Ludus Gladiatorius - The First Bout.

Ludus Gladiatorius - The first bout.

Last Thursday saw me host the first bout of my Gladiator Game - Ludus Gladiatorius. I, along with my two mates Nick and Callum took two gladiators each and fought on the sands for the glory of our Ludus.








I took Caladus the Secutor and Leonidus the Murmillo.

Nick took Primus the Velite and Catigern the Hoplomachus.

Whilst Callum had Aurellius the Murmillo and Acastus the Thraex

 

 The gladiators set up randomly around the arena.

 

 

 The first moves and attacks are made. Caladus makes a swift stroke in the rear against Acastus. Whilst Catigern gets attacked by Aurellius with Primus attacking Aurellius.

 

 

 Catigern breaks off from the previous attack and moves to threaten Leonidus whilst the Murmillo is attacking Primus in the rear.

 

 

 Acastus the Thraex manouvers around Caldus and hits him hard.

 

 

 Caladus shrugs off the Thraex attack and retaliates, not only wounding Acastus but knocking him to the ground.

 

 

 On the other side of the arena Leonidus attacks Aurellius Critically and  DECAPITATES him! Whilst Primus moves up to support Catigern.

 

 

 Acastus the Thraex recovers from been knocked down by Caladus and leaps to his feet swinging wildly with his sword and kicking sand in Caladus' face. Caladus is briefly blinded and overwhelmed and the Thraex's attack slips past his defence and DECAPITATES the struggling Secutor! 

 

 

 Whilst the crowd are screaming with excitment over two Decapitations, Catigern Severs Leonidus' left arm leaving him without his shield and bleeding heavily into the sands, this violent attack is quickly followed up with Catigern shoving his spear right though Leonidus's neck and resluting in the third DECAPITATION! of the night.

 

At this point my phone died so no more pics im afraid. The arena was covered in the spilt blood of three gladiators leaving Acastus to face off against Catigern and Primus.

 

Primus moved in and threw a javelin against Acastus grazing him and causing a minor wound. The Thraex retaliated and charged into the lightly armoured Velite and took him out in a Savage Attack. The Velite hit the ground and submitted. The crowd howled its approval and Primus was allowed to live.

 

Catigern attacked in revenge for his fellow gladiator but Acastus defended deftly. In return the Thaex managed to Sever the right arm of the Hoplomachus and then kicked him in the groin. The Hoplomachus collapsed to the ground and bled out from his severed arm.

 

Acastus was Victorius and took the laurels and acclaim dutifully awarded.

Warlord Bolt Action Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) Force

Now that I have finished my Gladiator project (for now) I have moved on to my Bolt Action force. Initially I was going to do a 1000pt German Fallschirmjager Platoon with added Stug G but these have taken a back seat to my whimsical attentions.

My new shiny butterfly moment has included the last week which saw the building, gluing and basing of a large Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) force. I also have enough plastic left over to do a full 3 sections plus command for a Imperial Japanese Naval (IJN) platoon as well, but that will wait a bit.

BANZAI !!!!!!!!!!

MMG team, Medium Mortar, Flamerthrower, Snipers and Light Mortars

IJA Section and Suicide Tank Hunters

IJA Infantry Sections

IJA Section, Platoon Commander, Medic and FAO



Chi-Ha Shingoto and Ho-Ni 111 Tank Destroyer

Heroes of Normandie

Heroes of Normandie is a new WW2 boardgame by Devil Pig Games.

The time is summer 1944. The Sun shines on Normandie hedgerows (yes, Devil Pig Games call it ‘Normandie’ and not ‘Normandy’ because they are French). Gentle winds blow and the  fields are full of bright flowers, in the background though, the romantic staccato of a machine gun fire and the crump and blast of explosions!.

In these typical Normandie landscapes, thousands of men are about to fight. And die. Bravely like heroes, or cowardly like wussies. We don’t give a shit about wussies! We are only concerned by heroes, those you see in Hollywood Golden Age war movies : “A bridge too far”, “The Longest Day”, “The Dirty Dozen”, “Patton”, “Kelly’s heroes” and, more recently, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Band of Brothers” and “Inglorious Basterds”.

The basic gamestyle allows you to play heroic and play bloody! Heroes of Normandie is a squad/platoon sized game. Opposing forces can be controlled by a pair of players or even multipayer and in the starter game cover German armies on one side and American on the other which are made up of infantry, tanks and of course, heroes. Each unit has its own set of unique characteristics and skills depicted on its token. All can be seen at a glance.

The basic game is further extended by the D-Day expansion pack and with US Rangers and SS Panzergrenadiers giving you more varied platoons and heroes.

We, Who Are About To Die Salute You - Part 2

 
Ludus Gladiatorius

Second and final part (for now) of my fledgling Gladiator Project. Another four Gladiators finished and ready to take to the sands to gain glory and acclaim for themselves and their Ludus. This time we have an Hoplomachus, Murmillo, Retiarius and Velite.

Now these are done I will be moving on to building my Bolt Action WW2 28mm Japanese forces.

Hoplomachus

 

Murmillo

 

Retiarius

 

Velite

 

Blood on the Sands

We, Who Are About To Die Salute You - Part 1

 

Finally up for show are the first models and game board for my Ludus Gladiatorius project. I have completely finished four Gladiators and the gaming board.

The board was made from 4mm MDF and I glued a load of Heroscape tiles ontop to make the hex grid. A quick trip to Wilkinsons and some sand coloured tester pots later I have a pretty decent board (in my opinion)

The Gladiator miniatures have turned out better than I imagined.

So are you not entertained!!!

The Arena

Let combat commence



Murmilo

Retiarius

Thraex

Secutor

Across the Dead Earth Painted Miniatures

As a few of you will be aware I have been deeply involved in Across the Dead Earth, investing heavily in the recent Kickstarter and registering as a beta tester along side other blogger notaries such as Brummie and Lord Siwoc. 

Being involved has allowed us access to early development rules etc and we have had the pleasure of discussing the game with Rich and Mike from Dead Earth Games, adding our input and even having the opportunity to have our own Dead Earth Avatars in the guise of gang members for the State faction (quasi fascist governmental paramilitary)

Another added bonus for being involved was the early receipt of a number of miniatures for another faction - The Family. 

Both Brummie and Lord Siwoc have already posted their competed figures and even though I finished painting mine first I have been tardy in my blogging. So without further waffle I present The Family. 

Adam - The Leader

Skylar - Scout

Ezra - Medic

Drexyl - Sharpshooter

UK Games Expo

The weekend just gone saw me attend the UK Games Expo, hosted this year in Birmingham at the Hilton Hotel. Being only a short hour and half down the road from Cambridgeshire it was an ideal place and event to visit and another main reason was that for the whole weekend I would be working along side the guys from GCT Studios on their stand, promoting and demoing Bushido.

For anyone who has not visited the Games Expo, it is centered mainly on boardgames and the like with only a few miniature games hosted. The main ones were Bushido, Dropzone Commander by Hawk Wargames and Mantic games (Ronnie Renton was in attendance and he showed me a pre-production box set of the new Mars Attack game which looks immense and I can not wait to receive all my shiny Martian goodies from the Kickstarter they ran)

Alot of UK Cos-Players also attend the Expo and its nice to walk round the stalls and see all the great boardgames on display and then end up discussing them with a Clone Trooper, Cat Woman or even a Female Thor!

The weekend was very busy and its established that just over 9000 people attended the Expo which is brilliant.

As I was working the majority of the show doing demos (which I had a fantastic time doing and seemed to be immensly well received by the ammount of Bushido stuff people were buying afterwards) I didnt get to take pictures of many of the games on display but I did manage to get accosted by a few of the Cos-Players who forced me to have my picture taken with them !!!

Saturday night saw myself, Toby and Gordon from GCT take on Simon and Louie from Hawk Wargames in a large battle of the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures game. We took X-Wings and the Hawk guys took the Imperials with a swarm of TIE Fighters. Toby went out in a fizzle very early on, whilst myself and Gordon put up a valiant fight downing TIE's one after another. Unfortunately the odds were against us heroic rebels and the Evil Empire managed to take down our ships.

A cracking night and it was great getting to know the Hawk Guys.


Really looking forward to next years show and hopefully I can get working with the GCT crew again.