Hail Caesar Dark Ages Game

 

...because after all, I didn't paint all these Vikings and Saxons for nothing.

"Hi!  We're Vikings.  We're here to take your stuff."

Hail Caesar Dark Ages

Over the Labor Day weekend (first weekend in Sept here in Ah-merica) there was a game convention called Pacificon.  Which I didn't go to because I am big loser and too poor right now.  I hate being poor, but it's kinda my own fault because I blew all my hobby money on limited  edition DVDs  of all 5 seasons of "I dream of Jeanie."  

Too sexy because she always calls him master...

So instead I invited some other losers who weren't going to the convention either, to my place so we can suck less together.  And for a chance to get all these Dark Ages troops of mine on the table. 

I have a couple of rules for Dark Ages mass battles that I like but am not really in love with any of them.  Just haven't found my 'Go-to" rule set yet.  They're like women you date in college but you know that you're not gonna marry.  These being Sword and Spear and Hail Caesar.  Other contenders are Impetus (which I found hard to read/understand and haven't tried) and Triumph (liked what I read but haven't tried).  I selected Hail Caesar for a game that's really good at moving blocks of infantry and rolling lots of dice.  Mr. CG and Mr. AS took the roles of the dastardly Vikings while I took the noble Saxons.  

Setting Up

My morning set up was super rushed and chaotic as my wife was busy cleaning because her parents were coming over, and all of them were going out with the kids while I stayed home and played miniatures.  Which is of course super nice all around but it did mean I had to set up the game with added 'assistance' of little helping hands....

Actually daughter #1 and Son #2 were quite content to sit on a coach and watch TV.
Son #3 however was quite ...helpful...

I set up a 6x10 foot table; figuring that was big enough to hold all the troops and still allow for some room to move around.  There are two important tricks to setting up a good Dark Ages mass battle.  ONE: resist the tempting temptation of just lining all the units end to end on each side and have at it.  While it is historical (almost all Dark Ages battles are just that) it's not very exciting to play.  TWO: Allow enough room for the players to line their troops end to end and have at it because it's exciting and it's what everyone expects and what else you gonna do where the primary formation is the shieldwall....  it's a paradox.

Game On

The game had 3 players so I split the Vikings into 4 divisions; 2 for each player.  The Saxons are in 3 divisions controlled by me. 

In this scenario:  The Vikings are in the process of leading a loot train from a village back to their longships.  There is 1 Viking division on the table to start and must keep 1 unit with the loot train in order keep the 4 units; livestock, slaves, ale cart, and food.  The train needs to be ordered to move toward the boats and will move 6" each turn if successful.  The train only ever gets 1 move and if a blunder is rolled the would-be slaves will fight the guards.  The other Viking divisions are off exploring the countryside..

The Saxons have shown up to put a stop to this.  1 division starts on the table edge.  Vikings have the first turn...  

Every turn after the first each side gets a division entering the table...

With my friends arriving and family leaving all at the same time I did NOT have my usual quiet before the storm to take pictures of the table right after set up.  So we join the game in progress...

Saxons at the bottom of the picture.
Viking to the right and ahead.
Off in the distance the loot train is moving toward the longships.

Same scene; different angle.

Another Saxon division enters from the long table edge.

.

Whole table so far.

Get into Shieldwall!
Vikings in lower left and right side (Viking archers on the hill)

ANYWAYS; I'm playing, running the game, as well eating pizza and drinking to much coffee so there is no blow by blow of the game.  Divisions enter and fights break out and the soon..

.. the whole table table looks like this.

Same scene, from the other side of the table.

Saxons and Vikings on a Collision course.

Same scene but just behind the Vikings.

If you got the idea that during the game I would suddenly think "hey, I haven't taken any pictures in awhile..." *Click-click-click-click* Ok, back to the game."        You would be correct. 

Yay!  Dark Ages

Time for some random pictures:

Can you tell who is who?
No you can't.  Because everyone is harry and smelly in the Dark Ages.

Enough pics though.  Lookit, I played a game.  You get the idea.  On a side note: I think every picture has some gamer junk in it (dice, tape measure, paper or some such) making me the lamest wargaming blogger ever.

Things Learned, Things Remembered

I haven't played Hail Caesar in at least 5 years and the rules came out in 2014 (what?  really?  Daaaamnnn time flies.)  and I liked the rules way more than I remembered.  Some memories are still accurate in that I don't love the orders system and I think the best experience is to have more than 1 division to command as we did here; so than when a division blows it's first roll and does NOTHING you're just not sitting there watching but move onto the next division.  There is a fun risk versus reward aspect in the orders phase and combat is a fun bucket of dice fest. Here's an example of a sentence you say in combat: "My Thegns have 7 dice in combat that hit on a  3+ because I charged, add in 2 dice for the attached leader for 9 dice at 3+ (rolls), that's 6 hits so far; these two supporting Ceorls have 3 dice each that hit on a 4+ (rolls); that's 3 more hits for a total of 9, so you need 9 saves of..."

I did really like the shieldwall rule from the dark ages supplement which helped make the lines crashing into each other a more grinding pushing shoving affair.  

One big thing I learned from feedback is that I should label the units in some way.  It's my collection so I can instantly recognize a Saxon Thegn unit from a Viking Hirdmen from a Ceorl from a Bondi but CG and AS said they couldn't.  I'm assuming this is because all the painted miniatures just looked too awesome.  

The scenario also needs some tweaking here and there but I'll leave that to another time.  Overall a successful day and a good dusting off of the rules.  And it felt good to get this collection on the table after a long time.  I'd almost forgotten how much I like the Dark Ages. 

Another game of Hail Caesar is scheduled for later in the month.  WHAAAT???  2 games in one month??!!  That's crazy!  Who am I?  The King of Wargaming? 

Thanks for Reading

Double thanks for writing a comment.

Till next time.