About a week before I was rushed to hospital, I'd bought the board game "Spartacus, a game of Blood and Spectacle", fairly cheaply (well under £40). The game itself is based on the well-known TV series and simply oozes theme from the box artwork to the contents, with many characters instantly recognisable and just about any named character is represented. Those characters that are not in the game are, of course, represented in either of the two supplements - both of which are sadly not in production and would probably need a second mortgage to purchase. The supplements, make provision to make the game six players and give additional cards and some figures. The photograph below shows the four figures (tokens) that come with the game and don't relate at all to their gladiatorial purpose, they're merely one for each player.
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| Not bad minis, l to r, a Retiarius, a Myrmillo, a Dimachaerius and a goodness knows. what |
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| Cards for each player's Ludus, with influence track and special abilities. etc. |
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| The arena playing area, but not where all the action takes place! |
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| The intrigue deck of cards- all 104 of them |
Other than some 'housekeeping' needs, the first phase of play is the "Intrigur" phase, were deals are made, schemes are untertaken withor without assistance and general spying and skullduggery can be undertaken. This is an important part of the game, shaping alliance and enemies etc.
The auction is the second major phase of the game and will gain greater importance as the game moves n, when cash is everything.
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The Market cards, slaves, weapons, potential gladiators all up for Auction
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| Rules, dice, counters (lots) and coins. |
The last phase is the Arena phase, bidding to host the games, invite gladiators etc. all with the intention of gaining influence over the others.
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| Turn Summary card |
So how does it play out ? Well, I don't know, the chance of getting four willing participants is currently not on the horizon, but I can sit in hope - and the game does look good !
Well that's it for another week where I probably pushed myself far too much and regretted it very quickly so this week I'm taking it far easier.
Thanks for taking the time to visit, hopefully there was something of interest and as always your comments are welcomed and truly appreciated.
Great looking game Joe, do hope you can find some willing participants, once you've recovered from pushing too hard.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave, I'm here for the long haul it seems. This won't be the first game that I've bought and never played.
DeleteLooking really great sir!
ReplyDeleteThanks you Michal.
DeleteLooks like a good game, Joe! Hopefully you can find someone who'll take you on!
ReplyDeleteThanks Matt, I'll have a window of opportunity to play
Deletenext January, when I'm on holiday
Looks like a good game, what sizes are the tokens? I think I'm going to try and coble together a unit of gladiator types, I hope you won't be too offended by the fact they won't be historically accurate!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Thanks Iain, the figues are about 25mm tall iirc, with smallish hex bases to match.
DeleteI'm all for using anything to represent anything else ! Short of figures ? - use knights, anything ! In my eyes the game has always been more important than the components (just as well, given my lack of painting skills).
Is this suitable for a starting wargamer under 10 years???
ReplyDeleteThanks Phil and srry for the late reply, the fighting aspect is only a small part of the game, there'sa lot of introgue and backstabbing via the event cards, but I still think a youngster could get a lot of fun out of it.
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