Hail Caesar vs Never Mind the Billhooks

Good Afternoon All

A few weeks ago I was alerted to a new book being released by Warlord Games that featured the Wars of the Roses. Having invested in hundreds of 28mm figures for the period, spent countless hours researching the battles, and subsequently fighting all the major engagements of this very interesting civil war I was intrigued. Online reviews were in the main positive so I decided to purchase a copy.

A few days later the supplement arrived direct from Warlord Games in a nice secure box along with an exclusive resin figure. First impressions were that this was a mighty tome (some 144 pages long) and it looked great. The layouts were clear and concise, texts were well written and there are some glorious pictures from the Perry Brothers. I have said it before and will say it again they (the Perry's) must have made a fortune from this historic period. Thanks must be given to the author Rob Grayston for this book and in my opinion his name should grace the front cover

I won't elaborate too much on the contents but suffice to say there is the history, the characters of the era (along with some special rules), a vast number of scenarios covering all the major battles and a few what if's plus some interesting rules for campaigns. There is of course a section (albeit small) on the troop types of the period and some some era specific rules. It will be these that I dwell on and compare to the Billhooks ruleset.

Before I start I should state that Hail Caesar is our go to ruleset in the shed for fast play, multi-player ancient, dark age and medieval genres. That said my gaming group invested a significant time in the Billhooks venture launched by Andy Callan in collaboration with Wargames Illustrated. The Billhooks rules (scaled up with very few modifications) delivered some fantastic battles, a great narrative and were in the main extremely easy to pick up. Consensus across the group also said that they felt right, melees were brutal affairs, arrow storms could be both deadly and frustrating and the rules lend themselves to inclusion of events and scenario based ideas. It would fascinating to see if the same could be said for WOTR Warlord style. Who knows maybe we will refight the series again using this official handbook?

The best way to review any ruleset is to play it, however rather than take a battle that we had already fought I decided to take a scenario from the book that did not feature in our Billhooks campaign. I elected to use the battle of Losecoat Field. 

This action was set up as a one sided affair with Edward IV's standing army taking on a rebel faction. All the stats in the book suggested that Edward would have no trouble in pummeling the rebellion into a bloody pulp and be home in time for a roast boar supper. He had to be back in time for dinner because the scenario only gave him six turns to complete his task. What happened next will follow....

Hail Caesar is very much an igougo game with each side moving their troops (subject to successful commands, then firing and then melee. Reactions and breaktests are resolved as each action develops. This works well for big multiplayer games and differs significantly from Billhooks in which each unit is activated by a random card sequence with the jeopardy of not getting a turn (last card). Billhooks also benefits from the inclusion of events and bonus cards being drawn through this turn sequence. 

Billhooks is a much more chaotic adventure, initiative can fluctuate between sides and opportunities present themselves as results arise. Both rulesets movement rules are driven by Commander's attributes but whereas in Billhooks the units will move if issued orders, Hail Caesar is very dependent on successful command rolls. These command rolls can allow troops to swiftly traverse the field whereas in Billhooks movement can be much slower as you trade off moving with firing opportunities.

Perhaps one of the biggest changes to the core Hail Caesar ruleset with this WOTR supplement is the introduction of Arrow Storm for all longbow armed troops. Limited to three arrow volleys only the units now have a shooting factor of 6 (as opposed to three). This typically means a target unit shot at by two longbow armed units (not untypical when players concentrate fire) at standard range will achieve a 50% hit rate of 6 shots. (This improves if the unit is just longbows with the marksmen attribute)   Against any unit this can be devastating, and it is almost certain to cause a ranged break test in the process. Don't get me wrong this feels right and raises the importance of well armoured troops as screens for their lesser equipped colleagues. Billhooks on the other hand also adopts a bucketful of dice approach but with hits scored on only 5+ at standard range Longbow duels tend to be more attritional in nature.

The units themselves are worthy of discussion. In Billhooks there are three standard types of units Men at Arms, Bills and Bows. Each unit can be combined with another or operate independently. In Hail Caesar there are also three types of units - Bills, Bows and Household troops. The first two are self explanatory but the third is effectively either a mix of Bows and Bills or Bows and Men at Arms. There are no individual units of Men at Arms. These household troops also receive the arrow storm attribute, three volleys and if they are a mixed Men at Arms unit receive two additional attributes - steady and stubborn. The combination of these two make them hardier and more likely to weather an arrow storm.

Again I have no issues with these troop types but I do miss the excitement of a unit of fully clad tin cans marching into battle and dealing devastation wherever they tread. The melee scores in Hail Caesar do little to reflect this desire. The clash scores for both Men at Arms and Bills are the same.

I mentioned at the beginning we fought the scenario Losecoat field for our playtest. The picture below shows the very simple battlefield set up on a 12ft x 5ft deep table. Sadly the scenario book gives no guidance on table size or distances between opposing armies. We elected that each force would be 30 inches apart (just outside artillery range)

 

For the figures I just used 12 figure per unit an in the case of household troops they had six bow and six of the others. I have been thinking for sometime that I might rebase my WOTR figures on their individual stands (on 1p coins) are starting to show undue wear and tear and it is a real pain sorting these out after a big Billhooks battle. Much better to use casualty markers I think.

The forces took the field and we started playing. The Royalists had six turns to destroy the rebels. In our first game the dice gods favoured the rebellion as over half the Kings force failed to move at all in the first two turns and as such when they did trundle forward it was a piecemeal affair.

This is not a criticism of the WOTR supplement but rather the whole Hail Caesar, Black Powder et al stable - they do not lend themselves to limited turn games. The nature of this rules command rolls forces players to perhaps slow down advances unless they are storming ahead. Much better to adopt a time limit eg 2 hours to accomplish the task

As the Kings forces approached the rebels we tested the Arrow Storm effect -( aside from forgetting the crucial -1 range modifier) they were telling especially the forced break tests that come from sixes being rolled. Disorder rained down on the advancing troops.

With the rebels able to enjoy a 2 to 1 majority in archery fire they soon pinned down and weakened the Kings advance

Protected by hedgelines and arrow stakes they awaited the rush of the heavily armoured men at arms and bills. Again the rebels were up to the cause and their levy status only having a marginal affect on proceedings. Perhaps it would have been better if the they were lesser armoured or green troops.

The first game saw the Kings force run out of time and heavily bruised for very few Rebel casualties. Not such an easy game !!

Our second attempt saw a very different side to the battle.

The Kings forces moved forward steadily (thanks to successful roles) and because they could bring more bows into action than the rebels the battle was reversed.

We also learned that advancing with the Household/Men at Arms leading the attack was a much better proposition.

The second game accomplished the scenario goals for Edward IV and he was back home in time for his Roast boar dinner.

In summary

These adjustments to Hail Caesar play well but we all felt that Billhooks gave a better narrative, Billhooks is more chaotic and perhaps more fun. I also I think because we play a lot of Hail Caesar in other periods we were just in effect playing another Hail Caesar game using different figures. Billhooks has earned its right to be our number one choice for WOTR, however I am not done yet. The book really is a worthy investment, some serious effort has been put into its composition and contents and for that the author should be proud.

More soon