Gladiators at MOAB

As part of MOAB this year, Victor invited myself and Frank of 'Adventures in Lead' to come and run our respective gladiator games, as either demos or participation. My own rules are quick and easy to learn, and lend themselves well to public participation. Frank's are more detailed and difficult to teach, but make a gorgeous demo. So after much email discussion we decided to run short games of 'Munera Sine Missione', plus an extended demo of Frank's 'Blood on the Sands'. To break the day up, Victor provided a couple of chariot-racing games - one a boardgame whose name escapes me, and the other being 'Charioteer!' from Two Hour Wargames (a game I was keen to try).

The start of the day - a referee checks the arena, whilst the Emperor appears to have turned up early.

An early bout, a thraex defeats a murmillo.

Two bouts at once, as we get ambitious ...

After the first session of 'Munera Sine Missione', Victor ran a chariot game whist I trawled the bring and buy. Then we set up Franks 'Blood on the Sands'. I had a thraex - a left-handed thraex, doomed to die, which made him a desperate man.

The data sheets for Frank's game are really lovely; he's produced some great components for this game.

My thraex faced a murmillo, being run by Victor.

Steadily, over several turns, I sliced Victor's murmillo to pieces. Each mark on the figure is a wound, four of which were bleeding heavily. Basically, being left-handed meant I was a difficult opponent to hit or dodge, and being desperate meant that I had some useful rerolls which stopped Victor exploiting certain advantages.

Finally I closed in for the kill ...

... and got it. The crowd spared the murmillo, though, as he really had put up a good fight.

Victor ran some more 'Munera Sine Missione', whilst I played another game of 'Blood on the Sand', using a secutor against a retiarius. This time I was slaughtered.

Finally we set up a five player game of 'Charioteer!'. I really enjoyed this chariot-racing game, with its innovative passing mechanism. Enough decisions to keep it interesting, a dash of luck and not too complex ...

... indeed I liked it so much that I bought a copy.

After that we were all too hot to do much else, and my family turned up to collect me anyway.

Thanks to Victor and Frank for making the day so enjoyable, and to all the players for taking part.