The campaign I think I mentioned four months ago finally kicked off, run by a good friend. Intent is to get six game nights in where we play through a tournament style event. For our first night we did setup our luduses (ludusies?) and played out our first few one on one matches. I created my Ludus Viriathus (named for the Lusitanian hero) and got to work.

My first match made for a slow grinder where we were both sustainment builds. I didn’t manage to grab a photo, so enjoy the above photo of the arena my buddy owns. It’s truly fantastic and expertly painted. That first match on my side was a slow, direct grind which I won more on my ability to roll criticals than anything else.

My second match was once against between two heavy builds, with one model better at charging and the other better at sustainment. My opponent had crushed in his first match and I was worried about this one, thinking my luck had run out.

It uh… really didn’t. I made darn near every roll I could have a critical. By the end of it, my poor opponent was down and I had six health. He rolled on the results chart for the campaign and got the result where you get to live unless… unless your opponent has six or more health, then the audience calls for your head. I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse for making a successful armor save! He lost his gladiator in the poor guy’s very debut tournament.

I’ll say that the battles in the more dramatic arena were, appropriately, more dramatic. They had more maneuver, from what I could tell, and their matches went longer. That’s not to say I didn’t have a good time (winning twice helps) but this is definitely a beer and pretzels game to a degree and, again, rolling tons of criticals is a great strategy. I definitely look forward to our next night of play. I won’t say Sons of Mars is the greatest game but I’ve been happy with it so far as something that reasonably represents the era and provides a good time.

Plus, I beat a guy so bad the audience called for his head. I can’t say I’ve ever had that happen in a game before!