Club Night - Trying out Hail Caesar for Dark Ages

This evening James and I played a game of Dark Ages Hail Caesar at Maelstrom Games this is in preparation for a larger games we have planned so wanted to try a few things out.

James had the combined British Kingdoms with Pictish allies, I commanded the Saxons.

Here are a few shots of the deployment, the figures were from the collections of myself and James, all the British and Picts belong to James and apart from one unit of Saxon Hearthguard, and a unit each of Saxon heavy and light cavalry from James collection, all the Saxons were mine.

View from the Saxon left

Pictish allies on the British right

View from the Saxon right

View from the British left

We were trying out a few things:

• British and Pictish cavalry all were classed as Marksmen
• British and Pictish infantry were cautious and would not move on a dice roll equal to the command value
• British infantry could not charge on initiative
• If Saxon infantry could charge on initiative then they had to pass a command test not to charge

After the game we also decided to add:

• If British cavalry could charge on initiative then they had to pass a command test not to charge

As we were playing on a 4ft depth we used 2/3 movement distances.

The game played out really well and the additional rules had a great effect, the Saxons got pulled about all over the place with having to initiative charge on failed command rolls and the infantry on the British left did not move at all. In the end the British were declared the victors having broken all three Saxon Divisions.

Here are a few shots from the battle:

The static British left - not a command check passed by the infantry all game

British light cavalry advance on the Saxons

The British center supports the advance, Pictish light cavalry in the foreground.

Almost coming to blows

Nearly there

And charge!