Arena Rex Forums

In most other miniature games I know, factions are a big deal. When you assemble a group of fighters to do battle with, they have to all come from the same faction. An Orc team in Blood Bowl can only field orcs, a Cygnar army can only field Cygnar models, and so on.

Arena Rex is more like Age of Sigmar - you can field anything you want, but you get bonuses for fielding things that are designed to go together.

My initial reaction to a system like this, and I'm probably not the only one, is to completely ignore it. By that I mean that the miniatures for the game are presented to us as belonging to factions. We get faction starter packs, and the webstore is organised into factions. So to me, the natural gut reaction is to say "I'm going to play Legio XIII this game". That I don't have to choose a ludus, but can assemble a cohort of any models I want, is irrelevant, because I would never do that. Since I started with Warhammer in the early 90's, all games I have played have always forced me to pick a faction as the first thing I did. Doing so is completely ingrained in my gaming DNA.

Do you feel the same way? Or are there any Arena Rex players out there who enjoy mixing it up? Would a 5-combatant cohort made up of one gladiator from each ludus and one beast be interesting to you, or would it scream wrongness to every fibre of your being?

My only tentative step towards mixing ludi so far is that I like Hroka, but I'm not really into any of the other Zephyri, so I am thinking of getting her and adding her as an ally (like the old 25% allies rule from Warhammer) to one of my other ludi...

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My Arena Rex painting log

I already stated it on other post, and i'll repeat it here. I'm all in for "ludus free" cohorts.
I happen to be somewhat tired of being constrained to select minis from one faction alone, not being able to play what i like from other factions (I miss so much my ariadna camos when playing Imperial Service...). So I do love the idea i can mix my Tiet-Khebi with Micon and Frigge, for example. The painting of my minis show this up, and in general there are no "faction colors" between them. Mind you, most morituri wear white, but I painted Toth in black trimmed red. That way i reinforce the idea "anyone can couple with anyone".
Plus, having a cohort without Proximo or Acerbus, or any other beast/titan? No way!

PS: I know, there are no photos of my minis around, but you can have a look at them at http://www.diariodelsegundo.blogspot.com Warning! It's in spanish Someday I'll upload them here too.

I prefer to stick to "fluffy" lists and themes. I have always turned away from mercenaries in other games as I like the sense of identity from unified factions and themes. I don't mind when others mix and match as long as it doesn't create overly broken game effects. With so few models available right now, mixing ludi is a good way to remove some monotony.

I like the freedom to mix and match... it's actually one of the things that drew me to the game, my first purchase was Lupa, Bjarrhvit, and Zahra simply because I like the models and thought it would be cool to play a group of badass women from different backgrounds (I have since picked up many, many more). I didn't really play a lot of war games before this, so there's nothing imprinted in my gaming DNA to make such mixing seem wrong
I am sure as me and my group play more and get better at it, the ludus benefits will become more and more important as part of the strategy and we will try to stick to playing within a faction... but I really like having the option.

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Morituri te salutamus.

I also really like the principle of being able to mix ludi. It just feels really interesting. And like you can make some very cool cohorts, that are themed in specific ways.

For example, you could make a cohort of all 40mm based gladiators - Micon, Otho, Gaius, Ur-Kek, and so on. Or focus on special abilities you can put together groups of. Like Micon and Gaius who are both Stoic, and don't take fatigue from hazards. Or working Mago and Marcus, the two trident-net guys, together as a tag team. That could look really cool.

My only problem with it, in practical terms, is that I really like coordinated colour schemes for cohorts. To do mixed-ludus cohorts, you have to either drop coordinated colour schemes, or decide on fixed cohorts that you dedicate a scheme to, or paint your whole collection in one unified colour scheme across all the ludi.

The last one makes a lot of sense. Actually.

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My Arena Rex painting log

This is thought provoking for me, as I have just started playing and bought 2 starter sets. I have been blinkered in thinking I have 2 factions and will build on those. I too have played games for years that forced this thinking.
I will open my mind a bit based on this post, so thanks for putting the conversation up here.

I've also recently been breaking the ludus chains and mixing the crew, and I've had quite successful results! One of our local players put together a Ludus Magnus crew, picking models based on abilities and avoiding the starter models, and it worked great... which is easier to do with that group, since there are so many models from which to choose. It inspired me to look at model interactions and how to make them work together over keeping within one ludus. There are some very powerful combinations to be had, and so far I've not missed the ludus benefits very much.

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-Jeff [LemonKraken]

Very cool.

Currently I'm in a situation where I think I can get some friends to play with me, but just using my model collection, basically treating it like a boardgame that I own the local copy of.

This is related to ludus in that the collection I have and am planning to have will consist of 3-4 models from each ludus. This is all fine, but I also have the gorgons and would like to play them as a single cohort sometime. But they count as a 6-model cohort. To go against them, it seems most likely that I would have to combine gladiators from different ludi to make up six normal gladiators. Which means that they wouldn't get ludus benefits, but the gorgons would.

That seems a little unfair to me. So I'm thinking of maybe a house rule that under these circumstances, instead of only getting ludus benefits if the cohort has 75% of a single ludus, the cohort will automatically gain the ludus benefits of the ludus that it has the most gladiators from. If it's a tie, then they get to pick.

Seems like that should be more fun than automatically being ludus-free when the reason for it isn't deliberate choice, but rather an inherent intentional diversity in the model choices available.

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My Arena Rex painting log

If you wish to stay within the rules as written and still get Ludus benefits you could make a cohort using three members of one ludus, a fourth gladiator of your choice and then filling the last two spots with beasts or a titan. That will give you a six-card cohort that still gets the ludus benefit.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with houseruling whatever makes the game more enjoyable for you. Just offering options.

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Morituri te salutamus.

Indeed. Supplementing with beasts is definitely an option that works, since I've got beasts available.

I'm also enjoying toying with these ideas in general though, treating it like an alternate game format. Maybe I'll start a separate thread about that.

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My Arena Rex painting log