Blood, Sweat and Cheers

This looks really good, especially as it's written by Nic Wright, the author of Galleys and Galleons, one of my favourite 'beer and pretzels' style age of sail naval wargame rules. The blurb for Blood, Sweat and Cheers says it all:

Blood, Sweat and Cheers is a tactical, two-player, card and dice game, that recreates single combat between gladiators in the arenas of the Roman world from the mid-third century BC to the start of the fifth century AD.

Cards are used to abstractly represent the different options available to a player’s gladiator during the ebb and flow of a gladiatorial bout, while dice are used to resolve interactions. The watching crowd interacts with the gladiators in the arena by rewarding showy attacks and spilt blood with favourable cheering which may in turn be utilised to buoy up a gladiator’s performance.

Almost everything you need to play the game, including a basic area, is included in the deck. All players need to do is download the free two-page rule sheet and provide their own gladiators, dice, and a few wound tokens or markers.

I've been looking for a decent set of fast but fun gladiatorial combat rules for ages, having been disappointed by Warhammer Historical's Gladiator and put off by the intricacy of other alternatives like Viktus and Jugula. In have a nice selection of gladiators in 28mm too, as you can see from the group photo, so would only need to order the deck of cards to get a game underway.

Apparently, if enough people ask, the cards could be printed in the EU by Ganesha Games, which would solve the postage and/or customs tax issue if you live on this side of the pond.