Copyright © 2011-2024, Paul Scrivens-Smith

Copyright © 2011-2024, Paul Scrivens-Smith

All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the prior written permission of the creator.

Saturday 19 April 2014

Hail Cid

A few weeks ago Nick and I played a game of WAB using the El Cid supplement. Yesterday we lined my toys up again and this time used Hail Caesar.

Based on the troops I had I picked a couple of smallish armies (about 240pts each)

Almorhavid: 5 units of Berber Medium Infantry with spears & bows, 1 unit of Berber Medium Infantry with bows, 1 unit of Hasham Guard Heavy Cavalry (tough fighters) and 2 units of Berber Light Cavalry (feigned flight)

Christian Spanish: 2 units of Peones Medium Infantry with spears & bows, 1 unit of Guard Heavy Infantry with spears, 1 unit of Aqueros Light Infantry with crossbows, 1 unit of Caballeros Hildagos Heavy Cavalry (tough fighters), 2 units of Caballeros Medium Cavalry and 2 units of Jinetes Light Cavalry (feigned flight)

Cavalry pass behind the infantry
Nick chose to use the Berbers again.

I drew a quick map and Nick deployed is troops, unfortunately my cavalry was facing his infantry and vise-versa. On my first move I ordered the two to switch sides and rolled very well, pretty much accomplishing this feat.

Nick launched the Berber foot into mine and had won both combats and destroyed my two units of Peones - I rolled a 3 and a 4 for each of the break tests!

Solid Berber battle line!
My Guard infantry spear fared much better though, firstly crashing through one unit of Berber foot and then beating another unit of Berber foot who charged them in the rear! However the Hasham Guard cavalry charged home on the Aqueros and completed the shattering of my infantry command.

To make things worse the Caballeros Hildagos were caught out and mobbed up on by the Berber infantry and were soon also destroyed. My Caballeros turned the tide of the battle though charging into the flank of a Berber spear block, breaking the unit and shattering that command. The Hasham Guard cavalry mopped up my other Caballeros but were looking rather shaky themselves.

My Jinetes saw off a unit of the Berber light cavalry and soon the table was looking pretty bare. I had a unit of Caballeros and two Jinetes, Nick had his Hasham Guard and a unit of Berber light horse, we were both teetering on the brink!

Final combat!
In a final charge pictured above we set too on each other and in the ensuing melee everything was broken!

A fine end to the game.

So far then, the Berbers have won the WAB game and the Hail Caesar has been a draw. We'll have to give it a try with War and Conquest or Clash of Arms next.


8 comments:

  1. Great Looking game and fantastic paint jobs! - How many units per command are you using?

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    1. Thanks. We did one command each for the cavalry and infantry.

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  2. Paul you get to game more in a month than I do in a year :-) Damn your hide sir !!! Did you get any differences between WAB El Cid and Hail Caesar? Peter

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    1. Thank you. Victoria has been away all week so it's been very useful for sneaking extra games in.
      When we played WAB it was a clear victory to the Berbers, much closer when playing Hail Caesar.

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  3. Paul what size points game would you recommend for a 2 player hail caesar battle please Peter

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    Replies
    1. These were quite small at about 250pts per side. I think that 300 to 400pts is sufficient for a start. Work up from that.

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  4. Great looking game and beautiful units,..paint job is excellent!

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