Hail Caesar: Rome v. Mithradides

Tonight we played ancients using Hail Caesar pretty much from the book.
Romans: Jim, Mark & Chris: 3 legions of 4 heavy & 2 light, 2 cavalry divisions of 2 medium & 2 light.
Pontic Kingdom: Mike, John & Steve: 2 heavy cavalry divisions, phalanx of 4 pike & 4 light, Galatian division of 6 warbands & 3 light.

The Ponts are on the right: Cavalry on each wing, Galcians left centre, phalanx right centre.  The Romans have deployed their cavalry in reserve behind their legions.

The Romans try to make a general advance with their foot, but their left got bad command dice & lags behind.  They try to move their cavalry to protect their flanks, but their right hand division has not yet moved.

The Romans foot smashes into the Galacian division as all the cavalry & the Roman left suffer from bad command dice.   The book list gives all these forces a command rating of 8.  This is really having an effect, upsetting both side's plan & forcing them to make the best they can of their situations. 

The Galacians have been broken.  The Roman foot lost no units, but the RH legion is mostly shaken.  The Pontic cavalry has had a lot of bad command dice, but is now coming to grips with the weak Roman cavalry.  The Romans are trying to get at the phalanx before their cavalry is ridden down. 

Both Roman cavalry divisions are hanging on by a thread.  Pontic hopes depend on Oakie's 2 legions taking out the phalanx fast. 

The Pontic cavalry has finished off the Roman horse & is now attacking the Roman foot in the rear. Oakie's legendary luck saved two cohorts from rear attacks & the 2nd line has turned to face the cavalry as the phalanx makes a fighting retreat. 

The Roman 2nd line plus the rallied RH legion has stopped the Pontic cavalry & the phalanx has lost 1 unit & the others are under pressure.  But the centre Roman legion pushed too hard & it was the division that broke first - one minute before our 10 o'clock nightfall rule.  The army break test for both armies was break if losing 2 divisions including 1 infantry.  The Ponts lost 1 Galacian while the Romans lost 2 cav divs & 1 legion.

It was an interesting change to use HC pretty straight from the book with minimum house rules.    We did have a bit of rule confusion where Hail Whoever differs from HC, but we were able to look up the book when Oakie got argumentative.  The play of the game was much the same as it would have been with Hail Whoever, but it was obviously slower & harder work to resolve the combats.  In Hail Whoever we would have given the Roman legions a command rating of 9 which would have given them more time to break the Pontic foot before their cavalry was beaten, but we also would have cost them points for that, so their force would have been a little weaker & very likely got the same result.