Another Evening in the Arena

The stars were right, so after nearly a month I could play with my toy soldiers. Or rather toy gladiators. Except that dwarven warrior that represented -what an irony!- an Orc-style pit fighter (being well armoured it was an obvious choice). This time I managed to pack a hard copy of the rules, movement scrolls, arena and even two pit fighters, though unpainted.

Unpainted or proxied, it mattered not. These were ready to die.

I was keen on testing the Undead pit fighter (chaos warrior helmet, tomb king khopesh) as his two attacks looked like the strongest special rule. My friend chose the Orc, probably because of the all the armour and a painted mini (of a dwarf). We statted them up (choosing the same initiative ) Then, the games began. Both fighters dashed forward and employed all their cunning in the effort to outmanoeuvre the opponent.

The fighters almost mirrored each other.

The Undead then ran forward, slammed his massive shoulder plate into the Orc and slashed at the head. Unfortunately, the helmet absorbed the blow...

Game over ... not!  

The dwarf Orc then returned the favour, stunning his opponent. Lead by instinct, the Undead jumped back and waited for the stars all around to fade. Orc was far from nimble and quite shaken himself, which resulted in another little dance.

Tactical withdrawal

The fighters clashed again, and this time it was the Undead that had to give ground. Swing of an axe meant another impressive scar, this time on the leg - but no need for dancing when the enemy's at hand. A dagger found its way around the armour on Orc's arm! With a renewed fury the Undead made a mighty hack from below to the top right which left his opponent in two pieces.

Sadly, no extra XP. Gotta smite the head off the next one.  

The second game was a rematch with the same fighters and same sides (and the same result), so I strongly offered to play against the Undead - to no avail, but at least my friend picked a swift Chaos style fighter.

Third game: Undead vs Chaos

The Chaos style fighter was a considerably more difficult opponent, because even though the Undead had the initiative in the movement phase, he still had to attack through a whirling web of chains and hooks.

Cunning movement, but too slow to strike.

But in the end I outguessed my friend twice in one turn, thus using the adrenaline rush token on the strength stat for the second attack - and head was off indeed!

Summary: Even though the rules are simple, I still misinterpreted some of them (namely ties in initiative), and we occasionally forgot to add a modifier here and there. But - it was fun. I had since almost completed the Empire style conversion, and with a bit of luck I finish the Orc style before the end of August. Unless my ordered gladiators from Crusader Miniatures arrive sooner, of course. 

I like the rules, and I'm looking forward to a sort-of a campaign. Oh, and I discovered that someone even created a variant for Roman gladiators. I may use it as it is, or just cherry-pick what I like. Or wait for Ganesha's Ferrum et Gloria to arrive in October.

Blood and Sand!

In spite of the name of my blog, the only ruleset appearing in my posts was Song of Blades and Heroes, from Ganesha Games. Although it is a good ruleset that gives ejoyable results while being easy to learn, dwelling at it all the time would deny the very idea behind this blog: To search for the unattainable goal through many a mysterious land and having lots of adventures (and fun) on the way. 

But fear not! I know there are other rulesets. A few of them I have already either played or tried (or at least tried to try): Melee (with houserules) and Swordplay (updated version just released!), and others wait to be tried, like Savage Worlds Showdown, ItEN, Chain Reaction, or Flying Lead.

Why Gladiators?

Because it's fascinating subject, and (more importantly) gladiator games don't require too much space, scenery nor miniatures. Unless you're into naumachiae, of course. So far, I have printed the rules for Mordheim Pit Fighter, modified Melee and read through Munera Sine Missione. I have also bought half a box of Chaos Marauders, which I intend to convert to Pit Fighters. 

This time all the equipment remained at home - fortunately, I had my usual miniatures for SoBH, hex paper and tablet with the rules. We tried my gladiatorial variant on Melee (still in progress) first, and then the Pit Fighter second.

1. Melee

I like Melee. It was the first skirmish game that I didn't play solo and the rules are simple enough to be modified (the first modification being omitting the HTH combat). After some three- and two-player games in the dungeon (and experiments with leaving the hex grid) I set to write a variant for gladiatorial combat, which we playtested. Well, it failed.

We created four gladiators, bid for them, equipped them, and it was good. Mostly. But then, we chose one gladiator each and sent them into the arena - and  it all turned into quick but quite tedious dicefest. I had tried to spice up the maneuver possibilites: a character could use shieldbash, shieldrush or bodyslam, or he could decide to focus his attack on less armoured parts of the enemy, but to no avail. As much as I liked Melee in group vs group mode, it was still too dull for a duell. 

Still, I may try to add even some more variety, but I fear that either it won't help, or I'll use Munera instead and save the effort for something else, like painting some gladiators...

2. Pit Fighter

The bad taste a single duell in Melee left made us try something else for the evening's final clash. From what I had read I liked the rules of Pit Figher quite a lot, and using Melee as a counterexample I lured my friend into a quick rules overview and -as his enthusiasm grew- a game.

Why I liked the Pit Fighter even after just reading the rules?

• The paralell between the Empire and Roman Empire: The pit fighters represent enemies that the men of the realm had to face.
• Pre-plotted movement with slightly different options for each type of gladiator
• Hit locations: There are five hit locations (Head, Body, Arms, Groins, Legs), and when you attack, both you and your opponent secretly choose one. If they are the same, the attack was blocked. If the attacked location is not adjacent to defended location, the attack was successfull. If the locations are adjacent, weapon skill contest follows.
• Different armour on different locations
• If you're hit, you can lose more than just hit points... Better executed attacks can scar, cripple you (loose a finger/eye/ear/arm/leg/precious parts), or even kill you by decapitating (crowd roars) or hacking in half.
• Easy and quite benevolent campaign system with fighters improving their stats and gaining skills, crowned by the fight of one against three. If the lone challenger can pull it off, he's won the campaign.
• In spite of all this, the rules are short, understandable and simple, and the game is quick.

The game was a huge success. Our fighters advanced to each other, lunged, maneuvred to get the best position, there was a swing and a miss, clash and separation... It really gave us the image of a gladiatorial bout, complete with a lucky blow leading to a decapitation in the end. Another great thing was that even with rules explanation, checking the rules, passing tablet with movement scroll and picking moves it took us about an hour. I look forward to playing it again!