Arena Rex Forums

I saw Arena Rex at Gen Con but I didn't have a chance to demo it. Once back home I read the rules and watched a few videos. I tested the game with the Ludus Magnus vs Legio XIII starter lists.

In my demo, L. Magnus got a lot the first strike with Infelix, followed by continual favor from Marcus' Harrier ability and Micon using the Rouse tactic. Legio lost Aquilla and Gaius, and things were looking grim. Do people typically see this favor imbalance?

Fortunately, Ban-Luca turned into a monster with the Last Man Standing rule. She finished off Infelix, then Marcus. Micon couldn't get past her armor. He finally got a 5th success to trigger his Atlas Throw, tossing BL into a pit.

I'm now hooked and I've ordered a starter, dice, and rulebook.

Hooray! Sounds like great fun, I hope you will enjoy the models.

Who do you play with? I can't tell from your description of your test game if you were playing against yourself or another person.

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My Arena Rex painting log

Favor is the Flavor of Ludus Magnus, so I imagine most games you play will result in LM having a higher favor count then the other factions. But with favor from the vitality track, and the Last Man Standing rule, you will very likely end most games with 1 gladiator left on each side. The game definitely has some mechanics in place to prevent games from becoming too lopsided.

I played my test game with a friend who mostly plays only board and card games. He really enjoyed it. I have several friends who play miniatures games, so I'm hoping to get them hooked. I don't know anyone in the Pittsburgh area that plays Arena Rex already.

The fact that the game is so straightforward to play, and that you can play with pretty much any collection of gladiators you want, means that it's fortunately not a requirement to find other people that already play, I think. You can basically treat it like a board game - you can ask your friends if they want to play using your models, they don't need to own "armies" of their own to enjoy the game experience. It's very different from a collection-heavy game like Warmachine. Which is one of the best things about it.

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My Arena Rex painting log