No they are completely different (apart from both being IGo UGo)

In Hail Caesar it is the unit lives or dies, no figures are removed during play. Same with the combat abilities, the unit is heavy infantry with x weapons and fights as such. In many ways it is similar to Ricks earlier ancients rules, Warmaster Ancients.

In WAB units are made up of individual figures and the figures are removed as casualties are suffered (and they don't come back on!). Each figure has stats and different weapons and they can be mixed to create composite units (where the rules allow). Now - and this is a biggy - each army has its own special rules that give it a special flavour and is one of its best features. Now of course sadly unavailable except at price gouging prices from Caliver Books (£45) or second hand. Similar sort of rules which are available commercially are "Clash of Empires" or "War and Conquest" (neither of which I am happy with unless some mods are made).

For 10mm figures, they are usually based with many figures to a base. A style used in HC, WMA, DBM, Armati, Vis Bellica, Impetus, FoG so that is the direction I see you heading. But beware a set that uses a unique basing system, chose one that allows you to 'port' the army over to another set of rules, for 10mm a 40mm frontage for elements is what you are looking for.

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Hi- these days most new games are fairly flexible in their basing structure, presumably so as not to alienate potential players.

I bought WAB shortly after it came out in the late 90's and picked up some 28mm Foundry Romans. No one at my then local gaming club in London was into 28mm Ancients, so did nt really do anything with them. I did pick up most of the Supplements. At the time I really liked WAB as it was effectively WFB 5th ed (which I played) but without magic and with much of the characters and monsters toned down.

When I moved to Leeds a few of the WFB/W40K expressed an interest in WAB- about the time that WAB 1.5 was being released so they held of. Eventually a few of the anti-GW players at our club got into Impetus. I watched a few games of Impetus and download the free basic Impetus. It did nt grab me for a few reasons:
1) Being written in Italian and then translated to English, I just did nt get the various abbreviations used so it did nt stick with me.
2) It would have meant getting some sabot bases for my WAB based figures. One of our club members was doing resin bases but he took so long to do sabot bases that the moment had passed.
3) The full game with all the various supplements did seem pricey.
4) It seemed that most people used the excuse of multiple basing to put absolute minimum of figures on each base. Thus like DBA/M/X/whatever, Impetus armies never looked like proper armies to me.

When Hail Caesar came out it seemed to offer a good middle ground to both WAB and Impetus players. The basing was flexible enough to cope with both basing styles. It shared most of the core game mechanics with Black Powder, which we had played with 28mm Napoleonics and really liked. With the growth of cheap plastic 28mm figures, Hail Caesar seemed to offer a good way of getting many painted figures on the gaming table for big battles without getting bogged down.

As an example my first game of Hail Caesar was a big multiplayer game or Romans vs Greeks with 9 players (and an umpire) and over 1,000 figures on the table. I had not then got the HC rulebook- from having played half a dozen games of Black Powder and quick flick through a couple of PDF articles on Warlord Games website, and I was able to pick the game up now problem. It was that simple to learn the basics.

Since then I have got the rulebook and played a game last Thursday with loan of a friend's army. Even though the army was new to me (early Republican Romans) it was simple to play. Tomorrow I will be heading to Partizan wargame show at Newark- will be taking part in a big game of Hail Caesar with 4-6 players, using Aventine Minatures beautiful ranges of mid Republican Romans and Pyrrhus.

What we have found is that Hail Caesar offers the right level of complexity and realism for what our players locally are looking for in Ancients game. It is flexible enough to not have to worry about a protractor to work out moves etc. Other games might be more suited for competition play but it is perfect if you want a more relaxed style of play. i.e. the sort of game that you can enjoy a coffee/beer over whilst playing with your mates.

It would also be ideal if you want to get a large number of figures on the table.

I hope that helps give you a feel for game- should be able to work out if matched your objectives.

Cheers

James

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Hi,

I have played most of the rulesets already mentioned...

WMA is a very good game, fairly simple, but with the bucket load of dice approach. The best thing about it is the command and control mechanics. It can be very frustrating when your planned flank attack stalls and your troops stand about doing nothing, but, such is war Id put a link on for a battle report, but Justin beat me to it! That was a good game

Impetus grabbed my attention a few years back, and i built a few armies for it, but there is something that doesn't sit right with me about it, some of the army lists are a bit odd, and the abbreviations, being in Italian doesn't make it easy to remember. The cohesion test can and does ruin the game. As Justin rightly said, its too luck dependant. The best thing about it IMHO, is the basing.

Impetus battle report - http://yorkie.6sided.net/2010/12/10/the ... of-towton/

Hail Caesar for me is the best Ancients game out there at the moment. It seems to be a development and improvement on WMA, its very easy to pick up and with a flexible basing system it suits me very well. I use my Impetus based units and it works fine, i have played it with WMA based armies and its ok too.

Heres some of my thoughts on sorting out 15mm figs - http://yorkie.6sided.net/2011/07/07/hail-caesar-greeks/

If i was starting out in ancients, i would definately go for Hail Caesar, with 15mm figures. Just my 2p

Steve

Thank you to wargame_insomniac and yorkie for you useful posts. With the aid of your helpful advice, I've chosen Hai Caesar.

Hail Caesar is designed for 28mm, right? Is it easy to convert into 10mm?

Here is Steves example (hi Steve) of using a 10mm Gallic army based for Warmaster Ancients to create units in HC. Once you have created your unit, thats it no more changes needed.
http://yorkie.6sided.net/2011/07/08/hai ... tons-10mm/

Standard base size is 40x20mm. Now Steve puts his 10mm infantry figures, 2 ranks to a base, I only put one rank on per base which halves the number of figures needed and painting time. Down to you which you choose really.

Now this chap has gone for bases 60mm wide, a mistake IMHO
http://miniaturesaga.blogspot.co.uk/sea ... l%20Caesar

Now this is what I did for a 6mm Carthaginian army, still using 40x20mm bases (and 2 ranks of infantry per base in this scale for me).
http://cack-wargamesclub.net/index.php? ... pic&t=2880

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And just to reiterate the way Hail Caesar is great for big battles and multi-player games, today I got to play with Aventine Minatures beautiful 28mm Republican Romans and Pyrrhus armies. They put on a Hail Caesar game as recreation of battle of Heraclea (280BC) when Pyrrhus had arrived in Italy to "help" the Graeco-Italian city of Tarentium against the Roman agressors, and kicked the Roman's butt, albeit at big cost to himself (hence Pyrrhic victory).

I think we had 800 minatures on the table, with 6players of whom only one had played more than 3-4 times and also one complete beginner. Great fun had by all and on the last turn the power of the phalanx started to tell against the Roman centre whilst Pyrrhus and his companions was starting to roll the Roman left flank). I was on the other side of table keeping the Roman right flank in check so that they could nt do the same trick. Just 2 elephants on the table but they made their presence flet.

There is something about seeing 28mm Phalanx 250 strong in line and bristling with 100mm long steel pikes -just dont try and pick them up quickly or put your hand down on the table unawares!!

Too tired tonight but will try to put up a load of pictures on photobucket if they came out ok.

Cheers

James

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Well heres a game (battle of Magnesia) using my own Die Is Cast rules. Sorry for the poor quality of the photo, taken long ago with a real camera and then the photo scanned in.


Rest of the pics and battle report on my blog
http://3vwargames.blogspot.co.uk/2012/0 ... -game.html

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