Sons of Mars - the Match!

 Just a brief post today because I didn't take many pictures and chronic insomnia has made my recollection of finer details fuzzy at the best of times.

Yesterday, I brought two teams of gladiators and a felt battle mat to my buddy Rick's house, and played my first in-person wargame against another player since February 2020. Between the pandemic, my wife becoming seriously ill, and my formerly-friendly local game store no longer being welcoming now that I need to mask in public to protect my immunocompromised spouse...it's been solo games only for the last four years. But Rick and the circle of friends he and I play D&D with are all taking precautions to protect immunocompromised loved ones, so while our wives went out for pedicures together, Rick and I opened up the ludi and met in the gladiatorial arena.

We played an initial 1 vs 1 match for Rick to learn the rules of the game and get a feel for it; taking the Blue team, he put a Murmillo in the arena; taking the Reds, I responded by selecting a Retiarius, armed with a trident and net, for a classic matchup. It was a close match for the first couple of rounds, with my Retiarius scoring some impressive hits against the heavily-armored Murmillo. But eventually he closed the gap and his gladius drank deeply of my gladiator's lifeblood. 

Following this, we decided to go for broke and do a 3 vs 3 match. Keeping his Murmillo, Rick selected the Unmitigated Gaul (a dual-wielding Dimachaerus) and Spartacus the Thracian for his team; I swapped out my Retiarius, and fielded a Provocatore (a heavily armored gladiator built for staying power), a Thracian, and a lightly-armored Velites.

This ended up being a brutal match; Sons of Mars matches have a time limit of eight rounds, and we went right to the bottom of the 8th. We had a long stretch where the two Thracians were clashing, while the other four gladiators were in one big knock-down brawl downfield; the Murmillo and Provocatore pressed each other, with the Velites and Dimachaerus bouncing off them.

At one point, the Provocatore had the entire blue team attacking him at once, and he not only held his own, but delivered some brutal and near-crippling blows to the Murmillo and Dimachaerus before finally succumbing to a million small cuts; my Thracian took down Spartacus, which caused the brawl to sort of begin to separate out; by the beginning of the 8th round my Thracian and Velites were both holding on with just a single point of Vitality each. It didn't take long for the Murmillo (who was himself at 1 point of Vitality) and the Unmitigated Gaul (at 3) to finish them off. 

This was no sterile chess match; Rick played the soundtrack to the Spartacus TV series, and there were a couple points where we were both on our feet cheering for our respective fighters. We'll definitely be doing another day of gladiatorial games some time soon, possibly introducing obstacles and animals into the arena. 

Sons of Mars - solo play

Over the past week, I've dug out the gladiators I painted back in 2018, glued some shields back on and refreshed some bases (the texture paste I applied back in 2018 never made me happy, so I flocked over it with some ochre-y fine grain flock) and started refreshing myself on Joe Veltre's "Sons of Mars," a game of Roman gladiators. I'd played it a bit back then, and painted a ton of gladiators with the idea I'd run some demo games and maybe get a league going at my local gaming store. That never worked out because the people at the store who would have gotten into this all bought into "Arena Rex" instead. C'est la vie. 

A buddy of mine was asking about getting a game of something going, and most of my terrain has already made the move to my future basement. Fortunately, Sons of Mars doesn't require much in the way of terrain, so I decided to refresh myself so I could get it going with him next week. I've played through a couple of 1 v 1 solo games, and today I decided to do something a little bit bigger.

I rolled up some obstacles for the arena - two walls and two braziers of fire - and set up a 2 v 2 game. On the Blue team, we have Spartacus, a Thraex or Thracian gladiator, and The Unmitigated Gaul, a red-haired Dimachaerus - a wielder of two swords. The Red team was represented by Ursus Major, a large Provocator (known for their staying power in the arena) and Curio, a Velites - a lighter class of gladiator typically armed with javelins or a gladius and a light shield. 

Spartacus charged Curio, and the Unmitigated Gaul charged Ursus Major. The fighting pushed back and forth, with Curio trying to get away from Spartacus and Ursus trying to shove the Gaul away from him. The fighters inflicted minor wounds on each other, but largely clashed swords without major effect. 

At the beginning of the third round of combat, the Emperor was getting bored of the shoving contests, and ordered a very large bear released into the arena to spice things up. 

The bear charged Curio, clawing ineffectively at the nimble gladiator. For a few moments, Curio and Spartacus struggled with each other, each man trying to put the other between himself and the bear. 

The Gaul and Ursus clashed dramatically, ignoring the bear and their fellow gladiators, but as the fight drew on, the Provocator in his heavier armor began to tire, and the more fatigued he got the faster the Gaul's swords seemed to swing. With a dramatic flourish of swordsmanship, the Gaul cut the Provocator down just as both Spartacus and Curio broke away from the bear. The bear, bloodied and enraged, charged the Gaul.

Man and bear roaring with fury, the Gaul and the bear wrestled back and forth, the Gaul sinking his blades again and again into the bear's powerful body. Finally, the beast slumped to the arena sands. The Unmitigated Gaul had won out!

While this was going on, Spartacus, playing to the crowd to increase his favor, cornered Curio against one of the walls, and tried to push him into the wall and knock him prone. The lighter Velite held his own however, his blade clashing dramatically with Spartacus', both men tiring as they struggled against one another. However Curio managed a few good hits on the Thracian, leaving Spartacus clinging to life as he tried to continue the fight.

Fistful of Lead wound tokens here representing Fatigue.

With the bear slain and Spartacus struggling with the barely-armored Curio, the Gaul charged into the fray. His charge crushed the Velite, providing a flawless victory to the Blue team.

The Blues have won every solo game I've played this week; Murmillo v. Retiarius, Secutor v. Thracian, and now this one. It was almost not such a clean-cut victory; Spartacus was 1 Vitality point away from dying. I like how dramatically the fortunes of the gladiators can swing. A gladiator can be getting beaten badly one round and rally and come out the victor in the next. On paper, the Velite should have been easy for a tougher gladiator like a Thracian to take down, but in practice it was a little more difficult. Different classes of gladiator thrive with different tactics, and you have options you can pursue to make it easier to fight a difficult opponent. It's got a nice beer and pretzels lightness to the system, while also rewarding smart tactical play. 

I'll probably play through a few more solo games this week, and then next weekend I'll bring them over to Rick's for my first actual game against another person since February 2020. 

Speed Painted Gladiator

Today, my friendly local game store held a speed-painting miniatures event, encouraging participants to bring some paint and a primed miniature and see what they could accomplish in 45 minutes.  Unfortunately they didn't get quite the turnout they were hoping for (I always assume, whenever someone marks themselves "Interested" in a Facebook event, they are actually politely saying "no.") but the event went on as planned regardless.  Here was what I accomplished:

I think this is one of the last of the Secutores I had in my Sons of Mars project pile, and after him I only have sixteen more gladiators left to go before I put this project to bed. 

I placed first in the speed painting competition, and my prize was $10 worth of paint; I picked up "Scorched Metal," "Gunmetal Blue" and "Coppery Orange" from the Reaper rack.  Granted, I don't know how great an accomplishment placing first was; I was one of only two participants, and the other guy had come into painting miniatures from traditional painting, and was using high-end artists' acrylics and mixing each shade he used by hand.  By his own admission he was not a "speed painter" of any sort.  I feel a little bad that I didn't pick a more intricate figure (I almost selected a Reaper samurai that's been on my primed pile of shame for a couple years now) to challenge myself with, though both my fellow competitor and the judge have made it clear I should not feel that way. 

I'll tackle his shield tonight and work on getting his base coated with Vallejo Sandy Paste tonight and then I think that's it for me as far as painting goes until the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge begins on the 20th. 

Another Battle Mat and Thanksgiving

Back in early September, I ordered an arena battle mat from Hotz Mats for Sons of Mars.  It finally arrived yesterday.  It's an attractive mat, though not as high-end as the Arena Rex mat I bought at Just Games two weeks ago.  I think I'll be using this for "Local" matches and the AR mat for "Regional/Festival" matches. 

I definitely recommend Sons of Mars for anyone looking for a fast and light game of Roman Gladiators, and the publisher, Gods Eye Games, is having a month-long sale on the rules and PDF packs of NPC gladiators and reference cards. 

Finally, for my fellow Americans, today is Thanksgiving.  All I'll say is may your plates be heavy and your hearts light today. 

4 More Gladiators

With these four complete (other than touching up the bases), I now have 20 painted gladiators.  I also finally got an arena mat to play on, and I've done a couple solo games of Sons of Mars to try it out.  Long story short, I like it a lot; it's a fast-playing beer and pretzels kind of game (with the option for more technical complexity), especially in the absence of terrain or obstacles; I might need to pick up some of those wedding cake columns at the craft store and break up the open field some. 

I'm at least halfway through my collection of gladiator miniatures now, and maybe have less than 20 to go; there's also been some talk of a Lion Rampant group getting together in my area, so putting together a retinue for that is on my horizon. 

More Gladiators

My FLGS has begun hosting a biweekly "Open Painting" event for people to bring whatever miniatures they're working on and sit, paint and chat with each other.  I brought a handful of Foundry and Crusader gladiators to work on, and had a great time - met a couple other guys who are interested in historical games, and I spun my tale of how I invested heavily in Sons of Mars, planning to demo it at the store, a week before everyone bought into Arena Rex instead.  I'll bring the rulebook next time and see if I can't drum up some interest. 

Here's what I accomplished:

Saturday Night Speed Paint - Wargames Foundry Dimachaerus Gladiator

I needed to unwind a bit tonight, and there is a speed-painting competition coming up at my FLGS that I want to practice for.  So, I grabbed a primed figure - in this case, a Dimachaerus ("Two Knives") from Wargames Foundry's Gladiators range - and set to work, seeing how quickly I could arrive at an acceptably finished figure.  In this case, it took me just shy of an hour.  Some of the Crusader Games gladiators are nice hefty, chunky sculpts that might lend themselves better to a 45-minute speed paint. 

I should go back and paint the studs on his belt and armor straps before I varnish him.  

Back to the Ludus

Tonight I got out the remaining gladiators I'd bought for Sons of Mars, a mixture of figures from Crusader Miniatures and Wargames Foundry, and got the figures cleaned up, trimmed any remaining flash off of them, and glued them down to bases.

All told, it's 30 gladiators of varying types, including a number of convicts still in their shackles, a lion, and the Emperor Nero himself - who has been glued to a 50mm round base, and set back towards one edge because I'm going to make him part of a turn-counter. 

considering the state he's in, maybe it's only 29 1/2 gladiators...

I need to figure out how I'm going to prime them, given that it's reached the point in the year where it's going to be too cold and damp to use the rattle can outdoors and I don't have an airbrush.  But getting these done is my number one priority on the miniatures and wargaming front. 

I had ordered an "Arena" battle mat almost two months ago, which has not arrived yet, and the company has not responded to now two emails I've sent asking if it's been shipped (and to supply me with a tracking number if it has) or if there have been delays in production.  I'm going to give it a couple more days and then, if I don't hear from them, put in a Paypal dispute and request a refund.  I'm not happy about it coming to that, but so it goes. 

5 More Gladiators

One of my fellow wargamers organized a small painting get-together at our FLGS yesterday, and by small, I mean it was he, myself, and his girlfriend sitting around talking and painting - they were each working on their respective Age of Sigmar armies, while I had five gladiators primed and ready for painting. Neither one of them was aware that there were games out there that didn't have associated miniatures lines; I think I might have sold them on giving Frostgrave a try, but I'm not sure they were as keen on Sons of Mars. Historical games (that aren't WWII) seem to be a harder sell around here.  C'est la vie.

Over the course of four hours, I managed to finish off all five figures I'd brought with me, minus bases (I'm getting some Vallejo basing gel "sand paste" to finish off those) and two shields for the new Murmillones.

Retiarius

Laquerius

Murmillo

Retiarius

Murmillo

"We Who Are About To Die..."

After moving to a new apartment, unpacking, and almost immediately losing my painting mojo, this past weekend I finally managed to put paint to figures, painting up my first three gladiators for Sons of Mars: A Murmillo, a Retiarius, and a very special Thracian:

Murmillo

Retiarius

"I'm Spartacus!"

I have no idea what I'm going to do with the bases. I have two more Murmillones and Retiarii, and one each of a Lacquerius and a Crupellarius from Crusader Miniatures left on my workbench; then another 21 gladiators, a lion and the Emperor Nero are coming from Wargames Foundry in the near future. Next step, learn the game!

"Ave, Imperator, Morituri te Salutant!"

North Star announced sales of a new gladiatorial combat game, "Sons of Mars," the other day, offering a free pack of gladiators with purchases of the rulebook until August 1st.  After some deliberation, given that I'm supposed to be packing up to move to a new apartment, I pulled the trigger and placed an order for the rulebook and a pack of Murmillones - and selecting a pack of Retiarii for my free bonus pack.  I know North Star ships promptly and I'm not worried about it not arriving before we move. 

Author Joe Veltre has posted a couple videos on Youtube discussing the rules and gameplay, and it's hard to argue with a skirmish game where you might be in command of as few as a single figure.  I figure it's worth a try and I could use a little retail therapy lately.