"Ludus Gladiatorius by EM-4" Topic

Ludus Gladiatorius created quite a stir when first revealed here. I got mine at Salute and thought I'd pass on my thoughts.

For what you get – figures, rules, dice and arena – the price of £11.99 GBP is a bargain. The Salute price of £10.00 GBP was therefore a super-bargain! I should have bought a second box but my mind was befuddled by the walk up and down to the B&B.

The figures are well-painted 28mm and made of metal. They are mounted on black hex-slotta bases. I may paint mine to match the arena floor. The arena itself is foldout shiny paper. To lay it flat you'll need to either paste it onto some cardboard or frame it. I'll probably get one of those frameless frames.

The rules say that each player controls one figure or 2 figures in a 2-player game. I see no reason why you can't have a team of figures per side. The arena is 13 hexes wide and I reckon you could easily fit in teams of 5 figures for each player in a 2-player game.

Each figure has a stat sheet showing movement (3-5 hexes), life points (8-12) and combat factors.

Every gladiator is assigned a number. These numbers go into a cup/shaker and are drawn. When you numbers up you can move and attack. When everyone has moved its turn over.

Combat is done by special D6s. These have either shields or swords on them. When attacking you look to roll swords and when defending shields. Basically you're rolling 3 dice. There's some special actions you can do by placing a counter by your figure. These give re-rolls etc. It might be best to disregard these for the first couple of games. If the attacker rolls more swords than the defender rolls shields than those are life point hits. I imagine combat would last at least 3 rounds before someone bites the dust. If you have defended against one attack you cannot defend again that turn.

My early observations;
Firstly I'd prefer an end of turn counter in the chit shaker. This would give a random element to a turn that may be important if you can only defend once. Anyone not moving is assumed to be stunned or waving to the crowd.
Secondly all the gladiators are the same in terms of armament – swords and shields. I hope em-4 produce chaps with tridents and nets in the future.
Thirdly there is a couple of mentions of a campaign system. This will be in the next set of figures. I hope this has some balance, a man gets more combat dice/specials but also slows down or loses life points as wounds are gathered.
Finally I'm not sure about the ability to only defend once. Seems a bit unfair. I'm thinking either of making attacking carry some risk or giving a subsequent defence with perhaps one less D6. In a bigger team game there could be some sort of ZOC issue to protect your mates back.

So overall I'm really pleased with it and will definitely be getting the promised second set. In the meantime I'm off to the toyshop to see what animals are in scale.

n

The combat system sounds like it's the Heroscape, Mutant Chronicles variety. Not sure if that is good or bad. Maybe they didn't include other Gladiator types because of the difficulty working them into the rules.

Don't like the intiative chits. Drawing chits is slow. Would probably switch to card drawing personally.

For a great set of gladiator rules, look at Habet Hoc Habet by Flagship games. Ive run it a number of times and it is a blast. It does have a card draw system to keep you guessing. There are also chariot racing rules, beast fight rules and fantasy rules if you are so inclined. There is also a nice campaign system where you build a gladiator school.

I'm in the process of building some basic arenas, are the hexes 1" (and replaceable with tape measures)? I suppose I could always try to stencil a set of hexes onto the arenas if it seemed really necessary.

My set is on order, I just needed something to work on in the meanwhile.

@Fortean - Hexes are 1".

My comments on the game are very positive:

£10.00 GBP at Salute was an excellent price, the normal price of £12.00 GBP is probably about right. The figures are nice, well sculpted and reasonably painted. Not wonderfully painted but they are painted, which I would never have managed inside six weeks! The dice are atmospheric; much nicer than numbers for this sort of game. The arena is well done; the hexes aren't too intrusive. As an aside, we have assumed that the two grey things are impassable. The game plays quickly, and it's fun.

Suggestions: For future releases, it might be nice if the three different types of dice were in different colours; it's a (very) minor irritation to have to try to sort them out before you roll them. And once you have cut up the gladiator cards, it's going to be a good idea to laminate them...

Being gamers, we had to fiddle with the rules. Our first change, and the only one we have tested so far, has been to change the attack values and defend values. We have allowed each gladiator four normal and two boosted dice, split in any way they like - so you could have 2N/1B in each, or 2N/2B as attack and 2N as defence, for example - chosen at the start of the game. This seems to work quite well...

I like Naseby1645's idea of an 'end of turn chit' - we will probably try this too.

Anyway, overall good fun. Nice one, eM4!

Colin

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I have yet to play the game, but having read through it it looks ok. Hopefully we will try it tonight, maybe with an end of turn chit thrown in.

I'm inpressed with what you get for £12.00 GBP (or £10.00 GBP in this case) and will happily buy expansions just for the figures.

Nice one indeed Doug and eM4.

My set arrived by mail order with em4's customary rapidity. The game plays very well - it is pretty simple, but I tend to favour straightforward rules. After the first test game I have scarcely referred to the rules. I like the dice a lot - the symbols can be interpreted much more intuitively than pips or numbers. It would definitely help if the dice were in a variety of colours. The opportunity to buy additional sets of dice so players can have one each would also be good.

I can't believe it but my set arrived here in Singapore today!

Very high production value. Haven't read the rules yet but so far the hardware all impress me.

"Being gamers, we had to fiddle with the rules. Our first change, and the only one we have tested so far, has been to change the attack values and defend values. We have allowed each gladiator four normal and two boosted dice, split in any way they like - so you could have 2N/1B in each, or 2N/2B as attack and 2N as defence, for example - chosen at the start of the game. This seems to work quite well..."

@Wulfric - I'm still waiting for my order, but this sounds like a great way of customizing characters, it should make it easier to incorporate more gladiator types as well. Someone's going to have to design some character records for this.

What I also should have said is; the 'special move' cards are an important part of the game. We have decided that you get one of each type (Feint, Dodge, Doughty Defence and Strong Attack) automatically, plus an attacking one (F,SA) for each boost dice in attack, a defending one (D,DD) for each boost dice in defence, and the last one can be anything.

Sounds interesting. I'll have to wait until the game arrives before I can comment further though.

Cards, chits, dice and miniatures. Sounds almost complicated for a simple little skirmish game.