Arena Rex Forums

Since each beast has a name and is essentially a character, does that mean there cannot be more than one of those beasts on the table at a time?

For example, I wanted to try playing Zahra riding Sereqet but her entire cohort being a horde of scorpions. Sereqet would be the alpha scorpion and the rest would not be mountable. Would this be doable? Or is the game made for character based battles of only one type per battle?

That's actually a great question.

Since each character has a name, I've just assumed that you can only field one of each model, since that's the way it usually works. But it doesn't say that in the rulebook anywhere as far as I can see.

And certainly Proximo is described as a "they" rather than an "it", suggestion that there are multiples of them running around. So could you make a cohort of Anum and three Proximos?

And if so, how about two Proximos and three Anums?

Whatever the answer, it should maybe be mentioned somewhere.

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The intention was that there should only be one of each character per side (at least in organized play).

That said, beasts should generally be fine to use multiples of, because of how they're designed with the secondary role of living hazards in mind. A pack of scorpions is cool. A pair of rhinos or questing beasts with Anum is also pretty cool.

A pack is Scorpions might get a little chaotic during a clear turn... but if you place them just right...

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or don't...

How about Wendigo? Unique character or example monster?

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I'm still interested in this. The issue here is interesting because I feel like there is a bit of an intentional grey area being created. Which is intriguing to me on a principal level.

It seems clear from general descriptions that every gladiator in Arena Rex is a unique individual. Mago is the only Mago, Hermes is the only Hermes. So the rulebook doesn't mention anything about only being able to take one of each gladiator. It is obvious.

The same principle is then applied to the beasts. Leo isn't just "a lion". Leo is his name and he is presented as a unique individual. "Leo has slain hundreds on the sands, and dozens in his pen." I personally think that beasts being characters is super awesome and flavourful. RRG talk about it in their article about Leo, as I recall.

But this thread highlights that it doesn't have to be this way. Leo is a unique character, but he is also the only lion in the game, so you could choose to interpret his stats to not be for uniquely him, but to be a generic lion statline. So you could have a pack of Leos, that are just lions.

The descriptions of some models suggest this approach more strongly. Especially Proximo is described to sound like a generic creature, not a unique individual.

Walker's post above reads to me like rules-wise, the intention is that every model is a unique character. So in some kind of official organised play, where the uniformity of rules is considered important, you could only field one Leo or Sereqet in your cohort. (Though theoretically there could end up being 3+ Leos in the arena - one for you, one for your opponent, and 1+ as living hazards.) But for unofficial games, the game principally and morally supports multiples of the same beast in the same cohort, because it seems appropriate for the setting and flavour.

Human gladiators generally have unique characters, this much is clear. With one exception, in my mind. Noxius. He has no name, just a title, and feels to my mind like he is intended to represent a type of fighter rather than a specific unique individual. So if I were to embrace the idea that Arena Rex models can be shifted from unique to generic, I would start not with the beasts, but with Noxius. I could really enjoy fielding a cohort of four noxii and one named gladiator, who would be responsible for goading the (quite fierce) slaves into combat. Ur-Kek seems like a characterful candidate for this job.

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Thematically I like the idea of unique characters... but that whole thing starts to hit some dissonance when you face a cohort that has the same model as yours... we've even thrown around the idea of having a bit of a draft when we play so that the same gladiator doesn't appear in two different cohorts. I'll post about that if we ever do try it... right now it's just thoughts. For some reason though, the idea of multiples of the same beast doesn't really bother me much, even though they are clearly characters in their descriptions. The scorpion horde that someone mentioned in another post sounds pretty cool... or a Septimus running with the bulls type of cohort...
I do like the idea of a slave drive and a bunch of Noxii though, I think it would be an interesting scenario where the slaves are pushed to fight and are stronger and more efficient as long as the slave drive is still alive. I might have to mull on that one for a bit to try to come up with some ideas for that.

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That's a great idea, actually. It requires people to be comfortable with someone else touching their models, which not everyone is, but I like the idea that two players get all their AR models together before a game, remove any duplicates, and then take turns picking "players" for their "team". Seems very thematically appropriate for the game. And it means you won't necessarily get your ludus benefits, if you end up competing with your opponent for the same ludus...



I think it's like that for everyone, and it's just like Walker says - it's because the beasts are still presented like base animals, and so despite technically being characters, they don't have distinct personalities in their profiles in the way the humans do. If I take a Proximo or Leo and chain it to a pole as a living hazard for my game, we will most likely just think of it as "a beast", not *the* Proximo or *the* Leo.

I think presenting the beasts as characters is an inspired move, but it's not going to make its full impact until we get a selection of lions and proximos that each have individual personalities. And we don't really want that, probably, because we kinda like that the beasts are slightly generic at the same time as being sorta characters. They're in a greyish area between the two. Just like Noxius.

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