Saturday Morning Gladiators

I've had a copy of THW's 'Red Sand Blue Sky' for ages, but had never played it. Mostly because, of course, if I needed to scratch that gladiator itch I had my own rules to play with, and they were always in need of developing.

Anyway, I finally got the game out this morning, and gave it a go, running a retiarius (Valentinus) against a secutor (Gannicus). Gannicus was run by the game's AI.

RSBS uses a grid, with for wall sectors surrounding eight heart areas and one centre zone. Movement is one zone per move. The different zones come into play if a gladiator has to appeal to the crowd - you get a penalty if you're in the wall zone and a bonus if you're in the centre.

I started the gladiators in opposite wall zones.

The game uses pretty standard THW mechanisms, with some rolls being 2D6 against a stat, generating 0, 1 or 2 successes, and others being handfuls of dice, based on stats and situation, looking for successes. Each gladiator has a pool of bonus dice, which they can recover through rest actions.

Gladiators take their actions based on an initiative roll which favours the faster, lighter types.

On their turn a gladiator may move one sector, or perform a ranged attack, such as casting a net or throwing a weapon. Here, Valentinus has thrown his net, but missed - the number of successes is equal.

If a gladiator enters the same square as another, they roll opposed series of dice on the manuever Table to see who gets the advantage, whch may lead to one of them making an attack.

Valentinus won this, but by a low margin, and opted to step back, hoping that Gannicus might stay in place and recover, making him a target for the net.

But Gannicus advanced, and the two gladiators rolled for position.

Valentinus got the better of it, and performed a powerful bash attack, which not only seriously wounded Gannicus, but pushed him back and knocked him down. Gannicus was actually in a bad way, with a bleeding wound that would hinder all of his future rolls, and drain his bonus dice.

Valentinus closed in to finish him off, but couldn't manage it.

Gannicus put up a good fight despite his wound. Valentinus cast his net, but got caught in a tug of war, which allowed Gannicus to snatch it off him.

Valentinus closed in again ...

... and caught Gannicus a mighty blow to the chest. This knocked him down and left him on 0 bonus dice, which meant he surrendered and appealed to the crowd. His serious wounds and total exhaustion meant that they spared him.

I thought that RSBS was OK, and might give it another go, but obviously playing it for the first time I was looking a lot of stuff up and double-checking rules, so found it more involved that I think it probably was. There aren't too many decisions to make, although I suspect if you have more than one bout in the arena at a time, moving around zones becomes harder (you can only have three active gladiators in a zone).

I got Munera Sine Missione out afterwards, and ran the same bout. Valentinus started well, tripping up Gannicus with his net.

Gannicus recovered and returned the favour, knocking Valentinus down.

Gannicus scored the first hit - a light wound on Valentinus.

Valentinus paid it back with interest, slipping past Gannicus's shield to deliver a nasty wound in return.

Gannicus never really recovered, and a second hit from Valentinus saw his down and appealing to the crowd, who weren't so merciful in this game.

I set up a second game, with the whip- and sword-armed Rodan taking on a mighty Crupellarius.

Rodan gave ground as his ponderous opponent advanced, using the whip to drive him back and to try and gain an advantage (a whip scores no damage but can inflict critical hits).

This approach did leave Rodan dangerously close to the arena wall, but the armoured gladiator was too slow to exploit it (he rolled really badly for AP).

Rodan started using his whip attacks to build up some support from the crowd, whilst his armoured foe managed to press forward and knock Rodan's sword from his grasp. But the fight had gone on too long for the crowd, and the referee stepped into end it and declare a draw.

Neither gladiator had inflicted any wounds on the other, but both had lost stamina through fatigue.

Anyway, it was fun getting the gladiators out again; they've been sadly neglected for the past year or so. RSBS had some features of interest, but (and I know I'm biased here) I still like the fast-paced action of MSM. Both games give an exciting narrative, though.