New Gladiators, New Arena

In a small burst of enthusiasm yesterday,  I finished off a few gladiators that had been sitting half-completed on my painting table for months.

The two on the left are ones that were done years ago, but which had had a few changes done - the armoured gladiator acquired a shield, whilst the one with the spear had a large shield removed and replaced with a smaller shield and a sword to male him closer to the homplomachus I run him as.

The other three gladiators are new. The first is a dwarf dimacherius, converted from a murmillo by replacing the shield with a second sword. He's from Foundry. In the middle is a slightly more fantastical gladiator from a local company Ex Manus Studios. And finally there's a murmillo from Crusader Miniatures.

All they need now is names.

I played a few games with them last night.

This is my new arena for 'Blood, Sweat and Cheers'. It's a round, cork-backed table-map that I picked up as part of a set of six from a charity shop*. To be honest it's a little large for BS&C, but as a proof of concept it works - if I can find a smaller circular mat I will get it and use that instead. However there's plenty of room for the figures in each zone, no matter how wild and active their poses.

Anyway, in the first bout the murmillo took down the dimacherius in no time at all.

The next fight was functionally the same. The dimacherius card works just as well for gladiators with little or no armour, a shield and a decent hand-weapon.

At one point both gladiators had fallen.

The barbarian got up first, though, and dispatched the struggling murmillo.

Continuing the winner stays on theme, the barbarian faced a crupellarius.

This was a long fight ...

... the barbarian survived a fall ...

... but came back fighting.

The two fighters part whilst they take a breather. Both were wounded at this stage.

And now the crupellarius was downed.

He never really recovered. Getting up whilst wounded is a risky venture, and the dimacherius is a powerful attacking gladiator, so could keep up the pressure.

These are the final wounds. A gladiator loses if they take five hits. The crupellarius took five hits, but his opponent had taken four. So a close game.

The crowd still had the crupellarius dispatched, though/

Finally the new hoplomachus had an outing.

Initial blows ...

... and the hoplomachus was driven back.

He threw his spear, but the barbarian skillfully blocked it - the Glory cards were flowing thick and fast here.

Anyway, once again the barbarian prevailed.

And every game saw the crowd decide to dispatch the losing gladiator. They were brutal.

I was using an experimental set of solo rules from Nic, the author of 'Blood, Sweat and Cheers'. They work OK - like all solo rules you sometimes have to ditch the AI in favour of common-sense, but the basic mechanisms give a reasonable opponent; I wasn't playing the victorious gladiator in all of those fights.

*I have enough that I can add a hex-grid to one for 'Munera Sine Missione', and a grid to another in case I decide to have another go at 'Red Sands, Blue Sky'