One good thing about getting my celts done was that now I'd finally have enough figures for a proper Hail Caesar army. As that is one of the rulesets being considered for Project T, that is certainly an interesting development.

So, I decided to arrange the figures on bases to see what it would look like. Almost completely arbitrarily I chose to use the 80x80mm bases I had made for Fantasy Rules! long long ago. So, two of these would make up a normal sized unit while a single one would stand for a small unit or a command stand. If I really went for this, I'd probably do the command stands in a totally different style but this was okay for the test.

Since my infantry is based on 25mm washers I can put nine of them on a single base, making each normal unit 18 strong. Skirmish units could be represented by a looser formation of fewer figures, but as we will see later on that wasn't really necessary.

Cavalry takes more space being based on 25x50mm slottabases, only three make onto a base. I decided to make regular unit two bases again. My chariots are based singly on 80x80mm bases, two would make up a unit with the remaining one serving as a command stand.

Okay, so I finally made three divisions. Two infantry and one cavalry/chariots.

First Division

1x Bodyguard unit (armored nobles), 3x Warband, 2x Slingers (small units)

Second Division

1x Fanatics, 3x Warband, 2x Slingers (small units)

Third Division

5x Cavalry, 2x Chariots, 1x Slingers (small unit), 2x Javelin skirmishers (small units)

Plus leaders for each division, obviously. This pretty much used up all my figures. Looks like a decent Hail Caesar army, doesn't it? Except which list would actually let me use these guys?

The Hail Caesar army book has a couple of lists usable for the celts, but it was soon apparent that the list for the Gauls was the only one I could even remotely try to get all my figures in. So that's the one I chose.

No problem fitting in the basic warriors, and I'm allowed one unit of bodyguard and one unit of naked dudes, no problem. So the core for the infantry divisions was ok. But things started going awry with the skirmishers. First of all, half of all skirmish units must be armed with javelins. I had stuck practically all of my pig stickers in the warbands leaving only a handful to skirmish. Fortunately the skirmish bases look okay with relatively few figures, I could strip some from the warbands and maybe paint a couple more to redress the balance.

However the gallic list, like almost all of the lists in the army book sets a very strict limitation on the number of skirmishers. You can only have one skirmish unit for every two non-skirmish infantry units in each division. Thus a basic division with four infantry blocks can have exactly two skirmishers. Not much of a screen if you ask me, but if you discount the wrong weapons those two infantry divisions are pretty much okay so far.

It's the third division where this list dies a flaming death. On the surface it looks okay, there's nothing in the rules against all cavalry divisions. Okay, so there are no non-skirmishing infantry in the division so the skirmish bases are technically illegal but that's still a relatively small matter.

It's the overall force composition percentages that drive the final nail into the coffin. In the gallic list, 75% of all units must be non-skirmishing infantry. Also, 50% must be warbands of some type which is a pretty idiotic limitation since all the non-skirmishing infantry options are warbands. If I have 75% warbands, it's pretty likely I also have 50% warbands. Did someone actually proofread this? And I don't mean the spell-checker in Word.

So, counting backwards from my eight regular warrior blocks, I can have, yes, a whopping two units of anything else. Granted, I lose something in the rounding, adding another warrior block would also let me take one more unit of something else.

In practical terms this means that I can have some skirmishers or some cavalry or some chariots. Taking even the faintest whiff of the traditional young warriors skirmish screen pretty much precludes any cavalry support.

So in practice I have figures for two basic infantry divisions and then a big pile of basically unusable figures the list percentages won't let me use for anything!

Let's assume for a second that the 75% limit didn't exist and use the 50% limit instead. This is a useful excercise because the vast majority of the army book lists are built on the same basic formula.

Then eight warrior blocks would let me take another eight units of something else. I could have for example four cavalry units and four skirmishers. That'd turn out to be infantry : cavalry : skirmisher ratio of 50% : 25% : 25%. Still won't let me utilize all my horses, but much more reasonable in my admittedly biased opinion.

An interesting thing to note is that HC armies require huge amounts of figures for the basic troop blocks (and my 18-strong blocks still fall short of the rulebook recommendations), but actually relatively few figures of other types. Think of the skirmishers. You can have one for every two warriors. Sounds like a 1:2 ratio, right? Except that skirmish units are small units. Now it's actually 1:4. Then figure in that skirmishers look better in looser formation and halve again. We arrive at 1:8. For every whippersnapper with a javelin or sling, you need eight full-grown warriors. Is that realistic for ancient warfare? Frankly, I don't know. Vercingetorix promised to send me his TO&E for comparison, but it was lost in the mail. I suspect Roman agents in the postal service...

For the final thing I present my classic obligatory overhead view of the troops involved. I assembled the forces on my 2'x 2' terrain tiles. As you can see, the troops pretty much cover three tiles without all that much room for maneuver. Three tiles equals half of a normal 6' x 4' table.

Even if I painted another 80 warriors to flesh out another infantry division and give room to play a few support units, the only place I could really play with them would be my backyard patio.

This observation applies to most other armies as HC armies tend to have very similar number of units.

Hail Caesar just isn't a game for us mortal gamers. Sadly.

maxxon