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

[Elbows]

My brother bailed on me twice to resume our campaign...I did however get the new stickers for my new colour matched dice - so when the dice actually show up I'll post some pics.  I'm excited...yay dice! 

[Furt]

We'll be starting our second turn soon after finishing the paper work for the first turn tomorrow 

Looking forward to hearing the results of the first round and hoping for some devious events for the next turn.

My brother bailed on me twice to resume our campaign...I did however get the new stickers for my new colour matched dice - so when the dice actually show up I'll post some pics.  I'm excited...yay dice! 

Yay dice!! I love dice too. Can't wait to see how they come out.

[Elbows]

***Campaign***

Well (sadly no pictures, as my cell phone and my brother's dinner room lighting don't mix) we ran match three of our first four-match event this evening.  We were planning on running the other two.  This match featured Varro (super mediocre Retiarius) against Arix a giant, skilled Secutor (Skill and Speed of 4, so a Prowess of 4).  This match was pre-designated Sine Missione.

While I expected a brutal slaughter of my simple Varro, he managed to put up a fight for nearly six full turns.  Hastily throwing his net, finding himself fighting from the ground while pinned against a wall on several occasions, and while rolling Skulls EVERY DAMN TIME...the fight only ended when the retiarius tired himself out.  Around turn five Arix the secutor was completely in charge, and used a roll of SIX(!) feet...to respite himself, despite the booing from the crowd.  The desperate Varro was rolling three dice at this point, swords and skulls...exhausted.

Varrow was cut in the head, right arm, both legs, and his torso.  Finally he became spent, unable to stand against Arix.  Arix punched his gladius through the top of Varro's spine.  A fine showing for such an outclassed gladiator.

Next up...provocator vs. provocator...

(PS: Used some of my new dice, but not the full sets - I'll snap pics when the full sets are assembled)

[Too Bo Coo]

I owe you guys an AAR from last weekend, my Hoplomachus was a beast again!

I'll probably not get to it until I'm on holiday next week, but I do have pics as well

[Furt]

Sounds like an exciting match Elbows, which is good considering your poor fellow was just an Joe Average. I like how this plays out sometimes, where a clearly superior gladiator gets a run for his money by a gladiator that should be dispatched fairly straightforwardly.

Pity this was Sine Missione, it sounds like poor Varro really deserved to be spared. 
 
I'm looking forward to seeing the Provocator match and especially hearing your thoughts on the end of the campaign turn.

I owe you guys an AAR from last weekend, my Hoplomachus was a beast again!

I'll probably not get to it until I'm on holiday next week, but I do have pics as well

Oh goody pictures!! 

[Dr Mathias]

I played a very tense hour-and-a-half match between a Thraex and Murmillo a couple nights ago. Scutum dropped and retrieved, heroic stamina tests against bleeding wounds, sica sneaking past strong defenses, swords clanging on helmets, parading, respites, gladiators moving over the entire arena, cunning strikes... you name it. Ended with exhaustion on the part of my Murmillo, but he had a beautiful stack of crowd favor

Great rule set using only two figures!

[Elbows]

Furt...

Sadly I must admit that the Secutor suffered no wounds, so the Retiarius would have had a tough time making his favour roll.  He was simply fighting a heroic retreat the entire game.  More of a "tough to get through his trident" thing. 

[Dr Mathias]

I thought I read somewhere that the general consensus 'back in the day' was that an average secutor would beat an average retiarius 8 out of 10 times, but an above average retiarius would beat an above average secutor 8 out of 10. Anyone recall reading that?

How have your retiarius/secutor matches gone? So far we are 2/0 in the favor of secutors.

[Elbows]

Only played one actually (with full command of the rules, I think we played one like our second game where we were still fumbling through stuff).  I confess we frequently forget to roll stumbles.

This match was obviously heavily in the Secutors favour.  I think I find in BOTS that the spear/trident are super effective because of their bonus to attack and defend, making the retiarius and hoplomachus very potent characters.  Once we finish our provocator fight we may set up a pontus match for fun - see what it takes to run one.  For a pontus match though we'll likely create a good retiarius (at least Prowess 4) against two mediocre secutors.

[Furt]

I played a very tense hour-and-a-half match between a Thraex and Murmillo a couple nights ago. Scutum dropped and retrieved, heroic stamina tests against bleeding wounds, sica sneaking past strong defenses, swords clanging on helmets, parading, respites, gladiators moving over the entire arena, cunning strikes... you name it. Ended with exhaustion on the part of my Murmillo, but he had a beautiful stack of crowd favor

Great rule set using only two figures!

I'm glad you had an entertaining match Dr. Mathias, no piccies I'm guessing. 

I do think the Murmillo and Thraex in particular are a nicely balanced pair - the Thraex's ability to hit more often, opposed by the Murmillo's large shield

I thought I read somewhere that the general consensus 'back in the day' was that an average secutor would beat an average retiarius 8 out of 10 times, but an above average retiarius would beat an above average secutor 8 out of 10. Anyone recall reading that?

How have your retiarius/secutor matches gone? So far we are 2/0 in the favor of secutors.

I actually only remember the 8 to 10 in the retiarius' favor, but you are probably right with the entire quote.

We have found the outcomes fairly balanced in our own games, but of late have had a spate of secutor victories too. I recall Malamute fearing the opposite in his own playtesting where a retiarius was dominating the arena, but then the tables turned again and the secutors had some victories. It of course depends on your man's quality as well, as Dr Mathias has pointed out.

I believe a good tactic for the retiarius is to get a solid bleeding strike in and then keep his distance by Retreating when attacked (with a nice bonus to Defense to boot), hopefully exhausting his opponent over time. A well thrown net at the end of a good series of Presses could also spell trouble for his opponent.

Only played one actually (with full command of the rules, I think we played one like our second game where we were still fumbling through stuff).  I confess we frequently forget to roll stumbles.

This match was obviously heavily in the Secutors favour.  I think I find in BOTS that the spear/trident are super effective because of their bonus to attack and defend, making the retiarius and hoplomachus very potent characters. 

I actually introduced the "Cunning Strike" attack action for Scutarii, because I was finding it hard land a hit on spear/trident wielding opponents. I can not recommend enough the tactic of breaking an opponent's spear/trident though, when the opportunity arises, and anyone who has suffered this tactic used against them, quickly realizes that these shafted weapons come with a considerable drawback; Pugios being less then ideal offensive weapons.

[axabrax]

Am I the only one who doesn't actually have a play copy of the rules?    How are they coming along? Any notion of a release time frame?

Steve

[Ray Earle]

Nah, me neither Steve.

To be honest I'm enjoying soaking up everyone else's games at the moment. 

[Furt]

Am I the only one who doesn't actually have a play copy of the rules?    How are they coming along? Any notion of a release time frame?

Steve

At this stage Steve I really can't add any more play testers to the list unfortunately. 

I'm fairly confident the combat rules are pretty tight, having been tested thoroughly by many gamers. The campaign rules on the other hand are still in the process of play testing and are proving a little harder to test properly, because of the time involved.

I must admit, getting the rules into a polished, final draft is a BIG challenge, causing me considerable headaches and sleepless nights. Considering I am a one man team, with real life to interfere at every turn, it is not surprising really.

I continue to work on BotS at every opportunity, but as for a time frame, I can only say they will be ready when they are ready unfortunately. 

[Elbows]

Well my dice project is about 90% complete.  I ordered some indented dice to match some Chessex dice I had on order.  I then made up some stickers via Gamecrafter and now have four complete sets of BOTS dice (I tend to play a lot of 2v2 games, and this way I can host two separate games at once for my buddies).  The last step is to order some small leather pouches for each set of dice.  I would have prefered some different colours but I went with what I could combine easily.  The black ones don't match too well, and that may be rectified in the future, but I'm happy with the lot of them.

Also picked up two "cupboard" trays at the local store which make nice, classy looking dice rolling bins.









PS: If anyone else in the US is playtesting and needs dice, let me know - my old ones are up for grabs - just a couple bucks plus shipping.

[Malamute]

They look great. The dice add real flavour to the game.