Hail Caesar Skirmish #4: Marian Romans vs. Early Germans

With Historicon fast approaching, my pal Mike and I got together for a rapid fire series of games to brush up on some rules. This was Mike's first time playing Hail Caesar, so he took a larger force of Romans to face off against my early Germans. Pics and a battle report after the jump.

Black Tree Designs Ancient Germans

I finally managed to polish off a number of projects that had been lingering on my workbench for months, the biggest of which were fleshing out a pair of ancient German warbands for Hail Caesar. Thanks to the Black Tree Designs big Summer sale I was able to pick up two dozen barbarians and sped through painting them to table standard. Despite the rush, I think they turned out well (more a credit to the sculpts than my paint job). More pics and thoughts after the jump.

Ancient German Shield Assembly Line

Shields seem to be my bane. I seem to spend more time on an individual shields than I do on the figure holding it. With about 20 more ancient germans to go to finish off a pair of understrength warbands I decided to attack their shields with a painting system to churn them out as quickly as possible. My system after the jump.

Warlord Games Roman and Celtic General

Finished up the basing on my Warlord Games mounted Roman general and Celtic chieftain.  The Celt general will be serving as a leader for my ancient Germans rather than the Gauls, but they're all a bunch of hairy barbarians with snazzy fashion sense so I think he'll be interchangeable between a number of armies.

Warlord Games "Hold the Line!" mounted general

The Warlord Games chieftain didn't appear to have a lot of tell tale Celtic influences, so I thought he'd make a good leader for my ancient Germans. The standard bearer is a Black Tree Designs ancient German I believe. I didn't have any barbarian standards on hand, but I had a bunch of aquila left over from my Wargames Factory Romans. I asked about barbarians using captured Roman standards in battle on TMP and received a bunch of suggestions of additions the hairy horribles would have made to their trophy. I really liked the idea of the Germans adding antlers, pelts, severed heads and other trophies to the standard.  I added a Space Wolf ornament and the antlers clipped from an old plastic Bretonnian knight to the standard to give it a unique barbarian character.

Warlord Games Celtic chieftain and BTD standard bearer

Warlord Games Generals WIP 2

I was hoping to finish these up this weekend, but ran out of time.  The mounted Roman general is done, save for basing.  The Germanic chief (from WG Celtic Chieftains) and his standard bearer (BTD I think) are awaiting their final coat of Army Painter to dry, before dull coating and basing.

Hail Caesar Skirmish #3!

My wife and I played another Hail Caesar skirmish. The addition of my newly painted Celts brought our tiny forces up to the same point total (although I just eyeballed it when setting up the game). Having lost every Hail Caesar skirmish to date, I was hoping to eek out a win. I also wanted to add some more terrain to the field to see how it altered the battle. The Roman legionnaires would be facing off against their barbarian adversaries lurking in the dense forests of Germania. Check out our skirmish after the jump.

Ancient German Archers

Got the bases finished off on some Crusader Ancient German archers. Pretty quick paint job to get these on the table quickly.

Crusader Miniatures Ancient German Archers

Wargames Factory Painting Contest

I noticed Wargames Factory was running a painting contest to gather painted examples of their figures. I've painted up some of their Romans and Ancient Germans, and though they aren't the best examples of painting skill, I thought it was worth a shot to enter them.

Wargames Factory Romans. The shield decals really make these figures.

Wargames Factory 28mm Romans

Wargames Factory Roman Cohort

Wargames Factory Ancient Germans

Hail Caesar Skirmish!

Hail Caesar Romans ready for battle

My buddy Mark was in town for the holidays, and with a handful of complete (or nearly complete) figures ready to go, we decided to take a shot at Hail Caesar to run through the rules, roll some dice and throw some barbarians and Romans together and see the sparks fly. Check it out after the jump...

My First Ancients, Finished and Based!

Finally got my first Ancients completed. Still have many, many figures to paint up, but this is an exciting milestone for me. More photos after the break.

Romans, Germans, Numidians - Progress Mid-December

"You're gonna need a bigger box."

I wanted to document my progress on my various ancient armies as I've made some headway since this Summer. Just a quick snap from my iPhone for now with better photos to follow when they are complete. I need to finish off the bases of the infantry with static grass and tufts, and decide on a basing scheme for the cavalry, and then I can get down to rolling some dice! I'm still sorely lacking in actual elements and missing generals for each army, but at least there will be some figures I can push around on the table.

Ancient Germans & Romans - Progress Mid July

Despite working on my Ancient Germans and Cesarean Romans methodically over the last month, I haven't taken the time to record my progress.

Foundry Ancient Germans, painted and ready for basing.

Wargames Factory Romans awaiting bases.

There are roughly 80 figures on my work table being based now, hopefully enough to run a few more tests of Hail Caesar without resorting to proxies.

Ancient German Shield Designs

I needed to paint up the shields for my ancient Germans, and decided to do a bit of background research to pick color schemes and patterns that at least gave a nod to historical accuracy. Here's what I discovered.