Velites (3)

The completed Velites

I've been working on some more light gladiators from the HaT Spanish box, specifically the ones that don't look too "Spanish".
Following on from the last conversion of four of the figures (two pairs) to represent the same figure with and without spear I've converted the remainder of the less-Spanish looking figures.
The conversion was simple enough, cutting the shields off two figures and adding one to another figure. The great thing from my pov is that you can hardly see the join.

"Mr. Blue"

Following on my already established protocol of  having the figures colour-coded I painted the remaining pairs each with their own distinctive colours, blue, red and green, having already painted a pair using yellow.
The only difference between these additions and the original is that I added a coloured stripe to the hem of their tunics.
*You can see in the photograph above that the nearest pair don't have this strip though I may add it at a later stage)
Mr Blue on the left, you will note is the only one with a large shield - probably completely anachronistic for "velites" in the arena, though it does add variety

"Mr. Red"

The spear-armed versions of the fighter are each carrying a a "pilum" rather than the more typical spear or javelins used by the velites - or more properly the "venator" or animal hunters.
The rules I'm using do allow for each of the different types of throwing weapon, but I'm adjusting the rules on pila to allow for their effect on shields (if these are used against other shield-armed gladiators). 
Spears have greater 'range' in melee (two hexes) but are at half effect (combat factors) when used single-handedly. If used two-handed then they have full effect but only at close (1 hex) range.

The photograph on the left shows the original figure (leftmost) and the three others; other than the original (Mr. Yellow") each has some variation on the position of the shield and spear arms which can be made out from the photograph hopefully.

Add caption

Here's the equivalent figures with only their sword, having dispensed with their spears (pila in this case)
All but "Mr. Blue" (far right) have had new shields added and very little else in the way of conversion. Their shield arms are joined solidly to their torso from the elbow to the shoulder and anything other than moving the lower part of the arm is well above my level of modelling, so there is little in the way of different positioning. I have however managed to cut down their distinctive Spanish weapon to a more representative gladius, though once again  not on all of them, purely for variation.

Finally here's another group-shot.
We're just about ready to feature some animal fights in the arena so these should come in very handy.

Next time I'll either be featuring either my Retiarii (again) as I'm working on their nets (and have finally arrived at a colour for them that I'm happy with) or I'll show how I'm getting on with even more "velites" , this time from the HaT box of Carthaginian Light Infantry.


That's it then for this week and maybe there's something here to interest someone.

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.

Campaign

The starting positions of the first contestants.

This month saw my #1 son and I start an on-going campaign for gladiatorial combat.
We each "diced-up" the stats for five gladiators that ranged from volunteer Senators to criminals condemned to the arena.  Once their stats were known we allocated them to generic  roles of a 'light', two "mediums", a "heavy" and a "retiarius". - after they had fought once ib their 'generic' mode they could specialize into a specific  role after they had fought once in the arena.

Maneuverings leads to some interesting situations.

I had hoped for at least four participants but the two of us went ahead anyway. In my campaign, the number of ludi (read players) determines the prize money to be paid out to winning gladiators in addition to the fees paid for gladiators attending. As there were only the two of us he winning gladiators were paid 125 sesterces and another 200 sesterces were paid to the ludi for each participating gladiator, Has we had more players the fees would have been the same but the prize money increases up to a maximum of 1000 sesterces per winning gladiator.

The inevitable conclusion.

 The campaign is all about cash, with each player trying to accumulate the most cash .
To avoid the obvious problem of those winning combats accumulating so much wealth that they can outbid others at the auctions for new gladiators I've set the limit of how much cash can be held by each player's ludus at 2000s) and anything in excess of the 2000 that is gained goes into an untouchable  'deposit' account. This latter account is the milestone by which we determine 'winning' the campaign.
The rules do allow for the individual gladiators to accumulate "experience" (i.e. Experience points or XP) so that they can slowly get better statistics.

The start positions of the second bout

The stats that are used are Training, Strength, Agility, Constitution and Wounds. The number of combat factors (the points we use for attacks) is calculated from the addition of the training, strength and agility factors. Training factors range from 7 to 13 with an average of 9; Strength from -3 (yes it's a minus) to 5, average of 1; Agility from -3 to 4, av. 0; Constitution 1 to6, av.3; Wounds 8 to 15, av. 10.

And another one bites the dust...erm sand

One of the 'newer' ideas was to add in social origins to character generation, (as mentioned above), which not only gives a little more 'colour' and background to our gladiators, but also allows adds minor adjustments to a few of the stats. For example a gladiator that was a soldier has a training adjustment of +2, whilst a criminal has a -1 adjustment to his constitution stat.
There is also a "Prestige" (popularity) statistic that we have adopted, that gives a bonus in both combat factors and when appealing for a missus.


So that's it for this time, my campaign is off and running and in case you're wondering, I did win two very closely fought fights, the first by manoeuvre and the second by very good dice rolling !

2015 Recap

Figures completed

As a round-up to this project here's what I managed to do in 2015.
Having finished the conversion of the Playmobil arena and mounted it on a solid base-piece I managed to finish off some forty to fifty 54mm figures, gladiators, casualties, legionaries and some miscellaneous others.
I also sourced some cheap animal models that would fit in with the figures as very few were readily available in 1/32 scale (54mm).

Various Animals for the arena

Rules for the combats in the arena and for a campaign are an on-going process and seemingly never-ending as there is always some detail that can be added.
Similarly my figure collection, whilst more than adequate for simple gladiator fights, will continue to grow as I finish painting more of the figures I have a mind to use as alternative combatants along with some extra animals I have that are still to be utilised.
That's it then for this post. This project is about all but wrapped up and whilst I may not be posting on a regular basis in the future I will still be putting out the occasional post when I have something to post about !

To any that read this I hope you  have a good 2016.

"Io Saturnalia"

Saturn having a snack

"Io Saturnalia" was the common Roman greeting given to one another each day during the three day
festival of Saturnalia during December, commencing on the 17th.
Not unlike the festivities many of us will indulge in at this time of year (according to the Wiki site) there are many things we  have a lot of in common with the ancient festival . Notably there was feasting (suckling pig anyone?) on the 17th, roleplaying throughout the festivities and of course the exchanging of gifts, particularly Sigillaria (small figurines) on the 19th.


Whilst I'm unable to share any of the above I can still give you a couple of my memories, so for your amusement (possibly), so here's a couple of "Latin" poems, which I remember from my torturous schooldays when I had to learn Latin (and for which I now am thankful I did)

Civile si ergo
Fortebuses in ero
O Nobile Thebe trux
Vatis inem
Causan Dux

and the next....

Caeser as sun iam forte
Brutus ad erat
Caesar sic in omnibus
Brutus in isat

My finished four "Spaniards", (except for varnishing)

I can also show off the "Spaniards " I was hoping to get finished for last week's post as my contribution to giving of "sigillaria".
Even though I'm not that into ancient gaming , I do know that Spain and Spaniards didn't actually exist (in your face "Spaniard", Russel Crow in "Gladiator") and Iberian and Iberians did.

Another view

The two guys on the left will certainly see service in my arena and I've already started on the other three pairs of these that I have; not too sure about the obvious "Spaniards" with their distinctive headgear.






Next week I'm hoping to have a few friends around for a few matches in my arena and maybe start off a campaign. but in the meantime "Io Saturnalia" and that's it for this post.

Spanish

Box front

I such a non-ancients player that I'd confused my boxes of Celtiberians and Spanish in previous posts,
but I believe that they're both one and the same anyway! (And both probably featured in Hannibal's army.)
Both boxes are from the HaT range of ancient figures and I'll use this post to show what I've managed to achieve with the figures although I'm still currently 'working' on them and haven't got any finished off yet - real life issues as always getting in the way of any real progress.

Back of HaT box (*snigger)

The reverse of the box, as is normal with HaT boxes (*smirk) shows line drawings of representations of the figures, which, as usual, are four poses to a sprue and four sprues to the box, giving sixteen figures.
There are two distinctive 'uniforms' to these figures one with a helmet and the other with a distinctive headgear that I'm sure ancients gamers will recognise. Two of the figures are armed with small shields and two are armed with larger shields, maybe not quite scutum size but fairly large nonetheless. (Didn't the Romans nick the idea of their larger shield anyway ?)
All the figure are also armed with a distinctive short sword (falcata ?).


The following two photographs show the fronts and backs of the figures on the sprue, but has been photoshopped so that they all have the same orientation.

Front view

Back of fiures

As is usual with these figures, the detailing is very good, well above the level of toys but probably well below that expected of collectors - still good enough though for my purposes.
The most annoying thing from my perspective though was the shields on the figures, as the 'spear throwers' each have a different type of shield to their purely sword armed counterparts!
As I did with my Velites I wanted to make four pairs of figures, four with spears and their sword-armed counterparts for using after they had thrown their spears. (I am aware that their "spears" are actually pila and there are rules for these). 
Whilst the distinctive 'Spanish' headgear isn't that useful for my purposes, the smaller Roman style helmeted is very usable in the arena.

Small helmeted spear-hrower with large shield

As I wanted pairs of figures with identical shields, the
solution was to cut shields from figures and attach them to an alternate figure, thus getting the pairs of figures I wanted. It was a pretty tricky jobe especially as the spear-throwers' shields were also attached to the figure, rather than just their arms. Much cursing and spilling of blood followed but eventually I managed the task.

Small Helmeted sword-armed figure with small shield

The two photographs show the conversions, that will eventually yield two of the small (roman style) helmeted figures with small shield and throwing spears and two other spear-thrower with the larger shields, giving me four figures each with a counterpart.
So, four pairs of figures in total, which although not entirely historical (maybe) very usable as generic 'light' gladiators for my games.but they do give me a bit more variety to my lighter-armed gladiators.  There is reference to the "eques" too, fighting in tunics and no armour other than a helmet, so I do have a kind of historical precedence (Note though that the helmet is different and had feathers ) .

Mosaic of two "eques" fighting

Four spear-throwers (top row) with their sword-wielding counterparts

Here's a photograph of eight of the figures that I've "converted"; the figures with the distinctive Spanish head-wear may well not see any action in my arena!
TIn the photograph, the figure are paired with a spear thrower on the top row and his sword-armed counterpart beneath him on the lower row.
I've got four others 'converted' currently being painted up and a final sprue of another four to 'convert' (swap shield about)


That's it for this week I hope that there's been something of interest here, hopefully I'll be posting up pics of the painted figures next week, health and time allowing.

Celts (2)

Not much progress this last week, but I did manage to cough, sneeze and drool my way into painting up and basing a couple of my Celts prisoners of war that I'll be using in the arena as 'victims'.
OK I know, they certainly won't win any painting competitions, but they're good enough from my perspective as 'counters' and at least I think that there's no confusion as to what they're meant to be.
Here's a few photographs of the two of them individually.

Side view

First off, naked man, probably meant to be the archetypal  naked fanatic so beloved of wargamers, but would probably never be allowed in the arena naked - the Romans were quite prudish it turns out when it came to public nudity - who'd have thought it ?
(As an aside, there are a lot of bare-chested female Gladiator models out there too that would fall into the same category, but they're still popular !)
Armed with a long-sword (Spatha ?) and large shield (both ideas nicked by the Romans I believe), I'm thinking he'll have a hard time of it against a trained Gladiator

Bum view

Hidden head  view

Obvious front view

Front (ish) view

The second figure probably stands a little more chance being armed with a spear and longsword.
I'm unhappy with the shield colouring, it looks too much like a 'modern' colour rather than the faded 'period' one I was aiming for.
 Once more he's unarmed, but at least he's wearing 'trousers' and 'shoes' - protecting his pride, if nothing else.

Side(ish) view

Rear view

Proper side view

That's it for this week, I'm sure you can detect that I'm getting a bit desperate for things to post about, so I'll revert to showing what I've done to another HaT box of figures next week - "Celteberians", that has some very useful figures imo for the arena.