I have added some new recruits to my ludus. The Foundry figures I have had for maybe 20 years sitting amongst my shameful lead pile. These were deemed "not very useful" by my younger self - including "triumphant", dead and wounded gladiators. I know now they will make for some nice imagery in my arena. The Crusader murmillo and retiarius have been on the to do list for years as well.
I have just made a free Blood on the Sands Quick Start version available for anyone to download and try out. Just go to the Blood on the Sands Facebook page and follow. I would love to hear people's thoughts and experiences with the game. I'll leave you with some random images of my arena and some games of BotS in progress.
As if running the Gangs of Rome table for two days straight at MOAB wasn't enough, I somehow agreed to put on a third day of demoing, but this time my own gladiator ruleset, Blood on the Sands.
Anyone who still reads this blog may realise I have been working on Blood on the Sands, on and off, since 2013 (embarrassingly). Admittedly there were some long hiatuses between versions but BotS never truly left my mind. It was during our Covid lock downs here in Australia that I really started dedicating a lot more time to it.
Blood on the Sands was born on the Lead Adventure Forum, in my opinion, in it's day, one of the finest forums where gathered some of the most talented people in the hobby. Like blogs, I fear that LAF and other forums, were overshadowed by the lure of social media and slowly their members found other, shinier places, to discuss their hobby. It is still today a great source of inspiration. My Blood on the Sands post on LAF still claims fame as the most viewed unpinned post on the Ancients board (to date standing in at 181,731 total views). The 10 year long Blood on the Sands post can be found here for anyone with 14 hours to kill.
Here and now, still quite a few years later, Blood on the Sands is thankfully in a much better place and is a body of work that I feel really proud of. The rules are to the stage where they require a bloody good bit of editing and although rule tweaks and modifications go on constantly, they are mostly complete. I endeavor to move forward with Blood on the Sands in my seemingly eternal quest to find a publisher.
I ask anyone with any interest in Blood on the Sands to please join the new Facebook page to stay up to date with further developments.https://www.facebook.com/bloodonthesands
Here are some pics of Blood on the Sands being played at MOAB, in Sydney Australia. A very special thank you to Paul from The Man Cave for playing, such an enthusiastic and positive player, and generally all around great bloke. Damian and Ed who brought along their own contubernia of Roman legionary reenactors, Damian of whom has been play testing BotS since the beginning. And lastly but definitely not least, Victor, who helped run new players through the rules and who has been a constant sounding board for my gladiatorial delusions and vital play tester.
What follows is a photo dump from the two days demoing Gangs of Rome at our local MOAB convention. The games were very successful with many complimentary comments on both the mechanics and table layout. Gangs of Rome 2nd edition is proving to be just as popular, if not more, the second time around.
https://footsoreminiatures.co.uk/pages/gangs-of-rome-home
