Ad gladium

I completed a batch of 27 gladiator minis two weeks ago. I started some of them almost three years ago. Yeah, I know, but that's nothing compared to the 20 years that elapsed between starting and finishing my fearsome boomsticks of war. But many of the freshly finished gladiator minis were only started in December, so that's a little better. It's not atypical for me to buy lots of minis, get cracking at them right away, and then buy lots of minis for something else and get cracking at them right away, setting aside the minis I was previously cracking away at. And so on...

But, here I am now with 27 wee gladiators to bash away at each other. The plan has been to use them with Jugula from Tomahawk Studios. I had apprehensions about Jugula at first because it's one of those games where you need to buy the rules and other accouterments and several sets of cards to play. Additionally, you need tokens and a playing mat, although you can make these yourself rather than buy them from Studio T. Still, Jugula is not nearly as bad at that as Saga, also from Studio T., which I've been sucked into along with all the books and several sets of dice.

The crupellarius stands alone

I arrived at Jugula after trying several other sets, which I found wanting in some way. The other sets were detailed, too much so in some cases, and intended for a single player to run a single figure. Jugula has players fielding four gladiators at once and can works with two, three, or four players. Jugula also has a nicely designed campaign system, where a player controls a ludus of several gladiators whose skills can rise as they survive turns in the arena.

My murmillo takes a bold stance

I first played Jugula at Drumbeat, our local mid-winter game day here in Western Washington. I was instantly hooked and bought the rules, cards, tokens, game mat, and a few packs of 28mm Crusader gladiators. I already had several of the official Jugula minis in 'heroic' 35mm scale, which I planned to use with the aforementioned other rules and, in fact, did. But I liked Mike Lombardy's 28mm minis from Crusader; the price point is lower and the variety greater. Phil Bardsley and I once bought the whole lot of Wargames Foundry's gladiator line and divvied them between us. My thoughts on those minis can be found in a blog post from 2015.

The arena

So now I'm pretty much all in with Jugula. I have four decks of cards and a spiffy mat and, if I say so myself, some pretty nice 28mm Crusader minis gladiators. They're veterans, having already survived, intact, a spill in their box when Bogart, a.k.a. Destructo-Cat, jumped on the box, which sat atop other boxes, and then jumped off, sending the top box, containing the just completed gladiators, flying. After chasing the unrepentant offender upstairs, I reset the minis in their box (they all have magnetic bottoms) and gave them an inspection to assess damage. There was none. Dave: 1, Destructo-Cat: 0.

Rick's hard-pressed thraex

I planned to play with them for a few weeks now, but something kept getting in the way (in one case, I was just too lazy to drag myself to The Panzer Depot on a Thursday evening). I planned to play my friends Rick and Janet at a local game store, Zulu's Boardgame Cafe in Bothell, WA. Zulu's is fairly new, starting business about mid-2018. They're in an old home on Main St., which they're expanding to accommodate more table space for playing.

Janet's veles vs. my crupellarius

Rick, Janet, and I semi-regularly play Eurogames together. Rick and I have been miniature gaming since 1975. He introduced me to the square ancients crowd that played at Al Tilley's house. These days, Rick is pretty much absent from miniature gaming, but an old veteran nevertheless. Janet had never played a wargame before—though in every Eurogame that has a combat mechanism, she's proven to be an aggressive adversary. She took to Jugula right away.

My dimachaerus joins the fun

We played a three-player game. We started by selecting minis from my new collection and matching them to their cards. I took my beloved crupellarius again along with a murmillo, a dimachaerus, and a thraex. Janet took a sagittarius, a dimachaerus, a murmillo, and a veles. Rick took a secutor, a thraex, a hoplomachus, and a retiarius.

My murmillo nearing his last stand

We started slow because Rick and Janet needed to learn the game. After a while we were moving along. Even then the game lasted more than three hours, though the time seemed to fly by and no one really wanted it to end.

My crupellarius (the tank) wades into the carnage

By the time we quit playing, I had lost my murmillo, Rick had lost his retuarius and hoplomachus, Janet had lost her veles, and murmillo. Both Rick and Janet had had wounded gladiators, but managed to play the card that removed the wound.

Sole survivors

Janet and Rick both liked it, so it's definitely on the playlist for future gatherings. Jugula is growing on me more and more. I'm glad I made the investment. I may see about splurging on some Foundry packs, despite my misgivings about them. I already have all the figures that Crusader makes. My box of minis is now in the garage safe from Destructo-Cat ready to be pulled out to play.

Rick's thraex and my dimachaerus face off

I plan on running two game mats at our upcoming Drumbeat game day in March, using Mike Lombardy's mat, figures, and cards along with my own. I'll also have to keep an eye for other opportunities to play. I'm not a regular at the Thursday night gaming at The Panzer Depot, but I've played a few Saga games there in the past. I think I'll need to get down there more often.