Hail Caesar! in the Dark Ages

Another fantastic round of Hail Caesar took place with our Dark Age armies last night, with Aaron and I running a huge English force of combined Norman and Saxon models. 3 Divisions with 5 units per division we easily pushing 300 models. Rich and Chris ran Richs Muslim forces combined with Chris Macedonians proxied as Greek and Latin Mercenaries for another imagined East vs West Skirmish circa 1100AD. English vs Damascus and its Mercenaries.



We put it all down on and 12 foot by 4 foot table (adding a 4 x4 to my 4 x 8) although we only used 11 feet. Big games like this are blast in multiplayer and Hail Caesar rules really shines in the environment. Only our second attempt at the rules but its really coming together, we figure by the third game we will have all the bells and whistles down.



Everyone is gung ho and building up and painting their armies and we are starting a Dark Age Campaign after we finish our current Pirate (legend of the high seas) campaign.



Again forgive the unpainted terrain and models , this will be changing soon and we have solid group commitment to making this game look as good as it is fun to play. Here's a brief narrative I wrote from the English perspective today. that sums up the game Unlike last time, We won the day. I think Aaron is doing actual bat rep with army lists so I will leave the details to him.



In the fog of war...only Archers from division 1 manage to receive their orders and proceed across a forested hill and a volley of arrows routs a small unit of Turkish Archers on the flank, The remaining Saxon forces unintentionally delay, allowing a huge return volley of arrow to break and rout one of our Shieldwalls. Regardless the the Norman Cavalry (set behind a large hill) ambush smashes the Ghulam and Turkoman Cavarly that would threaten Division 1's flank...with the flanking threat gone from both sides the remaining Turks ignore the heavy losses and a retreat order and charge into combat., pushed back by the Saxons who are personally led by the Army General they are then re-engaged and smashed by our Huscarls axes, although the remaining unit of Fyrd takes heavy losses.. Skirmishers from Division 1 move into the hill country and surprise a small group of Berber infantry guarding the second enemy divisions flank and rout. them. Meanwhile the Norman forces proceed across the river to engage the enemies 3rd division of Mercenaries on the right bank.




In the Hill country, disorganization wins the day on both sides, as unaware of whats happening on the left river bank neither unit properly receives orders, causing one unit of Fyrd to strike out alone and take heavy losses from Turkish shooting but none the less holds disordered. being advanced on by the City Guard and supporting archers, The Viking Raiders sweep past the disordered Fyrd in the nick of time and attack both units routing them. the remaining Damascus Light Cavalry seeing its infantry destroyed and on coming Vikings retreats from the battlefield and lone unit of Heavy Calvary follows suit. The remaining Saxon Forces never saw action due to poor weather conditions. (failed order checks)



On the far side Normans and Latin Mercenaries fought to draw..although with Damascus' armies broken the Mercenaries fought for personally glory and eventually pushed the Normans back across the river but to avail as the much larger English army still held the majority of the battlefield.