The Seasonal Arena - Summer

[DavidVC04]

**READ ALL OF THIS BEFORE SIGNING UP! YES, ALL OF IT!**

Here's the back story copied from SteamTankDriver's post later in this thread. It'll give you an idea for developing your character's background. Skip past the italicized part if you want to jump to the rules.

"Parry maggot!" The blademaster barked, bringing his sword down hard in a convalescing arc towards the slave's head. The terrified human yelped in dismay, diving sideways away from the falling blade, his shoulder smashing against the shield of the nearest armour clad druchii as he wailed futilely at the ring of warriors that encircled the pit, hemming him in with his dark elven opponent.

The panicked slave slid down the polished face of the shield, scrabbling for purchase on the slick steel even as its owner shooed him away with several harsh kicks of one leather boot, one of which caught him solidly across the face. The human shuffled backwards like a crab, skittering across the floor on his inverted palms, blood pouring from the ruined pulp of his nose where the druchii's kick had broken it, his face a study in terror. His eyes darted from side to side,searching the walls of the pit for an exit, but the sleek, intricate stonework was no more escapable than the throng of warriors ringing it.

A druchii noble, who the slave had heard addressed as Ka'riel Sellyne, stood at the edge of the pit, his long purple cloak whispering in the breeze behind him. His cold blue eyes seemed to melt into the gray stain of sky, and his wispy black tresses whipped about his handsome face in angry bursts as the wind played at them. A ornate rapier, its hilt inlaid with dozens of gemmed runes, rested on his hip, and as the slave looked on, Sellyne unsheathed the weapon with the air of a master swordsman, twirling the sword overhead with a brief flourish before leaping into the pit, his Sea Dragon boots touching lightly to the earth a few scant feet from the prone human.

"Lord?" came the voice of the blademaster from somewhere behind the slave, but the man was too deep in his fear to register it, his limbs turned to jelly at the sudden proximity of the druchii nobleman.

"Blademaster Sevat. You have toyed with this one for far too long. I felt it was time to put an end to your dance." Before the words even hard time to sink in, Sellyne darted forward, rapier leading, the slim blade erupting from the back of the slave's neck in a fountain of blood. The man's eyes, wide and unbelieving even in death, lolled up to their whites, and his head rolled backward as if the noble's attack had severed some invisible pivot in his neck, bearing his whole body to the ground in a twitching heap.

Sellyne removed his blade, wiping the scarlet gore from its length with a silk handkerchief as he turned to address Sevat. The blademaster's face was covered in sweat, a testament to the dozens of dead slaves heaped on pallets in the antechambers of the mine, the aftermath of the day's "entertainment".

"This trivial bloodletting has grown dull," Sellyne mused, seemingly to himself. "There must be some slaves among these rats that are worthy of partaking in the grand arena". He whirled on Sevat, his eyes blazing with barely contained fury. "Find them or I will grand you the honor of entering the arena yourself blademaster. I think that two dozen cold ones will provide you with a significant challenge, no?"

Sevat's face flickered with the brief shadow of fear as his lord delivered his ultimatum. "Y...yes my lord. Malick! Istreel! To me!" Two warriors emerged from the ring, shouldering their pikes and lifting their shields as they approached Sevat, throwing a deferential salute to Sellyne as they passed him. They took up flanking positions near the blademaster as the man turned and stormed into the mouth of the mine, his naked steel glinting dully in Sellyne's spectrum of vision as the druchii and his bodyguards hurried down the darkened shaft, sizing up each slave they passed.

Sellyne nodded in grim satisfaction, his lips pursing sullenly. He made a tight circle with his hand in the air, and a set of gears mounted high up on the wall of the pit began to grind together as a team of serpentine cold ones pulled against their yoked pulleys, unhinging a plank elevator from a secret casement in the stonework. Sellyne stepped onto the elevator's surface, making the same circular motion to herald he was aboard. The gears cranked back up again, and as Sellyne began his ascent, he spat in disgust at the bloody corpse of the slave.

"Someone do something with that filth".

Okay. So that's the basic premise. If anyone (like Undead Bonzi) wants me to make an amendment to their backstory I can still work you in with minimal changes to the fluff. Just send me a PM and we'll work something out. I have no problem working with you to make sure the AoD is as much fun and as entertaining for everyone as possible. Thanks for getting the ball rolling Dave. Much obliged.

-Tom

*****************************

We are looking for sixteen characters maximum, places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. If there is an odd number then we will enter one to even the numbers.

How to enter:

You are allowed to use any Lord or Hero character from any of the current army books. Storm of Chaos and the like are out. The new Dark Elf book is not allowed. Below you will find a list of rules on how things work; however, there are a few limits on your characters.

• Each character must be named.
• They must be legal and cost no more than 275 points in total.
• They cannot ride monstrous mounts (mounts with more than one wound).
• No special characters.
• All Hero Choices may select 100 points of magic items, rather than the usual 50.
• In addition, each one much be accompanied by a background and a description of them for my write ups. Failure to do so will result in myself taking liberties with your entrée – such as an ugly, hunchbacked elf for example. -__^

To enter, you reply in this thread along with:

• Name of character
• Background
• Equipment
• Total cost

[NB: DO NOT post rules for items. We have all current army books and can easily find out what each does myself. If we are unsure, then we will PM you.]

Rules

Equalizers

• Skaven Warlords may go up to 20 points over their magic item limit providing that they do not exceed 275 pts in total. The Appendix Plague Lord is no longer permitted.
• Empire characters who do not take a Runefang may go up to 20pts over the magic item limit providing that they do not exceed 275 points in total.
• Wood Elf characters may exceed their magic point allowance by 20 points, as long as they do not exceed 275 points in total.
• Bretonnians must pray to gain the Blessing, allowing their opponent to charge them and gain all the benefits thereof in the first round of each combat. A Bretonnian player who does not wish to pray should specify this before the match is rolled.

Additional Rules

Gaze of the Gods - Same points cost, before the battle roll a D6 - 1 = you get a 6+ ward, 2-3 = you get a 5+ ward, 4-6 = you get a 4+ ward. Such is the fickle nature of chaos.

Warpstone amulet - Same points cost, but roll to see if you die BEFORE the fight instead of afterwards.

Killing Blow - If a character scores a KB hit then this is how damaged will be worked out: D2+n

(n stands for the number of original wounds the character had minus two. This gives a 50% chance of killing a character off.)

Dwarfs – Any dwarf lord entered may be mounted upon shieldbearers, all rules and restrictions apply as per usual.

BANNED ITEMS

The following items are banned, they are found to be too powerful or have an unfair advantage in an Arena of Death game.

• Tress of Isolde
• Sword of Fate
• Van Horstmann's Speculum
• The Daemon Sword
• The Fellblade
• The Bane Head
• The Grudge Rune
• The Talisman of Saphery
• Kurbog's Curmudgeonly Klobbera
• Virtue of Confidence
• Annoyance of Netlings
• Obsidian Armor
• Palanquin mount for DoC

Also, any item that includes in its rules "nominate one enemy character" is illegal.

How it works

If you have never fought in one of these, the point is to pit two characters against one another, one on one. In all essence it is a challenge as in a normal game but with a few differences. Namely, they’re trapped in an arena with the only way out is to kill or be killed.

We will roll a match up between two characters until one perishes. The one who remains standing will be the victor and progress to the next round.

The battles will be represented by a ‘story’ format written by myself and following that will be a note of how many wounds were caused by each other in each round. For example:

[ (i) CA: # CB: # (ii) CA: # CB: # ] etc

[CA = Character A, CB = Character B, (x) = Round number (#) = Number of wounds caused]

Combat

- Always Strike First

- First round of combat
In the first round of combat, both warriors count as charging for the purposes of lances and other special rules. If neither warrior has a 'strike first' ability (or a 'strike last' ability), the person with the highest Initiative will strike first. If both warriors are equally entitled to strike first (usually because they have equal initiative), striking order will be determined randomly. In essence, we will follow the rules as outlined by GW for ASF, great weapons, and the like.

- Later rounds
In later rounds of combat, neither warrior gets charging bonuses (pretty obvious ). Strike order will be determined using the same system as in the first round of combat - however, in cases of equal initiative, the die to determine strike order is not rolled. Instead, the person who struck first last time will strike first again, combat alternating between each warrior.

- After the Fight
After the fight, the victor advances to the next round. Any wounds they suffer are healed, as well as any other effects (such as the manbane poison: or anything else that permanently reduces statistics). It is as if the last fight never happened!

Psychology

- Break tests
Break tests are ignored in the Arena (where are they going to run in a ring of death?). Other psychology that may force an opponent to flee from combat is also ignored. THERE IS NO WAY TO FLEE IN AN AOD. For this reason, panic, unbreakable and Stubborn also have no effect.

In addition, undead warriors ignore the rule that causes them to take wounds from combat resolution. In a similar manner, daemonic characters do not suffer from instability.

- Fear
Fear is handled similarly to normal. In the first round of combat, a warrior facing a fearsome foe will take a Ld test. If he fails, he will hit on 6+ for that round of combat. After that, fear has no effect.

- Hatred
Hatred is also handled as normal. The warrior will re-roll failed 'to hit' rolls against hated foes in the first round, unless a specific army book overrules this.

- Stupidity
Since stupidity is ignored in combat, it only effects the first turn when the model suffering stupidity is attempting to charge. He or she will take a stupidity test as normal; if failed, the model strikes last, no matter what. I.e., no ASF for failed test.

- Frenzy
While there's nowhere to run, you can still have the frenzy knocked out of you; therefore, models do lose frenzy as normal.

***** Organiser's Note *****

We may make some more rule changes, most likely only to restricted items as we take on the task of surveying the new books for unsporting items.

This is a big enterprise, the biggest yet for an Arena of Death. There will be magic and monster matches, too. It should be fun, but be patient with us as we work out the kinks with new rules and such.

Cheers, and get those characters in quickly!


Most of these rules are taken from a great AoD based website: The Arena of Rezephua.

[zao77s]

Hi, I am a new member to Librarium, but would love to enter a character. My character is actually a Dark Elf. His name is Reisis Stormbow. He is a former Corsair Captain who lost a ship in a botched escape from a High Elf sea patrol and consequently a fortune in slaves. His investors took him as a slave and sold him into slavery for this tournament to exact their wrath upon him. His only way of escape is to survive the arena so that he can hunt down each investor for their treachery.

Reisis counts as a Druchii Highborn. He rides his personally trained Cold One, Bane. He wears heavy armor and a seadragon cloak. He carries his family's sword (counts as the draich of dark power), and wears an ancient medallion he claimed for himself in a raid on a village in Ulthuan's (counts as the heartstone of darkness) Saphery coast.

I hope that is all that is needed.

[DavidVC04]

Excellent, zaos. I finally tricked you into joining LO! ;Y

Cool character. Reisis and Bane.

A Dark Elf assassin kicked my assass in the last arena, only fitting since you slapped my Wood Elves earlier tonight, eh?

[Skarsgard]

Kethemar Hlaetylar, Woodelf Highborn of the Alter Kindred. He is armed with Daith's Reaper, light Armour, enchanted shield and merciw's locus.

Tall and slender like all of his race, Kethemar's small wings betray his kindred. Not large enough to enable full flight, else he would not have been caught, but powerful enough to run at fantastic speeds. The last things he remembered before the ship was drinking the water of a deserted glade, he remebered feeling a little dizzy after the drink then blackness. When next he awoke it was chained to the deck of the ship with many other slaves.

[DavidVC04]

Originally Posted by Skarsgard

Kethemar Hlaetylar, Woodelf Highborn of the Alter Kindred. He is armed with Daith's Reaper, light Armour, enchanted shield and merciw's locus.

Oh man, you goofed big time! You gave your dude wings! Man, we're gonna have fun making that fairy fly!

Okay, that's two people. Who else is playing?

[Skarsgard]

Lol

Hey, do characters that come with bows as standard get a free shot pre-charge?

[DavidVC04]

My first thought is to answer no, but I'll take it up with the crew so as I don't act in haste.

Originally Posted by Skarsgard

Lol

Hey, do characters that come with bows as standard get a free shot pre-charge?

[Undead Bonzi]

A screaming rift in the fabric of reality appears in the Arena of Death. Shaddows seem to twist and move, combining and tinting blood red...in a blast of sulferous heat a Herald of Khorne mounted on a mighty juggernaught appears. The silence of the moment is broken as an inhuman voice issues out of a mouth filled with fangs ment more for biting and tearing than for speaking....


"I am Bloodtide Foereaper. The Lord of War, the mighty Blood God Khorne has heard tell of the mortal realms Arena of Death. The fighting of mortals in desperate feats of combat interests him for there is always room in Khornes keep for more skulls taken in battle and there is always room in his legion for new slaves. The Lord of War has bade me to come and reap the blood harvest! Who here will meet me in combat and test the mettle of the servant of war!? Who here will risk their eternal soul in a feat of arms!?"

Sorry...I refused to have a Herald of Khorne on a Juggernaught enter the Arena of Death as a captured slave...didn't seem very likely. Figured it more probable that he would show up of his own free will being a Herald of Khorne and all.


Bloodtide Foereaper

Herald of Khorne

Mount: Juggernaught

Gifts: Obsidian Armour, Etherblade

250pts


Bloodtide had a history once, a mighty mortal champion of some ancient culture but an endless tide of blood and war has washed such memeories away. A mortal life is a mortal concern and has no place in the chaos realms, all that remains is the daemon Bloodtide. He has been sent by Khorne to reap the bloodharvest and recruit the souls of new champions to Khornes Legion. Chained to his juggernaughts back is an empty sack waiting to be filled. Should he succed he will be elveated to become one of Khornes mighty generals, the fearsome Bloodlthirster. Should he fail...well that is a nightmare that no mortal mind could ever understand.

[DavidVC04]

Originally Posted by Undead Bonzi

I'm in, gimme a second to write up the character...gotta decide between Dwarfs or Daemons.

Don't be a pansy. Go for Skaven.

[ArchonFarseerGuy]

Hmmmm....

I'd REALLY love to enter this but at the same time I'd be happy sitting back and letting someone else get killed.

Count me in. For now.

-AFG//