Machinas and WWII

We had three games on the go at the Gong Garage Gamers tonight. Geoff and I played Machinas. We were due to have a third player, but a family emergency put paid to that. We managed a passable race, two cars each, a duo of NPCs and three laps.

Geoff held the lead with Black Dog for the whole race, although it had plenty of bullet-holes in it by the end. I had Miss Murder (blue) and Lola (pink). They dealt with one of the NPC cars in the second lap - a box of nails saw it skid off the track - but couldn't put enough pressure on Black Dog to go for the win.

At the end Geoff brought up the Red Barchetta, who had lurked at the back for most of the race accumulating bonus dice. This gave him both first and second place. I took third and fifth after Lola was pipped into last place on the run to the finish-line.

The rules changes - which have got beyond the tweak stage - held up well, with gunnery proving useful but not dominant. There was no bashing in this race, mostly because no vehicles were ram equipped and there wasn't enough of a disparity in skills and/or bonus dice quantity to make it a viable pass response for the ordinary vehicles. You need to be sure of the win when bashing in Machinas, because a failure can be fatal. It's harder to inflict damage with guns, but the attempt is risk-free.

John and Peter played a teeny-tiny Blitzkrieg Commander scenario that was so short and sweet that they managed three goes at it during the course of the evening.

Meanwhile Bryan, Caesar and Kaleb played Flames of War, playing a predominantly infantry-based game so that Caesar could learn how to handle them.

Apologies for the dodgy photos; I somehow managed to not notice my phone was in Square Social Media mode rather than Semi-Professional Rectangular mode.