About 10 years (yes really 10!), coinciding with the release of a little movie called Gladiator, I begin collecting my own stable of Foundry gladiators and with a group of roleplaying buddies lived a couple of months as a lanista, playing out our fantasies on the tabletop.
I have always liked gladiators since I was a kid (Do you like movies about gladiators?), there is just something about their armor and weaponry, the mystery surrounding the men and the one on one combats that really does it for me. So I can't blame my fascination wholly on the movie. Since though my gladiators have sat in a GW case gathering dust, rarely seeing the light of day. That is until I started watching this.
At first I thought what a load of rubbish, a total rip off of every sword and sandal movie ever made , with a heavy dose of 300 thrown in for good measure - but something happened. After cutting through all the crap, this thing actually started to grow on me.Yeah so it's not historically correct and sometimes the combats are laughable, but behind it all are gladiators and for me that's what its all about. The armor and weapons at least appear authentic enough, even if they are being used by leaping Adonis'.
To cut a long story short (or shorter maybe?), I've been influenced AGAIN by the media to start another gladiator campaign. Warranted it is something I've always wanted to do again, I just didn't think it would be now. Fortunately I have a lot of good miniatures already and have been dieing to round them off with Crusader's beauties. One thing I always regretted about our old games though, was the lack of any real arena, we just played it on a flat hex-grid. I endeavor to fix that. Work has already started on an arena, pictures are soon to follow.
The good thing about gladiator type games is that they can be played as fillers around bigger games (like our Sharp Practice Indostan campaign), when time is a little tight or no big game has been prepared. It is an easier thing to crack out the arena and have a couple of bouts. Stay tuned.
I suspect that Gladiator ( and to an extent 300) may become a touch stone movie for wargamers of a younger generation in a way that Zulu was for older gamers.
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