A day at the games.

I recently picked up the latest by Ganesha Games, Faustus Furius, a chariot racing game using the the Song of... mechanics. I'm a sucker for Gladiator and Chariot games, and with the new, probably terrible, reboot of Ben Hur coming out, I was inspired to pick up yet another rules set.

I dug out the makings of a hippodrome from my $10 Playmobil-ripoff Egyptian set ( hey, they had arenas there during the Roman Empire) and some chariots.
It was great. The mechanics force you to make risks if you want to win, and plenty of dirty tricks. Our Green Chariot, driven by Don Magicus Juan, was in the lead for most of the race, then tried to get dirty and the end and it cost him the race.
After the race, we took the winnings to fight a Gladiator match. For time, we just did a bunch of 6 player duels, where given time, I would have set up some 1 v 1 matches.

My arena is on loan at the moment, so a quicky arena made do.
After all the gladiator rules I've tried, I always go back to "Death or Freedom". They make for some fun games without taking to long. There are some nice rules out there, but this is one I always come back to.