Gaslands 21

This week's feature game was Gaslands. The last time we did this we ended up with six players, including one novice and one person running a complicated team, and ended up with a game that we only got a couple of turns into. This time we deiced to go with a fall-back plan; if we had four or five players we would run a conventional 50 Can full-fat game. If we got more then we would cut the game back and run a 21 Can game. previously we've run 20 Can games, be Caesar felt that 21 Cans offered just a touch more choice.

As it was we got six people signing up, so at the last minute put together the six-player low-Can game. One of them dropped out at the last minute, but we still went with it.

How do we do 21 Cans? Well, you basically play with no sponsors, but you can choose perks from one group. You can pretty much buy any weapons you like but the Mishkin electrical weapons are a poor buy since you won't have the Dynamo perk to recharge them with. I did decide that if you bought Mishkin-specific special abilities (the Nuclear Engine or the Teleporter) then you could only choose perks from the two Perk groups available to Mishkin.

Caesar and I put together a selection of vehicles for people. Graeme and Stuart chose from those, whilst Bailey quickly designed a vehicle of his own. It doesn't take long. 

It was inevitable that we'd roll a Death Race. We did think of re-rolling but decided that there's no point in randomising these things if you simply ditch the results you don't want. So we went with it.

From left to right on the starting grid we have:

Kaos (Caesar) - Car, Front Ram, Front HMG, Boarding Party 
Marvellous Engines Of Resistance (Me) - Truck, Wall of Amplifiers, Steel Nets
Diablo's Child (Bailey) - Drag-Racer, Front Ram, Front HMG, Expertise, Trick Driving
Avenging Angel (Graeme) - Car, Two Front HMGs, Road Warrior, Crowd Pleaser
Welcome To The Machine (Stuart) - Car, Front Ram, Armour, Grenades

(Some of those don't add up to 21 Cans, but I don't have the sheets for them to hand, so am relying on memory)

And here's the route. 

Bailey's drag-racer has to fire off nitro every single time it moves, so is fast but difficult to steer since it need room to do a long straight every time. The opening move was suitably spectacular; a long nitro-burst followed by a straight, a slide and a spin. A drag-racer ends every turn on 5 Hazards.

Everyone else started more sedately, and with the two ram-equipped cars going last they took the opportunity to rear-end the other vehicles.

Marvellous Engines Of Resistance and Welcome To The Machine bumped into each other at the first gate.

Graeme got Avenging Angel through the first gate and went after Bailey's drag-racer.

The early stages - I obviously missed some action though. Avenging Angel was stuck just before Gate 2, whilst Kaos and Diablo's Child were out in the lead. Welcome To The Machine and Marvellous Engines Of Resistance brought up the rear.

Caesar got Kaos well ahead. At this point Bailey lost control of Daiblo's Child, which crashed into a wall and was wrecked. Avenging Angel was also coming on strong.

Stuart got Welcome To The Machine through Gate 2, whilst I plodded along behind in my truck. On top of the gate is Diablo's Child, showing that is where it would respawn.

And respawn it did, only to fall foul of ... my Wall Of Amplifiers! The hazards that put out, combined with some handgun fire caused a chain of chaos that saw both Avenging Angel and Diablo's Child destroyed.

At some point Welcome To The Machine must have crashed, because I don't see it in any more photos. I can't remember what happened to it.

Anyway, there were only two of us left in the race now; Marvellous Engines Of Resistance and Kaos. And Kaos was well ahead.

But Diablo's Child got to respawn, and jetted into Kaos from behind ...

Then spun right around and rammed from the front. A head-on collision with a drag-racer is not pretty, and both cars were destroyed in a massive fireball. This put Kaos out of the running early in a turn, so there's be no respawn for a while.

This now left Avenging Angel and Marvellous Engines Of Resistance in the running. Avenging Angel was well behind, but we both recalled that a death race can be won by a vehicle if it is the only one currently left running. So if one of us could take out the other before anyone else was able to respawn, that would be it!

A head-on charge favoured Graeme, whose twin HMGs inflicted a load of damage on my truck, leaving it on its last couple of hits. My handguns did some damage back.

We passed, and I was out of the arc of the HMGs! But Graeme fire two handguns at me ... and scored a double six, inflicting four points of damage. that was enough to take me out!

This left Avenging Angel as the winner!

Graeme had travelled down from Sydney for this game, in holiday traffic as well, so it was a richly well-deserved win.

The 21 Can format worked very well, giving a full evening's gaming with far fewer rules to keep track of.