An Old West Undead Miniature Wargaming Army in 28mm Scale
But first, deep thoughts
on hobbies, stress, and living a Good Life
Years ago, I set an informal personal goal of painting a different miniature wargames army each year. As I have gotten older, I have gotten away from that, but I think it was a good goal, and I will try to get back to it. Not too small, it's a real hobby. Not too big, it is an achievable goal and a fun one.
If a hobby goal is too big, it's not achievable, and if it's not achievable it becomes frustrating and a source of stress. And that's not the goal of a hobby. In fact, its the direct opposite of what a hobby should do. Hobbies are to destress, not increase stress, and while I, for one, have lots of unpainted figures collected over the years for several reasons, I also have a very sedentary job. Painting wargame figures does not help people, it does not make the world a better place, it does not really help me achieve my dreams (save for the small dreams involving owning nicely painted figures,), and should only paint figures when it relaxes me.
And in today's internet, social media, highly connected world, it's easy to find yourself unconsciously setting hobby goals that climb higher and higher as you try to impress your social media contacts on the other side of the world with your hobby related accomplishments or at least keep up with them. Little social media voices from strangers continuously joke about things like "You can never have too many miniatures" and the (alleged) importance of painting, painting, painting all those figures and doing so to the increasingly higher (yet admittedly wonderful and impressive) standards that we see in magazines like "Miniature Wargames" and the internet. In such cases, one needs to catch yourself, recenter, recalibrate your perspective, and remember why are doing this in the first place --to have fun and relax.
My advice, remember that. And when you forget, as I surely will from time to time, try to catch yourself and remember why you are here.
Which brings me to photos my latest project, The Old West Undead Miniature Wargaming Army.
The Old West Undead Miniature Wargaming Army
Figures
Figures come from a variety of sources.
The undead or zombies come from Foundry, Reaper, Artizan (Dracula's America range), Great Escape Games, and the old 1990s Deadlands range (those are the noticably tall ones). Several are conversions made from some extra Artizan dismounted Seventh Cavalry that I had acquired but wasn't sure what to do with. Conversions often consisted of drilling holes in them with a mini-drill and adding wounds with an exacto knife. A couple undead figures from fantasy ranges were painted appropriately and slid in.
The Grim Reaper and the Cowboy Vampires on Foot were from Pontoonier but purchased through Badger Games (Many of the zombie figures were also purchased from Badger Games.)
The Vampire on the Haunted Bicycle from Eureka's Pax Limpopo range and is sold as "French Lady on Penny Farthing." Making her a vampire was done with a carefully chosen paint job and a little bit of green stuff ectoplasm adding to the one and a half inch washer I used for her base.
The gray coated necromancer leading the zombies is a simple conversion from Copplestone's Back of Beyond range "Mad Baron" figure. (The historical "Mad Baron" was a crazed warlord with very strange and bloodthirsty beliefs who led an army in Central Asia during the mid-war period. He may be best known for leading his army to burn Ulan Bator, the Capital of Mongolia. See: War History On-Line. ) The figure was modifed by adding a sword to the foot figure so that he would match the mounted figure and adding gree stuff flames to the bases of both the foot and the mounted figure.
Note that both the Grim Reaper and the Mad Baron figure came in sets of a matching mounted and dismounted figures for the same character. This is how I prefer to buy figures for skirmish gaming when availability and the budget allow.
Rules
As for rules, there are a quite a lot of Old West Gunfight Rules out there. Most of them are quite good and produce good games. Several have rules for supernatural creatures, but not all do.
I have recently started using Gunfighter's Ball rules. They produce a good game, but they are designed for smaller actions than I'd like. Although well researched, they are intended for fun but historically sound games and do not include rules for supernatural creatures.
I have written my own rules to add the things I want to these games, but I haven't playtested them yet. Therefore, I am not ready to discuss or share them. Perhaps in the future.
And please don't forget to check out the Hamchuck Writers Collective Website.
Some more photos from last week's solo test game of my "Chop Sockey! Kung Fu Miniature Wargame Rules." I made some changes to them this week.
In other projects, I have done some studying on the history or pseudo of ninjas, dug several files of academic papers on a many subjects out of storage for possible projects, and begun some reading on the history of proto-scientific thought in China for a couple projects. I also submitted a couple book reviews on conspiracy thinking to the skeptical inquirer. And I primed a few figures that now need painting.
Let me also off you think link to a piece of interesting history:
Greetings. Hello there boys and girls. Well over a year or two ago, I began working on writing "Chop Sockey!!," a set of rules for kung fu comic or movie style wargames. The results are promising. A friend and I play tested them once, and then, like so many other things, along came the pandemic and that put an end to shared playtesting.
Alas!
Having finished writing my book on Trump (yes, this is a plug, Feel free to buy it. Link below) and anxious to begin work on a new project, I pulled out the rules and gave them a test run playing solo.
Basic scenario concept was to have a group of innocents being mistreated by bad people and some heroes need to come, intervene, and give them a chance to escape.
Looking for suitable bad guys, I chose my recently painted "steam punky" Dead Rabbits gang.
Now for the good guys, I realized that while I had suitable civilian figures, I had no rules for civilians, at least not yet.. (They shall be written soon and will be finished by next solo game. I promise. The stats for civilians will give them very low, combat ability but high saves. This way, they don't really add much to combat but they do stay around long enough to be rescued.)
For the good guys, I chose suitable Chinese Boxer rebellion or Taiping Uprising figures, creating a group of generic mobs of ten men with spears, swords, and muskets. I faced them off against each other at one corner of a four by four card table. I then put two suitable kung fu heroes at the farthest corner of the table.
I called the scenario "We wuz just funnin' the Chinaman!" as an homeage to the classic 1970s TV show Kung Fu which chronicles the adventures of Kwai-Chiang Kane, a half breed Shaolin monk who wondered the old American west. An interesting show that shaped American images of kung fu and the martial arts in its early days, a common event in the series was that Kane would wonder into a western town. Soon after the local, inbred white trash with bad teeth would begin hassling him because he was Chinese and did not really fit in in that neighborhood, and go further and further with their hassling. Kane would inevitablly lecture them with Chinese philosophy (or the 1970s AmericanTV version of Chinese philosophy --think fortune cookie philosophy), that would fail, they would then attack him, and he would kick in half a dozen peoples teeth, leaving them on the ground whining "But we wuz just funnin' the Chinaman, and he done kicked our teeth all in!"
Alas, good stuff. If you've never seen the show, your education is lacking something.
Anyway, that's sort of what I was going for here. My results were mixed.
Game Forces
The Dead Rabbits -a particular colorful group of White Trash and Irish Trash, no less
Unit One: Seven Dead Rabbits
Classified as "Warriors" -each unit consists of a standard bearer with a Dead Rabbit on a pole and five men with clubs or swords and one with a firearm
Unit Two: Seven Dead Rabbits
Also classified as "Warriors" and equipped identically to the first unit although one was actually a woman and not a man -not that this makes any difference in these rules. It does, however, add color to the table top.
Liam Angus McGutstab O'Heaney
A widely feared drunken berserker. He was classified as a hero but given no chi points (He may conceivably have great chi. No one actually knows as he's simply too drunk and uncouth to know how to use it anyway if he does. I am, by the way, very proud of the figure. He's a conversion from, of all things, a Gaul gladiator, and I'm quite proud of him. See my old posts on the subject.)
Ook Ook O'Brien
A gorilla in a top hat. He escaped from the circus and was taken in by the Dead Rabbits. They were eager to have him, because they needed some better educated, more sophisticated, better travelled members and, being as he was widely travelled with the circus, he met the bill and filled the void.
Ook Ook is classified in the rules as a gorilla. Yes, there are rules for gorillas and other animals and I was hoping to try them out. Besides, it is a rule of thumb among wargamers, if you have a figure of gorilla in a top hat, put that figure in a game almost any chance you can.
The Good Hearted Chinese
Three units of ten Chinese tong members classified as "fighters" armed with swords, spears and a few muskets. Each had a standard bearer.
Two Kung Fu heroes at the far end of the table. These were unarmed but each had four points of "chi."
Victory Conditions
The Chinese must escape off the far corner of the board with two thirds of their forces intact.
Turn One
To determine which side went first a simple pair of dice were rolled for each side. The Dead Rabbits won.
The turn sequence involves moving the units on a side, one by one, and then taking each unit through the entire turn sequence.
Since the Dead Rabbits had four "units" -two seven man gangs, the gorilla, and the drunken berserker hero- this would mean four units would move through their sequence.
The first Dead Rabbit gang charged at the middle of the Chinese units.
Being Warriors they had automatic activation and since they were charging they got double movement. Thus they moved ahead 8 inches, made contact with a group of Chinese seven or less inches away, and hand to hand fighting broke out.
The attackers were classified as warriors and got 2 dice per figure or 14 dice total.
The defenders were classified as fighters and got 1 dice each or 10 dice total.
The dice were rolled and the Dead Rabbits inflicted 6 hits on the Chines tong members. The Chinese rolled their saving dice and only one of the six saved. Of the five hit, dice were rolled for the hit resul and three were wounded and two were dead.
In that melee the Chinese caused three hits on the Dead Rabbits, killing two and wounding one.
The second unit of Dead Rabbits charged the nearest unit of Chinese tong members and inflicted 7 hits.
The hero and the gorilla were blocked from charging any of the other Chinese due to having the two melees taking place in front of them so they just advanced at normal speed and took up a position in support of the brawling gangs.
Nevertheless, after the first turn, it was very obvious that the Chinese side was definitely way outclassed. Classifying all the forces on one side as "warriors," a designation intended for elite soldiers and their tribal or feudal equivalents, was a mistake. It had produced a very lop-sided battle. (Of course, I have thoughts on how to modify this in the future.)
Chinese Phase of the First Turn
The Chinese side had five "units." These were the two heroes far to the rear and the three 10 man units of Tong fighters, two of which had taken heavy casualties already and were greatly weakened.
Since the victory condition for the Chinese were to get as many figures to safety as possible, the untouched unit of Tong fighters decided to flee at double speed. In hindsight, I'm not sure this was a good idea, but, as they say, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
One of the heroes decided to charge into combat and to use lots of Chi to speed his entry. A normal charge or running move for a hero is 8 inches. For each point of Chi used, a hero can add 4 inches to his move. Using three points, he moved a total of 20 inches (8 + 12) and charged into combat with one of the Dead Rabbit gangs. He decided to go for broke and use his remaining chi point to add to his combat effectivness.
Alas! Despite some heavy modifiers for that turn -the result of him using his chi- one hero versus seven warriors is a fight where the seven warriors have a strong advantage. A couple warriors left took hits and left the game but this meant that there were still five of them and one hero with no chi points, all alone against them and their nearby friends.
The other hero saved his chi and moved 8 inches towards the center of the action.
The remnants of the badly mauled units attempted to flee, but due to their wounds were not able. (If a character has a wound, he must consult a chart and pass a dice roll before perform actions such as fighting or moving. While a character can have multiple wounds, he must pass a dice roll for each and every wound or he cannot perform that action. The characters rolled badly and could not flee.)
Turn Two -- Dead Rabbits Phase
The two units of Dead Rabbits pursued or attacked the two units of Chinese tong members and the hero who supported them. They inflicted some more casualities but not enough to change the flow of the battle.
The gorilla and the hero still found themselves waiting in support, watching, ready, but still not actually doing anything.
Turn Two --Chinese Phase
There were three units of tong fighters.
One was undamaged but had chosen to flee. This was intended to increase the forces chances of meeting the victory conditions. In hindsight this might have been a bad idea, as the Dead Rabbits had already achieved their victory conditions, and it had become obvious that the scenario was probably quite unbalanced.
The two Chinese heroes found themselves touching bases and formed a unit. This allowed them to activate and move together, as well as pool their dice in combat.
Alas, when they entered combat, they found themselves outclassed by the large number of Dead Rabbits they were facing. Not only did they inflict little damage on the Dead Rabbits but one fo the heroes took hits and missed his saves and was killed and removed from the game. This left just one hero, one unwounded tong fighter, and several wounded tong fighters faced off against an overwhelming force of enemy warriors supported by a hero and a gorilla in a top hat.
Turn Three -FLEEEEE!!!
Seeing no other real option, the tong fighters fled the table.
ANALYSIS
As a game, not terribly successful, but as a game testing or rule testing session a lot was learned about balancing scenarios. Several rules were tweaked afterwards. Others were added.
Greetings! Welcome back. I'm starting to get a bit of the hang of blogging, and hope to do more consistent and regular posting over the next few months. In return, it would be nice if you, the reader, could consider following the blog, leaving comments, sharing posts, or even going so far as to purchase the items I have linked to in the posts. In other words, do what you can please to make me feel like my efforts here are being noticed and rewarded so that I find myself eagerly continuing. Over the next few months, I hope to put up posts about the Dead Rabbits / Gangs of New York miniature gaming project ( https://history-for-fun-profit-and-insight.blogspot.com/search/label/Gangs%20of%20New%20York ) , the Chop Sockey! Kung Fu Miniature Wargame Rules project ( https://history-for-fun-profit-and-insight.blogspot.com/search/label/Kung%20Fu%20gaming ), posts about historical sites I saw on my recent trip to Asia (https://history-for-fun-profit-and-insight.blogspot.com/search/label/Asia )
, book reviews, and several posts about upstate New York Revolutionary War / American War of Independence historical sites I have visited ( https://history-for-fun-profit-and-insight.blogspot.com/search/label/American%20War%20of%20Independence ) as well as other historical and gaming projects. Please support this blog by following it, encouraging others to check it out, and letting me know you are following it too. I've got a lot of stuff I'd like to write about and share, but I could really use some encouragement and a sense that people are enjoying and appreciating what I am doing here. So please help out. Thanks.
And this week, I go back to a subject that has interested me since the beginning of this blog. Roman Gladiators ( see https://history-for-fun-profit-and-insight.blogspot.com/search/label/Gladiators for other articles on the subject.) I do some Roman Gladiator wargaming and have a writing project on the subject partially done and moving ahead slowly. It started as a brief wargamers guide to the subject, got too long, and may ultimately become a wargamers guide and a set of rules for the period. (For those who wonder, until I write my own, allegedly perfect set of rules, I am using a set called "Hoc Habet Hoc" which can be purchased here: https://www.wargamevault.com/product/297688/Habet-Hoc-Habet-Rules-for-Gladiatorial-Combat as a download or here http://scalecreep.com/product_info.php?products_id=2951 as a physical book, which is how I bought it. By the way, I don't get kickbacks or commissions from these links so if you do follow them to make a purchase please tell them I sent you and I am a nice guy who enjoys their products. I bought mine from Scale Creep and had no problems with the order.)
Which, FINALLY perhaps, brings me to the subject at hand. Months ago I wrote an article on the historical accuracy of the fight scenes in the TV show Spartacus. I promised a sequel, and FINALLY am getting around to writing it. If you haven't read it yet, it'd probably be a good idea to bring yourself up to speed by checking out the first half of this here: https://history-for-fun-profit-and-insight.blogspot.com/2019/05/starz-tv-spartacus-series-were-fight.html
As stated, Spartacus, from Stars TV, was a delightfully lurid show full of blood and nudity, unremitting violence, sexuality, and huge servings of adult content of all kinds, set in the days of old Rome that focused on the lives of gladiators, a gladiator ludi (school), and an uprising against oppression. While not for everyone, if you could stomach it, it was very entertaining and includes such things as the most emotionally satisfying decapitation scene I've ever been exposed to on the big or small screen.
For those who are lacking, here's an exposure to one of the fights from the show (while the clip comes from a French dubbed episode, the series was originally filmed in English)
Here's another, this one set in the training hall of the ludus, where the slaves are trained to become gladiators. Hence the wooden swords and lack of armor:
Previously I noted that aside from the ahistorical helmets with exposed faces (allowing the viewer to get a better sense of the emotions and drama taking place in the story), the actual arms, armor, and styles of gladiators are often surprisingly accurate historically speaking.
What is not historically accurate, however, is the intensity and lethality of the fighting.
Perhaps, surprisingly, most historical gladiator fights in the arena were not to the death. While, generally speaking, the historical gladiators were slaves and could be used as their owner saw fit, they were quite valuable, well trained, highly skilled, and difficult to replace slaves who if utilized properly could make their owner a great deal of money. It would make no sense, economically, for the owner of such a slave to risk his investment unnecessarily or recklessly.
Therefore, gladiator battles to the death were few and far between and seen as very special events.
According to Stephen Wisdom in the Osprey book on the subject, pages 58-59, and many authors on the subject, the actual rates of death were something as follows. Of 100 1st Century duels, only 19 of the 200 gladiators who participated in the fights died. That's about 9 to 1 odds of a gladiator surviving his bout. This changed over time and according to the same source, by the third century, the odds of a gladiator dying in a bout were about 1 in 4. Now, 1 in 4 odds of dying is quite high, but it is still far less than that show in the show Spartacus. (and for those wondering the show is set around the events of 73B.C, when the famed revolt took place.)
Roland Auguet spends time describing the career path and life path of gladiators in his book, Cruelty and Civilization, The Roman Games (1972, 1994, Routledge and Barnes and Noble publishers) on pages 178-183). He describes one 30 year old gladiator who had fought in the arena 34 times. Of these he had won 21 times, the fight was declared a draw or "stans missus" 9 times, and he had lost 4 times but had his life spared. He also concludes that most gladiators only fought about twice a year during the peak of their professional career and says they should be thought of as entertainers less than fighting machines.
Thomas Wiedemann on page 119-124 in Emperors and Gladiators gives detailed information on the numbers of fights some gladiators participated in. It's interesting and informative. but such a sampling does not give a complete picture, although it most certainly provides a sense that some gladiators lived a surprisingly long life with many fights.
Nossov's Gladiators -Rome's Bloody Spectacle is probably the single best book I've found on the subject and since it is published by Osprey, it focuses on exactly the sort of detail that wargamers wish. In this work, on pages 150-151, Nossov offers interesting information on mortality rates among gladiators. He also cites the work of George Ville but says that by the 2nd and 3rd century fights to the death were increasingly the norm. Of course, this is centuries after Spartacus. He also points out that more successful gladiators were more popular gladiators and the more popular a gladiator was, the more likely the mob and the editor of the games were to spare him if he lost. Nossov considers this a factor when mentioning that some champions fought "60, 80, 88, 107, 125, and even 150" fights.
FYI, many of these authors cite Ville, George. La gladiature en Occident des origines a la mort de Domitien ( Ecole française de Rome (1981) ). I have not read this work. It is over 500 pages and in French, a language I've never studied and have only a limited, passing knowledge of.
If the subject of mortality among gladiators is of interest to you, Nossov includes this in his footnotes: Kanz and Grossschmidt, Head Injuries of Roman Gladiators, Forensic Science International, Vol. 160, No 2 (2006) pp 207-16. It's another work that I have not read, at least not at the time of this writing but may hunt down and read some day.
In the academic work, Rules of engagement, by M.J. Carter, published in The Classical Journal, Vol. 102, No. 2 (Dec-Jan 2006/2007) pp 97-114, the author writes of funeral epitaphs of Roman gladiators. He offers the possibility that gladiators, who were highly trained highly valuable slaves, may have been trained in techniques to defeat an opponent WITHOUT killing or seriously wounding their opponent. He also offers an unexpected series of examples of funeral epitaphs where gladiators proudly stated in their funeral epitaphs how few people they had killed and how many lives they had saved. He argues that the professionalism of a gladiator often included not killing his peers unless forced to and that if a gladiator broke this "code," he would find himself a target for other gladiators who not only might wish to avenge the death of a friend at his hand, but also remove an unnecessary danger in their workplace. In other words, gladiators who tried to unnecessarily kill other gladiators were not much liked by professional gladiators who were already working in a dangerous job.
Therefore, as entertaining as the show Spartacus is, it is safe to say that its lurid depictions of gruesome, gory fights to the death with blood splashing all over the arena sands and the TV screen, are sensationalized and not historically accurate.
Recommended books on Types of Gladiator and their Arms, Armor, and Fighting Styles
These three books all have good details on the types of gladiators and how they fought. My personal favorite is Nossov's Gladiator, Rome's Bloody Spectacle and I can't recommend it highly enough if the subject interests you. The Gladiators and Caesars book is also quite good, but be forewarned only one chapter of this book focuses specifically on gladiators. The others tend to discuss things like chariot racing or animal fighting or other arena and coliseum type events.
Mentioned in this blog post.
This is an unusual yet well done book that contains interesting but largely hypothetical descriptions on how to train and fight in a realistic manner that may be similar to how the Roman gladiators fought. It's currently being sold by two different publishers so it's available on Amazon from two different sources. After Paladin went bankrupt, the rights reverted to the author and it was soon re-released.
Finally, a pair of books on the history of the Spartacus revolt. I've read both of these (I've read everything I've linked to on this page. In some cases, you can even find my reviews on Amazon for the products.) and I definitely prefer Strauss's The Spartacus War over the Osprey book. I have however included the link to the Osprey book as many people (myself included) just like Osprey books and they don't take up much space on the shelf.
Finally, if you wish to support this blog, please consider buying any of the following books, all written by yours truly. People who've read them, tell me they've enjoyed them.
Chop Sockey -Kung Fu Miniature Wargame Rules is one of my current works in progress. The goal was to create a set of rules that would be simple and fun to play while allowing for the flexibility needed to recreate the battle action of a classic kung fu movie or comic book. While much work remains to be done, we had our first real test play, and the basic concepts seem to work surprisingly well.
Troops and characters are divided into four classes: minions, fighters, warriors, and heroes.
Minions are those mobs of virtually useless combatants who get mown down by the dozen when the hero enters the room.
Fighters and warriors are more ordinary people with the warriors being a step up from the fighters. Picture your elite samurai or commando-types and you have the basic idea.
Heroes, well, heroes are heroes, except of course the heores who are really villains, and regardless highly skilled in kung fu and other deadly arts. They dominate the game, but that's the way it should be.
Close combat is handled by rolling large quantities of dice and comparing the difference in the die rolls. Aside from no hit at all, the results can be a hit, a deadly hit, or a spectacular hit. A spectacular hit is so frightening that it causes enemies to check morale.
A long view of the set up for the game. At one of the table, you can see a jungle stockade where bandits have been holding women and children as prisoners. They are being held by an arch villain (a hero in game terms) and two five man units of bandits with sub-machine guns (fighters) and two five man bands of traitorous peasants (minions) who have allied themselves with the bandits and their villainous yet highly skilled leader.
On the other side, are three bands of peasant militia (fighters), one with rifles and two with spears. They are led by three heroes and two native guides (specialists rated as warriors). Their goal is to cross the river, storm the stockade and rescue the prisoners.
Another view of the set up.
The evil bandits and their prisoners.
The good guys, come to rescue the prisoners.
The prisoners.
A close up of the mountain bandits. These are Westwind's Montagniards (delightfully inaccurate Montagniards by the way) from their Vietnam range.
The game ended in a clear victory by the good guys who destroyed the villains and easily won the game. While some rules and stats need to be tweaked,
I've recently begun rewatching the TV series Spartacus, a show that ran for four seasons on the Starz Cable TV network. (It's a rumored there may be a fifth one some day. We can only hope.) While one of the most lurid and visceral television spectacles, I've ever been exposed to, the show is exciting, entertaining, and addictive, just be careful who you watch it with. The high levels of sexual content and nudity, as well as violence and blood splashing gore, is higher than in any television show I've ever seen.
As long time readers of this blog (or you intelligent people who actually take the time to look at old posts) know, over the last few years, I've done a lot of research into the Roman gladiators and done some wargaming and figure modelling for the period. (In fact, one of my motives for rewatching was trying to find ways to add backstory and better characterization to my historical miniature games based on Roman gladiators.)
For those wondering, Spartacus was an actual historical figure. There was indeed a gladiator who fought under that name, who led a gladiator uprising that became a major slave revolt and troubled the Romans for years until he and all his followers were put down. The series is a cinematic retelling of this historical event, and while much of the details remain unknown, and there are few first hand period sources to tell the story, the series creators freely admit they took great liberties with the actual history. For more details on the actual history, I've included links to a few well chosen books, all books that I've actually read, below and if you purchase them by following these links, you'll also help support this blog.
For now, we're focusing on the gladiatorial fight scenes in the arena and their historical accuracy, nothing else.
A key fight scene from Spartacus: Gods of the Arena.
While the second season filmed, this six episode mini-series is actually a prequel to the events that occur in season one. The titular character Spartacus never appears, but we get to see more of the villainous ludus owners, a ludus being a gladiator school or troupe, who own and train and fight the gladiators, and learn more about what it was like to be part of this establishment and owned and forced to fight in the arena against one's will.
I hope to write a few blog posts on the degree of accuracy of the fight scenes in this series, but for now:
1. General accuracy of the arms and armor and fighting styles:
Much to my pleasant surprise, this is actually quite high. If you watch this show, the portrayal of the gladiators and their equipment is quite accurate, particularly since many cinematic depictions of gladiators are completely off.
The gladiators fought in certain distinctive ways using distinctive styles of armor and weaponry. During the latter part of the gladiatorial period, while there were local variations and locally known styles of fighters, the types allowed in the arena was largely proscribed by law.
For instance, in the scene below we witness two fighters. One of them is wearing heavy armor and carrying a straight, short sword -the Roman gladius- and carrying a large shield similar to what a legionnaire of the time would wear. This type was called a "mymillio" and the characters in the series refer to the fighters garbed and equipped in this way by that name.
The other carries two swords and is clearly intended to portray a "dimarchus," a gladiator who fight with two swords or one sword and a dagger.
To my mind there's nothing grossly wrong with the depiction of the Myrmillio. in the scene above. If I quibble, pontificate, and wax pedantic, then I must point out, for instance, that while his helmet does look like the helmet of a myrmillio, the perfect helmet for a myrmillio would look exactly this BUT with the addition of a fish, yes, a sculpted fish, added to the crest of the helmet. (This made more sense, from the Roman perspective, when you remember that a Myrmillio was often matched against a Retarius, the net and trident man. Therefore, ipso facto, par for the corso, ergoto, you would have a fisherman --the net and trident fighter-- fighting an opponent with a fish on his helmet. See! It makes perfect sense. Fisherman VS Fish. Understand that, learn some Latin and you'll soon be right up there, seeing the world from the traditional Roman perspective.)
And in a perfect world, the Myrmillio would also wear one greave, a piece of armor for his shin. Interestingly enough, most Myrmillio only had one greave, and it was on the right shin on the side opposite the heavy shield. While Roman soldiers wore them in pairs, gladiators often did not, and many of the carefully defined classes of gladiators wore just one with it being carefully prescribed as to which side of the body they wore it. If you look carefully this gladiator, this Myrmillio, has no leg armor, but you have to watch real carefully and be looking for this detail to even notice.
As for the character, Gannicus, the man with the two swords in the above clip, he is fighting in the style of a dimarchi. This is also a historically recognized style of gladiator, but one not as common as the myrmillio.
Here, I have a bigger quibble, a more glaring complaint. Historically the fighter really should be wearing a face concealing helmet, something much closer to that worn by the myrmillio in the clip.
Face concealing helmets were an important part of the dress of most gladiators. Not only did they protect the face, but they also concealed it, dehumanizing the wearer to his or her opponent. Gladiators were often paired off to fight with other members of their own ludus (school or troupe). And they had no choice in the matter,
Not only did they tend to fight harder when they couldn't see the face of their opponent, often a friend or colleague, but the concealing helmets often concealed their fear and anxiety about the match. Therefore face concealing helmets were a pretty standard part of most gladiators gear.
Interestingly enough, the retarius, the net and trident fighter, was one of the few types that did not normally wear a face concealing helmet.
A gladiator game I held at the Council of the Five Nations, a local adventure and historical game convention. I've since expanded the arena and built stands. If you blow up the picture you can see a pair of retarii, fighting a pair of secutors while a Myrmillo and a referee watch.
By contrast the only known period depiction of a dimarchi, a sculptural bas relief, shows him wearing a face concealing helmet and holding two swords, one of which is curved,
Yet throughout the Spartacus series characters tend to fight without helmets, Why? If you watch the scene, it's obvious. Gannicus is a handsome, well built man with an expressive face and a roguish grin. If you watch, you can clearly see that he's quite comfortable in his role as star gladiator, enjoying the fight, the adulation of the crowds, and even the thrill of the kill. And if his face were concealed? Well, you'd get none of this. Characterization and story telling benefits in this case from the removal of the helmet.
If you watch the series, other types of gladiators are reasonably well portrayed --aside, of course, from that matter with the face concealing helmets. The characters usually seem to have a helmet where you can see their face or at least enough to get a sense of their emotions, or else, perhaps even more foolishly, they somehow manage to lose or pull off their helmets in the heat of battle.
Still the gladiators portrayed in the Starz TV series Spartacus do tend to fall within recognized historical types and be reasonably well portrayed.
The retarius are there, although interesting some do have helmets. The thracians with the curved swords. The hoplomachii with their long spear and small shields and faux Greek style helmets. The secutors, a type of gladiator that was equipped similar to the myrmillio but had a smoother, rounder, helmet so that it would be less likely to be snared in the net, All these can be seen, and are depicted with reasonable yet less than 100% accuracy, in the show.
Recommended books on Types of Gladiator and their Arms, Armor, and Fighting Styles
These three books all have good details on the types of gladiators and how they fought. My personal favorite is Nossov's Gladiator, Rome's Bloody Spectacle and I can't recommend it highly enough if the subject interests you. The Gladiators and Caesars book is also quite good, but be forewarned only one chapter of this book focuses specifically on gladiators. The others tend to discuss things like chariot racing or animal fighting or other arena and coliseum type events.
This is an unusual yet well done book that contains interesting but largely hypothetical descriptions on how to train and fight in a realistic manner that may be similar to how the Roman gladiators fought. It's currently being sold by two different publishers so it's available on Amazon from two different sources. After Paladin went bankrupt, the rights reverted to the author and it was soon re-released.
Finally, a pair of books on the history of the Spartacus revolt. I've read both of these (I've read everything I've linked to on this page. In some cases, you can even find my reviews on Amazon for the products.) and I definitely prefer Strauss's The Spartacus War over the Osprey book. I have however included the link to the Osprey book as many people (myself included) just like Osprey books and they don't take up much space on the shelf.
Finally, if you wish to support this blog, please consider buying any of the following books, all written by yours truly. People who've read them, tell me they've enjoyed them.
