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 !