Saturday 28 July 2012

Hail Cid! - Hail Caesar in the Reconquista

On Thursday night John, Scrivs, James and myself assembled at the White Hart for a small El Cid era skirmish using the Hail Caesar rules.
We managed to persuade James to leave lots of his soldiers in their boxes or at home and got it down to a mere five commands each side. Each command was four units or so with plentiful skirmishers in tow. Due to a low turn-out at the club we were able to set up a rather splendid looking 12x6 table and worked on the principle of getting as many of our toys out as we could.
Myself and James with the assistance of Cameron would be playing the Almoravid invaders, whilst John and Matt would be yoked under the leadership of El Scrivs himself with a Christian and Andalusian alliance.
It was all a little hastily thrown together and we were very rusty on the rules, but it looked magnificent with all the soldiers on the board. And we had a splendid time playing.
I'm not going to attempt a full commentary or explanation, but I do have a lot of eye candy...



Dawn breaks over the peaceful Valle del Ciervo Blanco

El Scrivs' contingent



Loadsa Berbers



Early Spanish version of Butlins


The lines close

Christian and Andalusian Cavalry surge forward


All Hail Allah's Camels!




In go the Spanish knights, with fatal consequences for their opponents

The Almoravid left wing




The knights meet their match!

The Berber centre crashes home


Whilst the Christian right (presumably espousing creationism as they go) tackle the Berber cavalry





Fightin' and a stabbin' and a diein'


The victorious camels spy new opponents



The Black Guard press home their advantage


Cameron's dice come good!

The Christians make good progress toward the Berber tents

Camels to the rescue!


We called a halt after a few hours of bloody slaughter.
The Berber spear had made good progress in the centre whereas it was all going well for the Christians and Andalusians on their right flank. On the other side, some astonishing fighting by the camel riders had at least stalled the Christian advance, but their were plenty of fresh knight units lurking around.

It was a splendid game with a great bunch of blokes. We'd forgotten lots of the rules, and made some up no doubt, but it didn't matter - we'd got several hundred soldiers out on a big table and rolled lots of dice and shouted foolish orders for a few hours and that's what really matters I reckon.

There's some more pictures and better detail of who had what over on Scrivs Blog - go and read it.

Meanwhile at the club there was a small game of BP Napoleonics going on and I took a couple of pictures:


Still resisiting...

7 comments:

  1. Stunning pictures, look like a realy good game !

    Best regards Michael

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  2. Those evil camels! Great photos!

    Matt

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  3. Great looking game and two beautiful armies. How did you find the Hail Caesar rules as yet to try them

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  4. Great photo's once again. I like your El Cid forces, and they always make a great apectecle. A period that always makes a great game when played big. Nice.

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  5. Highly impressive. I particually like the look of the Black guard.
    Cheers
    paul

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  6. Very impressive game!! One day I must play Hail Caesar again, especially as we have Partizan coming up and I haven't played since the big photoshoot game thing at Nottingham!!!! Hey ho...

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  7. Thanks chaps.
    Was great to get loads of toys out, it looked spectacular.

    @Scotty. Hail Caesar is great for really big battles, works really well, especially if you (and by you, I don't mean me, I mean Scrivs and James) put some effort in to making the stats and rules properly in period.

    @GHA hoping to get a cheeky pre-Partizan practice in with James next week

    Tom

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