MOAB 2017 - The Saturday

It's the October long-weekend here in New South Wales, and that means it's time for MOAB. Regular readers of this blog will know that for the past couple of years this has meant Victor and I running games of Munera Sine Missione on the Saturday, and playing HOTT on the Monday. But not this year. Firstly there's no HOTT on the Monday; the number of players has declined to the point that it wasn't worth running it. Instead I'm playing DBA, which will be something of an experience. And the gladiators have now been dropped in favour of Machinas. Victor and I brought this in a couple of years ago as a side-game, but it proved so popular that we made it the only game this year.

If you've been following the blog you will know the setup I'd decided on. Each player would run a pair of scavengers, with one of more groups competing (or maybe co-operating) to bring down a chase on the roads of post-apocalypse New South Wales (or modern-day Wilcannia). Victor produced a nice board, and some tumbleweed, whilst I provided the road itself, wrecks, buildings and the vehicles. Here's was the setup we used to lure in our first punters.

We ran three games during the course of the day, and all the players seemed to enjoy themselves, as did the interested spectators we attracted.

In the first game, Max himself had to push his V8 Interceptor to its limits in order to avoid the attentions of three players. A VW Beetle with a flame-thrower pressed him hard here; he responded by trying to run it off the road. Almost succeeded too.

One of the other scavengers did manage it though. Competition was fierce.

It wasn't a good day to be a motorcyclist.

The pack thinned out, through crashes and vehicles dropping out. Max held on ...

He almost came a cropper when his brakes locked and he skidded back towards the fearsome excavator, but some skillful driving on his part (which, in game terms, involved chucking every last bonus dice he had into the roll) saw him survive.

Max lived to drive another day, as the pursuers all finally gave up.

Another game. This time the Big Yellow Taxi was the chase, and proved a tricky foe with guns and rockets to the front and rear.

Once again the scavengers competed with each other for the rights to the kill; this blue rat-rod was the first casualty.

Attacks on the taxi saw some of the pursuers pull ahead, leaving the taxi having to try and pass or destroy them in order to keep the chase momentum going. Damage meant that it lost both of its guns, however.

The spiky car tried its best to thin out the pusuers and go for the kill, but its young driver hadn't mastered the art of expending bonus dice (despite frustrated parental guidance) and it never managed to set up a winning pass in order to bring the spikes to bear.

Finally the chase settled down to the taxi and the fearsome spines of Rock Lobster. The taxi held it off, and escaped, but it was a close-run thing.

The final game of the day saw the hobo-roadster Tom Sawyer pursued by two gangs featuring mostly bikes, plus the deadly digger/ute combination.

A biker learned that tailing a car with a  rear-mounted machine gun wasn't always sensible. He survived, but was wounded, and lost his bag of molotov cocktails.

The digger tried to pick off competing motorcyclists from the rear.

The pack thinned. Some motorcyclists broke off. Others fell to Tom Sawyer's gun. Eventually the roadster and the ute met in single-combat.

A win for the scavengers!

I was really pleased with how smoothly the game ran with the various modifications and house-rules we have for the game. We got to try a variety of vehicles and, whilst I think vehicles equipped for bashing have a slight edge, the balance of size and equipment is about right. At the end of the day, the games were a lot of fun, although running them all day was utterly exhausting.

Next: Sunday competitive DBA!

6x6 - Game 4.6