"Those About to Die, Salute You!"

My Lead Painters League #11 photo of my first batch of 28mm Crusader Miniatures gladiators

Earlier this year, I made the decision that I wanted to bring a gladiator game to my 7th grade students when we study the Colosseum during our Ancient Rome unit. Since my classes are around 30 students each, that meant I'd need a lot more gladiators. So, I have been painting a lot more up, lately.

So, this round of the league needed a "large figure," so I went out and bought a 54mm gladiator to use in "Who's Got the Big Guy...?"

My first batch were from Crusader Miniatures 28mm line. I really like the look of these figs, and I painted 16 of them up awhile back as part of the last time I entered the Lead Painters league. Since it was part of the league, I took even more time on details - especially the shields, which are all hand painted and came out nicely, I thought. I had two more packs left -- pack ANG003 - Retiarii & Laqueaius and ANG009 - Sagittarius & Velites -- which would still leave me short of the minimum 30 I'd need. Luckily, my friend Keith had a number of unpainted 28mm gladiators, so I picked up 10 more off of him (which are on my painting table right at this moment).

One of my retiarius gladiators from Crusader Miniatures -- Hephaistos

I decided NOT to paint the archer (Sagittarius) because I didn't want to deal with bows, so had seven gladiators in that batch, which I finished just in time for last Sunday's playtest. It was quite the rush getting not only the figs done, but marking out a hex mat using a Litko template. I also wanted to make individualized character sheets for the gladiators with a picture of the miniature on it. I decided to go all out (of course!), and gave them names, as well.

Another lightly-armed gladiator -- Gilgamesh the Laquearius

Of course, after our playtest, I came up with a couple changes I needed to make on the character sheets, which meant going back and adjusting 23 sheets. However, I think I have them down well, now.

Tiberius the Velite was one of the gladiators I ran in our playtest, though he survived he did not do so well

I also am pretty happy with the Arena Games rules, which can be downloaded on Wargames Vault for only $10.  These are the same rules that my friend Randy has run successfully at area conventions for a couple years, now. I did modify them a bit to make them even more simple for my 12-13 year old students. I also wanted them to move fast since we'll have only a one hour class period to play the game.

Mikipsa the Velite was MUCH more successful, Brian causing a lot of damage with him

So, it's been a lot of gladiators on my painting table, of late. When I am finished, I'll have 33 to choose from. There is no "point system" in the Arena Games rules. I like the balance of how the more lightly armed gladiators tend to move fast and get more action points (APs) then the heavier armed ones. However, they take less damage, of course, so there is a balance. Is it 100% equal and fair? Of course, not. However, there is a fair amount of die rolling in this game, so it should even out.

I painted my gladiators in a variety of nationalities, from Africans to North African/Arab to European

I've included some pictures of my first batch of 16 gladiators from the Lead Painters league photos, as well as the more recent batch of seven. Once I finish my last 10, I hope some people can help me identify the manufacturer(s), because Keith had them glued onto bottle caps and primed already when I purchased them.

Donal the Gaul here looks like he was plucked straight from a line of Ancient Gauls (not gladiators) -- I like how his shield game out, though!

Perhaps we will do one more playtest because -- shocker, I know -- we made a couple key mistakes when playing the game the first time. If so, it'll be in the next couple weeks because I want to do this before winter break. So, to paraphrase from the movie Airplane: "Billy, do you like gladiator figures...?"