Author: Buck

In my copious free time, I’ve continued to think a bit about gladiator rules.  There are some nice sets of rules already on the market, and I don’t see this as a commercial project.  I am looking for something quick and easy for one-off games.  Greg has been looking at distinguishing special abilities to make the various types of gladiators seem different.  The working title of these rules is Blood and Sand.

I am pretty sure the game will be run on a hexagon grid to make it abundantly clear the gladiator’s facing.  The discerning gamer who already knows the unbounded joy of Blood and Swash, will find some of the mechanics very similar.

Above is a sample, working draft of a “character” card for a gladiator.  Note that gladiators can attack into their front three hexes.  When a player rolls up the gladiator’s attributes, one of the attributes is Attack.  That goes in the hex with the dark border.  The other two hexes have the Attack number modified as shown in the leftmost card.  Similarly, for defense, the dark hex contains the Defend attribute, and Defend is modified ginghams around the figure as shown on the right two cards.

Each class of gladiator (heavy, medium, and light) will have a different chart for rolling up attributes.

 

Gladiators were most frequently grouped by class (e.g., heavy vs. heavy) to provide the most even, balanced, and entertaining match (sort of like the forced mediocrity created by the draft system in professional sports).  I’m not exactly sure how that will work in the game.  Greg is working on the scenarios and matchup.  Like recent sets of rules like Jugula and Sons of Mars, Greg has the idea that a player will have a stable (ludus) of gladiators and select the right one for the upcoming match.  I’m sure that will appeal to many gamers, but for me, I am looking for some quick games to fill and hour, not a campaign where I have to manage resources.  That sounds like work, not play.  Also, while the head of a ludus sounds interesting as a gaming mechanism, apparently they were considered about the same as pimps or flesh peddlers in their day.

I have created a “middleweight” gladiator class that doesn’t seem to have existed formally.  Gladiators in this class include the Provocator and Hoplomachus.  These are armored like heavy gladiators but carry a much smaller shield.

Greg is also researching special abilities for the gladiator types within a class to distinguish them from each other.  Where Sons of Mars has a lot of special abilities, many of those are already taken into account in the attribute generation tables.  We are looking for things more like a foot sweep tripping attack, and shield bash (using your shield as a weapon), etc.  More to come on that.

You may note a Speed attribute on the character cards.  I envision two uses for this attribute.  First, it is the number of hexes a figure may move when it activates.  The second use will be to determine the activation sequence.  Instead of cards, I am thinking that at the beginning of each turn, players will roll d20 for each figure and add that figure’s Speed number.  The highest resulting number goes first and then on down the line.  I would like to do a d6, because that will make the Speed attribute more important than when rolling a d20, but I am worried about too many collisions requiring a “roll off.”

So that’s where I am today.  I am waiting for my sand-colored hex-grid cloth to arrive so that I can do the first play test.  Also, Greg is still working on the special abilities.  Stay tuned for more information as the concept matures.  I am hoping to have the cloth and be ready to run a game at Barrage, 27-28 September.

At Historicon I had a chance to look at the Black Sun figures from Bob Murch.  These are Vietnam figures but with two pulp science fiction forces added.  One are these Deep Ones, for of Creature from the Black Lagoon looking.  The ones for Black Sun come with AK-47s.  Very similar Deep Ones are available in the Cthulu range.  I bought the starter box of those and added a bunch of extra German WWII weapons.  I was also told that the next pack of Black Sun Deep Ones will be armed with rifles, instead of AK-47s.

I have a giant alligator from Reaper that is crying to have a German infantry gun or heavy machine-gun mounted on its back!

If you value the lives of your pulp figures, tell them to stay away from the water, or a lot of little lead widows will be getting sad telegrams.

I have been working on a Roman gladiator project recently.  I recently bought three sets of Foundry gladiators and painted them along with a bunch of Steve Barber Roman spectators.

 

I also purchased a Playmobile Roman coliseum / arena.  My daughter painted it for me.

I bought a copy of Sons of Mars and read through the rules.  I think they have a good amount of period flavor, and they seem to be okay.  I have been toying with a concept for a die progression system that is tailor made for something like gladiators.  Then today in a text conversation with Greg, I hit upon the idea of using mechanics similar to Blood and Swash.  I still have some of the details to work out, but I think I am going to call it Blood and Sand.  Stay tuned….

The HAWKs recently received an Email from John Spiess about his daughter and the Armies for Kids project.  With his permission, I am sharing the letter:

Hi guys,

I have updated the Barrage recruiting posters.  Everyone should feel free to repost any or all of them as widely as possible.

Barrage 2019 will be 27-28 September in Havre de Grace, Maryland.

Don’t miss this outstanding regional convention.

 

The Web site for Barrage 2019 has gone live, and it is open for registration for GMs and Attendees.  Come back to the Web site frequently to see the growing list of games that will be run this year.

www.hawks-barrage.org

I ran a fun Combat Patrol(tm) game at Historicon using the Napoleonic supplement rules.  It featured a ragtag group of starving Frenchmen trying to reach the safety of a small Russian village while the pursuing Russians worked to stop them.

The Russians came from all sides of the table.  Most of the Frenchmen were in a small column in the center of the table.  The French were aided by some early card draws and unusually fast movement.

When the game ended, the French had the better part of four teams (five figures each) into the town’s buildings.  The Russians have four teams of infantry and some remnants of other units. We had to call the game, because the hotel was going to kick us out of the hall, and it was clear that the French would be able to hold out against attacks by the remaining infantry.

I think all the players had a good time.  I made a few tweaks to the scenario after the play test at a HAWKs night, and it seemed to really make the scenario work well.

Greg and I ran two instances of the Battle of Hoth with Combat Patrol(tm) at Historicon 2019. The first was Friday night, and the second was Saturday morning.  Both instances went well.  On Friday night the Imperials got half way to the cave / hangar.  On Saturday they blew up the shield generator.  At that point, the heroes tried to escape in the Millennium Falcon.  When it emerged from the cave entrance an Imperial AT-AT took a reaction shot and blew up the Falcon!

The Rebels received 9.7 points for every turn the Millennium Falcon was on the table.  As soon as the shield generator was blown up, the heroes had to board the Falcon and fly away, ending the game.  The Imperials received 1 point for each Rebel they killed and 5 points for heavy weapons.  At the end of the first day, the score was 58.2 to 57 in favor of the Rebels.  In the second to last turn of the second day, the score was tied up, but with a lot of last turn casualties and the death of the Falcon, it was a convincing Imperial victory.