What is Victus? By Iron Ivan Games

What is Victus?

Victus is a man vs man combat sport game set in the Ancient world of the Roman Gladiator, brought to you by Iron Ivan Games.

In Victus you can play a one off game with speedy ruthlessness against an opponent to settle old scores or immerse yourself in the world of the Roman Gladiator through the Campaign system, Path to Primus.


You enter the sands as either a Servus (slave) or an Auctoratus (free man who has sold himself to the school for money) and begin your journey to pay off your Life Debt and attain Glory.  Players choose their Origins, their fighting style and enter the world's deadliest duel.

Victus takes you through this world of Fame and Violence in a vivid, illustrated 52 page book that gives you everything you need.

Use the Dynamic Movement system to maneuver your way through attacks and deal out death with the Ability Pooling system to your adversary.  Gain Disciplinii to use for your survival, gain denarii to buy your freedom, and gain favor to build your alliances! The Fortuna table creates the story of your Gladiator inside and out of the Arena.

Miniatures?  Sure they are great, but you can play Victus in seconds using the easy to assemble, supplied paper models on the back cover and an arena inside the book.  Test your skills, hone your prowess and then make the investment.  Victus gives you all you need!

Available now from Iron Ivan Games

Meet you on the sands,
Doc





Comments

  1. I have been keeping tabs on this. I can't tell if there is a specific scale. I do have some 28mm figs I would love to use. Plus the idea of solo play could be appealing

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  2. Hi Styx!

    Victus is not scale dependent, use any size figures you want, there are even paper models and an arena in the book.

    Victus is designed to be a 2 or more player game, from some of the chatter on the Iron Ivan Games yahoo group you could use Face Time or other apps to connect with other players online.

    Hope that helps!

    Doc

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  3. Copies begin shipping on 3/9 after the Cold Wars Convention.

    Doc

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  4. Thanks! Looking forward to hearing about some games. My local group has a big Victus tourney coming up in April.

    Doc

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  5. A tournament? What planet are you living on? Sound ass kicking, seems out here there isn't much to do in Florida. I was thinking of getting Victus depending on the reviews and if it works I was going to run it at a historical eveent.

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  6. Ha! Planet Pennsylvania, locally we have a number of gamers so I'm fortunate. I'm going to be running a game of Victus at the Cold Wars Convention next weekend, 2 vs 2 Gladiators.

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  7. Hello! Not sure if anyone else is gonna respond but I just opened up my copy of Victus to play with some gladiator miniatures and had a couple questions about some murky parts of the rules .. Let me know if anyone can give me some answers!

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    1. Okay so a couple:
      1) either I can't find it in the rule book or its just missing from the copy I have but how exactly is initiative determined? And how does this affect the rest of the turn? (I.e. are attacks in combat also done in that initiative order or are they 'simultaneous' with the possibility of both gladiators killing each other?)

      2) the damage values for the weapons seem very high if I'm reading the rules correctly. Once a hit is landed by rolling under Fortitudo minus the DM of any armor, and it goes undefended by the defenders roll, wound infliction is determined by rolling weapon damage minus opponents virtus .. This would make a gladius, the most basic weapon, (based on its damage of 12 on the table) inflict wounds 80% of the time on an average gladiator (who has a virtus of 4) .. I only raise this point because in the example given for how to determine whether a wound is inflicted it states a gladius damage is only 8.

      3) to clarify about shield use: it's benefit is automatically added whenever an attack hits the arms it's wielded in or the chest, but to protect the legs, head, or opposite arm it must be 'programmed' to defend there at the cost of 1 agility. If programmed to some other location, would it still give automatic protection to the chest? (Assuming I inferred the way it works correctly from the beginning)

      4) rules suggest all gladiators should begin with stats of A - 5 F - 5 V - 4 correct? Would you find it useful to modify these at all based on the gladiator type. Such as giving a Retarius more agility whereas a Myrmilo more Fortitudo?

      I may have more questions after going over the rules again later but I think that covered the majority .. I just brought a gladiator area with 9 painted gladiators (and many more on the way) out to my game group at school who are extremely excited to try it out so I'm just trying to comprehend the rules as best as possible before getting to it.

      Thanks!

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    2. 1. Initiative is determined by both players making a d10 roll that is modified by their Initiative Modifier Total, located at the bottom of the gear list, and any stuns/abilities they might have.  The player with the highest score (d10 roll plus or minus modifiers) will have Initiative for the entire turn.  Only one Initiative roll is made per turn.

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    3. 2. The example is incorrect, 12 is the Damage of a Gladius. You are correct that it has a high rate of wounding and wound infliction is determined by rolling weapon damage minus opponents virtus. A Gladius, while basic is a lethal weapon. Remember though too that this results in a Wounding Table roll, not an auto Wound. Be wary of swords, maneuver the shield to guard!

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    4. 3. If programmed to some other location, would it still give automatic protection to the chest? You are correct. The Chest is still considered covered. A House Rule could be made that the Chest is only covered in these instances by the Scutum, the Parmula would be too small to create a successful defense to the Chest when covering another Locus.

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    5. 4. Correct a Tirone would be A5 F5 V4. That being said, it's your arena, if you want to adjust more feel free. The attack speed/agility is tied to the Initiative Modifier that I outlined in answer #1, but if you want to tinker feel free.

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    6. I appreciate your interest, hope to see some pictures of your games! Keep in mind, the rules I modeled after actual combat, not cinema so the weapons are as deadly as they were in history. If you wanted more cinematic flair, you could try tinkering with the stats. I would also remind new players to ALWAYS Plot all of their available, no need to save!

      More material can be found here:

      https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ironivan/info

      https://www.facebook.com/Iron-Ivan-Games-119194951445738/

      Doc

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