Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi guys, I recently picked up the Hail Caesar Rulebook from a mate of mine.

I've been playing a lot of bolt action recently so I expected hail caesar to be on a similar scale given its made by the same people.

I'm suddenly realising that hail caesar is about Ancient warfare (which, given my major, I should be completely aware of) and thus that it is played on an army scale.

Remembering my failed tyranids and infantry guard projects, I remember saying "feth no, I'm not painting these guys in 28mm".

So, I was wondering what people usually play historical ancients in. 28mm is massive, and I'll probably paint a few legionaires in 28mm anyway, but I was thinking either 1/72 or 10mm. With the former there's an abundance of miniatures, but they're still relatively big so painting them can still be a hassle, with the latter there's less miniatures available, and they're much smaller.

I know Hail Caesar! has rules included for playing in smaller scales, I just haven't found them yet.

Hail Caesar is a flexible rule set. The only real requirement is that units in both armies have the same width. You can easily play 10mm, have each standard unit be 2 inches wide, and cut movement rates in half.

 RanTheCid wrote:
Hail Caesar is a flexible rule set. The only real requirement is that units in both armies have the same width. You can easily play 10mm, have each standard unit be 2 inches wide, and cut movement rates in half.

I'd like my armies to be atmospheric. I'd really like to be able to represent my legionary cohorts with 80 men and my opponent's hordes/regiments with equally accurate numbers. I wanna know what scale most people play their historics in, so I can conform.

Im not sure if this is what youre asking but if you wish to play hail cesear on a smaller scale then there is a company called "Baccus 6mm" just google that.

weve just started playing this at our loocal store. the models they sell are great quality considering the scale. and have most armies that the rules have in H:C!

In club we have people interested in romans, celts (proxied as brits,germania) greeks, africa, eqyptians.

Not sure if thats what you were talking about sorry
but hope it helps!

 Scipio Africanus wrote:
I'm suddenly realising that hail caesar is about Ancient warfare (which, given my major, I should be completely aware of) and thus that it is played on an army scale.

Remembering my failed tyranids and infantry guard projects, I remember saying "feth no, I'm not painting these guys in 28mm".

So, I was wondering what people usually play historical ancients in. 28mm is massive, and I'll probably paint a few legionaires in 28mm anyway, but I was thinking either 1/72 or 10mm. With the former there's an abundance of miniatures, but they're still relatively big so painting them can still be a hassle, with the latter there's less miniatures available, and they're much smaller.

I don't play Hail Caesar, but...
I know people who play Warhammer Ancient with 1/72 minis. And it's individually based, not unit-based like Hail Caesar. Sure, you don't really want to mix the two scales, but 1/72 is only marginally smaller than 28mm.

If you go that way, I'd suggest to keep exactly the same unit sizes, maybe add a couple more minis on each unit base, but that's it.

About smaller scales...
15mm: I wouldn't go there. This scale is known for being pretty hit and miss, recent casts can be awesome, older ones can be awful.
10mm: Sweet spot! You can chose to use the 28mm ground scale (and field units with LOTS of minis) or halve every dimension.
6mm: Another sweet spot. Quite inexpensive, and surprisingly easy to paint.
Smaller: Yup, some companies manufacture 2 and 3mm minis. But if 10mm scares you, you probably don't want to go that way.

I'm not really into 10mm, I think Magister Militum and Pendraken sell them...
If you want to try 6mm, go Baccus. The range is comprehensive and the quality quite good. Irregular seem to be, well... pretty irregular.
Heroic and Ros may be an option, but they're slightly smaller (1:300). Baccus has a quite comprehensive range, and sells various army packs, including Hail Caesar.

https://www.baccus6mm.com/index.php?content=products/ancient&detail=ancient (all the way down)
If you're not sure about 6mm and want to give it a try, you can just buy some Triarii, Velites and Romans Generals (to have some cavalry), it will cost you less than £10...

And you can of course click on my signature for some 6mm ancients: carthaginians, republican romans and numidians. I didn't exactly build them with Hail Caesar in mind, but they can (and will) easily be adapted for that system.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

 RanTheCid wrote:
Hail Caesar is a flexible rule set. The only real requirement is that units in both armies have the same width. You can easily play 10mm, have each standard unit be 2 inches wide, and cut movement rates in half.

I'd like my armies to be atmospheric. I'd really like to be able to represent my legionary cohorts with 80 men and my opponent's hordes/regiments with equally accurate numbers. I wanna know what scale most people play their historics in, so I can conform.

I don't know about other people, but I play HC in 28mm. 24 infantry to a standard unit & 12 cavalry to a unit. A three division army runs about 250 figures. Not easy to paint, but it sure is nice looking on the table.

Did everyone just glaze over the fact that I said "cohorts with 80 men"? I feel so embarassed!

O'course I meant centuries.

As for scaling down to 6mm, that's doable. It's not the skill of the painter, it's his drive that's the problem here. they'd look simple, but having 480 soldiers on a table wouldn't take me 2 years to complete.

The Roman Legionaries by Baccus are super quick and easy to paint. I painted up a Basic Impetus army in 6mm basing it on the 28MM ground scale, meaning 120mm wide bases. Here is a picture to give you an idea:

Going with 15mm here, mostly to share terrain with FoW, not all of it obviously, will leave ruined tanks at home.

Agree models can be a bit hit and miss, but started out with the Essex miniatures DBA packs here, on 40mm wide steel bases. Actually based for DBA but looks like they will work fine for HC.

The page covering alternative scales is near the back of the book, doesn;t say a lot other than keeping to point that its the width that matters and as long as both sides are roughly the same away you go.

Suggest finding out if anyone you game with has a historical army and working something to match them - or you will end up needing two armies, like thats a bad thing

We use 15mm as one of our club members has massive Greeks and Persian armies from DBR/DBA games.

15mm tends to be popular for ancients due to DBA.

The smaller scales you can get whole armies relatively cheaply.

I like 10mm and 6mm. It looks suitably grand on the table. You feel like you are controlling an army and not a bunch of dudes playing rugby.

6mm does look impressive, little need for the "this dude represents 20 actual dudes" stuff, just go 1:1 and have millions of them.

Used to love epic scale stuff for Space Marine, easy to paint as a couple of base colours and a wash looks from three feet exactly the same as spending ages on them.

Guess also going 6mm, and swapping inches for cm to measure with means the game fits on a reasonable sized table as well

Lots of people use 28mm for Ancients, that is why there is such a range of figures available.

That said, 15mm is probably even more popular and you can get just about anything. The scale is arguably the perfect balance between size, cost and detail, or conversely the worst marriage between these three factors.

6mm has become a lot more popular and there are some good ranges around.

10mm is a newer scale and is fairly well populated. It has the advantage you can fit more figures onto the bases for 15mm, though if you want the mass look then 6mm based up on to 28mm scale bases is the way to go.

The ultimate scale for mass is 2mm, which is also astonishingly cheap.

Ditto 15mm and 10mm. I have to say I'm fond of 10mm after Warmaster, and some of Pendraken's historicals aren't too shabby. But as was said, 15mm was and is a very popular scale for historical, and there's been a minor explosion in manufacturers, ranges and quality in the last couple of years. Yep, some of the older ranges can be pretty iffy, but have a look at some of the newer guys, starting with Khurasan and - especially given your location - Eureka.

(But just to muddy the waters, I agree that 6mm historicals look pretty tempting too.)

I have historical armies in 28mm, 15mm, 6mm and 2mm. I have never done 10mm because it arrived too late in my wargaming career to have a lot of impact for me. Obviously there is a market for it because there is quite a range of figures in 10mm, though nothing like as wide a selection as 15mm which is the much earlier scale.

Someone above mentioned 1/72 plastic. It is surprising how many manufacturers there are in that scale, once you look.

Recently I have been considering 3mm for ACW.

The rules in the book specifically include options for smaller scales than 28mm.

I've got the book, but not managed a game yet. The rueles are very straight forward however. I wish GW would simplify warhammer similiarly.

Argonak: Have you seen Kings of War, Mayhem or Legions of Battle? All fantasy games with a mass-battle, unit-based feel like HC, that you can easily slot your WH armies into by proxy or unit creation.