I will not deny it, I am a huge fan of TV Series Spartacus: Blood and Sand. The movie was engrossing, very interesting, bloody, with focus on details. It was quite refreshing – not a mawkish history of a Thracian warrior, taken into custody and becoming a famous gladiator who gloriously defied Rome. It is much more complicated, multi-layer story with many secondary plots.
When I learned there is a boardgame based on this series, which – surprisingly – was owned by one of my best boardgame friends, Kuba J – I knew I would like to give it a try. There was couple of occasions when we almost managed to bring that title to the table, but there was always something more important. Finally, on one warm July weekend evening, Spartacus finally was played!
The Game

I think couple of sentences about the game will be in place here. In Spartacus: A Game of Blood & Treachery (full title), each player takes on the role of Dominus, head of a rising house in the ancient Roman city of Capua. Each house is competing for Influence to gain the favor of Rome. Through a combination of political schemes and glorious battles on the arena sands your house will rise in fame and stature. As Dominus, you have a variety of resources at your disposal. Guards protect you from schemes launched by rivals. Slaves run your household and earn gold. Gladiators compete to bring glory to themselves and influence to their Dominus.
There are three main phases in each game round:
- The Intrigue Phase is when players launch their Schemes, hoping to raise their fortunes while undermining their rivals. Schemes and Reactions are represented by cards in the Intrigue Deck. Players wield their Influence to put their Schemes into play, often asking for (or bribing) another player’s help in hatching the most complex plots.
- The Market Phase is when players buy, sell and trade Assets (Gladiators, Slaves, Equipment and Guards). Players also bid against each other to acquire new Assets at Auction. Wealth is not the only path to success as players bluff and bargain with each other to acquire the Assets they covet.
- The Arena Phase is when the bloody games are held. Gladiators from two rival Houses are pitted against each other in a brutal fight for glory. The spectacles of the games are represented by miniature combat on the arena board. Fighters pit their Attack, Defense and Speed dice against one another to determine the victor. All players seek to increase their fortunes by betting on the outcome of the gruesome conflict. Fighters who emerge from the arena victorious gain Favor and their Dominus gain Influence.
The goal of the game is to become the most influential house in Capua, securing your family’s power for years to come – in other words, reach 12 influence points. During the game, players will bribe, poison, betray, steal, blackmail, and undermine each other. Gold will change hands again and again to buy support, stay someone’s hand or influence their decisions. Well, sounds like a game for not feint-heated? Oh, definitely it is!
The Sessions
With below set of screenshot let me provide even more details about Spartacus game, showing this on example of our 4-player’s game. I love picture-rich session reports so that one will not be any different. Enjoy! You can click on each of below pictures to enlarge it.







What a tense game it was – and decided on the arena as far as the winner is concerned. Whenever somebody was too much ahead, the rest of the players were focusing on him/her. In the end Kuba G finished with 12 VPs, me and Kuba J with 11 VPs and poor Natalia with 8. Definitely, a game to remember!
Spartacus: A Game of Blood & Treachery – first impressions
Let me share now my thoughts and experiences regarding the game:
- It has multiple dimensions – intrigue, market & bidding, arena – which is fantastic and makes for a multi-dimensional game, where victory points can be scored in various ways
- We have tons of negative interaction – you really should not play it with unknown people or the ones who can feel touched by others ganging up on them; we had perfect set of players for this and everybody had a great fun, but be just aware of that aspect
- The quality of components is fantastic, both miniatures, tokens but also arena.
- I sense it can have a great replayability, as we can choose among many gladiator houses, there are hundreds of intrigue cards, you can get – including expansions – almost 20 unique gladiators; so hours of fun!
I am really glad I finally could play that exciting game and familiarize with it. We really had tons of fun and suspense, doing all the ugly stuff to each other. I am pretty sure we will have another session!
> “We have tons of negative interaction”
This is an important and usually unremarked aspect of gameplay for some titles. It jumped out at me because we had a family member recently take a disliking to the Chameleon game after playing it. She was unsettled by the accusation phase, which the rest of us savored, but she did not. Those things have to be taken into account.
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Exactly, thanks for highlighting this. You need to have certain distance to the game and to what happens there, do not interpret it personally. I know such games are not for everybody thus clear remark in my First Impressions article. Still, I love exactly that aspect in most of my games 🙂
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If somebody who plays wargames didn’t like the negative interaction of this game, I would be really surprised. 🙂
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True! That is why I think even though this looks like EUTO, wargames would be best audience for this game.
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I really enjoy this game though I am terrible at it. I’ve played it 3 times now, I think?
It’s always fun chucking those dice in the arena!
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Yes, the fights of Gladiators were the most exciting piece; and playing intrigue to do the change in arena set-up just before the skirmish – even more fun 🙂
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Great game, but all players must seriously be fine with negative interction. We had very few deceptions, we were all quite honest with our schemes. Everyone had their plan and as long as it work no lies were required. For me it felt more like all players were against me(my house rule has been blocked for the entire game, as Kuba G. had such ability and used it all the time- about which i often reminded ). During game i also quickly went from 3 to 0 salves, due to enemy schemes. Most annoying were times when i twice in a row(or once, don’t remember now) i was forced to withdraw my awesome Gannicus and put a slave replacement to arena (damn Michal’s reactions), not only i’ve lost influence(as my gannicus would probaby win) but it also weakebnd my economy(no wins from bets or slave income). Despite all that i’ve managed to end up with 11 points, Sadly my shcemes were usually not as annoying for my frenemies, couldn’t do a proper vengance 😉 Very fun game, if You have a good company. May be long, and tiresome, sometimes little boring(when You don’t fight, or have a bad luck with dice and loose quick), but moments of flavour compensate that easily.
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Fantastic game with fantastic players!
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