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Hey guys,

After having a look through some historical wargames, 'Hail Caesar' has caught my eye. The models look rather nice, and the Roman Empire-era is something I haven't really tried before so thought I might give it a go!

Just a quick question really if anyone has played the game, and if so what they thought of it? What are the army sizes etc?
As the rules have been done by Rick Priestly, I guess are they somewhat similar to the now discontinued Warhammer Ancients?

Any general comments on the game would be greatly appreciated!

The rules definitely feel like a relation to Warmaster. From my experience with the Warlord Games rules they are all work smoothly and can play nearly any sort of level of game without getting bogged down. They also work at any scale and with any range of miniatures, you dont just have to use 28mm Warlord Games models! Also basing is fairly generic and you can easily mix different styles of basing without any problems. I would recommend them!

Welcome to the glorious world of Hail Cesare. The game works well and the models are nice, you have a wide array to choose from. And as Optio mentioned basing is very simple so do join us .

Hail Caesar is excellent. It won't disappoint you.

I actually inherited some of the Hail Caeser models today, it was my first time seeing them. They're still on the sprue and look excellent.

I won't be playing them myself, they're most likely destined for ebay, just vouching for the quality

Hail Caesar has been a lot of fun to play. It's a casual system for gaming with lots of figures. The system does assume that you are already familiar with historical gaming/army building, although the 2 list books do help get a rookie started.

Most folks use HC for large group games, although we play it mostly 1v1 in a competitive style. The game plays best in a cooperative style and if a player wants to break it, he probably will.

Hail Caesar is a solid game, I play it in 15mm because it’s cheaper and I can field Massive and I mean massive armies lol. I will tell you it’s not for people who like to power game. The system is set up to be casual and assumes you have a grasp of your history but don’t let that scare you from it. It’s quickly becoming my favorite war game.

Frankly, Warlord Game rules are a waste of money.

LOL!

I love sweeping statements with no basis for their arguements! So helpful!

Not even an idea why... Just they are!

If it plays anything like Black Powder from the same company, it can be a little confusing at first, but well done and very balanced.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
If it plays anything like Black Powder from the same company, it can be a little confusing at first, but well done and very balanced.

+1 this is really the thing that makes the Warlord games so amusing and nice to play

I'm umming and ahhing over picking up the HC rulebook but £30 is a fair bit of money for essentially a blind buy, can anyone give a few none-too-specific pointers on how it plays? Activation mechanics, combat mechanics, command and control, so on?

Some discussion about mechanics and army size here

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/490144.page

I hope I'm allowed to necro this thread - Mods please close if not, and I will start a new thread (as it's been a while!)

I'm just putting together some Praetorians (lovely little models!) and wanted to ask what basing solutions there are for this game? I haven't yet read the rules, but would I be safe buying something like the 'Infantry bases sprue'? (http://www.warlordgames.com/store/hobby-supplies/bases/infantry-bases-sprue.html
Obviously this game has the advantage of not having to base each miniature individually, but I still want to retain a bit of flexibility in terms of changing unit sizes etc.

Looking at the very thin tab bases that come on the miniatures is it an idea to use clay/green stuff to make a smooth appearance on the base? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

The 40mm square bases will work fine for HC. Good building blocks for a 8x2 figure unit. Also handy for formation changes from battle line to column. The single bases and the 20x80mm will be OK for filling in a third rank, but will make a mess if you want to re-arrange the unit.

The 40mm pack might be the better option. The only down side to using 40mm is that you will need to paint the figures before basing.
http://www.warlordgames.com/us-store/40mm-square-base-pack.html

The lump the figure makes on the base is hidden with a little sand. At worst, hide the lump with a clump of static grass.

Thanks very much RanTheCid, that's very useful!

Just finished painting some Praetorians and have to say what lovely little models (am I allowed to use the word cute? )

Very nice detailed sculpts, multi-pose and rank up together nicely. And the price is extremely reasonable!

Just putting some of the legionaires and gauls together and they are bloody great! Supplemented my purchases with some random metal blisters just to add some variety, and have got the ancients army lists.

Thinking of getting some wargames foundry and Gripping beast metal guys to add, does anyone have any of these and if so how well do they scale next to the Warlord plastics?

Warlord's Romans are unfortunately smaller than the other Roman lines out there. Foundry has an earlier line of Romans that will fit in with the Warlord stuff, but they have another line that won't. Unfortunately I don't know which line is the larger one. Sorry!



Pretty big difference!

Their gauls are actually slightly larger and will mix well with most other 28mm.

A blog post I found about it:
http://legatuswargamesarmies.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/warlord-games-plastic-romans.html

Gripping Beast looks pretty close!

Thanks very much mate!

Might well look at the Warlord's own metal range then just to mix things up.

Has anyone got hold of the new Britannia supplement yet?

Don't forget that the average Roman male ~BC was only 5'4" to 5'6", so smaller Roman soldiers makes sense.

 judgedoug wrote:
Don't forget that the average Roman male ~BC was only 5'4" to 5'6", so smaller Roman soldiers makes sense.

Agreed and i am waiting for the latest suplement.

 judgedoug wrote:
Don't forget that the average Roman male ~BC was only 5'4" to 5'6", so smaller Roman soldiers makes sense.

Actually... and dont ask how I know this, but the average height from the Roman graves at Great Casterton and several other sights has been 5' 7.75" . The average from skeletons in surburban Rome seems to be around 5' 6".


But its irrelevant anyway as there is no reason to assume that the opposing force to the Romans would be any taller. There are no skeleton records of large samples fromwhich to build an average height for, for example, Gauls, but Roman scribesnoted Gaul prisoners ranging in heights from 5' 8" to 6' 2" (but those are Roman feet... Not Imperial). So pretty much the same as everyone else really. I doubt there would be much difference between the two forces in regards height!

Legio I Italica had a minimum height restriction of 6' to join their Legion. Whether this was a common thing or peculiar to this Legion is not known, but its assumed to be a peculiarity as its mentioned in surviving inscriptions.

I suppose there is argument for both sides of it.. From my reading the early Imperial Romans might have been somewhat smaller than the post-Marius and Caesar Romans who heavily used auxiliaries and whose Legionaires were mostly 'camp babies' (the kids of parents in conquered regions and so then mostly not from Rome).

It might well be another one of those things you classify alongside the descriptions of the massive hordes of screaming, bloodthirsty tribes which attacked the Romans - as you only have one side of the story from the Roman account it is most likely not completely true, although there will have been a kernel of (less extreme) truth to it.