Io Saturnalia !

Once more the festive season of Saturnalia is upon us and whilst I won't be slaughtering any animals (either in the arena or on an altar) I will of course be upholding the great Saturnalia traditions of feasting, goodwill, generosity to the poor (my kids and grandchildren), the exchange of gifts and the decoration of trees - for these all occurred too during this festival, along with similar traditions in Mithraism and the Winter Solstice traditions of many other pagan  festivities.


So however you celebrate (if indeed you do), I hope you have a good holiday.

Gladiatoris Cancelled !

90mm Gladiator !

When this kickstarter looked to be stagnating at around a quarter funding, half-way through I suspected it wouldn't acheive its target. I'm sure there were a host of reasons for this (the main one imo probably being the price of the basic set at 92 Euros not being attractive enough) but here's the official word from the Creator, "Escenarys", a week before the official end date:

Rear view (bit obvious really)

"Hello to everyone.

We've got bad news and good news. We have to cancel the Gladiatoris crowdfunding campaign, but we will relaunch the project! This is not a final goodbye, but merely a tactical retreat, in order to improve and try again.

It's easy to see that the campaign is not going to reach its funding goal. We have made mistakes that we need to address to make Gladiatoris a successful project. Fortunately, we have learned a great deal about a lot of things we didn't know before starting the campaign- most of them thanks to the advice, suggestions and comments from our backers. During Gladiatoris' seven years of playtesting, we have listened to what our players said to us; the game has changed as a result, and we have never regretted it. We want to do the same thing in this new phase of our project.

Now it's time for some decision-making on many important issues, and we can't give you a date yet for the return of Gladiatoris. To keep updated on the state of the project, several options are available:

- Join our friend list on our website. When the campaign is relaunched, we will e-mail all of them; if you don't want to miss your chance, this is the best way!

- Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and BGG; we will post development notices there.

- Check out our website; we will also regularly post updates in it.

We won't stop working. You have given us wonderful advice, from how to face the campaign to details about the miniatures. It's very important for us having found so many people interested in our game, supporting us in so many ways. We have said it many times, but we will say it again: if not for this kind of support, we would have given up many years ago. Thank you!

About the Print&Play and the last 24 hours of the campaign

But there are more good news! Far from this being the end of Gladiatoris: we will send all backers the Print&Play we were going to give you when funded. We can't give you an exact date yet, because some things are harder without funding ;) but we will send it as soon as we can.

That's the reason why we have not cancelled yet the Kickstarter campaign: if you know anyone who didn't know whether to participate or not, please encourage them to! We will leave the campaign open for another 24 hours, and we will send the Print&Play to whoever decides to support the campaign as a symbolic gesture on its last day.

We recommend you again to join our friends list, in case there is any technical problem with Kickstarter.

Thanks

We don't want to say goodbye (for the moment) without a mention to all who have supported us.

First of all and above everyone else, we want to thank our backers. Without you this wouldn't be possible, and we're not exaggerating when saying that your ideas and suggestions will be essential for the success of the future Gladiatoris campaign; please keep sending them through our social media.

Second, we thank our artists, who have given Gladiatoris an absolutely amazing look, far beyond our initial expectations. We are very happy for having gathered an art team with such a professional ability. You can look at their work here: Manzanedo, 3DBreed, Jaime González.

Third, we want to mention our history expert, Alfonso Mañas. It is because of him that we can proudly say that Gladiatoris is without a doubt the most historically accurate gladiators game there is. His extensive knowledge, his attention to detail and his enthusiasm with the project have given Gladiatoris and its components (especially its miniatures and illustrations) a historical feel very difficult to find among miniatures board games. We strongly recommend his educational book “Gladiadores: el gran espectáculo de Roma” (“Gladiators: the great Roman spectacle”; Ariel, Barcelona 2013) to all of you who are interested in the subject.

Lastly, we don't want to forget to thank Tinieblas González, who shot and edited our English Gameplay video; Kevin Barber, Jennifer Ho and Paul Ang for taking part in it; Emeral Knights, the store that became our "operational base" in California; all the media that helped us spread the word, from JueGorrinos (who gave us that wonderful couple Spanish videos, and who are great Gladiatoris fans now), MiCabezaFriki (who has "watched over" us from the start), Turno Cu4tro and Rincón de Jugones (who invited us to their podcasts), BackerKit (who included us in its digest as a project to keep an eye on), and a lot of board game geeks and friends that helped us one way or another during the play testing, with the campaign videos, etc.

Once again, thank you so much. Remember this is not a "goodbye" but just a "see you later". You will hear again about us, and not only when receiving the Print&Play. Don't forget to join the friend list and... see you on the Arena!"

So that they say, is that, but not quite - as I fully expect this particular kickstarter to re-emerge sometime in 2017. Having waited some 5 years since I first heard f this to come to fruition, another one isn't  that big a deal in he great scheme of things imo. (It's been seven years since the start of this great journey for the creators)

Just in case you've managed to read this far and were wondering what the heck the two photographs of the Gladiator were doing here (they're in no way connected to "Gladiaotiris btw, save thematically)
it's a figure I picked up from "Poundland"- about 90mm tall, though I had hope it would have turned out a little smaller. I did think at the time he would be suitable as a stand-in for "Theoceles" - the giant, but I'm having second thought as in scale he would be nine feet tall!

That's it then for this week, my first Kickstarter cancelled!
(but I do have the print n play stuff to look forward to, which I'll no doubt post about sometime in the future!)