Gaslands - best of 3

 

Lockdown is nearing, if not an end, then at least a change in England's restrictions and the prospect of a proper game is on the horizon.

In the meantime my son and I have been digging out smallish games we can do at home,,, we haven't a decent sized table for a large game.  Luckily we both like skirmishy style games played in a relatively small area so we have plenty to choose from. The game of choice over the last couple of weeks has been Gaslands, which we played a lot last year but which hasn't been out for a while.

In previous games we haven't really used the rules around Sponsors and Perks properly and so we wanted to test these out.  In the rules there are a number of Sponsors... factions which give you different bonuses and skills but which can limit or influence how you play.  For example my son played a couple of games using the Mishkin Sponsor.  This is a group backed by Elon Musk a high tech masternind which gives the cars access to lots of flashy experimental tech, while I used the Highway Patrol who are good at pursuit and whose sirens can cause opponents cars to slow down or take hazard counters.  These defintely add a lot to the game.

We also tried some different scenarios: we've generally just stuck to the Death Race scenario which as it suggests, is a race around a track.  This time we tried a couple of scenarios, both set in an arena.  The 1st couple of games were using the Saturday Night Live scenario.  In this players gain Audience Votes by a changing rota of tasks (eg being the active player and deliberately choosing a move which gives you a hazard, or crashing into something)... votes are generally useful and can be spent throughout the game but in ths scenario they also give you victory points.   Thanks to my inept driving skills and repeatedly accidentaly crashing into things, I found I was somehow racking up points and somehow won the game.  

As we hadn't played for ages it took us a while to get going with this game so we stage a rematch using slightly different cars.

This proved a closer game but again I was able to win... partly because my son had concentrated on flashy high-tech wizardry at the expense of guns that actually caused damage, but also because he had opted for faster but more vulnerable vehicles which didn't stand up to being rammed.

A near miss by 2 trucks

A crash about to happen!

And another crash!

Wrecked vehicles everywhere!

Our 3rd game used a similar scenario... this didn't have the changing menu of audience votes but did have a selection of gun turrets deployed around the arena which indiscriminately attacked any car which came close.  This proved a very close game with us both being reduced to 1 vehicle each after a turn and the game ending in a hail of rocket fire as both our trucks blasted each other, with mine coming off worst.

The games were great fun and increasingly close as we got to grips with tactics.  I'm now feeling inspired to add some more vehicles into the mix and paint up the Lorry and Trailer I have waiting on the paint table.