An ENORMOUS British Dark Ages battle (28mm) using 'Hail Caesar'

[Marine0846]

Beautiful, I am looking forward to the article in the mag.

[guitarheroandy]

Splendid work gentlemen  

Just a few questions if I may without detracting from the article  

How long did the game take and how many turns were there?

Was there much manoeuvring as the table is cramped or was it just a case of 'stick it to 'em lads!'

How was the division set up arranged?

And one last final one, is it possible to get a picture of the waterfall in the background  

cheers

James

*edit for dodgy iPad spellchecker  *

The game lasted from about 10.45am until 5.20pm, with a short lunch break and occasional tea breaks while WI Dan took pics for the mag without us around to block his shots.

Each player commanded two divisions. The size and composition varied across the armies, e.g. my main division had a unit of companion cavalry, 2 units of nobles and 2 units of light cavalry, plus 2 units of foot skirmishers, while my second division contained 1 unit of noble cavalry, 2 units of spearmen and 2 of foot skirmishers. One Saxon division was entirely mounted and all the rest were on foot. I think each one had one unit of Gedriht (hearthguard) and then varying numbers of spearmen units plus assorted skirmishers.

There was limited room for manoeuvre, but then that is probaly entirely accurate for much Dark Age warfare. What we found was that the front lines tended to pile in and 'stick it to 'em' while the more cunning manoeuvre was in the rear lines as one attempted to fully support one's attacks in the front and use reserves effectively. This was ably demonstrated by the saxons in front of me who generally kept their front line VERY well-supported. On the one occasion they didn't, I took advantage and that was when my unit broke through (aided by uncharacteristically good dice throwing from me, it has to be admitted!) It was less easy for the British, as we didn't really have many reserves to play with!!!

Apologies, but I neglected to take a pic of the waterfall!!!

I hope that helps. If you haven't played it, HC is a great game. Believe it or not, this was my first ever game using the rules and I coped really rather well (we did have one really expert player and some others had played a bit, but at least one other player on the Saxon side hadn't played either before the big day!!)

[OSHIROmodels]

That's great Andy, thanks very much 

I've had it since it was released but haven't had the time to play it yet 

The impression I get is that it is very easy to pick up.

cheers

James

[vonplutz]

If they were Christians, it makes the notion of Gregory the Great sending Augustine to England because he'd seen the Derian slave boys in the market and said 'non angli sed angeli' ('not English but Anglicans'... only joking) all a bit pointless. Converted before his guy even got here. By the British? Hmmm. Would Bede not likely have mentioned that the Derians were Christian though?

Yup. Just working on what I remember this was a few years ago I read it. Maybe they weren't but saw the importance of not killing a priest for the benefit of ransom. Wish I had time to go digging because he really had some interesting things to say.

[Arlequín]

Awesome looking game, September seems a long way off.

If they were Christians, it makes the notion of Gregory the Great sending Augustine to England because he'd seen the Derian slave boys in the market and said 'non angli sed angeli' ('not English but Anglicans'... only joking) all a bit pointless. Converted before his guy even got here. By the British? Hmmm. Would Bede not likely have mentioned that the Derians were Christian though?

St Augustine was too busy converting in the South of England and being the first Archbishop of Canterbury to convert Northumbrians. Those British in the the Northumbrian Army may have still been Christians though. Officially the conversion of the Northumbrian King (and by implication the Northumbrians themselves) was in 627AD and again around 635AD by St. Aiden. Bear in mind that with the exception of St. Aiden and St. Patrick, the 'Celtic' Church and their ways were not encouraged by 'The' Church in Rome.

[Red Orc]

Sure, Bede certainly downplayed the role of the British and Irish Christians and 'bigged up' Gregory's mission.

I've beren thinking about this a lot over the last 24 hours, and the idea of Derian Christians makes most sense I think if they are British. After all, most of Deira (including York, probably) wasn't in English hands in AD580, but had been conquered by 600. Seems likely that the new Anglian overlords had a large British population in their kingdom, and quite probably a British contingent in the army too.

Incidently, that might explain the Deiran 'treachery', if they were Britons fighting for a 'Saxon' overlord. Interesting... but possibly slightly off-topic!

[James Morris]

I'll see if I can remember to get a pic of the waterfall and post it.  It's a piece I made about 15 years ago, but still serviceable.  I'm hoping to add a few of my own pics of the game sometime but have been too busy writing down what happened and getting the article beaten into shape for WI 300.

Hail Caesar gets a big thumbs up from us an ideal rules set for this scale of game - we like WAB, but this battle would have been almost unplayable using it.  Three of the six players had never played HC before but we still managed to get a result in 7 turns.  We've played smaller games that have also been great fun, but HC was specifically chosen as we knew we were going to have a lot of figures on the table - no casualty removal, no faffing with angles/ wheels etc and 'easy to pick up' were three big selling points for us.

The battle is, obviously, Catraeth: 'Three hundred against a hundred thousand.'  Possibly a bit ambitious but we did what we could!  

[Arlequín]

Thanks for the recommendation of Hail Caesar James, I think I'm going to have to have a look at them. 

Sure, Bede certainly downplayed the role of the British and Irish Christians and 'bigged up' Gregory's mission.

I've beren thinking about this a lot over the last 24 hours, and the idea of Derian Christians makes most sense I think if they are British. After all, most of Deira (including York, probably) wasn't in English hands in AD580, but had been conquered by 600. Seems likely that the new Anglian overlords had a large British population in their kingdom, and quite probably a British contingent in the army too.

Incidently, that might explain the Deiran 'treachery', if they were Britons fighting for a 'Saxon' overlord. Interesting... but possibly slightly off-topic!

I'd imagine that most of the English Kingdoms had a lot of Britons within their population and only their culture largely disappeared. Whether they remained Christian or not, I wouldn't dare to hazard a guess, certainly there doesn't appear to have been much resistance to missionaries entering the Kingdom and doing their thing. Deira retained its British name, so may only have experienced a change of management under Ælla and his 'shareholders'.

[Nighthawk]

Oh wow I'm so envious. I've got the rule book. Some figures but no opponents. Hmm I guess I'm just living in the wrong part of the world Oh well. It looks like an awesome game. What table top gamings all about 

[Kingscarbine]

  this is not good for my brain... 

[James Morris]

I've posted more detailed pics of the game to the WAB Forum (sorry, but it's the site I find easiest to post to).  Here is the link:

http://wabforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=10796

I've also included a shot of the waterfall, just for James! 

[OSHIROmodels]

Thank you James 

That first shot is absolutely outstanding 

cheers

James

[guitarheroandy]

Mr Morris paints a mean figure or two doesn't he?? And yes, that first pic is amazing...just imagine the whole article stuffed full of pics of that quality!!! 

[Mason]

 

WOW!

Simply amazing!

I love the attention to detail, with the command bases and viginettes telling a story all of their own. Superb!

 

[Barry S]

That looks brilliant. I am very green with envy right now