"Mons Sanguinus" a first Hail Caesar battle experience

 Hi all,

I was absent fo many months, three children is not an easy business..

during the time I did not paint anything, but I went deeper with reading some Wargamne rulesets, and finally I was able to test for first tome the very appelaing "Hail Caesar" from Warlord..

First of all, at this game, what you need for a good atmoshpere is hundreds of painted figures, which sadly I still do not have  (at least for each army)

Nevertheless, I was able, with help of the collection of my cousin,  and searching in my old collection (some sets are around 25 year old  from my Airfix, Revell and some Italeri, mostly horribly painted) to assemble a decent Celtic-Briton army (around 100 figs) to fight a small legionary expeditionary force of around 45....

The game itself is devloped by many member sof the orginal Warhammer developement team, and indeed the overall philiophy reminds of that, but the battle system is in my opinion much more fluid  and flexible in my opinion.

You move entere units individually or grouped in divisions, you shoot, you attack the enemy,  you make and take casualties to unit, you can lose and you can break... Not many special rules, no special objects.. quite intuitive.

The dice/hitting system is easy, but it keeps the difference between different types of troops, warfare and weaponry. And as a challenge, your commanders must be able to give the orders with sucess, and they can fail so thaty the units move less than expected, or nothing ,or even have unexpected reactions by a blunder dice...

You are supposed to put "casualty markers "in the units up to a maximum value (usually six) before the units gets "shaken" and has much less combat capacity and is much closer to break

I actually did that but I also wanted to keep a little individuality of every single figter, so I retired also single figures keeping some of them as dead or wounded casualties in the field.. The contable markers are some red putty dots which worked fine to get the account of casualties and at the same time they did not look so "mechanical" and contributed to get a good battle sensation... here some examples:

Tomorrow I will describe the whole battle, i won´t show more spoilers now.
I played the tets game in my own and I enjoyed much, I do not know if I was neutral enough at the end or if I applied the ruled 100% right; but i am sure that I spent in total 3 quite funny hours ( i sttopped often to re-read rule paragraphs to be sure, but also studying tactical options every moment torying to defate myself..), and also enjoying a healthy sensation of tension and Epic.. which is at the end the objective of most of us, isn it?? :)


Today I just present you how was the dawn when a bloody day was to started,  some summer between 50 and 78 year A.D,  when the briton rebels (or heroes?) of the Tribe of Silures commanded by Chied Ventomarus deployed in the filed to send away the roman invaders...

A mass of tribal warriors (three barbarian warband units) were in the centre and main body, destined to advance forwards, supported by a unit of light chariots  on the left flank, and some skirmishers with slings before the warriors.

However, the  roman cohort lead by Tribune Marcus Audax of the II Legion  under direct orders of Governor Agricola was already waiting for the britons...

They had taken strong defensive positions on a hill which would gain the name of "Mons Sanguinus" (Bloody mound) at the end of the day...

Light roman artillery was placed on the top of the hill, the two legionary units on the slope of the hill waiting for the celtic charge on an advantage upper position, and some auxiliary cavalry on the right flank trying to contain the chariots...
Some archers wer eplaced on the left as distraction

Tribune audax was on th etop, watching the battlefield and able to take fast decissions.. Romans  were outnumbered around 2:1!
"Longinus!"
"Yes, tribune?"
Tell the scorpio operators not to move the wepaons further, they are ok there..

And warn the legionary centurios to be prepared now. At my signal, Rage ad Fire"

"Yes, tribune! I hope the plan works..."

Ventomarus was encouragins his warrios, in the company of two druids who were telling him that on the day there would be a big battle...

"Ventomarus, the gods have spoken!!! Go an dget blood for them!!!"

" You all heard that warrios, go for the Honour of our clan and the Gods!! Kill the romans!!!!"

Celtic Carnyx started to sound loud as Ventomarus gave  the orders to advance against the romans, and the Silures ran fast to the front seeking the battle..

CONTINUE SOON