Sometimes you get distracted and then projects just fall off your work bench. In the case of Gaslands, it was 18 months since I last worked on anything for the game and it seemed with Gaslands Refueled released (the second edition of the game), I would just leave it all behind. But fate decided differently and for whatever reason I dusted off the rules and decided to make it happen.
I read up online about how to do an intro game and so I rigged up three teams based on the community suggestions. Each team would run a 25 can (point) team consisting of one car with a machine gun turret and a cheap/small motorbike or trike option. I rummaged around and grabbed some unfinished Dropzone bikes, slapped paint on them and set them up for each team.
We’d use the 10mm scale from Dropzone and some of my already painted up Dropzone cars for the teams. I wasn’t thinking as I could have also grabbed my cars from Thunder Road and not even had to paint anything but it all worked out in the end.
With everything set, Reese and Colton came over and we threw down a simple Death Race scenario with 3 gates in a teardrop formation. The rules recommended a 3×3 space but I think this could easily have been done on a 2×2.
We started out of gate one and said no shooting until the Gear 2 phase. I was the only one with a motorbike as the others had trikes. I shot out early and then got hammered by multiple machine gun turrets. I was down to one hull left and had no option for escape so I picked Colton’s car that was out in front and gunned it.
I went from 3rd gear to my max 6 and, loaded down with explosives, decided to be ride straight for Valhalla. I made a T-bone smash attack and even with my small bike frame, was able to deal the car 4 damage. As to be expected, my biker did not survive. Luckily he had all those extra grenades on him so he exploded right next to Colton’s car, dealing a little more damage.
Finally, all this mayhem caused the car to wipeout and it ended up flipping for an additional 2 damage. Marty Two, you’ve been witnessed.
All this action took Colton’s car out of contention for a little bit.
Luckily, my other car was in the back and caught up in time to finish Colton’s car off and leave him smoking on the sidelines. Reese was doing well at this point as his blue trike was in the best position. He had a turret car too but it was struggling to keep up early due to a smoke cloud I dropped earlier.
Reese takes a commanding lead with his trike but is going way too fast to make the sharp left he needs.
He ends up slamming into a set of wrecked cars. He comes through alive but only just.
Luckily, I was right behind him to put him out of his misery. Marty One has now aced two vehicles. At this point, everyone is down to one vehicle. Colton’s trike is coming in behind me while Reese’s car it stuck out in nowhere.
As I blitz around the top edge of our track, Reese decides revenge is better than winning and skips the second gate to come after me. I’m stuck in 5th gear with 5 hazard tokens and have very few options except stay fast and hope my handling can hold. Colton is following behind but can’t seem to make any gains.
I barely thread the needle going through gate three and I’m going too fast to pull left again to aim for the finish. On the plus side, I’ve out distanced Reese so I’m no longer taking incoming fire.
A lucky roll after the only turn I can make in 5th gear lets me spin to aim straight for home with just enough shift results to keep me safe from a wipeout.
I lined up best I can but I will have to make one more turn to get through that finish line. With my hazards running so hot, I’ll need some good skid dice results.
Colton is forced to make a fantastic veer around Reese’s now dead car (as he had to take off).
Colton is now also rocking in 5th gear and catching up since he didn’t have to swing out so wide exiting gate 3.
With hazards to burn, he pulls off a nice slide/spin move to get closer.
I make my gentle turn at max speed and it doesn’t put me across the line. With enough hazards to force a wipeout, I realize that a flip send me careening through the finish, winning the race in style. I’m at max speed so I’ll flip on anything less than five but my driver didn’t get the memo and handles the wipeout perfectly nailing it with a natural 6. So I don’t flip forward and end the race. Instead, I find myself in the worst position possible: I’m wiped out and back in gear 1, meaning my round is over while Colton has at least 3 gears to go before the round reset.
Colton did give me a window by orienting my car longways across the gate and causing him to not have enough room to clear it without T-boning me. I had plenty of health to absorb the impact but couldn’t deal enough damage (one damage shy of wrecking him).
After the smash, Colton sails through the finish and wins the race.
So our first game of Gaslands went pretty well. It was nice that I could cobble a game together using almost everything I already own. Unless the others get involved in making their own teams though, I see this game having limited appearances as it’ll just be me pushing for it and that is after I build teams for everyone.
Since we didn’t play a full-sized game and skipped things like Audience votes and team perks, I don’t think there would be much of a difference if we play with the new Refueled rules. The game was fun but I can’t imagine playing with full teams and more than 3 players as the game would have a lot of down time. I still think X-wing is the better game (at least first edition as I don’t know second edition well enough to comment) but Gaslands has a lot of great stuff going for it. I wish it had simultaneous maneuver selection like X-wing but the game likely doesn’t need the extra components it would take to pull that off.