Hail Arthur! Dark Age Hail Caesar Battle Report

Last week Scrivs and myself convened at the White Hart Gamers venue for a large-ish Early Dark Age battle using the Hail Caesar rules. This was part of playtesting for a Top Secret gaming thingy James Morris is organising. James unfortunately was delayed by attending a Carol Concert at his school (he never revealed what part in the proceedings he was playing - my money is on Shepherd), but would be joining us for the later stages of the game*.

The scenario was a simple one with the heroic Welsh attempting to break through a (shield) wall of pagan Saxon defenders. The Saxons were mainly Scrivs models, bolstered by a few of mine and the Welsh and Pictish alliance came from James extensive collection. This was the second game we'd tried using these forces and we were testing out a few "Character Advantages" to give a little Dark Age flavour to proceedings.
Most of the infanty we rated as Medium, with a smattering of Heavies on the Saxon side, whilst the bulk of the Welsh forces were Medium Cavalry, supported by several marauding light cavalry.

The Saxons deployed along a ridge of hills (rubbish GW ones that the models kept sliding off) with their cavalry held in reserve on their right. The Welsh meanwhile deployed their cavalry in the centre and held their flanks with blocks of infantry.

Clean shaven Welshmen

Hordes of Hairy Pagans

Allied Pictish Cavalry. Fresh from James' painting shed.

The battle began with the Saxons trying (and failing) to move their skirmishers and cavalry forward, while the rest of the army clung determindley to the hill line.
Meanwhile the Welsh signalled a general advance and were soon chucking javelins at the nasty pagans.

Onward Boyos!

Eventually their stick throwing skills pushed some of the Saxons from their lofty perch and the cavalry (who had taken a few sharp implements in return) decided to charge in.

Over on the Welsh left the infantry pushed the Saxon cavalry back and pushed on toward their route homeward.

While at the other end of the line rival warbands taunted one another

Smack 'em in the side!

In the centre the Picts saw an opportunity and smashed into the exposed flank of some over-enthusiastic Saxons, wiping them out. However this bought them into conact with some Saxon Hearthguard, who were to prove a somewhat trickier proposition.

The big fight between Welsh cavalry and Saxon shieldwall saw the pagans come off worst but at some cost to the flower of Welsh horsemanship

On the Welsh right the infantry clashes proved indecisive with both sides wiping out at least one of their opponents. Toward the centre the Picts (as befits the most recently painted unit) were routed by rampant Saxon Gedrith. However next to them the Wesh cavalry were clearly forging a way through the battered shieldwall and their infantry on the left flank were all but ready to receive their "welcome in the hillside".
And with the game thus finely poised we drew a veil over proceedings...

Again Hail Caesar gave a fun, fast paced game wth lots of models on the table. The character rules added a little Dark Age flavour without breaking things. I think we need to get a bit more familiar with some of the rules regarding push backs and the like, but we muddled through most of it in a couple of hours with plenty of dice rolling and bloody combat.
Looking forward to some more games over the coming weeks.


*On a related, but non-wargaming, note I was priveledged this week to witness my youngest child in his school Nativity deliver what I think was the definitve reading of that well known biblical character Joseph's Friend the Line Dancing Cowboy.

Six Point SAGA Slog

England, Just North of the Humber 1068

Jean Charetier was in a mellow mood. "Hello birds, hello sky" he murmured as he trotted quietly along on his warhorse, the sound of gentle lowing and creaking cart-wheels the only thing breaking the peace around him. The extorti...er.. tax collection had gone well and he was on his way back to his Motte and Bailey with the finances he needed to finish the roof.
Suddenly a cry went up!
To his horror and amazement the road ahead was blocked. Some uncouth Saxon peasants barred his way homeward, with more appearing from the woods and hills.
An ambush!
His mood shattered, he pulled out his weapon and waved it around. "Kill them all, men, kill them all!"

So we finally took the plunge and went for the full six points of SAGA.
We decided we'd play the Escort scenario with the Normans as the escortists and my Anglo-Danes trying to stop the waggon train.

My force was:

Getwin Wefanson – Anglo-Danish Warlord

1 Unit of eight Thegns 

1 Unit of four Thegns with Dane Axes

3 units of 8 Ceorls

 

The forces of imperialist oppression were represented by:

 Jean Charretier – Mounted Norman Warlord

3 Units of Mounted Norman Knights

2 Units of 8 Serjeants

1 Unit of 8 Serjeants with crossbows

 

The Normans deployed in a single wagon train with flanking guards on either side. I did question if this was the best deployment, but as my opponent rightly pointed out it looked much better this way.

I duly deployed as if ambushing, again with more thought to how it looked than how best to win.

The Normans went first and began a general advance.
With nothing on my SAGA board the Anglo Danes were vulnerable to the Norman Crossbows and four of my Ceorls were duly gunned down.
In response I pushed forward in the centre and sent a unit of Ceorls racing toward the crossbows. Then I loaded my board with defensive stuff.

After sneaking some knights round the flank, the Normans duly charged my centre with their knights. Some spectacular dice rolling from me and some poor rolls from the Normans saw huge chunks carved out of the knights (and we both discovered that Dane Axes can be quite deadly). I was also able to stop the deadly crossbows from hurting anything much.
My counter-attack saw two units of knights and the Norman warlord killed!

This slowed the Norman advance for a turn until we re-read the scenario rules and decided that the carts should be generating SAGA dice after all.
I finally got some Ceorls into combat with the crossbowmen but was unable to kill them all.
Meanwhile the Normans had re-grouped and started pushing the wagons forward, screened by serjeants.

The game now turned into a race for the corner. The Anglo-Danes were able to catch and destroy one cart, but careful deployment of SAGA dice and skillful positioning of serjeants meant the second cart was able to squeeze off the board. Finally the Saxon warlord having found it too tough a nut to crack, the Ceorls who had dutifully plodded from the far side of the board were able to ransack the remaining cart ensuring the game resulted in a draw.

Another great fun game with the SAGA rules. I think this is a hard scenario to get a result from. The defender will struggle to kill all three wagons and the escorter will find it hard to get more than one wagon off. The wagons become very hard to kill in the end game as units get fatigued and lose numbers. Most likely result will be a draw in most cases I suspect.
But that didn't really matter as it gave us an exciting tactical challenge.
Next game is likely to be the river one in a couple of weeks.

Getwin Wefansson surveyed the field, nodding his approval as his men took from the wagons what was rightfully theirs. He'd make sure the pickings made their way back to the villagers they'd been stolen from.
"We're robbing the rich to give to the poor, lads" he shouted. 
"Now that's got a ring to it" he thought...

Drinking Beer and Rolling DIce

The weekend before last my regular opponent organised a "campaign" day of drinking beer and playing Warhammer for eight of us in honour of his birthday.
I took my Ogres and a camera.
I subsequently got thoroughly engaged with the "drinking" aspect of the whole day, so don't really have much insight to accompany the pictures. But they're pretty good eye candy, so here you go:

The Ogres are mine.
We were supposed to play three games, but managed only two.
I won the first and lost the second.
A splendid day out with top chaps (although the beer prices in Warhammer World are very much of the Dick Turpin variety. At some point Bugman's clearly got moved to the West End of London).
Plans are afoot to do it all again next year.