This is oMAD´s first play report. Yay!

I played a small Red Sands, Blue Sky combat between some unnamed and forgotten gladiators in the fringes of the empire. It´s been a while since I played this excellent game and wanted to brush up on the rules before diving into a full campaign.

You can see the arena I built for these games. The other gladiators are just “scenery”. It makes the arena look crowded and adds to the visual spectacle (and wargaming should always look beautiful)

I came up with a murmillo and a thraex NPC opponent. Here you can see both gladiators entering the arena. The chips behind them are their dice pools (he, Rep4 20DP, she, Rep3 DP15)

As you probably know if you tried this rules, the game goes real quick. The dice pool expenditure is vital and the battle last about as much as a real match would last. At least when you only play 1 fighter.

They closed in fast and then it was just a matter of flanking the opponent and trying to get a punch in. As I was rereading the rules, I wasn´t so hot on the tactical aspect. I was more worried in remembering procedures.

My guy managed to flank and wound the thraex´s left arm. Then she wounded my guy on a leg, but the pools were getting low.

Finally, a failed attempt to flank my guy got her in the ground from a head hit. My guy had the chance to get in close and strike her while fallen, and she had to spend her last dice.

The match was over with only 2 dice in my murmillo´s pool. That´s real close for differing Rep fighters, and of course really fast since both have pretty low reps.

Had some fun playing with them toys, and I just need to reread the rules now away from the table to get ready for the campaing. I shall paint a few more gladiators while I´m at it. There are two retiarius waiting on the workbench and I guess they´re next.