Red Sand Black Moon: Sambre's first fight!

By Two Hour Wargames

If you don't know already, Red Sand Black Moon by Two Hour Wargames is a set of fantasy gladiatorial combat rules based off the more historically accurate gladiatorial combat rules Red Sand Blue Sky. But I'm pretty sure facing trolls and orcs really happened in the Colosseum so RSBM is pretty much historical...You'll just have to take my word for it! ;) Anyhow, I decided  after some fierce battles to try a campaign.

Firstly, I needed to figure out which figure was going to represent me. So I chose four very different figures and held a tournament run by the game system...Last man or woman standing wins! I randomly rolled up stats and adjusted them as per the campaign rules just for variety. Here were the would-be champions...

To those about to die, we salute you!

I thought for sure the heavily armored knight was going to crush the competition but I was way wrong! I randomly chose opponents and the first match was between the female and the thief. Although only having a strength of 3 and having a further penalty of -1D6 on the damage chart for being a female, the brave woman bested the thief despite him having superior stats.

Next saw the heavy knight take on a traditional gladiator, the hoplomachus. It wasn't even a contest, the heavy knight was just too slow with his heavy armor and two-handed sword even though he had superior stats. Hoplomachus was the victor!

On to the final, female swordswoman versus the hoplomachus. The battle lasted a long time. Probably around two and a half hours. Having a small dice pool coupled with the female fighter's low damage and spreading out the damage on the hoplomachus really made things drag on but not a big deal. It was fun seeing her toy with ol' hoplo. Even chopped his right arm off! The loss of his shield really hurt and the match soon ended. Swordsmwoman was victorious! No doubt a role model for all those aspiring gladiatrixes out there!

Now, onto the real campaign...

After redoing Sambre's stats as a star, it was time for her first match. Her rating is 10 and she would face..

Two will enter, one will leave...

A rank 7 light swordsman! No fame to be gained here but since it was her first fight and my first campaign round, it was probably for the better.

Fight it out!!!!

The fighters engage!

The barbarian gains the head-on attack!

But must have been distracted by the slave girl patron as his attack is countered and receives a major slash to...!

Right in the belly!

Not only did the barb. rush past Sambre but his guts were spilling out on the arena floor, a bleeder! On top of that, he was knocked down.

Lucky for him the barb. wins the movement phase and stands up, slowly bleeding out of his belly wound but...Sambre wins the maneuver round!

On the attack now, Sambre (purple dice) stabs the barbarian right in the stomach again!!! With only one wound remaining in the stomach before the slash, the barbarian falls to the ground in a heap and is carried off with the rest of the debris.

Sambre claims her first victory! The tiny crowd of onlookers are only modestly impressed and back to tending their fields they went.

The match didn't last long, maybe 20 minutes. With a rank of 10, she didn't gain any fame for killing her opponent. She wasn't awarded a point of fame for a killing stroke in the center either as the barbarian fell into the an adjacent square and died. Still, she pocketed 200 gold for winning in a fringe wooden arena.

 Great fun had by all!!!...Except the barbarian.