Blood, Sweat and Cheers

Blood, Sweat and Cheers is a tactical, two-player, card and dice game, that recreates single combat between gladiators in the arenas of the Roman world from the mid-third century BC to the start of the fifth century AD.

Cards are used to abstractly represent the different options available to a player’s gladiator during the ebb and flow of a gladiatorial bout, while dice are used to resolve interactions. The watching crowd interacts with the gladiators in the arena by rewarding showy attacks and spilt blood with favourable cheering which may in turn be utilised to buoy up a gladiator’s performance.

Almost everything you need to play the game, including a basic area, is inluded in the deck. All players need to do is download the free two-page rule sheet and provide their own gladiators, dice, and a few wound tokens or markers.

The photo above shows a bout in progress. Figures, tokens and dice are not included with the game.