Arena Rex Forums

There's been quite a lot of discussion regarding force selection on the forum and I've put some thought into it myself.

There's a few things I have issue with at the moment both with current rules and the options suggested:
- I have an issue with the 'single Ludus' suggestion as I find it far too limiting for such a small skirmish game
- I really don't like the idea of multiple 'named' characters in the same game. I feel it encourages the power gamer and it just seems wrong...
- My own suggestion of randomly determined models was too demanding on the wallet!

Anyway, I've come up with the following idea for force selection and would welcome any feedback:

Players roll a D6 after terrain has been placed, re-rolling any drawn results.
The player that rolls highest then chooses his first gladiator from those that he/she owns.
The player that rolled the next highest then chooses their first gladiator from those that they own but cannot choose a gladiator that has already been chosen.
In the case of multiple player games the next player selects a gladiator (not previously selected) and so on until all players have selected a gladiator.
The player that rolled highest then selects another gladiator (again, not one already taken) and so on until everyone has chosen the full allowance of gladiators.

This process eliminates the multplie named character problem and severly restricts the power gaming selection (If a player takes gladiator 'A' that combines so well with gladiator 'B' then the other player(s) has the option to deny them the choice by selecting it themselves)

Obviously there would have to be further rules to allow for large, multil-player games. But I think this suggestion could really work.

Thought?

This idea has some merit, but does come with a financial flaw. As you mentioned, you can block potential power combo's by selecting a gladiator who is essential to that combo for yourself - which in turn means you must own that gladiator. You also need to, worst case scenario, have twice as many models on hand as you intend to play using in case you end up with very similar lists to your opponent.

There's also the fact that you're essentially forcing people to buy the 'popular' gladiators in case of needing to block a scary combo, which has the side effect of promoting that combo's use in your own ludus since you own all the pieces to the puzzle anyway.

Too much of an advantage to the player who owns the most toys, I think - though I think a system similar would be nice.

Perhaps a veto system could work? Say for 5v5 games you bring 7 gladiators and your opponent selects two that you can't field? Likewise bring 4 for a 3v3 game etc. Has the same effect on blocking 'power combos' and can be used to significantly lessen the chances of named characters on both sides if that's important to you.

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http://thesonsofloki.blogspot.com.au/

Yep, I was planning on doing something similar for a single collection, but each player can clare their ludus (in which case they're required to stick by that but have first pick of their own group and last pick of other groups.

Either way, something like that seems fine as optional rules but a poor choice for core rules.

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One merit to this system is you can find out during your selection how casual the game will be.

"Oh, really? You're bringing him??? So that's the kind of game this is going to be..."