It's all about the money

Another grizzly end for a tyro.

The campaign continued with two new players, giving four players for this meeting. Once again the two newcomers rolled for five gladiators each getting the usual batch of good, average and poor.
Everyone is more or less off to an equal footing, the two new players fought a bout and then they decided the wanted to watch the two more experienced players (myself and son #1) fight a bout too so they could see how we played a one out.
As we each only had two gladiators available to fight, a generic light and a generic heavy, we opted for the heavies.
This was a very interesting fight, my  gladiator Gluteus Maximus a favourite of the crowd (favourite=high prestige as his social class determined that he had once was a Senator) was pitted against some no-hoper called Brutus (although I referred to him mostly as the victim).

Gluteus Maximus on the left, Brutus on the right.

The match was a very hard fought one with some very interesting manoeuvres on both our parts. We both had moved so as to avoid a charge (three hexes) from the other  gladiator.
We did however get into combat and the heavier armour of these fighters proved to be a deciding factor in many combat rounds.
Maximus managed to both disarm my opponent and destroy his shield. unfortyunately not before he had got a telling mortal blow on Maximus.


Despite my attempts (as Maximus) at both hitting him and preventing his sword retrieval, he did come up with a cunning plan, Brutus backed off away from me and then charged (over two movement phases) in the hope that he would be stunned by the impact and knocked out and hence ending the fight. My greater strength and shield prevented him from acheiving his ambition  and I cut him down instead, Unlike Maximus though he did live to tell the tale, the crowd (whom I am sure were bribed) granted him a missus for his brave performance.
So at the end of that particular bout I got 125 sesterces for winning, plus 300 sesterces for entering a gladiator and of course saving on doctors fees. Whereas Brutus' ludus gained the 300 sesterces for entring, nothing for losing but he has gained a experience  and has the cash to be attended by a medicus (doctor).
At the auctions (we 're probably going to have one next time), the starting minimum bid for any prospective gladiator is the combined total of the five characteristics that are rolled for each nre gladiator (Training, strength, agility constitution and wounds) multiplied by ten to give a final figure.
Thus the average cost of an 'average' gladiator is about 230 to 259 sesterces and with more than two people bidding it's hard to see me getting one anywhere near that price !
 As I said in the title "It's all about the money" !

In other news I've nearly finished another of three pairs of' 'Spanish' infantry that I'll be using as "lights" and they'll probably be the subject of next week's post. I''ve also found some suitable netting for the my retiarii, so they too can be fully equipped  once they're cut out and painted. The netting came from a sleeve of onions and is square, which I originally wanted and preferred to the hexagonal one I was going to use.