Arab Units for HC!-FAN

I like to consider using armies in multiple scenarios.

These Arabic fighters are destined to fight in a Fantasy HC! version of Warmaster. 

Via a reality warp they could fight Medieval Crusaders in a Hail Caesar! Battle or even skip a century and fight  allied/levied troops with the Ottoman Turk Renaissance Armies in a Pike and Shotte game.

The flags are homemade.

Elephants are from Newline Designs and the Arabic masses from Pendraken Dark Ages

Large Fan Elephant unit with two single based for HC and a command Elephant base.

Heavy Cavalry with a Commands

Medium Cavalry Unit

Arabic Infantry with a command base

Arabic Archers with a command base and a Skirmish line to the front.

See also

Lizard Men For Hail Caesar - Lost Children of the Fallen Gods
Orc army based up  rebasing for HC Fantasy
Polish Army for P&S and a little fantasy  Kislev

Tracking Wounds and Stamina - Why are there little poles on your bases?

 Wound markers - Why are there little poles on your bases?

Picture above says it all without the waffle.

We all need to track wounds and there are many ways of doing it. Dice, coloured or numbered counters are some options and most of the time they are positioned next to the unit and so often left behind when the unit moves. The solution is to balance the marker on the base I've seen discs balanced between ranks of troops and I want to cry.

We were using small dice green indicating wounds, replaced with a red die when they were shaken. These also get left behind and worse would get knocked so five wounds became one. Using dice holders gave mixed results, some too tight you can't get the dice out, or too loose and fall out.

Then we started playing a lot of Hail Caesar! and it soon became clear we had to identify which units belonged to an HQ, to stop errors in command.

SWMBO required a trip to IKEA and I saw a cheap version of Hama beads 'PYSSLA' and the solution came to me.

Use the beads at one rear corner to denote wounds using the current colour system, use the other colours on the other edge to denote HQ and its units. 

This is a 10 point Stamina version whilst HC goes up to 8 stamina I allowed for the possibility of 10 stamina. (Fantasy version with Monsters). 

Each red dice represent a point where the unit might be shaken, depending on what its stamina is 4, 6, 8 or 10 use red or if unit has a higher stamina value use the pink, orange or black token at that point instead.

Lizard Army confront a Tomb Kings Horde, HC!Fantasy - 1st Play Test

 Lizard Army confront a Tomb Kings Horde

First play test of the two armies with a new rules system.

Essential I've created HC! army lists for Warmaster armies and magic. My victim played the Tomb Kings whilst I played the Lizardmen.

Simple game no scenery just line up and charge to test the points allocations, unit creation and magic rather than an indvidual's skills

Result was a resounding win for the Tomb Kings who lost nothing whilst the Lizards lost half the army. Christoph (aka the victim) was delighted with the result and felt the game played like Warmaster without some of the detail that sometimes bogged it down.

I forgot the photos through the game but over three turns not a lot happened as my command rolls ensured half my Lizard army never moved.

Turn 1
I advanced the right wing and fired some shots at the Tomb Kings. The Tomb Kings waited for my arrival with some positional changes as the commander had realised he'd set up incorrectly and fired at the Lizards. Casting Doom and Despair on the Kroxigor who could now only stand and stare

Turn 2
The Skinks in the right wing of the Lizards charged the Skeleton Infantry and were pushed back becoming disordered and were pushed back to their death in turn three. The Terradons flews behind the Skull chucker and fired shots at it whilst the Stegadon advance slowly forwards.
The left wing of the Lizards failed their command again, whilst the Tomb kings facing them advanced a little & cast spells and fired. The middle division joined in attacking the right wing of the Lizards.

Turn 3
The Lizardmen on the left were in combat or failed commands and the division on the left flank also failed. This was just very poor rolling 10+ and blunders, whist break tests were rolling under 7s with excess casualties taking them lower. 
The Tomb kings facing the unmoving left wing of the lizard fired and finally the Lizards moved, backwards as they failed their break tests.
On the Lizard's right wing the Skeleton Infantry polished of the skinks and swept into the Salamander unit destroying it. The centre and cavalry from the right wing of the Tomb Kings charged into the Stegadon which was destroyed in combat. 

The game ended at the end of turn three as half the Lizard army left the table.

Note:
The Tomb King archers had depleted the stamina of the Lizard units so they were almost shaken when the were attacked.
Magic throughout had been as haphazard as it ever was in Warmaster.

I believe I got the stats for both armies about right but I'll need to ensure the General is played as a CIC rather than being in charge of a division, so a little rule tweaking will be required and both the below lists would have an extra Hero HQ.

The Lizard men army was about 1K Warmaster points.

The Tomb Kings also about 1K points

Why did the Lizard lose when the Tomb Kings didn't even lose a unit?

It was one of those unbalanced dice rolling games that happen every now and then and a lack of HQs on the Lizard's side only made it worse.

The Lizard army failed 80% of its command rolls and 80 of it's break tests, whenever a 6 was required, a 1 was rolled and when a 1 was required a 6 was rolled. I could not believe the luck, rolls to hit were failed morale saves failed. The Lizard player (me) usually enjoys great luck with the dice, not today.

Meanwhile the Tomb Kings did what they do shrug off everything, but in addition made far more morale saves and shrugged off brake tests. 

Lizard Men - Lost Children of the Fallen Gods

My first WHF armies way back in 1996 were from the 5th edition box set; Bretonnians and Lizard Men, my son and I had a blast with those models. 

Since those heady days I've played many games and including Warmaster. I have a few Warmaster armies now and wanted to try playing them again.
I'd started playing mainly historical and rediscovered the 10mm Warmaster scale and was playing Hail Caesar! in that scale, I thought why don't I use my Warmaster Models with these rules and since then I've been working on some adaptations for Hail Caesar! that will allow me to play HC with Fantasy units.
I never bought a Warmaster Lizard army but decided I'd like them to be one of my trials HC-Fantasy armies. So bought a set of 3d printed minis, as who can afford the old metal? Then started painting them with the new contrast paints and here are the results.

CiC HQs The Ancient one or Slann alongside a Saurus leader mounted on a T-Rex

Three HQs a Saurus and two Skinks

Two skink Mage HQs

Saurus Warriors with a Temple Guard unit on the front right

Skinks as light infantry and medium archers and skirmishers

Kroxigor units

Terradons

Salamander units with Skinks

Saurus Cold one Riders

Stegadon with Skink crew

See also

Arabic Army for fantasy, HC or even P&S
Orc army based up  rebasing for HC Fantasy
Polish Army for P&S and a little fantasy  Kislev

Re-basing my Warmaster Orcs for HC!- Fantasy

I know the phrase 're-basing' brings dread to many, further the idea that Warmaster models might be reused for another game might appal some, but none have been damaged.

However if you have an army that you are going to play in fundamentally a very different way regarding the removal of elements of a unit, then why not go for it. Some will prefer to use sabots, temporary bases to place them on, but foolhardy or not I've decided to go and redo the lot.

Further as I've been playing in 6 mm and 10 mm with bases that are larger than the quantity of models, each can become a little diorama and one thing that was obvious in Warmaster was the lack of space to fit that many models on three bases of 30 x 20 mm, a total footprint of 30 x 60 mm or 90 x 20 mm; ouch! We are basing our 10 mm models (inc WM) to a frontage of 100 mm with a varying depth of between 50 and 60 mm and I think they show off the models very well indeed.

When describing the new PV game in Post Velamentum - 2 I talked about rebasing the Orcs, with a delay of many months, I removed them in July 2018 , I re-based today.

The full army now looks like this:

And in Warmaster rules that's 3425 points.

When I was initially calculating PV/HC! points it seems 250 PV/HC! points equals 1000 WM points.
So that's about 800-900 points, that's a big game. I still have a few bases of Baccus gobos and some WM Boar riders to paint/& base as well as a rock lobber, Giant, Troll unit and 4 Ogres not MW legal however we will see where PV takes us.

Close up of the units.

The Boss and his support staff (SLT)

The Hard as nail Black Orcs (I use GW Orcs)

The core units of Orcs as stated before these are BoFA models

. Obligatory Goblins (Baccus)

Boar Boys and Chariots

Wolf Riders (more BoFA)

Rock lobbers, Giant and Ogres

Finally the Trolls

.......earlier

See also

Arabic Army for fantasy, HC or even P&S
Lizard Men For Hail Caesar - Lost Children of the Fallen Gods
Polish Army for P&S and a little fantasy  Kislev

Hail Caesar! basing for 6 mm and 10 mm games

We all do it differently. I play this game in 6mm with occasional 10mm.
I'm not about to tell you how to base, rather how I do, you can use this as a comparison. All sizes in millimetres.

Infantry
Standard base is 80x40
Small 40x40
Skirmishes 80x40
Warbands are 80x50
Artillery 40x40 

Horse
Standard Cavalry is 80x50 deep
Small unit 40 x50
Light horse small unit in open order 80x25 whilst formed they are 40x50 , future models will be based 40x25 and position as needed, however current models are both as I have the unit twice once in each formation.

If I did large units I'd probably do 100x50 or 100x60

Tiny units elephants for example 30x40or 50

That's our club's preference

Further we like to represent the unit with a different quantity of models or formation

Infantry

Usually about 12 men to a rank

Heavy  4 ranks  warband the same about 48

Medium 3 ranks

Light and archers 2 ranks

Horse

Cataphracts square block 6x3

Heavy horse 2 lines of 9 'V' formation

Medium horse 2 parallel lines of 9

Light horse usually in small units with just 5 postion depending on open or closed order

I've done 5 on a 80x25 or on a 40x50, when I start a new army there will be 3 on a 40x25, giving me 6 in a line or square.

Examples of 6 mm basing for HC!

Cavalry Roman and Samatian
Cataphracts, Medium, Heavy, Medium and lights

Roman and Dacian Infantry
Skirmishers, Legionaries, Warband, Medium, lights and light artillery at the back of the picture.

Command bases,
The largest is rarely used, only if there is an over all General with two legions

Examples of 10 mm basing for HC!

As the models are a little bigger we have reduced the model count and made a small increase to the size of the bases as a result it plays and feels like the 6 mm games we played, with fluid movement and movement options. Things we feel you don't get in a 28 mm game if like us you play on a 6' x 4' table.
We went down this route like all gamers because we could :) in addition we all had fantasy 10 mm models we wanted to play with so are creating a home made Warmaster - Hail Caesar mash.

Early Imperial/Marian Romans
Both three ranks and 10 wide, lights would be two ranks

Orcs mixed units based for a fantasy HC game
Note it's the same number of models that were in the Warmaster units.

Undead based for a fantasy HC game

Undead based for a fantasy HC game

Undead Commands based for a fantasy HC game

Hail Caesar Fantasy (PV) 2

...Continued   You may need to read my previous blog, Hail Caesar Fantasy (PV)

Things have advanced, not as fast as I might have wished, but it is an interesting learning curve.
Having absorbed a lot of the Shadow Storm ideas, I started.

Magic

I've looked at each army re-written the magic so it relates to a unit rather than a stand and made it comply with the Hail Caesar rules.
One point of interest was that the ranged magic attacks in WM counted successful hits as contributing towards the combat results. I didn't think this was necessary. Unlike WM where unless the damage removes a stand it is cleared after the shooting magic phase, in HC! the damage stays on the unit  adding to its loss of stamina.
To reinforce this decision, consider that in WM any wounds caused by closing shots are counted towards the combat (so just like ranged spells) whilst in HC! they are not.

Racial traits, Army Rules and Special Rules.

I'm always looking for the HC! special rule that could be applied and in many instances I've managed to find them, but they don't deal with the undead, Orcs and Skaven so some special rules have been created but I'm trying to keep them to the minimum and am still working to see if I can ditch some of my creations as in my view the less additional PV rules the better.
So one by one I'm going through the army lists, creating each unit, dealing with army traits, special/unique weapons and applying existing concepts where applicable. I've found the addition of each army and its units can cause a rethink of how I've dealt with a previous army so by the time I was doing the 8th army it required checking balance with the previous seven and I determined that a  complete rethink of the stats creations mechanism was required and also at this point a lot of Shadow Storm ideas/concepts were dropped.

One rule I found myself following was always go back to the Warmaster Rules. In many instances this resolved confusion and difficulties caused by my absorbing the Shadow Storm rules and I
found myself ditching almost 80-90% of them as they didn't fit what I was wanting to do which was convert Warmaster to play HC!.
Please don't take this as a criticism of the Shadow Storm rules as if I was looking for an alternative to WHF then I'm confident I'd be going down this route. .

What next?

When I've created every army I'm going to reference back to the army lists for HC!; 'Biblical & Classical' and 'Late Antiquity to Early Medieval'. Whilst I am aware of period supplements; 'Shield Wall', 'Britannia', 'Germania' and others, for the moment I'm leaving them out of the equation.

Other Progress

I've play tested a small 8 units per side game and we both liked the result, the Magic was as good/bad as it used to be in WM and the combat worked out satisfactorily.
I re-based elements of my Orc Warmaster army for this and though friends have based their existing bases on top of MDF, either directly or using recessed MDF to hold the stands as a unit. I'm very unlikely to play WM again as I am convinced PV will work so I'm going for it and have stripped the WM models off their old bases and put them on the new.

Above with their new basing (those done so far)

Above - as they were

 Their right wing

 Their left wing

Centre

I've just noticed the Orcs to the left of the Wyvern in the image above have turned their back's on the camera, I will be speaking to them later.

When I started my Warmaster army I had access to a large number of Battle of five armies Orcs, I based these up and then realised the size difference, so bought Baccus goblins and play GW Orcs as Black Orcs. This kept the size comparison realistic.

Post script - After this I received a rather nasty head injury, that altered me in more ways than I realised. It was some 6 months before people felt I'd returned to my old self so a lot of things went on hold PV being one of them. I will return.


Continued ...

Hail Caesar Fantasy (PV)

A quiet period as I sit down and consider the rather Herculean task I have taken on.

I have played a lot of Warmaster in the past and enjoy the fun of the game but the mechanic can be a bit painful especially with regard to extended combat, they are easy enough to master if you play a few games, but quickly forgotten if you don't play it often enough.
Various people have also complained over the years about how over powerful Cavalry is and whilst I know there is a live fan based rewrite of the rules and continuing improvements, there is an element of me that thinks rather than repair and patch why not start fresh.

Well of course the answer is do you know how much work is involved in writing a rules set? I do I've written a few short rules for participation games and wargames shows and whilst I did win best participation game for one and received request for the rules etc from as far a field as Canada and New Zealand, writing a whole rules set is far too much to take on.

One of my favorite games is Hail Caesar!, from Warlord games and written by Rick Priestly who is of course the same Rick Priestly who wrote Warmaster many years ago. In many ways Hail Caesar! is a third generation development of the original  Warmaster Fantasy, Rick Priestly wrote Warmaster Ancients and I understand put in place a lot of things that were missing from or not dealt with satisfactorily in Warmaster and planned to go back and re-write Warmaster.
Of course that may all be hearsay......

The command and control element of Hail Ceasar! is clearly from the same stable and these elements in Warmaster that people have complained about have been ironed out.

So after a game of HC! the other day my opponent talked about playing his WM armies with the HC! rules, it would almost be as easy as just laying the magic over the top.

And magically he is right, however as we may want to play a Roman army against an Orc horde we need to rebuild/cost the Warmaster units for HC!. We also need to look at changing the spell wording.

That my friends is where I am currently.

I have resourced some information and ideas from a rules set called Shadow Storm that whilst excellent doesn't do what I want. It is a wonderful merge of WHF and HC!, but it's written from the 28mm level rather than my favored scale of 6 mm or 10 mm, there is also for my taste too much magic. I want the same gentle touch of magic and the humorous rules. Like the Giant Rules.

So I've started my own merge of Warmaster and HC!.

So far so good.

We've always played our HC! in 6mm and have reduced the movement and range by 2/3rds so that 18" range became 12". Funninly enough when I looked at range in WM for the same weapon it was 30cm which is as close to 12" as you can get. Again and again, I found convenient coincidence so I'm hopeful of producing an effective HC supplement in due course.

I decided to call it Post Velamentum, latin for behind the veil. in this case the veil of darkness, night or mystery.

I have a provisional supplemental rules set.
I have created an excel spreadsheet that will cost units for me
I have started on the armies doing each in turn, and doing their units, special army rules and spells.
As I complete each army it impacts on previous units, spells and abilities as well as the rules themselves as I seek balance.

Continued ...   Hail Caesar Fantasy (PV) 2

Initial impacts will of course be on basing. Whether you choose to use a sabot or rebase as per the right hand unit the choice will be yours.

Hail Caesar 400 pts AAR - May 29th 2018

Have been busy painting up my Romans, Dacians and Samations. Have also been busy losing way too many battles, the former is why I haven't posted, rather than the later.

Last night I played another game and lost yet again, now a run of 8 I believe.
Still win or lose, it's all 'Blood for the Blood God!'

My army list

I have avoided archers as these have been the soft underbelly that has allowed my opponent easy melee victories that then allow him to flank superior units.
Skirmishers are more meat shields and if they survive long enough then they add support to the melee. My horse archers are to make up the points.

My opponent's

Over time he has dropped his archers and bolt throwers concentrating on warriors. The medium cavalry is a tactical choice and the skirmishers are to make up the points.

We play to the rules except for two house rules:

1. Infantry are allowed to counter attack if charged and turn to face if charged to the flank, in effect they follow the cavalry rules, but only against infantry.
2. To represent the inflexibility of  command the Dacians are limited to two commands, in effect minimum command of 6 units rather than 4.

Rome set up three core of 4 units each comprising 2 Legion and 2 Auxila, core 'A' also had a unit of medium cavalry, core 'C' the skirmishers, they were positioned as per the image below at the quarter and half way points of the board.

Dacian command was one large block of two halves, each consisting of 2 Falxmen, 4 warband and 4 skirmishers, the CiC core 'D' had a units of light horse archers.

The Roman General's plan was to move out to both flanks sending his horse sweeping around the bottom woods on to the hill to threaten the Dacian flank.
The Dacian General, me hoped to move forward in bulk accept some flank damage wipe out the Romans in front and then take out which ever of the flanking units was then closest.

Starting postions indicated with letters, final positon where seen or absent at the end of the drawn line.


Roman CiC is 'A'
Dacian CiC is 'D'

Rome began and in two turns quickly moved his Cavalry in core 'A' to the hill and his infantry to the bend in the red line.
Despite a blunder core 'B' took the hill and core 'C' were to get to the flank, again at the bend in the line.

Dacia had moved the troops forwards but on their turn two those in core 'E1'  had to turn to face the threatening cavalry the rest of the army plodded forwards.

In turn three Rome took advantage of the elements facing off the cavalry and charged them, one legion and two supports destroying the single falxmen and supporting skirmishers. The Dacian in 'E2' joined the fray but for the rest of the game the Roman line held. Core 'D' attempted to assault cores 'B' and 'C'  but failed.

Turn four and they succeeded, the CiC joined in the fray fighting with the 2 warbands against core 'C' who lost only one unit whilst detroying all of the 2 units in 'D1' and wounding the genera
The other 4 Dacian units in 'D' cored charged the Romans on the central hill and after two rounds of fighting they had also gone.

With one wing destroyed the battlefield belonged to Rome and the surviving Dacians legged it to fight again.

NB, my opponent complained about the overwhelming advantage 4 units of falxmen gave me and stated quite forecfully that there was  no point in playing such an unfair unbalanced game. Hmmmmm apology received at end of game