I've been on a short holiday, so I'm a little behind on my blog posts. Last Thursday was Gaslands night at the Wollongong Wargamers. As ever we were well-subscribed, and ended up playing two three-player games. We brought pre-designed teams, then randomly decided the division of players and what scenario would be played on each table.
Our table got my favourite scenario: Saturday Night Live. In this one you zoom around trying to earn Audience Votes. Obviously you'll mostly do this by whatever means your team sponsor has for picking them up, but you also get them for losing vehicles (risky strategy) and picking up randomly determined spot prizes. There's one of these active at all times, and it goes to the first active player to achieve whatever the goal is. Once one is achieved a new one is generated. They may require vehicles to be damaged near you, or for you to do a risky manuever or even simply be close to the centre of the arena. But if you do one you get a vote and a victory point.
Our teams were:
June, running a Maxxine team consisting of a car, and buggy and a bike.
Stuart, running a Rutherford team consisting of Mr Apollo (minigun) and Ali Baba's Camel (turret-mounted mortar)
Me, running a single Miyazaki vehicle, Fantastic Cat. It's a hover-car and can do lots of cool stunts.
Here's the setup with Rutherford to the left, Fantastic cat top right and June's team bottom-right.
One rule is that although you always get any Audience Votes to which you're entitled, they only count as victory points if you are reasonably close to an opposing vehicle. So you can't hide in the corners in this scenario; you have to get up-close and personal.
This is June harpooning Ali Baba's Camel, and dragging into a ram.. The brown marker just above the vehicles is the designated centre of the arena. I should make a nice obstacle for that.
Anyway, Mr Apollo shot at me. I took minimal damage because I was stupendously evasive, but as Rutherford Stuart only had to inflict potential hits, not actual damage, and he got Audience Votes.
The final score were close - Stuart won with 15 points, whilst June and I both finished on 12. So it could have been anyone's game.
This is a very tactical scenario, since you are constantly looking at how to pick up points and sometimes wrecking opposing vehicles is a secondary consideration. You also get to pick up lots of Audience Votes, which means there's fun things you can spend them on to make your life easier (or other people's more difficult). This was one of the first scenarios where I've seen people spend them to change who has initiative, for example, as having the active car is important for so many of the spot-prizes.
Anyway. it was a great game. Thanks for June and Stuart for an entertaining evening.
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