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My copy of Gladiator just came in the mail this week. First impressions:

It's really nicely produced, like everything else WH does. Loads of photos of nicely-painted minis, including a handful of gorgeous 54mm gladiators at the back.

Rules are a slightly more complex version of the LotR SBG rules, as used in LotR, Legends of the Old West, et al. Statistics are replaced with Latin terms, such as Disciplina for Weapon Skill, Fortituda for Strength, and so on. The added complexity is almost entirely contained within the optional advanced rules, including hit locations, rules for naval battles, chariot races, and Roman-style boxing matches.

The book has lots of great historical information on gladiators, as well as a listing of the traditional matchups. The "army list" section separates gladiators into the Republican and Imperial periods, as well as "less common" and "very rare or unusual" gladiator types. There are also stats for condemned criminals, Roman legionaries, and all sorts of exotic animals.

The book has ten basic scenarios, ranging from one-on-one fights to small battles with over a dozen combatants on each side. There are also two types of campaigns - one where each player controls a single gladiator, and a more complex one where each player is a Lanista hiring, training, and managing a stable of gladiators. The book also contains rules for naval battles and a chariot-racing game that looks pretty well thought out.

The painting and modeling section is a little sparse, mostly consisting of stage-by-stage paint jobs and a gallery of terrain without any instructions on how to make it (although most of it is pretty simple, and the complex arena is actually a Steve Barber model that you can buy).

I don't have a lot of nitpicks with the product; it is pretty comprehensive, and while I'm not an expert on gladiators, Barry Hill seems to have done his research on the topic, and he has pointed out historical and archaeological evidence for most of the choices he has made (and is very up-front about what is just educated guesswork). One tiny niggle is the regular use of "dwarves" instead of "dwarfs", which struck me as odd when, IIRC, GW still uses "Dwarfs" for their fantasy army instead of the Tolkien fantasy spelling.

I'm glad I made the purchase, and I hope that I'll get a chance to throw down and gladiate soon. I'll try to answer any questions, too.

Thanks for the review. I do have a couple of questions:

How are one on one battles resolved? Does it come down to whio wins initiative and charges the other, or is there something more to it?

Also, with re: to campaigns, do they have a system where gladiators improve? How does that work? I know from LOTOW that you can get simple things like increased F/T/A, is it the same type of system?

Any info would be helpful.