We both selected a school of six gladiators, but for extra variety we also added an NPC school, with the idea that we would both make decisions for it and run its gladiators against the other player. We'll call him Tertius.
The campaign runs in a series of events, with each player fighting each other player once. So for our campaign each would consist of three bouts. The rules cover how the gladiators are selected from each player's pool, and also the order in which the bouts are fought, as this affects the crowd's supply of mercy (basically you want to be as late on the bill as possible).
We played one event this evening. I won't go through all of the gladiators we selected, just the ones that took part.
On the left we have the thraex Rufina (Me) against the hoplite Helena (Tertius). This would be the second fight of the day. In the middle the dimacherius Spiculus (Tertius) was selected to fight the hoplite Danaos (Catherine). This was the top-billed event, so would be the third bout. And the first fight of the day was the spear-armed secator Alumnus (Me) against the dimacherius Lenia (Catherine).
Let the show begin!
We got straight into things with two criticals in the first two combats. Lenia charged in and disarmed Alumnus, who then spent a lot of the fight attacking with his shield. Effectively at first, catching Lenia a critical blow to the head that left her seriously wounded. From then on Alumnus dominated the fight. He retrieved his spear and, whilst taking his time to do it, finished off his opponent with little effort and whilst only taking a light wound. Lenia appealed to the crowd and was granted mercy.
Alumnus had beaten a more highly-skilled gladiator (schools start with a few skills to spread out amonst their fighters), so earned a skill and a nice dose of prestige for the school.
Rufina the thraex looked to be the favourite in this fight against the hoplite Helena, being able to dart in under her slower opponent's spear. But her first attack saw her sica break on Helena's shield, leaving her fighting with her shield and bare hands.
She did managed to back Helena against the wall of the arena, but couldn't mount a strong enough attack to take advantage of it. At one stage Helena lost her shield which really worked to her advantage since Rufina wasn't really hitting her hard and, shieldless, her spear was easier to use. Both gladiators were suffering from fatigue, but Rufina was tiring more quickly when a critical hit saw her impaled and killed instantly.
Helena's win gave Tertius some prestige, but since Rufina was a novice her loss didn't cause my school any issues publicity-wise.
And so on to the top of the bill event; Spiculus against Danaos. Danaos was strong in the attack, whilst Spiculus had mastered the art of the double-sword parry.
Spiculus dominated the fight in terms of position, ducking around Danaos' unshielded side to inflict a couple of minor hits.
But Danaos picked up some crowd support and used it to press Spiculus hard, forcing him back into a position where he could get in an effective spear thrust. And effective it was, seriously wounding Spiculus and sending him to the mercy of the crowd. Both gladiators were on their last legs by this stage (one wound remaining each before the final blow was struck), and the level of gore was what swung the crowd's opinion of the bout - they were merciful, and Spiculus lived.
This gave Catherine some prestige, as well as Danaos another skill.
So at the end of the first event we'd only lost one gladiator (Rufina). I have two Prestige, whilst Catherine and Tertius have one each. This means that as the current top lanista in the next games I will have to put my best gladiator forward to fight, or risk losing prestige.
More to follow (I hope).
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