The Lion's Den Wargamers are a miniature enthusiast gaming club. Often times, in our search for skirmish gaming rules we tend to borrow ideas and game mechanics from the board gaming genre. in our collection of 54mmm plastics, was a large selection of Marx Ben-Hur Romans. As a club project we decided to create a Ben-Hur Circus Maximus game to display at a local Kansas City convention. This was an enormous production which featured an 8' x 11' Spina centerpiece on a 9' x 18' gaming table. We were featured on the main stage of that years convention and we drew quite a crowd with chariot racing, gladiatorial combat and beastiarii events spanning the three day weekend. In our search for rules to govern this extravaganza, we wrote our own chariot simulation. For our gladiators and beastiarii we needed a simple, playable man-to-man simulation- Melee was the answer. This article will concern itself with the miniaturization of the MELEE game. A very simple and straightforward account of the Lion's Den gladiator "Campaign" game and suggestions on gaming in 54mm. To Melee in 54mm There are some obvious scale adjustments to create the playing pieces for MELEE in 54mm. The miniature gladiators are 2 1/4" tall and glued to fender washers as bases. These metal washers add sufficient weight to the figures and a base dimension of 1 1/4" dia. The hexagon playing surface featured two inch wide hexes on a surface approx. 4 feet by 5 feet. Here are the details on creating enlarged hex maps. I have hand drawn hexes with a laundry marker on appropriately colored cloth before, but there is an interesting and effective alternative. Create a large block printing stamp of a section of interlocking hexes. I made mine out of a thin sheet of plywood large enough to print 5x8 2 inch hexes. The hexes were cut from a thin piece of foam and glued to the sheet of plywood with a small space between each hex. This giant stamp pad was "inked" with a paint roller dipped in acrylic house paint. The stamp was stamped in sections over an undercoat of paint on a sheet of flexible plastic. This is a very durable and aesthetic playing surface for the floor of the Coliseum. The paint color for the plastic sheet was a medium sand and the hexes were stamped over this in a light sand color. Game Mechanics Take Form There are things you leave out of very detailed rules when you take a game to a convention. To make a game convention playable it isn't necessary to have the added complication. What follows is the list of rules and references of the first run we used for the show. The gladiator game would take the form of facing opponents owned by other club members. Each lion's Den member playtested a set of twenty gladiators. Each gladiatorial class was listed on our members control sheet. In each class you could own four gladiators. The public participants were assigned a gladiator from a members list and would fight against another participant using a gladiator from another members roster. With the pregenerated gladiators we avoided the whole aspect of teaching new people the mechanics of creating a Melee character. During the combat the Lion's Den member acted as coach and rules lawyer for the people who had come to participate in our game. Here is a scatter shot of some of the rules- in-effect . The basic MELEE, Advanced MELEE, Gurps Roman source book were used. The notes will give reference to where particular rules can be found. We used: gladiator stats began at 24pt. Hand to Hand rules from Advanced Melee (AM) Pg. 15 . Dodge and Defend options from AM Pg. 18. Forcing Retreat, AM Pg. 18. Reactions to Injury, AM Pg. 18. Aimed Shots, AM Pg. 20 Waiting for an opening, AM Pg. 20. Clubs and Barehanded Combat, AM Pg. 20-21. Crippling Hits, AM Pg. 21. Fine Weapons, AM Pg. 22. Recovering Lost Strength, AM Pg. 25. Sweeping Blows, AM Pg. 26. Trampling, AM Pg. 26. Experience points were based on the MELEE arena combat with + 1 per point of damage your gladiator scored against his opponent. One hundred experience points could be used to raise an attribute point by one. An interesting formula we developed to allow a gladiator to appeal for mercy is as follows: During a combat, if your gladiator falls to 3 Strength points of less, you may appeal to the emperor for mercy and be spared. Take the number of turns the fight has lasted and add one point for every attribute point over 24. This number becomes the target number you must roll under on a 3D6 roll. If you roll under you are spared. If you roll over you are dispatched by your opponent. The old thumbs up-thumbs down routine. The Gurps: Imperial Rome Source book is worth a look if you need background to the Coliseum games. I will give a brief description of passages I found particularly useful. The first chapter on Life In Rome is useful for GMs not only for the social mileau, but in game masters terms. In character generation we needed 140 roman names! The name generator chart on pg. 31 was invaluable. There is one entire chapter-The Games that puts all the really necessary information in front of you. All of this information is available elsewhere, however, this book puts it all in one place and as I said it's written for gaming. The Gladiators The following list is the categories of typical gladiators. Each house of gladiators called a familia, was run by a trainer called a Lanist -- a retired gladiator. In our games it was set up that each player would own four gladiators of each class. It is up to the player to decide which of his gladiators he sends into the arena for particular events. The classes of gladiators are: Retiarius. (Light) Net* 1-3, Trident* 1, No Armor. Mirmillo. (Heavy) Broadsword 2, Leather 2/1-1 -2DX, Small Shield 1/1-1. Samnite. (Heavy) Sword 2-1, Breastplate 4/1-1 -5DX, Shield 1/1-1. Thracian. (Medium) Sword 2-1, Cloth 1/1-1 -1DX, Shield 1/1-1. Dimachaeri. (Medium) Broadsword 2, Broadsword 2, Breastplate 4/1-1 -5DX. Notes: * indicates thrown weapons. Slate of Events This is an area of inventiveness for the GM. Typical fights would stage several Retiarius vs. an equal number of Mirmillo. Samnite vs. Samnite, etc.. Experiment with really outlandish combinations to provide a challenge for your players. We have set fights such as: each player may place two gladiators of any class in the arena and must fight all others. Or, all gladiators vs. an Elephant. Depending on your taste for gore, there are a number of man vs. beast alternatives. Availability of Figures There is a local company that produces all of the Marx recast plastics. There address is: Classic Toy Soldiers, Inc. 11528 Canterbury Circle Leawood, Kansas 66211 POC: Jim McGough Phone: 913-451-9458 413-533-5266. I have not tried this company yet, but intend too soon. Resource Material Gurps Imperial Rome Source Book. By C.J. Carella. Steve Jackson games. 1992. Advanced Melee. By Steve Jackson. Metagaming. 1980. The Fantasy Trip Melee. Metagaming. Authors Note: I am interested in skirmish gaming and have a decided bias toward 54mm scale figures. However, I have not found many gladiators available in any other scale. Back to Table of Contents Penny Whistle #26 Back to Penny Whistle List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by Lion's Den Publications. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com