Mortal Combat.
The ultimate test of masculinity, of survival, of your ability to inflict more pain, and endure long enough to survive at the whim of the Arenas fancy.
A slave. A violent, murderous, savage former warrior style slave. Sold for profit, and then literally whipped into shape, obedience and servility. Well unless you are Russell Crowe.
Until you are unleashed in the arena. Where your skill, reflexes and timing are all that stand between you and a painful death by blade of some type.
The working title -Blood & Sand at its heart is about this and more.
The more is where the fun, some strategy and opposed competitiveness come out, perhaps more so than the die rolling to bleed out your opponent.
The Ludus or school for gladiators is led by you the Lanista.
Your goal is notoriety and profit. To have the best stable of winning warriors, the best training, herbal remedies, weapons and trainers. It is your job to recruit/purchase gladiators from auction, feed them and provide them with weapons and bet on their success, and then continue building upon your Ludus.
There are several types of Gladiators in this game.
Retiarus
Hoplomachus
Secutor
Murmillo
Dimarchaerus
Thraex
We however will focus on the action. Each player or fighter once in the Arena, receives a certain number of cards from a deck of 60, and a certain number each per round. You may try and flank for advantage, attack or if being attacked save, parry, block or roll to dodge [the most challenging thing to do]. Your Strength , Agility and Stamina are impacted by the number of hits taken. Each class above has varied skills and different abilities represented upon cards, some aid you, others your opponent.
I played for example a Dimarchaerus using two swords, so the card below is great for me. I can parry a successful attack, then counter attack inflicting three hits.
Positional advantage allows for easier attacks and can make saving from attacks hard for your opponent.
The battles play in rounds and go thick and fast. Of course luck enters into the equation in two primary and obvious ways; the card draws and dicing for saves etc.
The bastard with the pointy thing got a head start on hits with me. Then I made a choice to take a chance on a discard vs some other action. Which then plagued me the balance of the fight. As I lay bleeding out, there was no opportunity for the mercy thumbs up thumbs down request as hs savage attacks demolished my hit points.
Lotsa fun!
Now the game does or will come with counters, possibly cardboard stands, but it would be even better if Compass could strike a deal for some form of add on in the Kickstarter they usually do, or at least obtain some affiliate relationship with a minis maker/printer to allow for minis at X or Y scale and make sure the map etc allows them all to fit. The mnis really brought the experience to life.
