Blood on the Sands **NEW** Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears...

[Muzfish4]

Glad my little write up was helpful.

To answer your questions, Frank, the special attacks were generally a pretty good idea and the approach that they are a bit better but come at a cost works really well for trade offs. The big shield boys only tried a couple of shield barges, none of which came off - but the rest were all used regularly. The extended lunge is a huge edge for the Hoplomachus (should the target retreat after this? We ruled they didn't need to as there really wasn't a tussle from which they were drawing back). We did find that if a player rolled several fives they didn't necessarily want to do anything fancy (and costly) so we also house-ruled that if a player wished, they could use a 5 for a normal attack.

As I say above, I'll provide more detailed feedback direct to you as a package after a few more games but another house rule we added was that two of the same dice could be converted into a move - otherwise with some rolls the combatants were only able to stare at each other as nether had a 1 or a 6 in their pool - particularly if they had banked a couple of 2s.

Hope to get a bit more playtesting done this Friday.

@ Rabbitz - That areas is super-impressive. I though I was doing well with a dozen miniatures but that setup is something else. 

[Furt]

The extended lunge is a huge edge for the Hoplomachus (should the target retreat after this? We ruled they didn't need to as there really wasn't a tussle from which they were drawing back).

You are exactly right Muzfish4 - they do not suffer withdraw. I've amended the rules to make that clear.

We did find that if a player rolled several fives they didn't necessarily want to do anything fancy (and costly) so we also house-ruled that if a player wished, they could use a 5 for a normal attack.

Another one - forgotten to port over from the original BotS - yes you may "downgrade" a SPECIAL ATTACK! to an ATTACK!. In saying that though, there are a few special attacks with no extra "cost", like the "Driven Attack" and "Aimed Attack", that makes downgrading the dice kinda obsolete.

As I say above, I'll provide more detailed feedback direct to you as a package after a few more games but another house rule we added was that two of the same dice could be converted into a move - otherwise with some rolls the combatants were only able to stare at each other as nether had a 1 or a 6 in their pool - particularly if they had banked a couple of 2s.

I've been toying with the option of allowing a gladiator to spend one of their highest dice as a move dice. Your doubles option is very plausible as well.

[Muzfish4]

Thanks, Frank. Good to see that I got more right than wrong and that my suggestions have some merit.

We liked the idea of swapping doubles for a move because if you were fully fit, but rolled badly, you were still able to get about the place at least a little whereas if your pool was reduced due to injury/intimidation/whatever it seemed fair that could impede your ability to move in combat posture to the point of immobility. Little Fish the Elder suggested that doubles be swapped for anything but that seemed a bit much.

I guess the aimed attack and drive attack (and feint) without their downsides are good enough to not need to have the option to substitute a standard attack but I'd suggest not a bad idea to keep it there if, for whatever reason, a gladiator doesn't want to do anything special. though, thinking about it, why not make a heavy strike then? Anyway, all food for thought.

[Furt]

We liked the idea of swapping doubles for a move because if you were fully fit, but rolled badly, you were still able to get about the place at least a little whereas if your pool was reduced due to injury/intimidation/whatever it seemed fair that could impede your ability to move in combat posture to the point of immobility. Little Fish the Elder suggested that doubles be swapped for anything but that seemed a bit much.

Do you think allowing this ability to all gladiators takes away from the Quick trait or the Secutor's Chaser trait which both allow you to convert one ACTION Dice to a MANOEUVRE Dice each turn?

[Muzfish4]

The main driver behind this on-the-fly change was avoiding having two fully fit fighters just stare at each other in the first couple of turns if they one or both rolled a series of 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s. This happened in both matches to at least one of the fighters. Otherwise they'd pick up a disfavour token through no real fault of their own. Making a player use doubles does burn through their dice pool more quickly and may reduce options but that's a decision they'll have to make to avoid acquiring disfavour.

Haven't played the Secutor yet (Friday should fix that ) but looking at both the 'Chaser' and 'Quick' trait (none of the fighters we played were quick) which look to be essentially the same I'd suggest this is a bit different from 'doubles to move' in that they'll still have the same number of dice from which to pick and losing any one die to move instead of two doubles is a definite advantage making the traits desirable.

Actually, we found that the 'menacing' was the least useful as it only happens once at the start of the match give an slight advantage in a roll-off and even if you are successful it means that one fighter will have five rather than six action dice which is reasonably easy to manage at the start of things.  All other traits seem to offer either an ongoing edge or a one-off significant advantage (e.g. Son of Fortuna/Nemesis).

Again, I hope this is helpful. I don't want to be nit-picky and want to re-emphasize that the House of Fish enjoyed the game and these comments are supplied in the spirit of playtesting and providing feedback rather than any other motive.

[Furt]

The main driver behind this on-the-fly change was avoiding having two fully fit fighters just stare at each other in the first couple of turns if they one or both rolled a series of 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s. This happened in both matches to at least one of the fighters. Otherwise they'd pick up a disfavour token through no real fault of their own. Making a player use doubles does burn through their dice pool more quickly and may reduce options but that's a decision they'll have to make to avoid acquiring disfavour.

Will certainly remember this while play testing more. There is also the Rush Attack that includes a move.

Again, I hope this is helpful. I don't want to be nit-picky and want to re-emphasize that the House of Fish enjoyed the game and these comments are supplied in the spirit of playtesting and providing feedback rather than any other motive.

It is all very helpful - please continue. These comments are far from nit-picky and it's exactly the kind of playtesting I like. 

[Furt]

I have printed up everything I need to start some serious "in person" playtesting. Up to now I've used Tabletop Simulator to do a lot of solo testing - it's just more convenient and lets me be at the computer to take notes.

Playtesters should have received v1.1 now - looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts.

[YPU]

So glad to see this taking a new step forwards finally, even if its just the next small playtest update.

[damianlz]

I just played 2 games with the venerable Furt himself coaching and another good gamer friend. Stellar 2 games, one defeat due to a lucky first round chest shot and a second  round win due to fatigue. I cannot wait to do this again

[Furt]

So glad to see this taking a new step forwards finally, even if its just the next small playtest update.

Thanks for the support YPU - it is much appreciated mate.

I just played 2 games with the venerable Furt himself coaching and another good gamer friend. Stellar 2 games, one defeat due to a lucky first round chest shot and a second  round win due to fatigue. I cannot wait to do this again

Thanks so much damianlz for being such a gracious host; for the wine, wolf nipple chips and the authentic Roman eating couch.

The pleasure was all mine putting on a couple of demo games for you gents with the added bonus that damianlz and his good friend Ed are proper Roman reenactors, which allowed me to pick their brains.

We had two very different matches. The first between a Thraex and a Murmillo, that saw damienlz's Thraex suffer a devastating deep wound to the torso in the first exchange, which his poor gladiator wore for the rest of the match. The Thraex put up a good fight, considering his wound, but failed to land a blow on Ed's giant German Murmillo. The Murmillo hunted him relentlessly and eventually ended the match with a slow kill wound to the Thraex's torso for a second time, but he was spared by the crowd and granted missio.

The second fight was between two Provocators, one large and a Son of Pluto to boot, meaning his blows would hit home much harder and the other was agile making him harder to hit. The arena was scattered with training posts. Damianlz had a much better run in this combat and the Provocators danced around the obstacles trying to corner each other against them. At one stage Damianlz caught Ed's gladiator against a pole and delivered many punishing attacks against him, which severely fatigue Ed's gladiator. In the end this is what ended the match as Ed's Provocator could stand no more and had to submit exhausted. The fickle crowd shouted for his blood and he was put to the sword.

A great afternoon gaming with great company to boot.


damianlz's Thraex facing off with Ed's large and menacing Murmillo.


The poor Thraex after suffering a very unlucky and devastating wound in the very first engagement.

[Furt]

Ed's German, unscathed and even in control of his cardio!


damienlz's Thraex at the end - his shield lost and just before the blow that ended the match.

[Golgotha]

Looks fantastic Furt - very keen to give these rules a try.

[Muzfish4]

I managed three more play test games over the weekend using version 1.0 - would you be interested in a write up of the bouts followed by rules observations/suggestions or are they out-of-date with v1.1?

[Furt]

Looks fantastic Furt - very keen to give these rules a try.

Can't wait for you to try them too Golgotha.

I managed three more play test games over the weekend using version 1.0 - would you be interested in a write up of the bouts followed by rules observations/suggestions or are they out-of-date with v1.1?

No please do Muzfish4 - there is not that much that has changed that would make v1.0 obsolete. And three games! Looking forward to reading your write up for sure.

[Muzfish4]

Okay, here we go, three matches and how they played out:

Match One

The first match up saw the only two gladiator types I was yet to play, Retiarius  and Secutor (me), hit the arena. The Retiarius was Menacing so tried to turn on the frighteners in Phase Zero with success but temporarily losing one die from a pool of five didn’t really hurt my egg-helmeted contender.


Above: The fighters square off - the net man is more frightening than he looks

The net man followed this up with a very aggressive series of jabs with his trident managing to inflict a light wound on both the Chaser’s rear arm and head (the helmet saved him from much worse). Interestingly, my first attack was boxcars and in other systems (I’m looking at you, StarGrave) an early arsey roll might decide the matter but here the attack, while having an advantage on the wound roll, didn’t decide the contest before we really started, minor damage to the rear arm.


Above: The net (represented by a cheap pentacle jewelry repurposed for pulp gaming) is cast


After that he cast his net and, to be frank, it wasn’t a great cast only inflicting the temporary loss of an action die. This motivated the Secutor who pushed forwards and made sure to keep between the Retiarius and his expended net. Having cast away his net removed two of three special attacks (the extended lunge is still super useful (as is the +2 attack and defend bonus for having a trident) but from here is was a matter of time as the Secutor set himself up every turn to use his dice deliver one substantive attack and manage fatigue. The end came quickly as a gladius stab connected with the already-injured rear arm of the Retiarius and there was indeed blood on the sands. The crowd were merciful and the fighters returned to their pens.

Match two

As we had a bit of time and the FLGS at which we were playing wasn’t closing for a while we had another game, this time big shield man vs small shield (me - don’t mind the Foundry miniature with his too-large shield and Sica). Anyway, this match up saw both fighters beginning the bout keeping well within themselves and trying to get some sort of fatigue edge over their opponent.


Above:  Set up and no-one is intimidated

At one point the Murmillo elected to use his last die (movement) to step back and force his opponent to burn dice to keep up and attack (or else incur a disfavour token) .


Above: Murmillo cedes ground

To counter this, I decided to give the driven attack a work out and managed to back the big man up against the arena wall in what may be the first recorded instance of rope-a-dope.


Above: Rope-a-dope

This approach inflicted one wound but with the extra collision rolls a couple of extra fatigues were inflicted and he temporarily lost his grip on his sword. Despite getting this far the Thracian was unable to capitalise on what looked to be a pretty good position.  Then, showing that the run of play can turn very quickly the Murmillo battered his opponent’s shield aside and delivered a very nasty blow to the ‘vitals’. No blow to that region is ever good but unlike David Lloyd (who pretty much made a media career from one such incident) our British gladiator was not to be so fortunate. 


Above: The Big Briton goes down with a blow to the cods

The big man from Corstopitum was down and could barely manage to raise a finger for mercy. Snake eyes on the dice so Hermes  Pyschopomos took up his duties as a guide to the underworld as the Murmillo held the field. We thought that this outcome was fair enough as around half the fight was conducted hard by the arena wall so the spectators on the other side missed out on viewing the spectacle.

Match three

This was a day later against a new player who is amassing the southern hemisphere’s biggest Epic collection and, as such, is open to complex rules with a grillion and one exceptions and special cases. We went with the net-and-trident man and chaser.


Above: the crowd form two factions each behind their man

 This time I was the lighter equipped gladiator and was pretty keen to see how he played. Well, the game went on a fair while. And then some. The Secutor used the feint attack almost exclusively which countered the Retiarius’ Mobile characteristic. After the previous match, I was very reticent to cast his net too early, my basic approach was to try to remove a die with long-range lunges and wear down my opponent’s fatigue to make that all-important cast really count. I also tried my luck with the net trip but in around half a dozen attacks only managed it once and then to little effect as my opponent was on his feet the next turn.


Above: The Retiarius was chased all over the shop

The Secutor was able to manage his fatigues and chased the netman all over the arena and weathered the light wounds he incurred on the torso (nine out of ten lunges seemed to end up bouncing off the helmet)  and rear leg but was able, after a lot of ineffectual back-and-forth, to get in close and make a mess of the Retiarius’ lead arm for a slow kill. There was claret all over the shop, he has lost his trident and pugio (and an action dice) and it was getting late so up went the finger hoping for mission but the crowd had had enough and didn’t think twice in calling ‘iugula’ for a fighter so inept he didn’t even cast his net.


Above: Down and out

I'll post observations/suggestions tomorrow.