Okay all...
I had a friend of mine paint up some Foundry gladiators several years ago, and I've been looking for a good set of rules ever since. I looked through several free sets online, and even picked up the Flagship Games rules set a couple of years ago. All had their strong points, but weren't exactly what I was looking for.
Well, a few weeks ago I finally got tired of looking, and have since come up with a hex-based set of rules for gladiatorial / pit fighting.

And to be honest, it has morphed into more of a small fantasy skirmish game, suitable for each player running from 2 to 10 models. It certainly isn't limited to any specific number, but each player rolls a pool of dice at the beginning of each turn, with one die being assigned to each model. So you can see with more models per player, the larger the number of dice that will have to be rolled each turn. It *can* beplayed with one model per player, but there aren't a lot of different attack and defense options, so that isn't really going to be it's strong point.

The wound status for each model is also tracked, so players must keep track of individual models.

I believe I've gotten the rules written up in such a way so that they can be understood well enough to play, and I've also got a handy-dandy two page reference sheet, that has about everything you need to know to play. It also is going to have a point system to allow players to build their own models. We've been playtesting for the last few weeks, and the game seems to be working fairly well.

As far as the hexgrid is concerned, I've been using seven pieces of 7-hex Heroscape terrain arranged in a circular pattern for the "arena." But... I believe the next board layout we use will be four pieces of the 24-hex shape arranged in a rectangular shape, with a few trees thrown in for good measure.

Currently there are rules for hand weapons, polearms, and a few missile weapons. The game will always have much more of an emphasis on close combat.

If anyone has any interest in helping with the playtesting just contact me offline. I'll be in Indianapolis next week for Gencon, so if any of you are in the Indy area, and want to playtest in person, also let me know.

ksmith19@cox.net

Kevin