Played three bouts of BotS a day or two ago with matched pairs outside the campaign structure (with all fighters as Tirones) just to get a grip of v1.9 of the playtest rules.
First bout was the Hoplomachus against the Murmillo, in the classic case of reach and agility versus strength and a big shield. I played the Murmillo (using the wrong miniature, but these things happen).
The match played pretty well with the spearman getting the lion’s share of the initiative with his Weapon Reach giving him a bit of an edge. The Scutum was pretty handy in warding off the early thrusts with plenty of ‘Extended Lunges’ not getting past the big shield. As the match progressed, my opponent was most obliging in rolling snake eyes and this gave the Murmillo the opportunity to manage fatigue as well as push their attacks – I had plenty of ‘5s’ to spend as it turned out, often an ‘Impetus’ special attack would be followed by a ‘Feint’ or ‘Heavy Strike’ but as the Hoplomachus was starting to build up the wounds and was getting closer to the arena wall I switched to the driven attack which negated their advantage with the spear and allowed the big man to launch a series of attacks to wear down the defence of their opponent (a Parma can only do so much) and get the win with the solid support of the crowd behind him.
Rules-wise things played pretty well. The weapon reach made the Hoplomachus really competitive, unless they persist in rolling double ones (which they did on three occasions). The Murmillo was also Agile so his defence was a lot less risky with natural 1s being re-rolled ad infinium which was just too much of an edge. The augmentations to the rope-a-dope of the arena wall really worked and drove tactical decision making and the advantage/disadvantage mechanism adds a lot to the game without complicating things.
Second item on the card was the classic match-up of Secutor against Retiarius. Another matched pairs game and one, with all the fruitiness of net casting and suchlike, that really tests any gladiator rules.
Another good match but with a surprise outcome very much against the run of play. My opponent’s netman started strong, taking the initiative and launching a good ‘Extended Lunge’ followed up by a successful ‘Cast Net’ entangling (2 action dice down worth of entanglement) his opponent before he’d even had a chance to work out where he was and what he was doing. This followed several rounds of the egghead trying (with a very limited dice pool) to rid himself of the net, defend himself and attack to avoid the ire of the crowd. It wasn’t working well for him as trident strikes had the claret (Falernian?) flowing and with even poorly-rolled hits that didn’t draw blood costing a fatigue he had to add fatigue management to his list of tasks. It looked all over bar the shouting when the Chaser finally managed to rid himself of the net and knew he had to turn things around quickly launching a ‘heavy strike’ special attack supported by three attack dice. Dame Fortuna, on this occasion favoured the desperate and the hit was through with the wild swing landing on his opponent’s unprotected rear leg with the Venus thrown for damage to sever the limb and somehow claim victory from what was looking like a sure defeat.
Ruleswise it all worked nicely. The net throw went well and was a real hassle for the entangled fighter allowing the lighter armed fighter to really play to their strengths. The entangled fighter has to make some pretty difficulty decisions more about damage mitigation than gaining any sort of advantage which was also good. We both liked it that each fighter is still in it until the end and even with it all going wrong a beleaguered fighter can surprise.
Final match saw a Murmillo facing my Thracian. Big shield versus medium shield with my taking the Sica-armed man.
Our final bout was one that showed Team Scutarii at their very best grabbing the initiative and landing deep wounds on the head and lead arm of their opponent again before he had his first turn. It would be hard to come back from this one, but the little Thracian gave it a red hot go, aided by the increased capacity for fatigue management over the larger opponent. This match played out as one would expect as the fighter carrying the early wounds just couldn’t make it back. The ‘Elusive Strike’ action was pretty much a ‘no-brainer’ as the Murmillo pretty much retained their fully quota of parry tokens for the full match. The match ended in its ninth turn with the Thracian down to four action dice and the Murmillo dipping to five thanks to the Sica’s kiss and fatigue also about to take its toll, but a final strike taking away the final head wound for the Parmula man was enough to finish the bout.
Ruleswise, again, get played well. Having the Gladius win tie-breaks against the Sica is not a bad move as the Elusive Strike is such a good move that it’s hard to see when a Thracian would no use it. The Thracian was a left hander and I think I forgot to use his bonus about half the time with odd rolls. More a me thing, I think.
Anyway, there we are. I’ll send Frank more detailed feedback and hope to get a few more game in the not-too-distant future.
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April 28, 2025, 05:23:17 PM
September 10, 2009, 01:35:47 AM
