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.

Gladiatoris - the Kickstarter

I've been following the development of this game for about four or five years now (I believe it started from the germ of an idea about 2009).

Couple this interest with my wish to tick off another item from my bucket list (to take part in a kickstarter) and I succumbed to pledging, not a huge pledge, but satisfyingly enough.
The kickstarter went live a week on Thursday 3rd November and is now plodding along, slowly but steadily.
You can find full details of the kickstarter HERE.  The costs do look a little high, but then again it also looks like a quality product.

There are a few 'extra' freebies of course if you pledge,  as in many, if not all Kickstarers I've perused, though there are two others already further along the production line a, as can be seen in the two photographs below.
The 'mercenary; shown on the right, looking very useful, though there is no model shown as yet.

Yes, the figure female and they do give reasons why this is so and it doesn't bother me one way or the other, as it's such a lovely sculpt.









The other, shown below is an equally good sculpt of a Provocateur.

(Photo edited, to show the bits I'm interested in)

There is also the opportunity to purchase extra items (duplicates of the basic ones) and a Historical background book too.
I've opted into the two shown on the right in my basic pledge. the book looks good and they have had a "resident historian" aiding them throughout the development process, so it should be pretty good.
As for the dice, well, you can't have too many dice imo.






So this is my latest passion, following the progress of this Kickstarter and I do hope it does reach its targets.
I do think that it does need a bit more publicity though and anything any of those reading this to spread the word would be a great help.

For me, its now back to looking at making u some animal rules for my current game set-up.

That's it, all comments are of course welcomed and appreciated.
 

Gladiatoris 2

The chaps over on the the Gladiatoris Boardgame page on Facebook have announced the kickstarter that will finally bring this game into being!
I've been following the development of this game for well over four years now and it may well be the opportunity for me to tick another one off the bucket list  (signing up for a kickstarer!).

The campaign will be live on Thursday November 3rd, at 11:00 PDT (20:00 GMT) and you there is also an entry for the game on Boardgamegeek

Needless to say, I'm very excited by this kickstarter and seeing what is on offer.








In other news, real-life has thwarted any attempts on my part making any in-roads into playing any Gladiator-related games (or any other games for that matter), but i am ever hopeful and do occasionally review the rules I use, particularly the animal-related ones!

That's it though for this post, I'll report on the kickstarter proper next time!

Gladiatoris

Box Art

Gladiatoris is a board game that has been developed over several years now and finally looks like it is at the stage where it will be put into production, probably by some form of crowd-funding.
The picture on the right I think shows the final box art for the initial release. Whilst not to everyone's taste I'm guessing, there's no denying that it's pretty and piccies of semi-clad females is always a good selling tactic I suppose.
My reservations about it is of course the fact that it depicts a female Retiarius and the evidence for female gladiators in the first place (let alone female retiarii) is very sparse to say the least.
Here's a list  of what the new game will have in the box.

Early version of the game

Components
Rulebook (24 pages)
Games Book (24 pages)
15 Twelve sided Dice (6 x attack, 6 x defence, 1 x beasts, 1 x blue)
 44 Miniatures (10 x red, 10 x green, 10 x blue, 10 x orange, 4 x grey)
157 Cards (67 x fighter, 30 x munera, 60 x manoeuvre)
24 Board Sections (13 x hexagonal, 10 x trapezoidal, 1 x CRONOS)
23 Hexagonal reversible markers
173 Tokens (65 x wounds, 96 x coins, 6 x pavidus, 6 x palms)
2 Help cards
Since the early version of the game (see photograph above) the board has been made into a re-arrangeable one using individual sections (there are also other shaped sections coming in the inevitable planned expansions). The miniatures included with the game have also had great care taken with them and have been commissioned  with some superb sculpts.

The Yellow Faction

The initial release has four factions, each themed to specific Gladiator themes, for example the red faction "The Scutarii" are referred to as the large shield faction

The Scutarii Faction

The quality of the sculpts can be seen from the photographs and I have no doubt that some of the many great figure painters out there will produce some wonderful renditions (myself not included)

The Green Faction

All the core gladiators, that you expect in any gladiator game, are represented amongst the factions (as well as some what I would call had artistic license - such as the female retiarius) , but there are also three animals and three identical unarmed male minis in each 'set' that I have no idea of their purpose!

The Blue Faction

   There are plans for many expansions too, to allow for up to six players in the game, by the introduction of another two factions and many other features.
Gladiatoris has a Facebook page HERE and a website HERE  if you wish to follow their progress in this project. There is also a blog (I think is probably now pretty much defunct) that shows the then intended expansions, HERE, very useful for the history of this game
There is also a Boardgamegeek page (of course), that can be found HERE that does show the older (read inferior) original minis.

I'm quite excited by this game and hope if you're interested in Gladiator combat games then you are too.

Hastati and a little more progress

Box Art

Following on from my last update, at the same time as getting he eight Italian Allies ready to serve in the arena, I also added to their number four Hastati  from the Hat box of the same name.
The hastati box follows the same format of all the other boxes in their ancient series in that there are four sprues of four different figures.

The basic four sculpts

In this particular set there are two each of  sword-armed figures and spear-armed figures, which fits nicely into my idea of substituting spear-armed figures with the sword-armed ones once their spears have been 'lost'.
The four figures are shown in the photograph to the left, pretty much as they appear straight from the box, though I may have tweaked their arm positions a little.
I like these figures, they're identically kitted out, their proportions are superb and although the detail on them is minimalist, they'll be very easy to paint up.
I based these up alongside the eight 'Italian Allies' figures  on my now standard 40mm x 30mm bases, using superglue to stick the plastic figures to their  plastic bases. I've been using old credit cards, phone cards etc. for this even though I only normally get 2usable bases from each.  Next step was covering them all in "Poundworldbargainland"  ready-mixed filler, 'painting' a layer of pva over the filler and finally sprinkling some sand onto the base for texture.

Textured bases

Undercoated

The filler was left to dry overnight before applying the pva and sand as  I don't like to hurry such processes and I was in no rush anyway!
Once thoroughly dry of course they were undercoated in my usual £1 primer, this time grey rather than my normal matt black for no other reason than I had grey.
After undercoating, I did realise that I hadn't added the sword required by the (now) disarmed spear men.
This was quickly fixed with he aid of some scrap sprue, a file and a scalpel.

The sword bearing counterparts .

I'm quite happy with the results of my scratch-built swords although they're maybe a little too long to represent a gladius they'll probably still pass as a spatha or similar.

Over the next week I hope to get one or two pairs of these dozen figures, but that's it for this week.

Small Update

A rare small update to this blog brought abut mainly because of the disaster that befell my paint table (it fell over scattering everything upon it to the four winds), but once sorted it did give me the opportunity to re-visit some of my 54mm figures destined for the arena in one form or another.

The figures this time come from the HaT box set "Italian Allies"
As usual there are four identical sprues in the box, each with four figures.
The first photograph shows two of the  figures still on their sprue with some form of unusual trapezoid shields. They're not the best of stances and the figure on the left has his spear attached to his helmet.
What looks like a 'bun' on the other figure's helmet is in fact a horsehair

plume.

The other two figures on the sprue can be seen on the photograph to the right, both of whom are only slightly closer to what the box-art promises.
The detail on all the figures is a little sparse, but I can't help but emphasise that I consider these to be toys soldiers and are really nothing more then mere counters.

 So far all I've done to these is pair them up with an identical figure from another sprue and started the process of removing its spear, to be replaced with a scratchbuit sword though none of the original figures have any suggestion of being sword armed.
For each of the sword-wielding counterparts, I've moved the sword arms where possible to make a slightly different stance, using the hot-water, bend, dunk into cold water process.

You can probably tell from the photographs that there is still a bit of flash to be sorted on the models (and of course the swords have still to be made and added), but once all sorted, based and painted then I'll have another 8 figures to add to the arena combatants (effectively four as each has a differently armed counterpart).

I've also revisited my Hastati, from the HaT box set of the same name, but I'll be posting about that in the near future.


That's it then, yes it's been a while, but finding enthusiasm for this project has been difficult when I can't drum up any interest for it in my very limited wargamng circle.

Thanks for taking the time to visit.