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.
Zabadak's Gladiator World
Monday, 19 December 2016
Monday, 5 December 2016
Gladiatoris Cancelled !
90mm Gladiator ! |
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!
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!)
Monday, 14 November 2016
Beasts & Rules
My 'Beasts' |
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! |
Frontispiece from "Gladitor, Colisuem Edition |
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 |
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.
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