I was pleasantly surprised how Hail Caesar rules played out in the my last Ancients game 'The attack on Mona'. It has been sat on my bookshelves for at least 10 years and had only ever played it briefly using 15mm figures. I decided that a closer look was needed to determine if this was going to be my go-to ruleset for my Ancient games.
I turned to the Hail Caesar supplement 'Caesar's Gallic Wars' as a source of scenarios and for which I pretty much had the required figures, although the Early Imperial Romans will have to stand in for the Late Republican Marian Romans.
The scenario I have selected is the first involving the Romans against the Gauls. It is June 58BC and Caesar moves against the Helvetii after appeals for help arrived from the Aedui tribe whose farms were being raided.
When the two armies approached, Caesar discovered that the majority of the Helvetii had already crossed the Arar River and only the Tigurini tribe was on his side of the river. Caesar decided to move against them at once.
The Tigurini were surprised and have two objectives in this battle. 1. To defeat the Romans who they outnumber and 2. To get as many supply wagons as they can across the river.
A slight adjustment to the order of battle was made to enable my existing collection to be used. 3 Helvetti light infantry units were replaced by 2 warbands. 3 wagons were used rather than the 4 in the scenario.
The scenario gave the table size as 8' x 4' for 28mm figures. I have reduced this to 3'9" x 2'3" for 6mm. All units are standard size (2 bases per unit). Distances are reduced from inches to centimeters.
Victory conditions: If only a maximum of wagon safely crosses the river = a Roman victory. 2 wagons = a draw. All 3 wagons = Helvetii victory. Each wagon rolls for activation each turn. 8 or less they are allowed one move.
Continued -
