Circus Maximus

The outer walls of the circus are done, well in regard to the painting.  Of course, I still need to add the crowd and some other little decorations,

Again, Contrast paints and quick dry brushing saw these get finished in a fraction of the time it would have taken me to do it the more conventional way.

I’ve not gone overboard with the colours although I suspect in reality the circus would have been extremely colourful.   I think the main reason for this is because we kind of have a built-in expectation that much of the ancient world was white marble and to see it brightly coloured would just not feel right to the eyes of most people.

Although the Circus Maximus was designed for chariot racing, other events were held there, including gladiatorial combats and wild animal hunts, athletic events, and processions. By the time of Augustus, seventy-seven days were given over to public games during the year, and races were run on seventeen of them. There usually were ten or twelve races a day, until Caligula doubled that number, and from the end of his reign, twenty-four races became typical. The number of festivals in which racing occurred also increased, with Circus games instituted in honour of Caligula’s mother and sister, and Tiberius. Still, Domitian once had one hundred races a day but reduced the number of laps to five to fit them all in, and Commodus ran thirty races in just two hours one afternoon in AD 192.

These numbers are exceptional and not likely to have been repeated, if only because the horses had to be transported from the Campus Martius, where they were stabled, over a mile away.

The chariots started from twelve gates (carceres), six on either side of an entrance that led from the Forum Boarium. Above sat the presiding magistrate at whose signal the races began. Far at the other end, along the sweeping curve of the track, was another gate by which processions entered the Circus. In AD 80, it was rebuilt as a triumphal arch to commemorate the conquest of Judea by Titus.

On the spina, itself, were various monuments and shrines, including one to Consus and another to Murcia, who may have been the divinity of the brook over which the Circus was built.

At either end were the metae, or turning posts, comprised of three large gilded bronze cones grouped on a high semicircular base. There were thirteen turns, run counter-clockwise, around the metae for a total of seven laps, a distance of just over three miles.

To ensure a fair start, the starting gates were built along a slight curve so that the distance to the break line, before which the chariots were not allowed to leave their lanes, was the same for each. Drivers were required to stay within a marked lane until that point was reached, after which they could jockey for position. Lots were drawn to determine which gate was selected, and it was from the gates that the race began. The presiding magistrate (either a praetor or consul) dropped a white starting flag, the gates to the stalls flew open, and the race began.

Today I set up the entire circus so that I could get all the components in the right order to glue together sub-assemblies.

Layout of the full circus if I choose to go the full distance and put 12 chariots out.  (2 children for scale).

With 8 Chariots I can remove a bit of the width and a bit of the length.  I actually prefer the look of the narrower layout if I’m honest but thought it would be a wasted opportunity not to make it possible to be as wide as I could.

I used really cheap grey spray primer followed by various sand and off-white colour spray paints to quickly do all the walls.  Nothing fancy, just quick and simple.

I will go over and pick out some details once the base colour is dry.

I am hoping that the crowd will help break up the rather boring paint job on the walls.

Talking of crowd, here is the next batch ready for painting.   Not sure if I mentioned it but I’m getting pretty sick of painting plebs right now.

With a lot of this bunch, I modified the file before printing so that they are holding flag poles.  Once painted I will attach small flags in the various team colours.  I am hoping that this will add an extra layer of different poses to the crowd.  I have no clue if they would actually wave colours to support their teams, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think they would.

Today was a day off work so I had pretty much the entire day to sit down and paint to my heart’s content.

I finished off the next batch of Plebians.  I’ve now lost count of how many I have done but it’s quite a few now.

Individually the paint jobs are pretty terrible, but they are not really meant to be looked at as individuals, rather as a mass effect.

I have been doing my best to mix and match the colour schemes and poses without driving myself crazy.  Its easiest to paint the same pose and the same colours per ‘stick’ and then have multiple sticks the same with a different colour per batch.   That may or may not make sense, but it does in my mind.

The blue teams are done and dusted.

Pretty much follows the same simple paint scheme for every other chariot so far but uses blue contrast paints and a light blue drybrush.

I understand these posts may be a bit repetitive now, but we are almost there with the chariots, well the intact ones at least.

I have stockpiled all the failed prints I had at the beginning when trying to work out the supports.  I will use the failed prints as my crashed chariot markers.

Unfortunately, there has been a slight delay in production.  With a change of roles at work I have temporarily had to hang up the paint brushes this week but hope to get back at it in a couple of days.

In the interim, I’ll go over a few of the rules of the game.

When rolling 1 dice.

• 1 Success = A chariot may perform 1 voluntary action and must conduct its compulsory forward movement.
• 1 Failure = A chariot may not perform any voluntary action but must conduct its compulsory forward movement.

When rolling 2 dice.

• 2 Successes = A chariot may perform up to 2 voluntary actions and must conduct its compulsory forward movement.
• 1 Success and 1 Failure = A chariot may perform 1 voluntary action and must conduct its compulsory forward movement.
• 2 Failures = Nearest competitor within 1 x long range may choose to move chariot 1 x short range directly ahead or change its direction by 45 degrees, then the chariot must perform its compulsory forward movement.

When rolling 3 dice.

• 3 Successes = A chariot may perform up to 3 voluntary actions and must conduct its compulsory forward movement.
• 2 Successes and 1 Failure = A chariot may perform up to 2 voluntary actions and must conduct its compulsory forward movement.
• 1 Success and 2 Failures = Nearest competitor within 1 x long range may choose to move the chariot 1 x short range directly ahead or change its direction by 45 degrees, only then may the chariot choose to perform 1 voluntary action and must perform its compulsory forward movement.
• 3 Failures = Chariot may not take any voluntary actions.  It must first make its compulsory forward movement and then after resolving any collisions will then incite the mob.

Possible Voluntary Actions.

1 Action (1 Success each)

• Retardo. The Chariot reduces the compulsory move to 1 x short range.
• Propero. The chariot moves an additional 1 x medium range directly forward (1 x short for heavy chariots, 1 x long for fast chariots).  May only be used once per turn.
• Turn.  The chariot may change its facing by up to 45 degrees.
• Attack.  The chariot may attack another vehicle within 1 x short range. (1 x long range if equipped with bow)

2 Actions (2 Successes each)

• Stop.  The chariot moves 1 x small range forward and then slows to a halt.  Next move the chariot will start from stationary.
• Sharp Turn.  The chariot may change it’s facing between 46 – 90 degrees.  Fast chariots require 3 successes to conduct a sharp turn.)
• Second Attack.  The chariot may make a second attack.
• Flip Chariot.  The crew of a crashed chariot may right their vehicle and re-attach their animals.
• Incite the Mob.  The crew summons one mob to run onto the track.

3 Actions (3 Successes)

• Crowd pleaser.  Chariot earns temporary people’s favourite status.

Blue and White is next off the starting line.

Again, almost exclusively Contrast paints and light dry brushing on the chariot.  Basic painting on the horses as per the previous post.

Nothing too outrageous just more of the same I’m afraid.  I’ve also painted some skin colour onto the next batch of plebs, but that doesn’t make a very exciting picture.

When a chariot activates the player decides whether to roll one, two or three dice in their attempt to roll successes.

A chariot must always activate but the number of dice is up to the player.

The rules use different coloured dice to represent the effects of fatigue on the horses.

The dice pool available to be drawn from depends on the lap.

In lap 1 the player has a pool of 2 Fresh dice (Black) and 1 Fatigued dice (Red)

In lap 2 the player has a pool of 1 Fresh Dice (Black) and 2 Fatigued dice (Red)

Fresh dice score successes on 3+, Fatigued dice on a 4+

Successes are used to perform different actions including turning, moving and attacking.  Each chariot also must perform a mandatory forward move each turn unless successes are spent to brake.

Dice rolled that don’t score successes can have a negative effect.

To make this simpler, I decided to use custom-made dice, which will also be larger than regular dice.