Game Day at Work

I waited about a year for this event at my new workplace.  On this day I introduce my hobby to my co-workers. This is apparently the standard delay time I've set myself to follow for the last three (?) companies at which I've been employed.  Usually I get a good balance of men and women. This year my three male coworkers were joined by a female one.

Overview

These were all boardgame enthusiasts but I would classify them as Eurogamers because they've had little exposure to wargaming or tabletop miniatures gaming.

I brought in most of my ready material and gave a history of tabletop wargaming, my pursuit of the hobby since childhood (some 45 years ago) and why this sort of pastime is interesting to me.  I explained the concepts of thematics, verisimilitude, crunch, fiddlyness, and heavyness.

• thematics - game design and game-play which tightly conveys theme. Desired.
• verisimilitude - game-play which seems "real enough".  Desired.
• crunch - simulation of process in support of verisimilitude.  Need to minimize.
• fiddlyness - over-design of components or labor-intensive game-play steps. Need to minimize.
• heavyness - large amount of decision making opportunities. Need to balance. 

The Games

I showed a few of my wargame designs; Barbarian Suns, Barbarian Suns II, Swashbuckling, Giant Robots of World War II, and then MEST Tactics. This show-and-tell portion took about 90 minutes and I think my colleagues were impressed, which makes me happy. 

MEST Tactics Demonstration Game

This is where I set up the MEST Fantasy Gladiators demo session.

The Participation

There were 4 players, and I gave each about 600 BP worth of characters which comes to 3 models each. I estimated about 90 to 120 minutes maximum, but it took about 150 minutes. I think this is because I didn't factor in multiple newbie players. Lessee ... 12 models x 10 minutes for 2 new players = 120 minutes.

The Response

I think the players were shocked that the game involved so many rules. However, the game did make sense to most of them. One of the questions was why did players have to "roll-to-hit" and then also "roll-to-damage". That's fair, and I stated that it was tradition to know the difference between accuracy and effect since MEST Tactics is a tabletop wargame with it origins in simulating combat.

Gaming Day Pictures

Here are the pictures of that day!

Barbarian Suns. This is version 1 from 1998 or so.

Giant Robots of World War II. This was completed in 2010 or so.

MEST Tactics: Fantasy Gladiators. This is the starting arrangement.

Medusa. Key feature is Fear 5. Models within 5-MU are affected!

Akeleb. Spearman.

Leonidas. Spearman.

The character profile card for Leonidas. This is about 3 by 5 inches.

Links

Learn more about these various designs here;

• Giant Robots of World War II
• MEST Tactics: Fantasy Gladiators
• Barbarian Suns

MEST Tactics :: Fantasy Gladiator v2.x Cards

EDIT: 2018-06-11 Updated the images of the cards to match the current version with altered Trample and Bite traits and capabilities

Overview

I've been play-testing the new MEST Tactics v2.x rules with my nephew and brother and as a result I wanted to increase the variety. As a result, I've been updating my demo cards for the Fantasy Gladiator genre. Unlike the v1.6 version, these cards have three variations for each of my characters. I figured I'd start doing this because it makes for more interesting combinations of combatants.

I'm also using my new points-costing system from MEST v2.x. It's a bit more complex and is meant to only be used as a build-your-own tool since my intention is to have each genre document (Mythos, Gothic Horror, etc) to have pre-built archetypes for each faction. Anyhow, the new points system seem to be a bit more balanced, but only time can tell.

The Gladiator Variations :: Chaka

So, each warrior has three variations on itself. The most basic is just whatever the Sophont (i.e.; species) defaults are plus some weapons, armor, and equipment. To add some flavor, I introduced character-specific traits as well.

Here's Chaka in his most basic form, for example;

Gray Chaka. Just an Average Common Archetype plus Acrobatic and Sneaky. Don't mess with Chaka!

And here's two more versions, Red, and Blue.

Blue Chaka. Blue variations concentrate on adding Tactics or Leadership; both of which are very expensive. Blue Chaka is about 25% more (+24 BP) in cost than Gray Chaka.

Red Chaka. Red variations focus mostly on improving the character for combat. Very expensive as well; Red Chaka is about 50% more (+41 BP) than Gray Chaka. This version provides +1 REF, STR, +1 FOR, and +Brawn. 

The Others :: Perlo

I always thought that Perlo with his two swords was always unfairly treated by the default rules. In that, having multiple weapons is nice but not very cinematic in feel during game-play. And so I added the Multi-strike trait just for him.

Gray Perlo with Multi-strike. Nasty little guy.

Red Perlo is even scarier; +Fight, +Brawl, and then +1 CCA, +1 POW, +1 STR, and +1 FOR. At 111 BP, this figure is well worth the investment. When compared to Blue Chaka (above), Red Perlo is definitely more about getting into melee and kicking butt.

The Others :: Iago, Azazel, and Baal.

This is from my last post; I recently acquire and prepped some new figures. 

Here's Gray Iago. He's got Winged Flight and Bite 2 at STR 3. The Leap will offset the penalties of the [Winged] Disability trait which requires that Iago has enough room to start Flying status. Bite is now shown with a penalty of -2 Modifier dice for Attacker and Defender (when interrupted by a React).

This is Gray Azazel. You may notice that Azazel is a Robustus Centaur; he's got SIZ 5 and and Brawn 2. Compare him with Gray Chiron below. Notice that Trample is now a weapon stat-line using SIZ. The (?) indicates additional Impact and Modifier dice are received for each SIZ larger than the target, which must already be SIZ - 1 or smaller.

Gray Chiron is a Gracilis Centaur; at SIZ 5 he's smaller than Azazel but he has Detect 2 instead of Azazel's Detect 1. Otherwise these centaurs have nearly identical baseline attributes and traits. Also notice that I made the Centaurs (both Azazel and Chiron) have INT 1; this will force them to be more about speed of movement and less of leadership or tactics during game-play.

The Others :: Selgir and Medusa

My two favorite characters are Medusa and Selgir. Like the others gladiators in v2.0, I've updated their character cards and re-jiggered their point costs.

Red Medusa is the scariest gladiator in the entire set with her Fear 4. I needed to adjust that trait a bit, but the result is that it makes her cost 329 BP. Is she worth nearly triple the other fighters? I think so, that is; until I can get some archers and sorcerer figures to allow some range-combat opponents for her.

Red Selgir. Selgir gets POW 4 and Grit 2. This makes Selgir the most courageous gladiator of the entire set.  Also see the red triangles at Selgir's REF and MOV. These are the [Laden] penalties called out for wearing Medium Armor and Medium Shield. The penalties are -1 REF when Distracted, and half normal Agility.

This is Red Selgir's Fear Test comparison against Medusa. You can see that Selgir only gets 1 or more Fear tokens about 11% of the time. With the v2.x Grit rules, Selgir's Grit 2 allows him to convert one of those tokens into a Delay token instead. This makes Red Selgir able to approach Medusa usually uncompromised by Fear.

Downloads

You can either go to the Downloads section or click here for the updated documents.

• Fantasy Gladiators v2.x (WIP; for MEST 2.x)
• MEST v2.x WIP document (plain text).

Latest Creations

Here's some pics of the results of my labors in the world of terrain building.

Greek Pantheon

I was able to complete my Greek Pantheon. I built it very quick with the intention for use in 28MM scale gaming for MEST Tactics.

This is my Greek temple. It is modeled after the Greek Pantheon and I think it will be very useful in my Mythos and VSF settings. In the back of the building you can see the new walls that I recently crafted.

Here's a photo of the original Pantheon.

Side view of the Pantheon. I painted the dome gold and the bases of the columns as well. It made the entire thing just "pop" from its old drab brown looks.

A back corner. Figures for scale. Unfortunately, I built this originally for my daughter's school project on Greek mythology and so I didn't craft it with removable walls. The interior would basically be alcoves with statues of the Greek gods upon pedestals.

A final close-up look of the Pantheon for showing the scale.

New Gladiators

I also acquired some new 1:18 scale (90MM) figures and painted them up after basing them. These go with my main MEST Tactics demo set for the Fantasy Gladiator genre.

This is "Azazel"; he's a bit bigger than my other centaur "Chiron". I'll have another blog post discussing my updated character cards for the Fantasy Gladiator builds soon. Azazel is available from Safari Ltd.

This is "Iago". He's a fairly large griffin also available from Safari Ltd. Originally the plumage on this figurine was shiny gold and so I dry-brushed it with brown and then tan to keep it more subtle and per se realistic.

I added a metal screw to the chest of Iago. This allows me to mount him upon a magnet with a stand. Here's Iago and Azazel together for scale.

Here's Iago's stand. In the latest MEST 2.x build I added Flight as a trait. It seems to work fine in solo-play but I'll find out soon when I play-test with my nephew.

This big guy is Baal; "lord" of the desert. Like Iago, I dry-brushed the figurine to make it look more realistic because the original design is as a "swamp dragon" from Safari Ltd.

I need a new camera; my macro pics are terrible. Anyhow, this is Baal and Azazel near each other.

For scale, here is a 28MM model next to Baal which is 90MM. I fully intend to use Baal in my 28MM gaming as well!

New Objective Markers

These five objective markers [OMs] I created for the 90MM Fantasy Gladiator set, but I made them generic enough for use in my 28MM gaming.

Purple rocks, gears, bronze bullions, bundle of sticks, some weird metallic boxes. I've got about three more OMs to create and then I'll have enough for a good race-and-capture gaming session.

And here's the 28MM figure at the center of it all.

Side-note :: Gladiator Battles

OVERVIEW

Clarification; I've recently been dreaming about building out some new terrain.

One of my wandering thoughts deals with building a 25 to 28mm scale Roman Arena for gladiatorial battles. At present, I have my 1:18 Schleich figures for the MEST Fantasy Gladiator build out, but these require about a 6 x 6 foot area to play properly ... maybe more if I were to truly challenge the Centaur and the various cats (all sprinters).

Anyhow, I've got some inspiration from watching these gladiator combat schools (German and Italian) where re-enactors employ their training. There's some really cool action clips.

Here's a bunch together:

ANALYSIS

What I find interesting is the use of the net and trident by the setarii. The nets are thrown for distracting the opponents (usually a secutor) and the tridents are used in attempts to pull the legs from under the secutorii. This is quite different than how I imagined them being used; to disarm the opponent and to stab them.

I also noticed; the use of spears is amazing. It gives a greater reach (as in MEST "Reach" trait), but also it can bypass defenses. The single-hand use is very common for that. So; two hands for stabbing, but one hand for reaching over shields.

Lastly, tall gladiators have a fairly visible advantage. Their longer reach mimics the spear in some cases; allowing them to bypass shields.

SUMMARY

I'll eventually build my arena, and then I'll get some figures to match. I'm thinking of building out a ludus campaign for managing gladiatorial battles and it may become another genre + setting within MEST. However, this will probably be months if not years from now given my current pace. =)