Smilodons, Glyptodons, and Beetles, oh my!

This is a pretty cool story in the field of paleoentomology and ecology:

Paleoecological and Taphonomic Implications of Insect-Damaged Pleistocene Vertebrate Remains from Rancho La Brea, Southern California (Journal Article)

(If you don't want to slog through the jargon of a scientific journal article, here's a link to a news piece covering the story, in more accessible language!)

Researchers from the LA County Natural History Museum used modern dermestid* and tenebrionid beetle larvae to reconstruct the succession of insect larvae feeding on dead but as-yet-unsubmerged large vertebrates caught in the tar pits, based on damage done to the bones of these specimens by prehistoric beetle larvae.

A few thoughts:

The majority of the damage is on the feet of the larger vertebrates, which (to me) would seem to indicate that they were belly-up in the tar pits.  Seems odd, but also appropriate given that...

Their findings indicate that some of these carcasses may well have been stuck in the tar, still not completely submerged, for 17 to 20 weeks!  The animal would likely have been long dead by the time the beetles were chewing away at its bones, but it certainly does make the prospect of dying in a tar pit a bit grimmer than I would have envisioned.  If sinking at such a slow rate, it seems that the animal may well have starved to death before drowning/suffocating.  Neither is glamorous, but the drawn out death of starvation seems much worse, once your fate is sealed in tar anyways.  Anyways, once the animal died, but still had a lot of sinking to do, I can imagine it would have fallen over into the tar, thus potentially exposing the feet for the beetle larvae to consume.  A researcher on the paper also postulates that opportunistic vertebrate predators or scavengers would have turned over some of these carcasses to get at the belly, and maybe dismembered the carcass, thus exposing the feet in the process.  This is obviously supported by the large number of smilodon and dire wolf fossils recovered from the tar pits, as well.

On a related note, I would have initially guessed that a beetle who laid her eggs on an animal carcass which was sinking into a pit of tar had simply made a poor choice, dooming her offspring to "go down with the ship", as it were.  Accidental landings in suboptimal habitat are not unknown, especially among flying insects which are easily blown about (there was a popular anecdote in the entomology lab I worked in as an undergraduate about a former professor at the university finding low-elevation grasshopper species packed into a snowdrift on top of Mt. Evans).  With a solid 17-20 weeks, though, I would revise that guess - one has to imagine they had plenty of time to feed and pupate into adults (for reference, the development period (from egg-laying to pupation) for modern dermestids ranges from as little as the development period (from egg-laying to pupation) for modern dermestids ranges from as little as 7-8 weeks up to about a year).  It would not be surprising at all to find that there were sub-species, or at least populations, which thrived specifically on such carcasses.  The whole scenario becomes pretty reminiscent of large organic matter falls, such as a whale carcass that sinks to the sea floor, supporting a wide array of scavengers and decomposers (and potentially as a stepping stone for the larvae of hydrothermal vent species!).

Anyways, that's enough rambling from me - hope you enjoyed the story!  Next time you're in LA, visit the Page Museum and think about those poor ground sloths and glyptodons, sinking for several months on end.

* Interestingly, these guys are a major pest, and a problem in many museum collections as they can cause a lot of damage to all manner of specimens.

Sutton Hoo now on the Google Cultural Institute

Artifacts from the Sutton Hoo ship burial, a famous excavation of an Anglo-Saxon burial site, have been posted to the Google Cultural Institute.  They've got decent information, and very nice images of a lot of the objects from the exhibit, so if you're not able to get to the British Museum (or the exhibit was closed for renovation last time you were there, like me...), then this is a good way to see it.

The reconstructed Sutton Hoo helmet, and a replica of the helmet, side-by-side

Some pretty cool stuff, click through their gallery!

http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/exhibit/sutton-hoo-anglo-saxon-ship-burial/gQOPNM9M?projectId=historic-moments

Nos morituri te salutamus!

"We who are about to die salute you!"

We played several gladiatorial bouts using Warhammer Historicals "Gladiator" rules last weekend, and it was a lot of fun.  The game rules are taken almost directly from Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings game, so they were familiar to most of the players involved (although most stats have been renamed to fancy-sounding Latin words, which could at times be confusing for those who are too accustomed to the LOTR rules...).

Sadly my camera battery died after the first match, but that still leaves one decent battle report, so here it is.  I'll give a blow-by-blow with snippets of gameplay, to give interested parties an idea of what the rules are like.

We start the day off with two teams of two gladiators each.  The first, commanded by yours truly, included a Dimachaerus (a gladiator with two blades instead of a weapon and shield) and a Secutor (a gladiator with a large rectangular shield called a scutum and a rounded helmet, to reduce his chances of be ensnared in an opponent's net).

Secutor and Dimachaerus

My opponent, Billy, took "Tigris of Gaul" (who, for all intents and purposes, was treated as a Dimachaerus for this game) and a Retiarius (a gladiator with a trident and net, but little to no armor for protection).

Tigris of Gaul and Retiarius

 As with the Lord of the Rings game, the turn starts with a dice-off for priority, to see who gets to act first.  The game is a sort of variation on standard "I go, you go" game systems - the winner of the priority roll gets to move first, then his opponent gets to move, after which the winner of the priority roll gets to resolve shooting, then his opponent shoots, then there is a shared melee phase.

In this case, Billy won and gets the first move (the die face showing the hoplite helmet is a "6" on these dice). 

Billy wins priority

Billy's gladiators close most of the "board" in one move (you can see we just used a small hill to represent our arena, but that's probably fitting for a small game in a outlying town or something of that nature).  At the end of his move, the Retiarius cast his net at the Secutor in an attempt to ensnare him.  He scores a hit with ranged attacks on a 3+ and, rolling a 6, successfully landed a hit.  At this point, the Secutor rolls on a table to see just how badly ensnared he is, ranging from just his shield or spare weapon on up to completely immobilized (lower is better).  He lucked out and rolled low, meaning only his shield was caught.  This allows him to defend himself in a fight, but he doesn't get the defense bonus from his shield and he can't move until he extricates himself (rules-as-written, however, I would propose a house rule allowing him to drop his shield at this point if he wanted to).

It's worth noting that normally shooting is it's own separate phase.  However, this only applies to bows, slings, and other missiles.  Thrown weapons are used at the end of a model's movement, in the movement phase, which is why the Retiarius was able to cast his net before the Secutor had a chance to move.

 We used the blue token to indicate that he is caught up in the net

Having finished their movement, it was now my turn.  Thinking the Retiarius looked like a softer target, I moved my Dimachaerus into contact with him, rather than Tigris of Gaul.

Dimachaerus closes in on the Retiarius

With no missile-armed troops on either side, we skipped the shooting phase and moved right on to melee.  Melee is determined by a simple roll-off, with the higher-rolling player winning the combat.  Players get a number of dice equal to the combined "attack" values of any gladiators they have in the fight - in this case a mere 1 for Billy's Retiarius while I received 2 for my Dimachaerus, who is wielding two gladii (the short swords used by gladiators and Roman soldiers).  In the case of a tie, the side whose gladiator has the highest Disciplina value, which reflects how skilled of a combatant they are, wins.  We each rolled a 4, and the Retiarius has a higher disciplina value than the Dimachaerus, so he won the fight.  I suspect the reason for his higher disciplina is to reflect that the heavy armor and helmets of other gladiators gives them a bit of a disadvantage in that regard, even if it offers greater protection.

 Retiarius wins

Having lost the fight, my Dimachaerus was then forced to fall back 1", after which the Retiarius got to roll to wound.  Normally, a model can roll 1 die per attack on its profile to wound, however the trident carried by the Retiarius allows him 3 dice per attack when rolling to wound.  He successfully caused 3 wounds on my poor Dimachaerus, who was at that point taken out of the game (had we been playing a campaign, I would at this point have rolled to see how he stood with the crowd, and whether or not they allowed him to live).

 Dead Dimachaerus

After melee it's time to roll for priority again, this time I won the roll and took the initiative.

Turn 2, Tom has priority

 Still ensnared, at this point if he wants to do anything at all the Secutor must first attempt to cut himself free (again wanting to roll low).  I scored a 1, and successfully cut the net loose from my shield but was able to do nothing further for that movement phase.

The Secutor cuts himself free

In their movement phase, both of Billy's gladiators closed in, and we went ahead and rolled out the melee.  I scored a 5 and was hopeful that he wouldn't get very good rolls, but Tigris of Gaul rolled two 6's (only would have needed 1 to win, anyways) so they won the fight.

 2 vs. 1 - no fair!

Despite the heavy armor and large shield on the Secutor, they were able to score 2 wounds against him (needing a 6 to wound), thus defeating him and ending the game.  Congrats, Billy!

And there goes the Secutor

Thoughts on the game:

Since most of us were at least somewhat familiar with the system, it played very smoothly and we knew we would have fun.  That said, I feel that the game needs a few tweaks to be more fun and balanced, starting with the Retiarius.  His stats in the book are, somewhat inexplicably, just plain better than the other gladiators, and with a bit of luck the net can be a complete game-changer.  I would propose reducing his chances to score a hit from 3+ to 4+, and maybe also dropping his net's range from 6" (which is outside of many of his opponents' charge ranges) to 4".  He should have to get in a little close to use it.  The trident is also probably too powerful - we toyed with the idea of treating it simply as a spear (allowing him to support a friendly model that's in combat), but doing away with the 3 rolls to wound per attack, or still allowing the three rolls to wound, but only allowing a maximum of 1 wound to be caused per attack (therefore increasing the likelihood of wounding per attack, but not the number of wounds caused per attack).  Essentially, I feel like his higher disciplina value should be his main line of defense if his net fails him, but he shouldn't be terribly effective in melee (hence the net - his goal should be to disable his opponent and then go in for the kill, but as is he's quite formidable without the net).

In the rules, most weapons also have a fixed fortituda (the same as "strength" in LOTR), which makes the fortituda stat on the gladiator seem kind of redundant.  I would also generally do away with this rule, perhaps with certain exceptions.

Lastly, I would not feel too restricted by the profiles as represented, and be willing to toy with them a bit for more variety.  For instance, while there seems to be evidence that some Dimachaerus were very lightly armored, the model I have is obviously somewhat well protected, and would therefore perhaps warrant a boost to his patientia ("defence" in LOTR) at the cost of a point of movement.

All in all a fun game, and we played several more battles and a short tournament, so I would recommend the rules to anyone looking for a set of casual-play gladiator rules.