Scrivsland: Hail Caesar on the far eastern frontier of Rome

Romans and Chinese line up for battle

It's about time I played Hail Caesar and I jumped at the opportunity to play a game against Richard yesterday evening.

We arranged to meet at the Polly yesterday evening, Richard would bring his Early Imperial Romans and I would bring my Qin / Han Chinese to the party. Richard suggested we have a look at how many points we could each field and drew a stop at about 500pts per side, that would be plenty!

I fielded Qin Chinese as the Han Chinese list in the supplement is broken and has not been 'patched' - somebody forgot the cavalry and chariot entries and then the proof reading miss that - doofus!

Wu Hu horse archers

My force comprised:
General (CV8) 4 x Veteran Heavy Infantry with Archers, 2 x Light Infantry with Crossbow
Commander (CV8) 4 x Heavy Infantry with Archers, 2 x Skirmishers with bow
Commander (CV8) 1 x Chariots, 3 x Wu Hu Horse Archers
Commander (CV8) 1 x Chariots, 2 x Medium Cavalry, 1 x Wu Hu Horse Archers

Richard fielded (if I recall correctly):
General (CV8) 1 x Praetorian Legion, 3 x Legions, 1 x Archer, 1 x Ballista
General (CV8) 5 x Legions, 1 x Skirmisher, 1 x Ballista

General (CV8) 1 x Heavy Auxillia, 3 x Auxillia, 1 x Ballista
General (CV8) 1 x Heavy Cavalry, 3 x Medium Cavalry

Solid Chinese battle line

So we settled down to battle, I took some initial hits from the Roman artillery, but soon my missles were soon coming into play, the vaunted Roman armour was looking very flimsy as Richard failed save after save. Of course it would not last and we were soon in combat. My medium cavalry supported by a unit of lights destroyed one unit of Roman cavalry and shook another before becoming succumbing to a flank charge by Roman Legions.

The infantry lines clashed in the centre and despite initial Roman success my Chinese dice were on fire, I must have acquired one of those tacky lucky cats from somewhere. Although it was not so lucky for my Commander in Chief who was killed leading a charge.

Legions stretching as far as the eye can see

Soon the Roman line was wavering, I had lost my right flank cavalry division, but had taken out the Roman left flank infantry division and was exploiting the gap. However, before my infantry division could make hay, I spawned another flukey combat against the remaining Roman legions and broke that division too.

The Chinese had emerged victors mainly down to flukey dice rather than anything else.

A great game, although 500pts is probably a bit much to be using on a club night when playing with 120mm frontages as there was no flanks to exploit just a battering head to head slog!