Warlord Games Hail Caesar - Conquest of Gaul starter Set unboxing and review

Ancients.... traditionally the realm of the bearded and the old.  I am now both of those things, so thought I should take a look and see what its all about.

After looking around for a while I found the Conquest of Gaul Starter set. I am familiar with Warlord Games from Bolt Action, and have cast my eye occasionally at Black Powder as well, so thought it a good place to start.

I love the Art, its action packed and colourful.

Its continued around the sides of the box as well, though the back is blank.

It gives you an overview of what's in the box....

The Hail Caesar Rulebook

A 192 page, full colour, hardback rulebook

Written by Rick Priestley

Covers gaming in periods from biblical times to the Crusades

94 multi-pose, hard plastic 28mm miniatures:

• 30 Imperial ­Roman Legionaries
• Roman Scorpion catapult and crew
• 60 Celt Warriors

So lets take a look what's inside............

 the first thing that greets you is the rulebook.  It looks gorgeous, with a classic cigarette card style on the front, and its beautiful quality.  Its set on a solid card divider that once removed has the models under it.

 Full colour throughout filled with photos of beautiful inspiring models, battle reports, fun little history facts

 Beautiful artwork inside the book

 Some basic stats help describe the huge variety of troops this time period covers.

Of course the Rules themselves, featuring plenty of diagrams.

Then when the book is out and pride of place on your shelf, or coffee table, yes it looks that good! you find this big pile of sprues of plastic soldiers.  Always an exciting time.

Lets take a closer look.....

 You get 6 sprues of Celts.

 Two of those are the "command" sprue that has banners and Carnyx, and some extra armoured heads.

These are hard plastic models, nicely detailed, with some good options.  Parts wise its torso, head, lower body, and then shield of other weapon so not too many parts for a full "multi-pose" but plenty of options to change things around.  Im liking the look of the Stag banner very much, perhaps with some optional enemy heads hanging from them.  OR I could add them on when I have earned the heads defeating my enemies in battle.

There are a couple of torsos in chain mail, some in shirts and some bare chested, these last ones in particular are very well sculpted.

Then you get a selection of shields, and extra/optional weapons on the bottom of the sprue.

there isn't much flash on the models, nothing a simple work over with your hobby knife or a file wont fix.

The four other Celt sprues feature a row of different heads instead of banners.  I love the choice of heads, suitably bearded and moustache wearing.

Of course the Celts need a suitable foe, and who better then the Legions of Rome.

 There are 4 Roman sprues in the box, 1 command infantry, 2 regular infantry and one for the Scorpion.

 The command sprues main difference is the inclusion of the horn, banner, and wolf head headgear which I really like.

 Then of course your infantry in the famous and iconic lorica segmentata armour.  with arm options for Pilum armed troops, or Gladius in hand.  Of course the famous scutum shield is well modelled.

 The Regular infantry sprue contains more options for heads and weapon arms on your troops.

 The scorpion model is well detailed, and contains some nice extras for making a scenic base.  There are options fro building the crew as well, with different arms so they are performing different tasks.

I like the arm where he is holding his helmet.

 I couldn't help myself I had to have a go at building some Celts, and I was pretty happy how they came out, they look rather dynamic and fearsome.

I had to provide my own bases, but that's something I will come onto....

I even painted a couple (badly) and had a great time doing it

So you get a bucket ton of models in here, a huge amount for the price, which at RRP is £70. When you think the rulebook is RRP £30 that's 40 quid for 90 models.  If you can get it cheaper online, I have seen deals with is as low as £40 then it is a massive bargain.  I love the quality of the art on the box, the models are great, the rulebook is beautiful, but.... is it a starter set as advertised? No... not really in my opinion anyway.  there are no bases, true the system uses any kind of basing its only unit frontage that matters, but would have been nice to have them included. Or some dice we all love dice, its a good Starting point.. but not a great starter if that makes sense.  One massive bugbear I have with the set is, if you buy the infantry plastic box sets they include shield transfers, but there are none in this set at all, so you will need to buy them as an extra expense.  A starter set should have all these things, the transfers, the bases, all you need to actually play the game from the box, this does not include it, and compared to the newer Bolt Action starter sets that include scenarios it is lacking.

for the amount of models to use as a base to build two good forces its excellent, but you wont be breaking this straight out the box and going at each other with out some extra bits.

Take a look over at Warlord Games site to see if its for you.