The Circus of Rome?

It's been quite a while since I've had something Frugal worthy to post, so until a couple of other bubbling posts come to full boil I thought I'd best at least make a quick post.

Last week the local Primary School had a summer fair which I was duty bound to attend. One upside was that in the small car boot sale type market I found a wooden circus, which I scooped up for a bargain 50p. Coincidence has it that I have a few of Roman Gladiators sitting on the painting table waiting for some colour as I hoped to take advantage of ArabianSquire reading the "Gladiator Boy" series to spark an interest in playing Two Hour Game's "Red Sand Blue Sky". A small area would be just the thing to set that off nicely.

One key factor it this project was that it had to be quick. I've a Warmachine Battle box needing to be painted and if this stalled I knew it would sit half fininshed for a while. Also I don't play RSBS that often so it is a bit of a luxury piece. So detail level is accordingly set to "background".

The arena is open down one side. I'd prefer a completely enclosed area but there you go. Access to the figures would be easier are a result - no disaster. The actual battle floor is eliptical and 18" x 13" at the widest point. Smaller that the recommended 2"x 2" area in the ruleset, but it 1-on-1 battles (ie the vast majority of the time) it shouldn't make much difference. You can see two 28mm Foundry Gladiators in the bare arena here.

First job was to remove the stickers. The audience face stickers came off easily but the stickers on the backs of the stands wouldn't, so I decided to cover them with printed textures from World Works "arena works" which I've had sitting on the computer for years hoping to get round to making an arena. The inside terracing has been under coated black and dry brushed with a couple of shades of grey to make them stone like. For speed the floor is Bird cage liner glued down.

I'm going to leave the gaps and holes in the piece for flexibility. The gaps will potentially give other accesses to the arena. Also I will still be able to use the big top tent, which may be a bit high, but will give access and flavour if/when I ever get my hands on some killer clown mini's for a bit of "Faith and Fear" gaming. I might look out some paper figures to add a crowd as the seats do look a bit bare.

Looking at the finished piece I'm quite happy. I've accidentally ended up with quite a flexible piece of scenery. I now have a place for my RPG pit fighter/judicial champion to fight as well as a focus city area for fantasy gaming. Toss in a couple of burnt out cars, boxes, junk etc and it'll fit into a post apocalyptic/modern setting or a few wire fences and it's a makeshift detention area.