GLADIATOR SKIRMISH RULES

"Morituri te salutant !"

The review by Pete

I had the priveledge of helping play test "Morituri te salutant", from now on refered to as MTS; from its earliest conception to its final form.

The rules are designed to let players fight with one or two gladiators at a time. I found from experience that trying to handle more than that got tricky. But as the game can be played with a lot of boozy mates this isn't a problem.

There are now 12 different types of gladiator in the MTS rules set. Each has a character sheet giving their armour, weapons, and moves allowed. The sheets are also designed to allow you to mark your wounds etc on them with counters or dice. A clever move to cut down on paperwork. Most of the moves each gladiator can perform are the same, but each type of gladiator has some unique actions that give each type its own flavour.

The turns are as follows. Each player pick one of his moves from his sheet writes it down, and works out his turns initiative. The sum of the gladiators speed, move chosen speed, and a dice roll. The higher the value gets initiative; and in a one on one combat choses to go first or second. A clever part of the rules is the "converted move". Because you have to pre write your turn, sometimes your choice is useless or plain daft. Why hack at an opponent who has moved away ? Each move has a converted move or two that you can pick instead of your initial choice. These tend to let you move instead of hit, go from move to parry or riposte etc. This move based system means that you allways have to be aware of what move your opponent may make; and what you need to do to counter that, and still get a good blow in yourself.

When you go to hit someone they have to be in the correct hex for the type of attack you want to do. Your attack is cross referenced with your targets move to give a chance of hit and the amount of damage likely to be caused. The result of the hit and damage caused is then found on the roll of one twenty sided dice. A nice move that speeds up combat and play. I must admit the combat system is very simple but gives the right feel. Damage is not applied to particular parts of the body, but rather as a series of accumulating nicks, cuts, and wounds that slowly diable the gladiator. They get slower, their attacks get worse, and eventually they die. It is possible to get an out right hit, but doesn't seem to happen that often. I'm not sure how accurate this is, but as a rule mechanism it works well. As combats tend to flow back and forth, with both sides having advantages, until one gladiator gets worn into the ground. Rather than stab / stab its all over.

Certain types of gladiator are easier to use; basically the heavy sword wealding ones; who just have to wade in. But my personal favorite is the retiarius. Its difficult to get an opponent entangled, but the cat and mouse moves by both sides, as you try to move your opponent into the right hex zone to snare him. While he's trying to keep out of it and get a stab in make for good thinking games. And when you do finally net him up, and kebab him with your trident, well what can I say.

As well as the basic combat system, there is a campaign set of rules. Here you get to run a school of 5 or 6 gladiators. The rules generate the festivals and they types of fights these want. These can be one on one to mass brawls. Schools enter their gladiators into these fights for the prize money on offer. The school needs this money to buy replacement gladiators, and heal existing ones !! The campaign rules do have a system of pleading for mercy, so not all your gladiators end up as mince meat.

The campaign system also lets your gladiators gain experience, get better and gain special abilities. Basically get faster, better at hitting, do more damage etc. This tends to allow favourites to emerge are the campaign goes on, with everyone trying to kill the superman. A campaign is quite involved, but can be slipped amoung other club activities. Fights can be played when your main game is over, or in the evening between club meets. It is fun though and brings another dimension to MTS.

Bill has converted two gladiators to go into the rules pack. These are "Herman the German" an sword wealding barbarian gladiator who uses the myrmillon stats; and "Gladius Maximus" a fully armoured, shielded cataphractarius. Combat between these two is interesting. Herman is fast, but unarmoured, while Gladius is a slow moving tank. The couple of times I have fought these two, Herman has won on both occasions. The first time an almighty swing with his long sword wounded Maximus. While he was stunned a quick shield smash knocked him down, where an overhead cut wounded him again. At which point Maximus successfully pleaded for mercy. The second time Herman was slowly getting sliced apart when a lucky back handed slash killed Maximus outright.

Finally what do I think of MTS. Personally I think its the best set of gladiatorial combat rules written. Its perhaps not as fast to play as I would have liked, but it is simple; and gives, to me, a realistic result. It make a fun multi player game, especially when the arena is filled to the brim with hacking and brawling gladiators. Bill and Gladiator Games should be congratulated on a good set of rules.