Bank Holiday Game 2 - Jugula

On the Bank Holiday Monday, for our second game of the day, I introduced Richard to Jugula. With only 2 Gladiators per side it was going to be either a long game or a short one. It turned out to be around just right although extra gladiators would have been better.

Although the game is quite easy to play, the rules are a bugger to get your head around, once you play it a few times it seems to work although it is very hard to wound another gladiator, let alone kill it even if you have a whopping score of 14.

This was Richards first encounter with the game and my first proper full run through and he felt that the game lacked the Gladiatorial feel it should have and felt a little of a push and shove game with little if any actual fighting.

The game does seem to be more of a strategy card orientated game rather than a table top game and maybe playing the additional campaign rules may make it a better game.
Well the author does say that this is not a Gladiator fighting game... Okay I wish Icould have read this before buying the sealed rules.

Sheffield triples purchases - Jugula and 15mm Falklands

Whilst at Sheffield triples I made a few purchases.

Jugula and 15mm Falklands

Jugula rules and figures

 My First purchases was the Jugula game along with the 2 deck f cards you needed and 4 of the 35mm (40mm) figures you need to play. to play the game you actually need one deck of cards per player (up to 4 people can play at once, so you need 4 decks of cards) and 4 figures per side (Wish I knew that at the start I would have bought 4 more).

Jugula figures

The figures are 35mm foot to eye or 40mm if you prefer in old money and at the moment there are 4 types of figures and a equipment set.  Each figure comes in a fixed pose with separate hands holding weapons and separate heads, shields etc. The casts are very clean and there is very little flash if any on these figures and every one says how nice they are.
You can also purchase a gaming mat but you do get a paper gaming mat with the rulebook. You can just about play the game with 1 or 2 figures per side but you will not get the full effect.

So to recap to play this game you need:

• Rulebook
• minimum of 2 decks of cards
• minimum of 8 figures

This will set you back around £80 and if you purchased the gaming mat around £100+


My second purchase was from the Old Glory Falklands 15mm figures range .  Some of you may have seen my previous post about my MJ figures purchase and I wanted some of the old glory figures to fill in some gaps.

First up are the Argentinian figures.
I purchased a command pack, several infantry pack, a support weapon pack and the HMG pack, I thought I had the mortar pack, but that turned out to be the British pack (or not, see later).

Each infantry pack contains 12 figures in 4 poses. SO the infantry pack gets 12 rifle men, the command pack gets 2 types of officer (one with binoculars and one with a walkie talkie) and 2 types of NCO. The support weapon pack comes with 3 rifle grenades, 3 snipers?, 3 FN-FAL Heavy barreled LMG's and 3 No2's for the FN-FAL's. My fourth pack purchased was the Heavy machine guns, and I only noticed when I got home that they had been modeled back to front, with the .50 cal facing backwards on its tripod.

Argentine packs

School boy error by the sculptor. .50 cals facing the wrong way on their tripods!!!?

Next is the British, I purchased several rifleman packs, 2 of one of the two types of command packs available, Milan packs and what I thought was the Argentinean, I got the mortar pack. Again each infantry pack comes with 12 figures in 4 poses.

British infantry

 Again the riflemen pack comes in 4 different poses, the command pack I had had 3 NCO's, 3 NCO's with maps and 3 Radio operators, and 3 snipers. I really like the sculpts on this pack as they will make quite a nice 'O' Group. The Milan pack comes with 3 Milan operators and 3 No.2's. The Mortar pack comes with 3 mortars with 2 crew each.

Milan teams

 The Milan sculpts are nice but considering the Milan has a back-blast the operator is about to loose a leg. Now to the mortars...
I noticed that the mortars in the British pack are not British Mortars. When sifting through the packs I picked up the mortar pack, noticed the square base plate and bi-pods and said out aloud more to myself then any one as I thought I had picked up the Argentine mortars, "oh they are not British mortars", The main guy at Old glory said back "Yes they are!", I replied again that" they are not British mortars as the British Mortar had a Round base plate and a K configuration bi-pod".

The reply was "And I care...Why?! a mortar is a mortar in 15mm", I left it at that as I was unwell and I did not want to get into a heated argument. Good job I didn't spot that the Argentine .50 cals were wrong till much later.

Erm apparently these are British Mortars???!!!

Overall some o the sculpts are nice, but there is a lot of flash for a new range of figures and the Sculptor could do with doing that little bit more research. He obviously does not care for accuracy which is funny for a figure manufacturer of historical figures, could you imagine him producing a Napoleonic cannon the same as an Austrian cannon and claiming it to be French, Russian or British.

I did mention in passing that all I needed now was some Carl Gustav's and 2" mortars for the command squads to which I got the reply "They are next on my list to make, if I decide to get round to it"

Besides some sculpting errors and the flash, these figures are going to make a welcomed addition to my forces, especially the Milan's and the 'O' Group and I look forward to further additions to the range, but I will not be buying any more of the British mortars or Argentine .50 cals.

Just so every one knows what the British mortar used in the Falklands looks like,  below is a photo.

British Mortar owned by the author, showing the round base and K configuration bi-pod.

 Thanks for reading
Jon