Macedonian figures

[Fremitus Borealis]

Be right back, I have to go get a mop to clean my drool off the floor from that last "super phalanx" photo

That has to be the best thing I have read today

  

[Johnp4000]

Photos of one of the last Ancients games I played . Hail Caesar Hoplites v Macedonians.  The date shown on the computer file in 2017. From memory I hosted this on a 15"x6" table in my living room - I supplied most of the figures. Upon arrival my opponent questioned why he was "wasting a perfectly good day wargaming with me, when he could be in the park with his daughter". Fair enough I thought, so I never invited him back .  JohnP4000 knows the gamer in question.

You invited the wrong person! This scale of battle must have really challenged Hail Caesar, did you play enough of the game to have an opinion on how HC works?

[Doom Beard 78]

Things I learned
1) phalanxes v Phalanxes in HC gives a long, slow gridning battle of attrition.
2) Formig hoplites with a second line of reserves works as they provide support , this did seem rather ahistorical however, all games which cover the whole of the Ancients and medieval period create these sort of oddities
3) There seem to be few certainties in HC, charged hoplites in flank with companions and the hoplites push away the companions.  In other systems, its almost a dead cert that victory is achieved.

4) the proximity rules are very badly written

Other than that, is was not a bad game. The scale of the game did not really challenge HC- I think I had 10 Heavy Infantry, 2 medium infantry and 3 cavalry units. opponant had some thing similair.

[Johnp4000]

Things I learned
1) phalanxes v Phalanxes in HC gives a long, slow gridning battle of attrition.
2) Formig hoplites with a second line of reserves works as they provide support , this did seem rather ahistorical however, all games which cover the whole of the Ancients and medieval period create these sort of oddities
3) There seem to be few certainties in HC, charged hoplites in flank with companions and the hoplites push away the companions.  In other systems, its almost a dead cert that victory is achieved.

4) the proximity rules are very badly written

Other than that, is was not a bad game. The scale of the game did not really challenge HC- I think I had 10 Heavy Infantry, 2 medium infantry and 3 cavalry units. opponant had some thing similair.

With your example 3, I found flank attacks devastating? Attacker gets +1, defender -1, if engaged to the front defender has to split their attacks, so at a real disadvantage. Admittingly attacking warbands, but the few times it has happened unless another defending unit can intervene, normally found the defence broken.

[Doom Beard 78]

The situation I experienced was just cavalry in teh flank

This month's Slingshot has this feature
When the Rules Don’t Work - Wargaming Hoplite Battles With Hail Caesar - by Gordon Lawrence

Historical inaccuracy is the eternal bugbear of rulesets and Gordon Lawrence digs up quite a few of them in Hail Caesar, such as fixed unit sizes, Greek hoplite support lines, different parts of a phalanx moving at different speeds, and so on. Answer? A little rules tinkering...

I ended up selling off my copy of Hail caesar during a clearout of rules I had stopped playing.

[Johnp4000]

The situation I experienced was just cavalry in teh flank

This month's Slingshot has this feature
When the Rules Don’t Work - Wargaming Hoplite Battles With Hail Caesar - by Gordon Lawrence

Historical inaccuracy is the eternal bugbear of rulesets and Gordon Lawrence digs up quite a few of them in Hail Caesar, such as fixed unit sizes, Greek hoplite support lines, different parts of a phalanx moving at different speeds, and so on. Answer? A little rules tinkering...

I ended up selling off my copy of Hail caesar during a clearout of rules I had stopped playing.

Am I reading it right, that if you are only attacked in the flank or rear you can defend at full strength? That would certainly favour the phalanx?

[Westbury]

Very, very impressive.

[Doom Beard 78]

A mix of  mostly Foundry Scythians, thracians, companions and Greek light cavalry . the later Hellenistic cavalry are a unit of 15 Aventine Seluecid Agema and a unit of Polemarch Companion cavalry .