Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery - First Play!

7th July 2023

It's a Friday and we're round Simon's for some board game action.

I'm a gamer and so's my wife!

Time to play this licensed game of the Spartacus TV series from a few years ago (not the classic film).
Enter the murky world of intrigue, secret machinations and violence featured in the titular show ​but disappointingly, with none of the nudity it was known for.

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Note: This game was played with 'The Serpents and the wolf' expansion which took the player count up to 6.

What's in a game?

• Game board: The game board depicts a gladiatorial scene as befits a game named Spartacus.
  ​The central area shows a bloody sand-filled arena overlaid with a hex grid while the outside shows a baying crowd.
  ​Finally, in each corner are 4 'wagering' spaces.
  The game board comes into play in the latter stage of a round.

• Figures: There are 4 plastic gladiator figures that come with the game, one for each house. The expansion adds 2 to this. 
• Dice: Spartacus makes use of a lot of normal six-sided dice that come in 3 colours - red, black and blue.

Dice & figures.

• Cards: Spartacus features lots of different types of cards
• House cards: In the game, players take on the role as head or 'Dominus' if you will of 1 of 4 (Or 6 with the expansion.) 'houses'.
  Each house has their own card that displays an illustration of said house along with its unique logo and also explains that house's 'special ability'
  It also displays starting resources and has a 'influence' tracker along the top that runs from 1-12.

House Seppius house card and tokens.

• Market deck: Gladiator, slave and equipment cards can be found in this deck, all the things you'd find at a market! At least in ancient Rome.
  Equipment cards: These will have a cost and display whatever their usage is.
  Gladiator and slave cards: Additionally, these cards also show their 3 'combat stats. Some cards may also have special abilities that can be used.

2 denarii....! For a convict....! Daylight robbery I tell you!

• Intrigue deck: Spartacus has a lot of intrigue and so gets its own deck. 3 types of cards can be found in this deck.
  Scheme cards: What would intrigue be without scheming? Without going into detail, these cards allow players to perform certain actions be they honourable or not so much.
  Reaction cards: These cards are used to counter actions, events or even schemes that occur in the game.
  Guard cards: These are bit like reaction cards, except they can only be used by whoever plays one to protect themselves​ only from a scheme.

Scheming for an epic spectacle.

• Tokens: Several different types of card token are used in the game.
  House tokens: There's several tokens for each house, including a influence tracker which have various uses.
  ​Gold: The standard round gold coloured token you might see in a lot of games.
  Status tokens: There are tokens for 'injured', 'favour' and champion.
  Host token: Finally, there is a token to represent whoever is the host for that round.

​The components here - board, tokens and cards - are all good quality which is to be expected from a modern game and feel sufficiently sturdy.
While the dice are plastic and not wooden, they are good plastic dice with rounded corners and indented pips.
The game comes with 'proper' miniatures instead of meeples or pawns to represent gladiators. While the miniatures are clearly good quality sculpts (You can see photos of some very nice paint jobs online.), unpainted they look a bit, well, grey, drab and featureless.  It's a bit of strange choice in my opinion.

Note: Apparently, there're 2 versions of the game available. One that features it's own original artwork. Which I presume it is a version that was produced after the license expired and one with art assets sourced from the TV series; this is the version we played and the version I'll be talking about here.

Spartacus features a mix of original artwork and photos from the TV shows. I've said this before but generally I'm not fond of licensed games that use photos sourced from the subject matter of the license, it can look cheap and lazy - especially if it comes from a publicity pack or something similar.
Fortunately, this didn't really feel the case here. The photos looked high quality; it doesn't hurt that the costume and sets all looked excellent. Furthermore, it always seemed appropriate for its subject.
The original artwork that also appears throughout the game looks fairly good, if a little unremarkable.
None of the art is overly busy or cluttered.

In terms of iconography, there's not too much in the game. Much of the game's components have text that explains there function in place of symbology. I can't imagine players having trouble with iconography here.

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How's it play?
Setup

• Houses: Players should select their house by rolling dice as per the rules and collect their starting resources as shown on their card and which will consist of a mix of starting gladiator and slave cards, as well as guard cards and gold.
  Host: Whoever got the highest dice roll will become host for the 1st round.
  Influence tracker: Depending on how long a game the players agree to play, they should all put their influence tracking token on 1, 4 or 7 on their individual influence trackers. The higher the starting number, the shorter the game will be.
• Market cards: Shuffle the market cards into a face-down deck.
• Intrigue cards: Shuffle the intrigue cards into a face-down deck.

On to play
In Spartacus, each player will be attempting to earn the most influence.
Each round in the game is played over 4 phases and influence points can be acquired in a number of ways.
With the exception of the upkeep phase, all phases are played in turn order, starting with whoever is the host.

• Upkeep phase: this phase can be performed by all players simultaneously.
  During this phase, players will 'ready' cards that were used or 'exhausted' in the previous round.
  Players can also attempt to heal wounded gladiators which involves dice rolls and may result in them being healed or with a bad result dying form their injuries!
  Costs: Each readied gladiator costs the controlling player money (They need their protein!) but conversely, each readied slave earns the controlling player money. So there's a bit of a balancing act going on here.
  Once all players have completed their upkeeps, play progresses to the intrigue phase.
• Intrigue phase: First deal 3 intrigue cards to each player.
  Then; in turn order and starting with the host who becomes the active player, players may play their intrigue cards.
  • Special abilities: Each house and some other cards will have abilities that can be activated during the intrigue phase. These can be used during this phase and furthermore, cards will be exhausted when their ability is used.
  • Play intrigue card(s): The active player play may any number of their intrigue cards.
    However, each intrigue card has an 'influence' requirement. This means the active player must have that much influence on their tracker (Influence is not spent to activate intrigue cards.) in order to use it.
    Ask for help: The active player can ask other players for help when trying to play an intrigue card by contributing their own influence. This can involve, bribing, bargaining or other forms of cajoling as players see fit!
    Resolve intrigue card: Regardless of how, once the active player has enough influence, they can play the intrigue card and enact their scheme which will be detailed on the card.
    Reactions: Once a intrigue has been played, it is possible for other players to react to it by playing either reaction or in more specific situations, guard cards. Like intrigue cards, reaction cards may require certain amounts of influence to play.
    Cash out: If a player does not want to play or keep a intrigue card, they may discard it form the listed amount of gold shown on it.
    End of turn: Once the active player has played or cashed out as much as they want to, they must check their hand size. A player's hand size will be 3-6 intrigue cards and is determined by how far they are along the influence tracker.
    Play then progresses to the player on their left.
    End of phase: Once all players have completed their intrigue actions, play progresses to the market phase.
• Market phase: Unlike the previous phase, this one has no specific turn order and is broken down into 3 sub-phases.
  • ​Open market: This sub-phase is the only time that players may trade with each other. Players may buy or sell gladiators, guards, equipment etc to each other freely as they see fit.
    Sell to bank: A player can choose to sell a card to the bank for its listed value. It's likely that they'd gain more money from trading or selling it to another player, however, sometimes it's worth taking the hit to deny an opponent the card! It all depends contextually.
    Once all open trading has concluded, all players should collect their gold coins and conceal them in their hand (The only time during the game when gold is hidden.), this signifies that play is ready to progress to auctioning.
  • Auction: During this sub-phase players will have opportunities to bid on market cards.
    Create market: First, deal market cards face-down into a market area. The number of cards dealt should be equal to the player count. Then reveal the first card.
    Blind bidding: All players then decide how much gold they want to bid for the revealed card (This bid can be zero.) and hold their bid in a closed hand and hidden from their opponents.
    Players then reveal bids simultaneously and whoever bid the highest, wins that card! Ties are resolved by having the relevant players make another blind bid and any cards that did not any gold bid on them are discarded.
    Reveal new market card: Once the current card has been won, another market card is flipped face-up and bidding begins again.
    This is repeated until all market cards have been through an auction.
  • Auction for host: This is another, final, blind bid auction, only this time it's for who get to be host. Being host confers certain benefits (And duties!) on the player and whoever wins this bid becomes host and stays host until the next bid for host in the next round.
    Play now progresses to the next phase.

• Arena phase: Let the games begin! There are several sub-phases to this stage of the game.
  • Honour to the host: Whoever is the host increases their influence by 1! Pretty good benefit for being the host.
  • Hosting event: The host now chooses any house of any player, including their own house and invites them to participate in the games.
    Accept: When a player accepts the invitation, the put their figure on to the board along with a gladiator/slave of their choosing and with any equipment they want to use.
    Refusal: A player may refuse the invitation or indeed be unable to accept it, in either circumstance, they lose 1 influence for refusing the invite!
    2nd invitation: Once a house has accepted the 1st invitation, the host invites a 2nd house to participate. That player should put their own figure and fighter on to the board.
    The games are nearly ready to begin.
  • Tribute: The 2 players who have sent out combatants into the arena earn money for it. Additionally, if the gladiator/slave they selected has favour or champion tokens on it, the controlling player earns even more! The crowd knows who they like!
    More on how favor and champion tokens are aqcuired is below.
    
  • Wagering: Players may now place bets on the fight to come!
    There are 4 betting spaces on the game board, each with a different outcome and different odds as follows:
    Victory: There are 2 spaces for victory - one for each combatant. The odds here are 1:1.
    Injury: This pays out 2:1 if either combatant is injured.
    Decapitation: This also pays out 2:1 but only if one of the participants is decapitated!
  • Combat: Right, combat has its own whole sub-game and there are several concepts that need to be explained, so here we go!
    First, both players who are taking part in the battle should grab several dice of all 3 colours based on their combatants attributes. Remember that equipment may modify attributes.
    • Attributes: Each fighter participating in combat has 3 numerical attributes. They represent pools of dice, thus the number represents how many dice are associated with that attribute.
      These attributes are:
      RED for attack.
      BLACK for defence.
      BLUE for speed.
    • Round: A round consists of several stages.
      Initiative: At the start of each round, both players should roll their SPEED dice, that is, they should roll a number of blue dice equal to their speed rating and total them.
      I.e., a gladiator with 3 SPEED should roll 3 dice and add them up.
      Whichever player gets the highest roll can decide whether they go 1st or 2nd during the combat for that round, determining the turn order
      • Actions: Now that the order in which gladiators will act has been settled. It's time to act!
        The active gladiator can perform 2 actions, these are ATTACK and MOVE which can be performed in any order.
        Move: When this action is taken, a gladiator may move a number of hex spaces equal to their SPEED attribute, this is not a roll. So a fighter with 3 SPEED can move up to 3 hexes.
        Attack: If a combatant is adjacent to their opponent, they can attack!
        When an attack occurs, both players make an opposed roll.
        • Attacker: Whoever is attacking rolls their red ATTACK dice.
        • Defender: The attacker's opponent is the defender and rolls their black DEFENCE dice.
        • Results: Each player then creates a numerical line of dice with values going from high-to-low. So there will be 2 lines of dice.
          Dice are now paired off between players, with them first comparing their highest die each, then comparing the next pair and continuing down their lines and so on until all their dice have been compared.
        • Wounds: For each pair where the attacker has a higher value, a wound is inflicted. Each pair where the defender has a higher value or ties, there's no effect.
          Unopposed attack dice: If an attacker has more attack dice than a defender, then these extra dice will be unopposed dice, each unopposed die that has a 3 or higher will inflict a wound.
          Unopposed defence dice: These have no effect.
        • Resolving wounds: When the defender takes wounds, they must discard dice equal to the number of wounds suffered. This can be deducted from any of the 3 pools for their fighter in any way they see fit.
          1 die left: No pool of dice can be reduced to less than 1 unless all pools have been reduced to 1. This makes the chances of injury and decapitation more likely.
        • Defeat: When any of either combatant's pools are reduced to 0, the fight is over and they have lost. How badly they lost depends on how many of their pools were reduced to 0.
          1 pool: If 1 pool was reduced to 0, the loser yielded and did not suffered injury.
          2 pools: If 2 pools were reduced to 0, then the loser was injured. An injured fighter cannot be used again until they are healed.
          3 pools: Outlook is not so good! A fighter who has all 3 of their pools reduced to 0 is killed outright! They and all their equipment is discarded out of play.
        • Victory: The player who was victorious gains 1 influence, while  The combatant who was victorious gains a favor token, a combatant who gains enough favor tokens eventually gains a champion token. The controlling player also gains 1 influence for gaining a champion (Although if that champion is later lost, that influence point is also lost.
          Favour and champion tokens means that the combatant is popular with the crowds.
        • Wagers: Now bets pay out, depending on the outcome of the battle. These of course depend on the fight's outcome.
  • Life or death: In the final stage of the arena phase, the host decides the fate of the losing fighter - provided they were not decapitated.
    Players are free to try and sway (Or bribe!) the host here at this point, I means there's got to be some benefit for them and it's good to be the host! 
    Thumbs up and the loser survives.
    Thumbs down and well, you get the idea. However if the combatant had 1 or more favor tokens, the host loses 1 influence per favor token for sending them to their fate. Additionally, the host cannot kill off a champion, they are just too popular with the crowd!
• End of phase: Once the fate of the losing fighter has been decided. Play progresses to a new round, beginning with a new upkeep phase.

Endgame
If, at the end of any of the main phases (Intrigue, market & Arena), 1 player alone has 12 influence, then they win the game.
If 2 or more players have 12 influence at the end of any phase, then battles occur between their fighters to break the tie!

Overall
Thematically, Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery is really strong. I mean - it has a game, blood and treachery! What more could you want - other than all the nudity?
Seriously though, while I have not watched the TV series it's based on, I've obviously  heard about it and the game seems the fit the bill quite well, it has the general vibe one would attribute to a game depicting a gladiatorial setting.
I'm sure fans of the TV show will find a lot to like here.

Mechanically, there's quite a lot going on here with 3 distinct phases that require 3 different approaches from players.
However, one element that is consistent throughout, it the ability to try and bribe other players or sway them, either with cold hard cash or promises of favours. Personally, I'll take the cash every time!
It makes the game at least in part about playing the player instead.

Players will find themselves potentially launching into schemes while trying to foil those of their opponents, entering into temporary alliances to gang up on more influential players and so on.
Even though there will be shenanigans here, a lot of what goes on with intrigue cards will be situational so it's hard to describe their impact.
Players may also find themselves at the mercy of luck with what intrigue cards they draw, especially if their hand size is small due to low influence. Sometimes patience is the key, as is knowing to play a particular card.

The market phase is another opportunity to interact with opponents. Here, players will need to balance the desire to buy/trade for equipment or other items they want with also not giving their opponents what it is they want!
Additionally, Players will also want to keep an eye on their funds because of the upcoming auctions.
Speaking of which: Auctioning can be quite a risky affair as the market cards are only revealed one at a time! Players will need to think hard on the cards they bid for and how much they want them as opposed to what might appear later: Bid too much and a player can lose out on later market cards, on the other hand, the later cards might have less value to a particular play. This is compounded by the fact that all bids are blind bids.
Players will also need to be mindful of money to potentially bid for being host.

The host gains more than just 1 influence. They have opportunity to steer the course of the battle and potentially choose who goes into the arena and possibly whether a particular combatant lives or dies - which can be a useful, albeit sometimes costly move to make.

Finally, we come to the arena phase. This is essentially a lightweight skirmish battle with some interesting mechanics and choices. It's a little fiddly for what it is but the pay off is that players can be presented with some interesting, meaningful decisions - particularly when choosing which dice to lose when a fighter takes wounds.
This can be very contextual and dependant on the circumstances in the battle such as turn order etc, can lead to players making unexpected choices.

This is a game that potentially has a lot of player interaction, jostling, take-that mechanics and so forth along with a highly confrontational arena phase. If that's your thing, you'll find a lot to like here. The downside is that some players won't like it and that might well lead to a less fun experience for all.

The game does a lot to invoke it's setting and in this regard it's great but the cost of this is some really disparate mechanics.
While the intrigue and market phases are somewhat different, at least they're both card driven gameplay. The arena phase is just a completely different game and players will end up learning 2 games.
While the skirmish game adds spectacle (Which you want in a gladiatorial game.), it's a shame that card-driven mechanics weren't incorporated into it.
This leads me to another criticism - that is, these disparate mechanics make for a pretty long play time. The rules taciturnly acknowledge this by giving 3 different starting points to alter game length. We begun the game at 4 influence and this felt long enough.

Partially, this is also due to playing with 6 players - and that arena phase again. Only 2 players ever participate in the battle at a time which means others are more or less just spectators which is readily noticeable in our 6-player game, yes there's some bribing and stuff they can potentially do to influence the outcome and host's decisions but otherwise, it's just downtime.

I'm not sure what to make of Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery. I've never seen the TV series and without that connection I'm ultimately a bit ambivalent towards the game. With it's 'unconventional' gameplay choices I found it a bit too much for what it delivered and a bit overlong for my liking.
This is probably a game for a whole rainy afternoon.

For a licensed property, I feel that casual gamers who are fans of the show will be overwhelmed here.
​Anyone expecting a roll-and-move track running around the outside of the board with spaces for buying gladiator stables or something along those lines will be in for quite a surprise! This is a fairly involved affair with a lot of concepts that will be unfamiliar to more casual gamers.

However, if you a fan of the TV series and like that involved gameplay as well as a lot of horseplay between players, then I think you'll get a kick out of this or a slash of the sword or thrust of the spear (Sorry!).