Pallantides

Hi guys,

Let me share you a project I'm following for some years now...

BLOOD ON THE SANDS

Welcome to Blood on the Sands, a tabletop skirmish game that allows players to take on the role of gladiators fighting for their lives in the provincial arenas of ancient Rome. The aim of designing Blood on the Sands was to capture the dynamic and fluid nature of gladiatorial combat while also incorporating the balanced intricacies of the deadly blood sport as implemented by the Romans.

The game mechanics produce narrative combats that require tactics, skill, and some degree of luck on the players' part, while avoiding the gameplay devolving into a simple static dice rolling fest. The game can be played as a simple one-off combat or as a campaign, where the careers and skills of gladiators develop over time. The campaign can cater to a large group of players (anywhere from 2-6), but the number of players should always be even.

https://www.facebook.com/bloodonthesands

Some words from the author Frank SULTANA :

Citation

What BotS is.

Blood on the Sands is a game of gladiatorial combat featuring intense one-on-one duels. It produces dynamic, narrative combats that move around the arena and that do not simply devolve into a static dice-rolling fest. The game requires only six miniatures per player, a hex grid playing area, gladiator sheets, some dice and some tokens; making for a pretty low buy-in for a game. It employs a dice pool mechanic that enables players to have a sense of direct control over their gladiators' actions, including manoeuvring, managing endurance, and both defending against and attacking their opponents. In its current form BotS features six historically researched gladiator armaturae or classes, the hoplomachus, murmillo, provocator, retiarius, secutor and thraex, but there are of course others in development. The distinct armament of these classes has been carefully considered in the design of BotS. Why does a murmillo wear one short greave? Why does a thraex wield a bent or curved sword? Why does a retiarius wear next to no armour? These are the types of questions that were considered when designing the game. It can be played as a simple pick-up game or as part of a longer campaign where you manage a stable of gladiators.

 

What BotS ain’t.

Blood on the Sands is not a miniature skirmish game with lots of figures in play at the same time. A player will control one figure only. Yes, one figure. The game concentrates on trying to replicate historical gladiatorial combats traditionally fought between a pair of gladiators. But what about the arena battles in the movie Gladiator? Sure, those things may have happened on occasion to deal with large groups of criminals or prisoners, but that is not a gladiatorial combat, that is a mass execution. Regardless, those types of battle are outside the scope of BotS and would be better handled by other rulesets. Animals! What about animals? Nope. Animal combats or hunts were the realm of the bestiarii, men trained specifically for the task of fighting and killing animals. They would have erroneously at best been considered gladiators, as real gladiators fought only other men. So BotS neither caters for large all in brawls or the killing of animals.

Blood on the Sands is seriously just a game with two figures on a hex grid? Is that going to be fun? You’ll just have to take my word for it until you can try it out for yourselves. Oh, and Charon doesn’t count…

Hi guys, 

the Conan the Cimmerian graphic novels by Glénat will be published in the USA by Ablaze Comics :

ABLAZE TO PUBLISH 'UNCENSORED' CONAN COMICS

Messages from Crom

@drmauric

Thanx for your kind words.

As NQD, I've written this text in french and the english version is not mine. This text is not really a story, but just a long description of a 😱 meeting with Thog, to fit with the amazing artwork of George Cl4renko. It's not an original novel as NQD, but a sort of short tribute to REH and Lovecraft.

Nice job !

These scenarios need to be presented to the french side of the forum. Sure we will find some guy ready to translate this good stuff !

Edit : announcement done.

https://the-overlord.com/index.php?/topic/2626-tales-of-the-north/

@Not Quite Dead

12 are planned. 4 books in 2018, 5 in 2019, 3 (and perhaps more) in 2020.

It's time to revise your french...

Amazon is now developing a Conan drama serie.

Conan by Amazon

As a huge fan of Robert E. Howard, I'm pleased to read this...Hope the best for this one.

Quote

Condal admits to having a personal obsession with the material, which Sapochnik also has been a longtime fan of, leading to their collaboration on the project with the creative goal to return to the original Howard literary works and produce a series that is faithful to the spirit of his Conan character. 

4 hours ago, Kheldor said:

 It does not say anywhere a turn starts with the Overlord's turn. Instead in every rulebook is stated both sides alternate turns beginning with the side as mentioned in the specific scenario.

Yes, you're right, but it is said that you always advance turn marker one space in the Overlord's turn (not heroes turn) so :

If the scenario specifies that the heroes start, then you put the turn marker on the "0"space and the heroes play...Now it's the OL's turn so you put the marker on the "1"space and the OL plays. After the OL, it's the heroes turn again and we still are on the "1" turn space. After the Heroes, it's OL's turn so you have to put the marker on the space number "2"...etc...

If the scenario specifies that the OL starts, then you put the marker on the "0" space and the OL plays. BUT, when the OL plays, he has to put the market on the number "1" space (he does not play a "0" turn as the Heroes when they start. Then it's the turn of heroes, etc, etc...

So yes, both side alternates turns, but as you only count turns when the OL plays we can say that a complete turn is always OL then Heroes. It's logic. OL is always the first to play in a turn....and this does not mean that he's just the first to play.

Hello mighty Hyborians,

One of the largest French publishers Glénat has decided to adapt 12 Robert E. Howard Conan stories into graphic novels.

Each adaptation will be from a different creative team :

The news on BleedingColl website : https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/01/17/glenat-conan-comics-public-domain-europe/

The news in french on the robert-e-howard french site : http://www.robert-e-howard.fr/Pages/Actualite.php?ID_Actualite=4595

I' dont' know if it's a good or a bad news, but it's a news...

http://www.superherohype.com/news/410319-the-conan-franchise-is-returning-to-marvel#/slide/2

Revised rulebook :

Quote

A hero with the Leardership skill can give orders to any ally on the battlefield unless specified otherwise in the scenario. When instructed by the scenario, place the corresponding ally tile next to the sheet of the hero with the Leardership skill.

 

During the Action phase, if they are in an aggressive stance, the hero may activate the ally’s models by assigning gems from their Reserve zone to the ally tile:

- Assigning one gem activates an ally model. Each ally model can only be activated once per Action phase. When an ally attacks, they lose their remaining points from their base movement value.

- The hero can assign additional gems to gain additional movement points (1 gem = 1 movement point for 1 ally model) after they spent their base movement or after they attacked. A hero cannot gain more movement points than the ally’s base movement value.

 

The aggressive or cautious hero can also perform a Guard action with an ally by assigning gems. For each gem assigned, the hero rolls 1 orange die.

 

The aggressive or cautious hero may reroll an ally’s dice by assigning one gem per rerolled die.

 

Unless specified otherwise, an ally has only 1 life point. At the end of the action phase, the gems placed on the ally tiles are moved to the hero’s Fatigue zone. If all the heroes with the Leadership skill die, the allies are immediately removed from the game.

Coming soon from Skelos Press!

THE ROBERT E. HOWARD GUIDE by Patrice Louinet -- the English translation of the award-winning book that introduced a new generation of French fans to the father of sword and sorcery.

The Robert E. Howard Guide was born out of years of scholarship, but took its final form after answering the same questions from fans over and over again. In many ways, Howard remains a “famous unknown writer," the man who single-handedly defined modern fantasy, but whose life and works are still known mostly filtered through adaptations, pastiches and gross approximations. Because of those specificities, he is more often than not known for what and who he *wasn’t*, for sentences he never wrote, or for characters who bear little resemblance – if any – to his original creations. This, in turn, explains how and why this book was conceived. It is sometimes amusing, sometimes sarcastic, but, built on 30 years of Howard scholarship, it is always insightful. A serious work... that tries not to take itself too seriously.

13 hours ago, Primeval said:

I hate to be negative but that N'Yaga card's image is kind of lazy - its the same as Belit's bodyguards, and he is supposed to be a shaman type if memory serves.

And he's an old man...

1 turn is :

OL's turn :

1 Recovery,

2 Advance turn marker,

3 Activation,

4 End.

Heroes' turn :

1 Start,

2 Stance,

3 Action,

4 End.

A turn is always the OL playing first, then the Heroes = 1st turn is OL then Heroes, 2nd turn is OL then heroes, ...

By exception if it's specified in the scenario that the heroes have to start = we've got a "0 turn" or "half' turn. So the heroes play once more than the OL.

Example :  in a 8 turns scenario, the heroes play 9 times and the OL 8 times if the heroes have to start.

And yes, in your example, in a 8 turns scenario the Heroes finish the game because 1 turn is always OL then Heroes.

On 03/06/2017 at 9:06 AM, Not Quite Dead said:

Is it possible to get around the fences of the village using the two spots marked in orange on the map below?

I say yes !

As we can see white lines between the areas, we can move minis from an area to the other. The fences don't touch the edges of the board, so the way is not blocked.

Remembering, of course, that we cannot climb or smash down the fences.

6 hours ago, Epaka said:

However, it has plenty of inaccuracies and cannot be considered as a reliable portrait of REH.  

The movie is well adapted from the book "One Who Walked Alone", but as said before based on memories of an aged and married woman.

This could change if the personal diary of Novalyne (still in the hands of his son), is released one day or another...

And by the way...

Conan by Monolith logo :

And Ron Cobb's Conan The Barbarian production letterhead :

It's really a good movie about the later years of Robert E. Howard, based on the bio-autographies "One Who Walked Alone" and "Day of the Stranger: Further Memories of Robert E. Howard" by Novalyne Price Ellis.

The movie seems to be really close from what we know today about REH's life and Vincent D'Onofrio excellent in this role. However, it's necessary to explain that Novalyne was married and aged when she wrote her memories and, perhaps, we don't know everything about her relation with REH.

I'm sure that Ron Cobb knew this when he designed Conan.

Source : http://roncobb.net/09-Conan.html

And the amazing site of Ron Cobb : http://roncobb.net/

On 31/08/2017 at 1:27 PM, Arthadan said:

A free reroll affects a single dice. Let's say you roll And you are happy with the result of one dice but you want to reroll the other. After rerolling you still get a poor result and you want to reroll again. In this case you cannot use the free reroll of the other dice (even if it's the same color) to reroll a second time, you'll need to spend gems.

 

After the initial roll, including free rerolls if any, you can spend as many gems as you want to reroll dice ( heroes and Overlord alike).

 

Of course if you have rolled to attack and your opponent has rolled to defend, you can't spend any more gems to reroll your attack dice. You can do that only during your attack roll.

 

Arthadan is right, and the official answer already given on BGG :

Quote

Each die can only be re-rolled for free once
You can roll, re-roll for free (if the die shows the arrow on top), but each new re-roll has to be paid in gems; even if you have "left outs" from the other re-rollable dice

10 hours ago, LegoMech said:

 Does Intangible allow Thog to ignore elevation?  

Yes, Thog ignores elevation penalty with  the "intangible" skill.

Yogah is an Extraterrestrial with great knowledge.

You still can imagine some Stygian sorcerers know his existence and want to take over this knowledge...Why not fighting Yara to do that (by magic or/and sending some mercenaries) ?

Or an alternative story in wich Yara drag away Yogah in Stygia to accomplish some dark rituals or whatever ...

A small selection only based on adventures movies (no war, no sci-fi,...) with stunning scores :

Basil Poledouris -  "Conan the Barbarian" and "Flesh+Blood"

Jerry Goldsmith - "The Wind and the Lion" and "The 13th Warrior"

Howard Shore - "The Two Towers" 

James Horner - "Krull" (not Kull) and "Willow"

Harry Gregson-Williams - "Kingdom of Heaven"

Hans Zimmer - "Gladiator"

Mickael Kamen - "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves",

Miklos Rosza - "Ben-Hur"

Welcome fierce warriors of the Hyborian Age. 

13 minutes ago, Crom said:

That cover to Conan Universe #1 is stunning.

Yeah, I agree.

Did you know that this illustration ("Battle of Helm's Deep") was previously done by Michael Kaluta for a J.R.R.Tolkien calendar.

Then, he has adapted this illustration for the Marvel wrap-around cover of this Encyclopedia of the Conan Universe.

Interview with Michael Kaluta

Preliminary drawing :

Tolkien calendar :

Revised artwork :

The printed wraparound cover :