Happy Mithrasmas

Yes, it's that time of year once more when we celebrate the birth of Mithras.

Where we dress in our finest clothes, visit one another and exchange presents whether over the time of the winter celebrations of Mithras or the feasting at the Roman celebration of Saturnalia.
So, raise a glass, slaughter your bull, put a Druidic Log on your Yuletide fire, imbibe some strong drink and enerally have a good time.
The photograph shows a small part of my gladiator collection wondering why there is a snow-laden fir tree in the arena.

From all of us here at the Ludus of Josephus have a merry Mithrasmas.

P.S. Sorry for the day's delay in posting, but I was poorly yesterday after a visit to the hospital where I found my appointment had been cancelled!

Gladiator - Summary.

We concluded our last Munus (games) of the first year, with three of us participating in just two games. The game I played in, I lost, but my gladiator survived and got only 1 less fame point than the winner, because my gladiator was two tiers (levels) below my opponent and gained credit for that. 

The other game played was a match between a Retiarius and a Secutor, for which I took a prefuse number of photographs - nearly fifty photographs overall.

I took photographs further out than normal, trying to keep the large iron gate in each photo. The first photograph shows the intial set-up (as always), Secutor on the left and the Retiarius (net man) on the right.
I've ony selected the first two  moves worth of photographs, but it does show just how much movement there is in a game.

Turn 1, after two attacks the secutor hasn't hurt the Retiarius.

 Turn 1 (still), the Retiarius throws his net, misses, then puts in a driven attack against the retiarius.

Turn 2, the Retiarius (wins the initiative) and attempts to recieve his net

The retiarius has retreaved his net and succesfaully throws it at the Secutor

The retiarius fails to wound the Secutor with a special attack...

The Secutor falls back, and removes one of the two action dice lost

So, six photographs show most of the too and fro of just two turns of the game. Each turn there are a lot of decisions for a player to make, mostly surround the roll of his six action dice.

This game went on for 11 turns with neither gladiator striking a telling wound on his opponent, Eventually the retiarius' dice rolling finally let him down and he had to appeal to the crowd for mercy.

After quite a tense run through the "appeal to the crowd " table, the decision was passed on to the editor (organiser) of the game (another table). Eventually after a songle recount, the retiarus was granted meryc and he would live to fight another day, 

There was a little more paperwork to do, as this was the final munus of the year, crowns of Laurelswere awarded, champions decided and fame alloted.

We're giving it a rest this week, but playing the boardgame "Spartacus" instead.

That's it for another week hopefully you found something of interest and as always, your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

The Saturnalia Munus

 "The Sagurnalia Munus" or in other words the "The Xmas Games". Saturnalia is the Roman equivalent of the Xmas holiday, where the Romans dressed up in their best clothes, exchanged presents and got a little tipsy, much like our present day celebrations.

In our Gladiator games' terms it's the last games of the year, where crowns are awarded for wins and champions are selected.

The highlight of the games was the fight between the two best gladiators our players had.

In this case it was my level 3 Hoplomachus (the chap on the left with the spear against the brute of a character, a Murmillo.

This is my attempt at giving a blow by blow account of how the fight went, with the photograph above showing their start poisition.

The primary 'feature' of this munus was that the editor wanted to see Hoplomachi, (hence this fight) and the particular event for this fight was that it was "Sine Missione",  that is to say "To the death". So one or other of the two highest level gladiators was going to die ! 

"Catch me if you can"

Turn 1, (Photographs above), after winning the initiative the Hoplomachus rolls an unstoppable double six for his long range attack, wounding the Murmillo in his right arm - a mere scratch, then he retreated

The Murmillo does catch the Hoplomachus, forcing him to retire.

The Mumillo catches the Hoplomachus, attacks and though he doesen''t beat the Hoplomachus' defence, it's enough to force him back.

Turn two 

Turn two another attack by the initiaitve winning Hoplonachus see the defending Murmillo roll "snake eyes", another automatic hit " The murmillo suffers a slow kill wound (of doom) to his shield arm, causing him to to bleed (losing an extra fatigue each turn. The attack of the Murmillo is feeble and easily repulsed.

From my viewpoint, all was going better than planned

Turn 3 and the Mumillo is on the ascendancy!

Turn 3 saw the Murmillo win the initiative and unleashed a deadly blow, a deep wound to my Hoplomachus' right leg, causing a bleed token too.

 

Turn three and the Murmillo inflics a deep wound on the Hoplomahcus.

My Hoplomachus  returns a flurry of three attacks on the Murmillo who stubbornly refuses to be hit.

Starting position at the start of turn 4

Turn four and the dastardly Murmillo once more has the initiative (my luck seems to have run out)

Here he comes...causing me to retreat

Eventually the Murmillo causes another deep wound to the Hoplomachus' right arm

Turn five and the Murmillo has sportingly lost the initieative and my Hoplomachus (bleeding profusely) can finally attempt a comeback

Manouvering around the Murmillo, my attack had little effect

The Murmillo's attacks didn't all prove futile, he inflicted a single flesh wound to my Hoplomachus' head.

 Both gladiators are now tiring.

Turn 6, with the starting position as in the photograph above, winning the intiative was very important, the middle game had passed and we were now at the begining of the end phase.

I'd had enough wounds (3) to lose one of my action dice (a bad blow at this stage of the game), my opponent, true to form, was fierce and didn't lose a die until he had four wounds.
We rolled for intiaitve and I narrowly won by one pip! We rolled the action dice, I had 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, enough for two attacks if I used the 6 (a wild die) my opponent rolled 1,3,3,3,4,5 enough to give him two attacks too (the '4' and the '5'). I decided to retain the initiative, used the '2' to get a parry token nd the '5' to use my special attack - an extended, aimed lunge.
I rolled the attack, a middling roll, but one my opponent couldn't beat - he'd used up his parry tokens and hadn't yet replenished tham.

My hit location roll was two off the area I needed to hit, but because I had an aimed shot I could adjust it to hit his left arm. I no needed to cause at least a single owund on the area with a roll of 6+ on two dice. The roll was a six ! I had inflicted a single wound  disabling the Murmillo's left arm and thus ending the fight. With "Sine Missione" in effect the murmillo's life was ended....

The end !

Taking photographs and writing notes for this game report meant we'd played about an hour or so for just the six turns (five and a half really as my oppnent didn;t get his sixth.

My gladiator's playsheet at game's end.

My opponent's playsheet.

It was a great game played well by both of us and thoroughly enjoyable, with at least another game too this week.

That's it then for another week, hopefully you 've enjoyed this write-up as much as I have putting it together.

As always your comments are welcomed and truly appreciated.,

IO SATURNALIA !