Beasts & Rules

My 'Beasts'

Whilst I may not have had the opportunity or enthusiasm to paint anything more, or even complete the last dozen figures I started, I have spent a lot of time reviewing the various incarnations of the Avalon Hill (the ones I currently base my Gladiator fights on) and specifically their beast rules.
The original rules didn't have animal fights but a later supplement did add five 'beast' types, namely , Tigers,  Lions, Bears and wolves. (Models of the latter in 54mm have been particularly difficult to source.

Not a good situation to be in!

I never found the rules that were included in the supplement very serviceable even though they seemed on the surface to be serviceable. There are two forms that rules with beasts can take, firstly  randomised beast actions and secondly player controlled beasts.

Frontispiece from "Gladitor, Colisuem Edition

The first option lead to some very frustrating 'test' games as it was was net to impossible for the
Gladiators to have even the slightest inkling what the beast would do.
The second option, having a player control the beast led to an equally frustrating situation as the beast's main weapons (its size, strength, speed and manoeuvrability) made it a very tough opponent (read too tough).
The prolific George Mendoza developed "Gladiator,  Coliseum Edition" (found in the files section for "Gladiator" on Boargamegeek HERE) in many iterations adding another five animals (Boar, elephant, Gazelle, Rhino and Zebra) in the latest one, along with new rule ideas.
In these rules , animals  movement is once more random but the animals now behave in a way where they're far less likely to seek combat, can panic and generally try and avoid combat with their human opponents.

Animal target areas

Whilst I haven't tried these rules,  I believe it'll once more led to a "Benny Hill" style chase as the animals panic off in a random direction and faster than the pursuing Gladiator.
My solution was to combine all these ideas together  and come up with a solution that gave the beasts some level of predictability., based on the position of the gladiator's position relative to the 'beast'.
Having tried just six zones for the target I found that they overlapped and consequently went for twelve zones, six being along the extensions of the beast front hex-sides and the six intervening zones (Letter and colour coded)
This gave me twelve target areas to which I could give various animal 'orders., move forward, to the right , pause (paws?), back off etc.
I decided to use the 11 outcomes of 2D6, with various outcomes, all  based on the single, simple idea that the beast wants firstly to face it's opponent and secondly it also wants (generally speaking) to attack its opponent - none of this running away nonsense for me (even though most likely beasts running away would be far more realistic).
Here's the table in its current state:

Beast Movement

Target’s Area

2d6 Dice Roll

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

A

B, B

B

CL, FR

FL, FR

C

F

F, F

FR, FL

CR, FL

X

X

B

FR, B

B, CR

FL, CR

CR, F

F, FR

FR

FR, F

CR

CR, FL

X

X

C

B, CR

FL, WR

CR, B

FR, CR

FR, FR

CR, FR

CR, CR

FR, B

CR

FL, WL

X

D

F, WR

FL, FL

CL, CL

WL

WL, F

F, F

WR, F

WR

CR, CR

FR, FR

X

E

B, CL

FR, WL

CL, B

FL, CL

FL, FL

CL, FL

CL, CL

FL, B

CL

FL, WL

X

F

FL, B

B, CL

FR, CL

CL, F

F, FL

FL

FL, F

CL

CL, FR

X

X

Red

B

FR, B

CR, FL

FR

F, F

F, FR

FR, F

FR,  FL

F

CR

X

Orange

B

CR, B

FR, CR

F, CR

CR, F

FR, FR

FR, F

FR

CR

CR, CR

X

Yellow

WR, B

F, WR

WL

FR, FR

CR, CR

WR, FL

CR, FR

WR, F

WR

FR, CR

X

Green

WL, B

F, WL

WR

FL, FL

CL, CL

WL, FR

CL, FL

WL, F

WL

FL, CL

X

Blue

B

CL, B

FL, CL

F, CL

CL, F

FL, FL

FL, F

FL

CL

CL, CL

X

Violet

B

FL, B

CL, FR

FL

F, F

F, FL

FL, F

FL,  FR

F

CL

X

 The table itself does look a bit of a beast too, especially all the abbreviations, but they're quickly learnt (and fairly obvious - e.g. FR - forward right)
The whole of the animal movement rules section of my rules is still being edited and revised but I think I'm getting there and I'm even considering separate movement tables for specific animals and of course they do need to be play-tested! 

The news on the "Galdiatoris" Kickstarte (Here) is that it isn't looking good imo, but then again I really don't know how these things pan out. The kickstarter is currently at 25,597 Euros with a target of 80,000 euros with 22 days to go. It seems a bit bleak to me.

That's it then for this week, as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.