Gladiator arena WIP

As I received my Gladiator book from Warhammer Historical, probably the best £10 I've ever spent I started planning for ordering miniatures and building the arena I needed. 

Miniatures have been ordered from "CrusaderMiniatures" last week, hopefully something will arrive next week if they are swift. Never ordered from them before.

Anyway the size of this board is roughly 23x23" and the fighting pit is 20" in diameter. The size will support Gladiator battles with some 10 Gladiators per side max, I'm looking for games that are smaller and there really is no room for chariots or cavalry - but the size of the arena is enough to throw in wild animals if I feel like it.

Design choices, for this project came down to (after a bit of brainstorming) building the "pit" level first. Since I want this game up and running ASAP what I build so far is what I consider the bare minimum. In the future (hopefully sooner than later) I will make a second level made from modules  with boxes for the crowd, with fences and benches as well as the "VIP booth" in one corner.

The fighting pit has two opposing entry points, both single door and bars, to allow opposing single gladiators or gladiator teams to enter facing each other. On the side I made a third entry point, meant for wild animals if those will be used in the combat. I'm thinking about mounting all models on thin round bases used for historical wargames rather than those beveled lip bases I usually favor. I also thought about using round 25mm GW bases but in the end I want models to be as close to the "ground" in this game as possible since the door sizes and depth of the fighting pit would favor this solution.

The pictures show the first half of the job done. Just applied plaster to the "top" and waiting for it to dry before I start painting the doors, the sand, walls and the "top". The sides were taped to conceal the 3 separate foam layers and to avoid having fragile plaster on the edges. The top and bottom of the tape was then covered in PVA so that it would not release easily wear off. The edges will be primed black.

The doors are from Grendel, and the "bars" are Renedra plastic fences.

I will start painting this tomorrow so it should be finished this weekend. The upside of this game is that this is all the terrain I will need. As such I would class it in the same category as BloodBowl. Sure I will make small spike traps and obstacles for the arena but nothing big like for my other games will be needed.