Sunday Afternoon In The Wastelands

I played another game of Machinas this afternoon, running five NPC cars and one run by me. I didn't keep a detailed account of events, but I did take some pictures.

I set up each car with roughly what the model had, then rounded out the weight and points with some random additions. This gave me a good mix of weapons and abilities, some of which I hadn't used before.

The race was three laps, and all cars finished. Despite lots of firing and bashing there was very little damage, but it had the effect of burning up bonus dice very quickly.

I played around with the photos to give them a retro look. Mostly because I could.

The cars on the starting-grid in a small town in the Wastelands. Mine is the red and black one. I went for a fast engine and a rear gun, aiming to try something different from my usually strategy of hanging around at the back and then trying to take the lead at the last minute.

And they're off! The Confederate Ironclad goes straight into the lead.

It stays there for the whole of the first lap, but I briefly overtake it. My lead doesn't last; the Ironclad gets it back a moment later.

The rest of the pack bump and shoot each other with little effect.

Into the final lap, and this is the position.

I make one more try for the lead, but I not only fail, I get bumped into third place by the Blue car.

The Ironclad wins. Every other car finishes the race.

The NPC system in the rules works OK, although it doesn't really cover how to deal with weapons and defences that have limited uses, such as the Flamethrower. I just rolled a 50-50 chance until the last couple of track sections where if the number of uses left was equal to or greater than the number of sections remaining, the car would use the system automatically. It seemed to work OK.