Running With Scissors

I painted a new gladiator today - so new that he doesn't even have a name yet.

Victor and I are always trying out new ideas for Munera Sine Missioner, and Victor recently came up with some ideas for the Arbelas gladiator type - he of the cone and blade in his left hand. My rules for the cone were pretty simplistic, and Victor wanted to try something more interesting. We also felt that the same mechanisms could be applied to the twin-bladed scissor sword which may or may not have existed. Victor had a couple of these weapons, converted one of his gladiators to wield it and gave me his spare.

I added it to an old Black Tree figure I had which I'd never painted because (i) he's lost his sword and hand in a horrible accident and (ii) the pose was awkward and bizarre, and I didn't like it. But a spare figure is a spare figure, and a new Milliput hand covered up the small piece of wire I used to attack the scissor sword to the arm.

So here he is - the Scissor.

And here's the old Gladiator Miniatures 'Contra-Retiarius' who now gets called an Arbelas, because it sounds better.

Victor's rules for these weapons assume that they were used to parry, but only longer, slower weapons. Both the Cone and he Scissor have the Parry trait. This allows the gladiator to attempt to disarm their opponent. When they are attacked by an unwieldy weapon which is attacking at two or more hexes, and does not have the Ranged trait, a parry attempt may be declared. Roll a D6, and apply the Attacker's attack modifier to the roll.

A score of 3 or less means that the Attackers attack is blocked and that they drop their weapon into a random adjacent hex.

A score of 4 or 5 has no effect, and the attack is now resolved.

A score of 6 or more means that the attack is resolved, but that the Attacker now gets an additional +1 as the Defender's failed parry attempt has left their guard wide open.

(The Attacker's modifiers make a lot of difference to this roll. I am inclined to treat an unmodified 1 as a 1 and an unmodified 6 as a 6, and only apply modifiers to rolls of 2-5. In that way there's always a chance of parrying and always a chance for the Attacker to get a bonus.)

Reading the rules, you will see that the weapons this trait can counter are the long spear, the trident, the net and the lasso.

The Cone is also treated in all other respects as a small shield. The Scissor is treated as a sword, but always counts as disadvantaged.

The Arbelas and Scissor make interesting opponents for the Retiarius and/or Hoplomachus types.