker??
Bloody nice looking game...
Cheers
paul

BigRedBat said...

Not sure Paul; they were bloody revolting, anyhow! ;-) Simon

Dalauppror said...

Very nice pictures !

I got to play quite many HC games and we have never felt that the support rules/bonuses have been to large.

Just feel right/historical to keep your units together to recive the extra support dice.

Looking forward to see and read about your next game.

Best regards Dalauppror

Giles said...

Great pics - beautifully painted figures on lovely terrain.

Best wishes

Giles