Gladiator Rules Summary

Get a full copy of the rules from Spirit Games for just £12.99 (including P&P) from this link. The cost will fall if we put in a "bulk order" - e.g. if we order 2 copies it'd cost £12.36 each while ordering 5 copies would bring the cost down to £11.99 each, both including postage.

Stats and Skills

Gladiators have 7 stats plus skills. The stats are Strength, Size, Health, Speed, Agility, Luck and Popularity. Most start with Strength, Size, Health, Speed and Agility of 3 and Luck and Popularity of 0. Physical Stats can go as high as 10 and as low as 1. Luck has a range of 0-10 and Popularity has no maximum or minimum.

Skills range from 0-10. All fighters start with 1 point in Grappling (which includes Dodging), Rock and Run.

Stats and skills' maxima are restricted by the value of (other) stats - e.g. Sword skill can never be higher than (Agility+2), Speed must be less than double your Agility - but this won't affect novice gladiators.

When creating a novice gladiator you get 3d3 point to spend on stats or skills but cannot spend more that 2 in any one stat/skill. When gain experience for surviving events you cannot spend more than 1 point in any one stat or skill. Tip: spending at least 1 point in Health will be a great help to your gladiator surviving an event!

Skills available are:

* Chariot Driving is limited by the lower of Agility or Strength. It's assumed that skills are bought for a gladiator's right hand except for Shield and Spear for Retarii as they fight with tridents in their left hand and nets in the their right. Where Off-hand? is available, that skill can be bought for use in the left hand - e.g. for a gladiator with two swords to avoid the penalty for fighting with an untrained hand.

The Turn

There are three phases to each turn.

Initiative Phase

Action Cards are dealt to each gladiator. Novice gladiators gets two cards (more experienced fighters get three to five cards). The Action Cards are simply playing cards. Check the cards you've been dealt and ask for an extra card if you've been dealt an Ace or a Joker (but don't reveal which). Gladiators get to move/fight in the order of their cards, starting from Kings down to Twos (and in the sequence Spade - Heart - Club - Diamond if two gladiators both have a card of the same value. An Ace allows you to take one of your actions at any time - even interrupting another Action, although it can't interrupt a dice roll - when you discard the "real" Action Card and the Ace (i.e. it doesn't give you an extra action). A Joker allows you to force a reroll - even if the dice roll doesn't affect the gladiator who holds the Joker.

Action Phase

Available Actions

Move

You can move up to your full movement rate at your chosen speed. You can pick up a weapon during a move, but it costs half your move. Moving quickly costs burns fatigue.

Attack

Allows you to attack with one weapon. You can make a half-move and Attack or Attack and then make a half-move. Alternatively you can pick up a weapon within 1" and then Attack.

Defend

Makes you harder to hit - attacks against you are at -2 and you're at +2 to block or dodge until the start of your next action. You can make a half-move and enter a Defensive Stance.

All Out Attack

You get a +2 to attack this action but other models attacking you do so at +2 while you dodge/block at -2 until the start of your next action. A gladiator with two hand weapons may attack with both, but the off-hand Attack will be at -2. All Out Attack may be combined with a half-move.

Charge

A special form of All Out Attack. You must start at least 2" away from your target. You can move your full allowance before attacking but are vulnerable if someone interrupts your charge by playing an Ace (see Charging rules below).

Rest

A model that has failed a Fatigue Check must rest. A resting model may not run, sprint or attack in any way. A resting model loses 1d3 fatigue counters. A model that rests and doesn't move loses 1d3+1 fatigue counters.

Movement

Adult gladiators can walk 3", crawl 2", run 5" or sprint 7" per action although this is adjusted for armour worn (see below). Running gives you 1 fatigue counter while sprinting gives you two fatigue counters. Gladiators carrying large shields cannot sprint. Unless you're sprinting you can move in any direction. Sprinters have to move in a straight line, but can change facing before starting their sprint. A fallen model can stand up at the cost of half their movement (e.g. you could stand up and then sprint 3½" away to safety).

You cannot move over fallen bodies and must either move around them or jump over them. To jump over them you have to roll 11+ on a d10 adding your Strength to the roll (i.e. a novice gladiator with a Strength of 3 will succeed on a 8, 9 or 10). If you fail the jump roll, you fall down at the end of the jump. You can spend 50% of your move to stand up and continue moving. If you don't have 50% of your move left you can't stand up. For example, you are sprinting 7" and have to jump over a body 2" away (we'll assume the jump is an inch long). If you fall, you can stand up because you'll still have 4 of your original 7 inches left to move. You'll only be able to move another ½" though.

Armour and Movement

A lightly armoured figure - wearing two pieces of armour or fewer - can move an extra 2" when running or sprinting. A figure with armour in 6 or more locations is heavily armoured and suffers a 1" penalty to all movement rates. Any shield larger than a buckler counts as a piece of armour.

Going even faster

Before starting your run or sprint move you can try to go even faster by using your Running Skill. Roll a d10 and add your skill level aiming for 11+. If successful you can run an extra inch or sprint an extra 1d3 inches. If you roll a 1, however, you stumble and fall before moving at all and cannot stand up until your next action.

Charging

To charge you must be moving at Run or Sprint speed (and will gain fatigue counters accordingly). You must be at least 2" from your target. A charge must be made in a straight line - you can change facing before starting your run but not once you've started to move. If a charging model makes it into base-to-base contact with a model he gets the bonuses from All Out Attack and gets a +2 to his Size Bonus damage roll if he hits. He also gets the penalties for All Out Attack, making him easier for opponents to hit. In addition, if someone (either the target or someone nearby) interrupts a charge by playing an Ace and then attacks you, the interrupter has an additional +2 to hit on top of the normal +2 for attacking an All Out Attacker making a total bonus of +4.

If you have a shield you can perform a Shield Bash. It is executed like a Charge. If you hit, you will do 1d3 damage plus any Size Bonus. Then both the attacker and defender roll 1d10 and add their Size. If the attacker's roll is equal or higher than the defender's, the defender is knocked down.

Fatigue

You accrue fatigue by running, sprinting and/or attacking and lose counters by resting.

Fatigue has no effect until you have collected 5 or more tokens. Once you have, you must make a Fatigue Check at the start of each action. You roll a die (a d8 for novice fighters) and must roll higher than the number of fatigue counters you have to be able to take anything other than a Rest action. More experienced gladiators roll a d10, d12 or d20.

Combat

A model can engage in melee whenever another figure is within range of its weapon. Melee weapons have either Short range (base to base contact), Medium range (up to 1" away) or Long range (up to 2" away). Missile weapons also have range (of course).

A model can only attack an opponent to the front (each base is divided into equal front and back arcs). If attacked from the rear, all you can do is attempt to Dodge and even that's at a penalty. A model can changing facing when attacked if it's not already engaged - a model is engaged if it's within range of another hostile figure's weapon. If engaged, you can change facing if you roll 11+ on a d10+Speed roll. A lightly armoured gladiator gets a +2 to this roll.

Attacking

To hit in close combat you roll a d10 aiming for 6+. The defender also rolls a d10 and will block the attack on the 6+. There are modifiers to each roll but the most common is skill levels. If the attacker's weapon skill is higher than the defender's skill with whatever he's blocking with (or dodging) then the attacker gets a +1 and the defender a -1 modifier. The reverse is also true. If one party's skill is double that of the other's then the modifier is doubled (e.g. Sword-2 vs Shield-1 would give the attacker a +2 and the defender a -2). A skill of 1 is double a skill of 0.

To hit in ranged combat your target must be in your front arc and within range - you have to declare the attack before measuring. Even if out of range, the attacker must still roll to see if he fumbles (and still fires his bow/sling or throws his rock/javelin/whatever).

A roll of 10 always hits (and does a Critical) while a roll of 1 always misses (and causes a Fumble). It is possible - and common - for an attacker to hit and a defender to block an attack. This simply means that the defender's weapon/shield gets in the way and will absorb all or some of the damage.

Determining damage

Whenever an attacker successfully hits, damage to the defender is determined as follows:

1. Roll basic damage for the weapon
2. Add in Strength/Size bonus (described below)
3. Subtract the Defense Value of whatever weapon/shield the defender was using IF the defender successfully blocked
4. If any damage is left, roll for hit location
5. If there is armour in that hit location subtract its Defense value from remaining damage if the armour save is made.
6. Any remaining damage is then applied to the model in the appropriate location.

Armour

Armour has three characteristics: Location, Armour Save (SAV) and Defense (DEF). A defender must roll the SAV or more on d10 to be able to subtract the DEF from any damage being made. Models with shields get to use them as armour if they failed to block and the hit location is the shield arm.

Strength and Size Bonuses

Big guys hit harder. In close combat, if an attacker hits he then rolls d10 and adds his Size. If the result is 11 or more he causes an extra point of damage for each point over 10 (e.g. a result of 12 will add 2 points of damage). You can't add more points than the weapon originally delivered, though, so if you only rolled a 2 for damage with the weapon you can only add a maximum of 2 from your Size bonus, even if you actually rolled a 13 or higher.

Strength bonus works in exactly the same way for ranged combat.

Hit points, locations and the effect of damage

A Mighty Blow is caused if an attack caused as much damage as the location originally had. For example, a fighter with a Health of 3 will have 3 hit points in each leg. If an attack - after factoring in reduction from shield and/or armour - causes 3 or more points of damage to his left leg then that leg has taken a Mighty Blow.

It is possible for a model to take a mighty blow and live to fight another day (if very, very lucky) although you will suffer a Permanent Injury as a result.

Criticals and Fumbles

A Critical is scored when a natural 10 is rolled and a Fumble when a natural 1 is rolled. The effects of each are as follows:

The End Phase

Any gladiator that attempted an attack in this turn gains one Fatigue Counter.

Working out stats for your figure

The easy part is, of course, determining your gladiator's weaponry. It gets more complicated when trying to establish armour. Use the following table, bearing in mind that all figures myst be WYSIWYG. Below the table is an example of how this would work.