Morituri te salutant

As requested by Ben,

So we set about running a little fight as if we were doing a campaign.

First our noble Lanista, Biccus Diccus names his Ludus Sons of Hermes and records his 4000 Sestertii in his account.

The first season of any campaign is winter and a chance for Biccus Diccus to visit the slave markets to buy new fighters.  In later seasons he could trade gladiators or buy gladiators from other players but as this is the start of the campaign, no one has any to trade just yet.

Biccus decides to spend half his funds on fighters.

He buys;

Priscus the Retarius for 300 Sestertii

Verus the Sagittarius for 200 Sestertii

Atrox the Murmillo for 350 Sestertii

Potens the Thracian for 350 Sestertii

Validus the Secutor for 350 Sestertii

Aspra the Hoplomachis for 350 for Sestertii

And to finish of Nigel the Noxii for 100 Sestertii just in case he must enter a fighter into the arena to fight to the death.  Nigel will be the man to take one for the team.

A total of 2000 Sestertii spent to set up the school.

Biccus then decides to invest in some extra training for some of his Gladiators.

First, he invests 300 Sestertii in Priscus the Retarius to roll 1 yellow and 1 orange dice for upgrades.

Rolling the dice Biccus scores 1 hit on each dice for a total of 2 upgrades.  He chooses Extra Health and Fast and records these on his campaign sheet.

Next Biccus invests 250 Sestertii in Potens the Thracian for 1 orange and 1 white dice and manages to score 2 hits.  He selects Critical Strike and Fast and records these on his record sheet.

Feeling the gods are with him Biccus invests 450 Sestertii in Validus the Secutor picking up 1 red dice and 1 orange dice, hoping to get 3 or 4 upgrades.  Unfortunately, it’s at this point the fickle gods look away and Biccus rolls a critical hit and 1 hit.  Biccus records the damage taken to Validus on his record sheet and picks strong armour for his remaining successful hit.

Deciding that his luck may have run out Biccus stops training his fighters and reduces his funds by 1000 Sestertii and leaving 1000 Sestertii in the bank.

Finally Biccus must pay the upkeep costs for his Ludus.  A further 300 Sestertii is deducted from the books leaving just 700 Sestertii in the bank.  Thankfully Nigel the Noxii can live on scraps and requires no upkeep for the coming year.

Once all the players have set up their Ludus time moves forward into the Spring season and the games commence.

With 3 players in the campaign there will be a total of 4 fights this season.

Rolling the dice gives results of

Medium vs Heavy with 600 Sestertii initial prize.

Heavy vs Heavy with a 650 Sestertii initial prize

Light vs Light to the death with a 600 Sestertii initial prize

And

2 light vs Heavy with a 700 Sestertii initial prize.

All players place their bids in secret for the fights to come.

In the first bout it looks like Biccus has become Player 1 with a 100 Sestertii bid and chooses a medium weight fighter to enter the arena.  Looking at his roster he selects Potens the Thracian and hopes that his recent training will see him in good stead.

His opponent picks a heavy fighter, in this instance a Hoplomachus.  This could be a tough fight for Potens.

Both players set their fighters up at opposite sides of the arena and select their first actions.  Being so far apart both sides elect to Rush.

Rolling for Speed the Thracian rolls a 6, plus 6 for the actions speed plus a further 5 for the Thracians basic speed for a total of 17.  (Remember Potens has the fast upgrade otherwise his basic speed would have been 4)

The Hoplomachus also manages to roll a 6 giving him a total speed of 14.

Both fighters move forward 2 spaces, the Thracian first followed by the Hoplomachus.

Both Fighters then check to see how much favour from the crowds they receive for their chosen actions, in this case both receive 0 and a new round starts.

Once again both players select their actions in secret.  The Thracian aware that the Hoplomachus has a spear that he could use to perform a Lunge attack chooses to slow down his advance and selects a step action.

The Hoplomachus expecting the Thracian to continue his advance does indeed choose the Lunge action, hoping to get an early hit in before they get into close quarters.

The actions are revealed, and Speeds are rolled resulting in the Thracian having a total of 12 and the Hoplomachus a total of just 6.

The Thracian chooses to take a step to his front left, out of the way of the Lunge attack coming from the Hoplomachus.

In return the Hoplomachus is unable to convert his Lunge attack into a valid action so lunges uselessly into thin air.

Once again Favour is calculated and once again neither fighter has gained or lost any so they both remain with 0 favour.

A new round starts, and the Thracian decides to push forward his attack and chooses a rush action.

The Hoplomachus, frustrated with his missed lunge decides to take a shoot action to hurl his spear at the Thracian.

Speeds are calculated with the results being that the Thracian will act first with a speed of 12 followed by the Hoplomachus with a speed of 10.

The Thracian rushes forward and is met by the pointy end of a thrown stick.

The Hoplomachus cross references his shoot action with the Thracians rush action and sees that he must roll 2 yellow dice to hit the Thracian.  Rolling the yellow dice scores an impressive 3 hits.

3 hits have the potential to kill the Thracian in one shot because each hit then enables the Hoplomachus to roll 1 red dice to score damage.  Thankfully the 3 red dice fail to score any critical hits, however they still inflict 5 hits on the Thracian.

The Thracian has an armour value of 3 and rolls to mitigate damage.  However, the Hoplomachus’ aim is good, and the Thracians armour only manages to deflect one point of damage.

The Thracian marks off the 4 damage.  Note although this crosses out one of the skull icons on the health track it is not a critical hit.  Critical hits are only caused by dice rolls of critical hits.

This round the Hoplomachus has gained 2 favour of the crowd whilst the Thracian is yet to gain any.

Once again, a new round starts.  The Thracian selects a Swing action whilst the Hoplomachus chooses to Slash.  After calculating speeds, we see the Thracian once again gets to go first.  Cross referencing his chosen Swing action with the Slash action is an automatic miss.  (The square is blacked out) with this in mind the Thracian looks to see that he can convert his Swing action to a Cut action.  Unfortunately, the Cut action can only target the space directly in front of the Thracian so our unlucky fighter has chosen unwisely this turn.

In return the Hoplomachus gets to roll 2 white dice to damage the Thracian.  However, both dice fail to score any hits.