For this week’s Hail Caesar game we are changing up the time period & going with Ancients: Republic Rome vs. Alexander’s Macedonians.
The Alexander list was easy to build – lots of pike phalanx, cavalry and a handful of light troops to support the main line. The Elite useful rule was used for the Companion cavalry and the White Shield phalanx to represent the well lead and opportunistic nature of Alexander’s army.
The Republic Roman list was a bit harder. Traditionally, the Republican army deployed many small units in a checkerboard fashion. One way to simulate this style of deployment would be to use many small units. However, this sort of a-symmetrical army list would be difficult to use and be a bit of an exception when trying to teach the game. The final list instead used large blocks for the Roman heavy infantry, representing the line in a more abstract way. The phalanx useful rule was given to the Tirarius to represent the defensive nature of the unit.
Hail Caesar Republic Roman army list
Hail Caesar Alexander army list
Aftermath
Once again Hail Caesar provides a well matched game which came down to the last few rounds. The Roman line threatened to fall apart after a series of unfortunate dice events lead to a unit of Hastati being broken, allowing the Macedonian Pike to begin a roll up the battle line. While the Pike battered themselves on the Roman line, and All Start barbarian unit crashed the line. Using a combination of follow up moves and Sweeping Advances, the Gauls destroyed 5 units in a rampage which covered half of the board.
I suspect that my opponent and I made a few rules errors in the course of the game, but that did not prevent us from enjoying a well fought battle.
Chicago Terrain Factory 