Hail Caesar: the Old World era

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ashmie
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Hail Caesar: the Old World era

Post by ashmie » Tue Dec 16, 2014 8:20 am

So this Sunday Lovejoy and I will be giving the Hail Caesar rules a go with Warhammer orcs and Empire. Why? I think in an effort to have a faster game. I'm not sure how it will work but I thought I'd open this thread so anyone is welcome to chime in with how we should go about this, what obstacles may we need to address.
I'm really looking forward to the game and I know it's something my opponent has wanted to try for a while now.
We are fielding about 6 units each. The rules as I'm reading them seem very similar if not identical to Black Powder. Prim et al, your thoughts please.
So after we've aired this game, finally, I hope to put together some ancients I have in the depths of the mancave. Anyone collecting the 300 yet? I have Persian plastics at 20mm.

Special characters like night goblin fanatics. Rules from army book? How would we handle the special rules?

Anyway, can't bloomin wait for Sunday.

As an aside are any of you up for a beer and mini bonenkai after gaming? Perhaps around 5 or 6 ish?
That would be great if we could manage a beer at least to see out the year.
Forget about yesterday, don't worry about tomorrow because all that matters is today.

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Primarch
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Re: Hail Caesar: the Old World era

Post by Primarch » Tue Dec 16, 2014 10:21 am

Superficially BP and HC look the same. There are a LOT of differences when you dig a little deeper. Shooting works differently, units have very different stats, supporting troops in combat is different and the proximity rule is much stricter.

Having thought about this before and discussed it with others at various points in time, playing HC with fantasy minis is easy. Trying to play WFB with the HC rules is much more difficult. WFB contains a lot of stuff that just isn't present in HC, spells, magic weapons and items, and so forth. WFB puts emphasis on the minis whereas in HC the unit is what matters.

For your first game I would suggest that you try to play it as close to basic HC as possible. Forget any notions of using WFB's points values as they won't translate over. Just pick half a dozen units, arrange them with a frontage of about 20cm and try to find suitable stats in the HC book. E.g. Black Orcs = Heavy Infantry, Empire Outriders = Skirmishing Light Cavalry. Once you've got a game or two under your belt, start to tinker with things. I've seen a couple of home brewed fantasy rulesets for HC that just make the game so unwieldy you may as well be playing WFB to begin with. I think HC is a great game, so the more people who play the better, I also think that HC is great because it is simple.

Goblin Fanatics could be used following the rules for scythed chariots perhaps. Maybe tone them down a bit to stop them destroying an entire unit. Or use them as skirmishers. Either way give them a reasonable 'Clash' score and a very, very low 'Sustained' score.

To keep things a bit fantasy-ish maybe use wizards/shamens etc as giving their unit a buff somehow. Reroll a failed order, an extra dice for shooting, reroll a miss in combat for example.
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Spevna
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Re: Hail Caesar: the Old World era

Post by Spevna » Tue Dec 16, 2014 12:30 pm

On a bit of a tangent, but if you are after a faster game, have you considered Kings of War by Mantic?

I have no idea how the rules play, but I've read that some people use it as an alternative to WHFB rules as its a much faster game.
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Re: Hail Caesar: the Old World era

Post by me_in_japan » Tue Dec 16, 2014 1:14 pm

nuffink to do with me, but ...

http://www.manticgames.com/free-rules.html
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Re: Hail Caesar: the Old World era

Post by Lovejoy » Tue Dec 16, 2014 1:32 pm

I'm in favour of the straight HC approach, there are more than enough extra rules and unit types in the book for us to use. As I was saying, even the Steamtank could be an elephant if need be.
After giving it a whirl, I'm sure we'll be full of ideas.

Kings of War is interesting, but I know very little about it. I've heard good things about God of Battles as well.
http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/our-rang ... od-battle/

Hail Caesar is something I want to get on the go, though, for historical purposes as well as this fantasy experiment. Playing a ruleset similar to another I vaguely know (Black Powder) seems like a lot of good sense to me.
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ashmie
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Re: Hail Caesar: the Old World era

Post by ashmie » Wed Dec 17, 2014 2:33 am

Thanks Gents, some great advice here. Keep it simple is the key I reckon.
Forget about yesterday, don't worry about tomorrow because all that matters is today.

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Re: Hail Caesar: the Old World era

Post by Primarch » Wed Dec 17, 2014 8:21 am

me_in_japan wrote:nuffink to do with me, but ...

http://www.manticgames.com/free-rules.html
I haven't played it, but from reviews I saw of Kings of War (1st ed.), it sounds like a solo wargame for two people. When it is your turn, you roll ALL the dice. Your opponent doesn't do anything. Units only attack in their own turn. You roll to beat the enemy Ld rather than your opponent trying to pass a test etc. Your opponent can literally go to sleep during your turn and it won't make a lick of difference to the game.
For some people this probably won't matter, but for me player interaction and involvement is the key point in any games I play. KoW could be the greatest, most balanced, slickest rule set in existence, but based on that one facet of the game, I guess I will never know. All the reviews I read did say that it was faster and a lot simpler than WFB though.
Painted Minis in 2014: 510, in 2015: 300, in 2016 :369, in 2019: 417, in 2020: 450

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