Ludus Gladiatorius - Back to the Arena!

A couple of Thursdays ago I brought out Ludus Gladiatorius (Eng. trans. "Gladiatorial School") for another evening simulating hand to hand combat in front of the Roman crowds. Dallas, on a recent rip to Imperial Hobbies in Vancouver, had kindly picked up for me a felt arena map from Hotz Mats, which we used to good effect.

I have both of the sets that were originally available from EM-4.  This is a quick-play gladiator combat game with pre-painted metal 28mm gladiators and special combat dice. Lots of cool play aids are available for download on the Yahoo Group.

They key feature of the game is that each character has a certain number of special actions that. once used, are no longer available. So, the tactics are based upon movement, and using your special actions wisely. Each gladiator has a rated movement, in hexes, but may get an extra hex of movement, determined randomly;y. So, you never quite know if  someone else can reach you or not!

The players chose their gladiators by die roll:

• Bill = Vescen (hits pretty hard, and good at Feinting)
• Dallas = Thrax (a real tank; hits hard and has lots of hit points, but slow)
• Dave (me) = Leonius (good at Feinting, and with a decent amount of hit points)
• Frederick = Marcus Attilus (very fast, and decent attack value)
• Keegan = Caladus (slow, but good at Defense, and lots of hit points)

We had a battle royale with everyone starting just outside movement range of one another. Bill's Vescen was playing it cagey, so I ran Leonius across the arena at him.



Our gladiators tarted dueling, as Calladus watched.



In retrospect, that was not the greatest of ideas, since Leonius was the first to fall. However, the crowd must have liked what they saw, because he was spared! (There is a special purple die, with both "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" faces.)



[Note: Historically, a gladiator who acknowledged defeat could request the munerarius ("editor", or giver of the games) to stop the fight and send him alive (missus) from the arena. The editor took the crowd's response into consideration in deciding whether to let the loser live or order the victor to kill him.]

The fight devolved into a couple of paired combats:  Vescen vs. Marcus Attilius, and Caladus vs. the mighty Thrax.



Calladus was the next to fall, but also was granted missus.



By this point, Marcus Attilus had only one hit point left, so he was trying basically to stay alive, moving back out of reach when he could. However, seeing Thrax standing alone, he and Vescens ganged up on the heavily equipped gladiator. below, Dallas swings for the bleachers...



...to no avail, as Thrax went down. Yet again, he had performed well, as Thrax was granted missus. The time was called, and Marcus Attilus and Vescens shared accolades as co-winners of the contest.

Below, Frederick looks on in relief. Both Marcus and Vescens had only a couple of hit points left between them.



Ludus Gladiatorius is a fast-playing, beer & pretzels kind of game, well suited to our Thursday night style of play. For more detailed combat rules, there are other games like Avalon Hill's Gladiator, which better simulate the cut and thrust of personal combat, and attacking or defending different parts of the body.

I look forward to trying out the mat with Brian's model of The Collosseum.

LVDVS GLADIATORIVS - REDVX

Last Thursday I brought out Ludus Gladiatorius (Eng. trans. "Gladiatorial School") for a second evening simulating hand to hand combat in front of ancient Roman citizenry. Conscript BrianH also brought along his magnificent Roman Colosseum model within which we staged the proceedings.



The game was re-scheduled since I was away in Las Vegas for the Throne of Skulls tournament and a long-awaited vacation with my loving wife, Conscript-widow Jen. I shall shortly post batreps of my 40K games at the ToS (really!).

Before we started playing, we had an interesting discussion about gladiatorial combat in the Colosseum (or, the Flavian Amphitheatre). Due the the high cost of training and maintaining elite gladiators, combats did not inevitably result in death. In the later period, sparing of a defeated gladiator's life was common. The construction of the Colosseum itself was also discussed. When Jen and I visited the Colosseum in Rome last year, we learned that the building was originally faced with limestone, which would have provided a gleaming appearance.

As a change from the regular mechanics of Ludus Gladiatorius, I used cards to determine initiative when there were more than two gladiators active on the arena floor. I obtained card templates from the Boardgame Geek site. I used the files named "Ludus_CARTE_iniziativa.pdf" and "Ludus_CARTE_retro.pdf". I just printed out the initiative side and one of the backing sides on the two sides of a single sheet of paper on my home printer, cut out the cards, and placed them in clear plastic card sleeves.

Also, we used fan-made character sheets from the Ludus Gladiatorius Yahoo Group page. The new sheets allow one to write what Special Action (if any) their gladiator uses every turn, and they simply illustrate all the rest of the required stats. I used the file named "Ludus_Schede.pdf".

We started with a two-on-two battle, involving (respectively), Conscripts Brian and Frederick teaming up, vs. Dallas and Indo. The game characters used were as follows:

• Brian = Marcus Attilius
  


• Frederick = Vescen


• Dallas = Thrax


• Indo = Criminal

Brian and Frederick had the best swordsmen. Dallas had a tank - Thrax is very tough and hits fairly hard. Indo ran a character from the second set, Ludus Gladiatorius 2. The Criminal is interesting; he hits very, very hard, but his basic defense is very bad (no armour!). After the initial fight, the winners and losers would square off in a pair of one-on-one fights, then the winners of the A and B side would face off to determine the event champion.

In the photo below, Brian and Dallas can be seen contemplating their tactics.



Initially, the fight devolved into a pair of single combats.



The teams regrouped for mutual support.



Then, Thrax and the Criminal ganged up on Vescen.



After Vescen fell, it was only a matter of time until Marcus was defeated, too.

The single combat portion of the evening started, resulting eventually in a win for Thrax, who defeated Marcus in the finals.



The evening was still young, so we decided to play a Battle Royale - five gladiators in the arena, no allies. For this last game I ran the Amazon - lots of tricks up her sleeve (e.g. she can Feint and Dodge in the same turn), but low on hit points and raw combat power.

We started the models more than 5 hexes apart. Below, Indo places the Criminal's figure on the sands.



Dallas' Thrax had a reputation for toughness - if memory serves that character cleaned up the previous time we played. Below, Dallas rolls the dice for his man.



Thrax' reputation was well-deserved. Eventually, it took three of the gladiators teaming up together to knock Thrax out of the fight.



Putting down Thrax had left the Amazon with only one hit point. However, she spied the Criminal leaving himself open as he performed a Savage Attack upon Marcus. She sneakily stepped up to the momentarily defenseless Criminal, and cold cocked him.



As a gesture of thanks for the assist, Marcus then dueled the Amazon. Her luck held out for longer than I would have thought, but she finally succumbed to a combination of Marcus' dazzling swordplay and the heat of action.



This left Vescen and Marcus to vie for the coveted Rudis (a special wooden sword given as an achievement). Vescen had wisely stayed aloof from the scrum around Thrax, and remained relatively fresh, whereas Marcus was already badly wounded. Dicing each turn for initiative, the two gladiators engaged in a long passage of arms. Finally, Marcus' wounds and fatigue told and Vescen forced him to submit.

Below, Frederick looks down upon his victorious gladiator.



A fun evening was had by all. Everyone agreed that the cards worked well; better than the chits provided in the original game.

Now that Brian has taken up 40K (yay for the Dark Kin), we also discussed using Brian's Colosseum model in a Dark Eldar themed Warhammer 40K scenario.

Thanks to everyone who came out, and, as always, thanks to Pam and Dallas for hosting.