HAIL CAESAR AND OTHER GAMES

 

Here are photos of today's games played in Goulburn. The theme for the day was Ancients, so Ian, Steve and myself brought along my Romans and Steve's newly minted Celtic army. He has built up quite a force and we wanted to put them on the table and see how they went. So we set up a Hail Caesar game. The Celts threw themselves at the Romans. They pushed the Roman right back but then the Romans rallied and beat them off. A bad morale roll by one Celtic player (Ian) saw a big chunk of the Celtic force on the Roman right flee. In the Center Celtic naked fanatics surged forward and hit a lonely unit of Auxilia. The fanatics had masses of dice and hit hard. It looked like curtains for the Auxilia but the Gods favored the Auxilia and they fought like heroes (nine hits on them and they rolled nine saving scores!) They then slammed back into the fanatics who crumbled and fled. That Auxilia unit will receive a unit laurel and free wine for a year for that effort. On the left of their line the Romans did not do as well. Not only could none of their skirmishers or Legion hurled javelins hit the broad side of a barn but one cohort fought like babies and got destroyed by charging Celtic cavalry. The cavalry crashed through and ran into the second line of Auxilia and smashed them as well ( I reckon something must have been in the food of those Romans for them fight as pathetically as they did). Having broken two Roman units the Celtic cavalry was pretty well spent and when a fresh Auxilia unit hit them they disintegrated. The First cohort held the center of the Roman line. These veterans has suffered from the skirmishing of the Gaul chariots and got hit hard by masses of Celts. They got pushed back but hung on. At that point both sides were pretty well exhausted and the game ended. The Romans were badly battered and had suffered heavy casualties but they held the line.

 

There were three other ancient games being played: Late Romans against Huns, Romans against a Phalanx and Late Romans versus Sarmatians.

 

 The Celtic horde - all fired up and ready to slaughter Romans

The Romans await the surging wild torrent of blood crazed savages rushing towards them

  

 

 The warriors crash into the Roman line

The Roman Scorpion had deployed out to the front where it had shot at the Celts and inflicted some damage. When the time came for it to withdraw it refused to do so - every one always said Quintus was a stubborn old bugger. Inevitably the Scorpion was overrun and Quintus and his crew were slain.

The Celts crashed into the right of the Roman line and pushed it back, but the line held and hit back causing the Celts there to flee in disarray.

 The Celtic chariots race forward keen to get at the Romans

 

 The chariots threw their javelins and did some damage to the Roman first cohort

 The game ends with the Romans badly battered but still holding their lines

In one of the other games the Phalanx advances on the Romans

A delightful little vignette that was part of the Phalanx versus Romans game with an elephant having fun with an unfortunate Roman

 

Late Romans Line up to do battle with the Huns