Rush Hour

I'd planned for the possibility of running a couple of small games of Machinas on Thursday in order to check things out for MOAB on Saturday. But the interest was such that I ended up having to work out a game capable of catering for six people. I decided to go for a kind of King of the Hill scenario; each player would have a couple of vehicles representing a gang, and all running along the same stretch of road. It would use the chase mechanisms, with the aim being to have the last vehicle running when all of the others had dropped out or been eliminated. As in a normal Machinas chase, vehicles would roll each turn to see if they dropped out, with the likelihood increasing as time progressed.

Six players. Two vehicles each. Twelve vehicles. My biggest game of Machinas yet!

It started off looking like a holiday weekend traffic jam.

But it soon settled into a lively chase.

The initial positioning tended to favour bigger vehicles at the back and smaller at the front. Gary scared those at the rear with a gigantic digger.

The first casualty - an anarchist biker had a run-in with the spiky car and ended up shredded. The wreck of his bike caused chaos along the rest of the pack.

Maya scored a kill with the digger/ute combination.

The front-runners ...

... and those at the rear.

And attempt on the lead. It succeeded, but the green hot-rod recaptured the position.

Another kill for the ute.

A few vehicles had now dropped out, as well as the three vehicles that had been destroyed; the pack was thinning out a little.

More dropouts.

The off-road Beetle makes a run for the lead ...

... and takes it.

Eventually there were only two vehicles left running - Satvik's Beetle and Gary's bike.

Gary slipped the bike into the lead, and the Beetle then dropped out, leaving Gary as King of the Road.

The scenario worked pretty well, given that my design parameters were pretty much based on the idea that if you chuck enough stuff on the table, entertainment was sure to ensue. Once we got going each turn didn't take too long to resolve, and none of the mechanisms are too complicated either. The games at MOAB will be ordinary chases, with far fewer vehicles.

6x6 - Game 4.5