Sunday, November 13, 2011

Breaking the Fast

So as previously stated I finally got some of the boys together for a game of Hail Caesar last night. I wasn't sure if Dan was bringing some troops so I left the scenario until the last minute. But the gifted temple prompted me to say "I think the Goths should try and loot it, don't you?"
A town was assembled mid-table. an army of Goths has penetrated the frontier and invaded northern Italy. A field army is marching to intercept them.

The town of Cuniculus basks in the Mediterranean sunshine
The Romans had a large force of cavalry with a few cohorts of lanciari skirmishers, sent as an advance guard.
Roman center

Roman left and center
The Goths with some allied Huns, came on from the other end.
Gothic center
Dan usually does really quite badly with any sort of cavalry. But not last night. Initially both centers held back due to bad command rolls, while both sides wings swept forward to engage around the town.

My Huns got the worst of things. The Roman heavy equites got tired of the skirmishing and charged home:
Notice the accumulated hits (red chits)? Notice my abysmal roll for the Break Test? The resulting Sweeping Advance gave the same result on the second unit of Huns.

Meanwhile the Gothic right wing under Mike was doing the same to the Roman left commanded by Patrick:

I tried to save things and with some good command rolls I was able to swing my center and charge into the flank of the Roman right wing. However, the target of my charge sensibly evaded, leaving my Gothic bucellari to careen into the midst of a swarm. They hit the flank of some lanciari, but crossed the front of some Roman LC who joined in with a certain gusto.
Gothic nobles stick their head into a bag of bees
The Roman heavy cavalry then started counterattacking, smashing into the flank of one of my supporting warbands. And by this time the Roman center had marched through the town to deploy on the edge of it facing my center which was in considerable disarray and suffering some bruises.


The Gothic king thought it prudent to ask for terms and join the Roman army.

Figures are 15mm and quite a mix of Essex, Old Glory, Chariot and Viking Forge. We accidently used inches instead of centimeters which got us into contact pretty damn fast. And I messed up a few things, but fun was still had by all.

6 comments:

  1. Beautiful looking game guys! Wish I had been there.

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  2. Always fun to play a new ruleset...well, I'm not sure always, but you know what I mean.

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  3. Fun is important. Great looking game and I really like the buildings.

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  4. Beastly huns! See a perfectly decent little town and have to loot it. Glad they got what's coming to them.
    Looks good James. I know nothing about ancients but it looks very late Roman to me? All that barding - wow.

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  5. Yes, very Late Imperial. Late 4th cent, maybe early 5th cent AD.

    And the cataphracts never even got stuck in.

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