I Like Trucking And I Like To Truck!

"If You Don't Like Trucking, Tough Luck!"

Our group had talked about doing an all-truck game of Gaslands for a while, so last night we gave it a try. Each player was limited to one Heavy Truck (a new vehicle type from the third Gaslands supplement, TX3) costing 50 Cans. We determined the scenario randomly* and got the Zombie Bash, which is the first time that's come up as a club game.

Zombie Bash is essentially a resource collection game - the 'zombies' are markers scattered around the arena, and vehicles collect them by driving over them. To be honest they could represent any kind of valuable resource; spare parts, money, food, or Facebook likes. The game ends when they are all collected, with the winner being the team with the most. But if a vehicle is destroyed it deposits part of the team's collection around the wreck.

Here was our setup - containers are high obstacles and block line of sight. Obviously the counters were the 'zombies'.

I used Thomas, once again sponsored by Scarlett Annie and equipped with a ram, harpoon and blunderbuss cannon. Jason and Caesar had built similar trucks, both sponsored by Rutherford with a few machine-guns and a single heavy weapon in a turret. Jason's had a tank gun, whilst Caesar, predictably, went for rockets.

And away we went. Heavy Trucks are slow in comparison with most Gaslands vehicles; they only get two dice for shifts, and have a maximum gear of 3, so a lot of the game involved very careful and controlled driving, which was a bit of a change, especially for Jason who likes the high-octane Idris or Miyazaki teams.

First fire saw Jason engage Thomas with his tank cannon. Like any good Rutherford vehicle, he had loaded his single strong weapon with a pile of perks to make hits likely and lethal, and his first shot seriously damaged our favourite tank-engine. I scuttled off to a deserted corner of the arena.

My plan was sound. Jason and Caesar now passed close to each other, and the two trucks exchanged volleys of fire. Their weaponry is deadly, but has limited ammunition, so using it up on each other rather than me was very much to my advantage. Caesar's rockets won the day, mostly due to his truck having the Return Fire perk, which allowed him a shot back each time Jason targetted him. Jason's truck was soon wrecked, awaiting the inevitable respawn/wreck recovery.

And here is Jason again, respawned and renewed, but with fewer hits and far less ammunition. I still ducked behind a container though.

Whilst Caesar and Jason had been duelling I tried to collect as many counters as possible. The aim was that if I was destroyed I could afford to lose the five counters and still be ahead of the other two players.

Jason had moved over to Caesar's starting edge, which is where Caesar's truck would reappear on a respawn. So they ended up fighting again. This was Jason getting wrecked again, but the wrecked process crashed his truck into Caesar's, damaging him.

The area where Jason and Caesar were fighting was now rich in counters, so I headed over to take advantage of that. And sometime to do that you have to drive through a wall. With trucks being slow heavyweight vehicles, the same as obstacles, the damage for ramming obstructions isn't too horrible.

Jason had just wrecked Caesar's truck when I arrived.

I harpooned it and dragged it in for the kill. And then rolled abominably for ramming damage. I was wrecked and Jason wasn't.

Another Gaslands quirk; if you start a move in contact with an obstacle, you can drive through it so long as you clear it. And that's what Jason did, reversing through the wreck of Thomas to pick up the counters behind me. It is a strange rule, but mostly works in game terms, and keeps the dynamics of collisions simple.

The final phase. I respawned Thomas, and went after Caesar's newly resurrected truck with the harpoon, whilst firing cannon at Jason. The cannon took out Jason, but Caesar's vehicle survived by one hit and, once again, the collision wrecked Thomas. We called the game at that point. Caesar had no counters, whilst Jason and I were tied on about five each, so we called it a tie for first place.

This wasn't a high-speed game of Gaslands, but it was a lot of fun as trucks require a different approach to handling hazards and manoeuvres. This possibly wasn't the best scenario to showcase the all-truck concept, but did the job. I think a race with four or five players offers the most excitement for this concept, though.

*A note on our scenario randomisation. We use a table which de-emphasises races in favour of the other scenarios, in order to create more variety:

1-2 - Death Race
3 - Arena of Death
4 - Saturday Night Live
5 - Capture The Flag
6 - Zombie Bash