Welcomes, Gaming an Orctober update & I won something !!!!!

This week has seen the Longship crew swell its ranks with the addition of Tomsche, opa wuttke, Paul of the man cave and Fred Jackson. Welcome aboard and I hope your journey with me is a good one.

Thursday saw me travel to Kev's for a bit of Hail Caesar action, Ancient Britons against the power of Rome.
My Objective was a simple one hold the hill fort and not get wiped out.

Nice table layout using the broken ground and river that I have newly made and Kev's new Hill fort.

 We wanted a variety of terrain on the table to maximise the use of the rules in the book as this was our second game of Hail Caesar. What follows is a brief extract of the game, as I was enjoying the game so much I forgot to take lots of pictures and the exact details elude me of all that happened.

General Thorn insideicus studies ground before him

Cockeditup deploys his Britons in a defensive array

 Both sides had clear objectives for the game Kev had to either smash my army and take the hill fort, whilst I just had to survive.

Cockeditup has a little problem getting his cavalry into position

 The Roman war machine suffered a little from forming full lines due to poor command rolls,but that was rivalled by the cavalry of the Britons who refused for several turns to join the chariots on the flank.

 Both sides had made several exchanges of distance weapons and the roman initial assault was checked for a while.

There was a big stand off with many exchanges of javelin and pilum before the clash

 The Romans re organised and came back to the fight and mayhem ensued, with casualties being racked upon both sides, The Britons were holding out well in the centre causing many legions to become shaken, and a unit of slingers were punishing the Veteran legion, but then came the clash.

How cockeditup earned his name.

Yes despite a hard fight and melee's going from one players control to the other eventually the Legions overcame the Britons and they collapsed.

What a game, afterwards we sat and had a well earned cuppa and a chat about the game. Hail Caesar really does work well for the period. We both really had a lot of fun playing this and both came away knowing we had just had one heck of a great game. This for me is what playing with toy soldiers is all about, we both had some poor dice, we also had some good ones too!! We had a couple of rules queries after only two games that's no surprise, but we dealt with them quickly and amicably. We laughed a lot especially when things did not go how we expected them too. The game has some really subtle nuances that really do make this a characterful game to play. Overall this is the most enjoyable game I have played in a few months and am already looking forward to the next one.

Well Orctober is now 2/3rds done and I have a few more figures completed to swell the savage Orc ranks.

I won something after a long time trying many different competitions, maybe Loki is now due some good luck for the future.Thankfully this did not involve dice or my chances would have been scuppered from the outset. Many thanks to Jonathan at Palouse wargaming Journal I will be the proud owner of :

I have always promised myself that this is a period of history that I needed to study in far more detail than the passing knowledge I have of the period and this gives me the perfect excuse to start studying the period. The fact that my good friend Kev enjoys this period is also a bonus.

Now if you are not following the aforementioned blog then may I recommend a visit to this well organised blog with plenty of variety for any follower. Palouse Wargaming Journal.