Flaming out in Gaslands

Our most recent Gaslands game ended up with a big pile of burning metal in the middle of the table. I consider that a good thing.

When I put out the call to play the game of apocalyptic automobile anarchy, six people showed up. With me as the seventh, I decided to run a hounds & hares scenario, with a half-dozen teams (the players) trying to get points by running into the war rig or its performance car escort (me as the GM). Players gained points for contact, and lost points each time they lost a vehicle.

Several players had their own vehicles--from Al's and James' conventional Hot Wheels conversions to Yosef's all-motorcycle team made from Sons of Anarchy board game pieces. The rest used my vehicles.

Once again, the war rig proved easy to wreck, since it generated hazard tokes pretty much every time it moved. It started at one edge of the table, running a gauntlet with three teams on each side. Looking back, I should have started the escort car at the other end, to give the teams on the opposite side from me a chance to get in the game quicker.

As usual, explosions affected other vehicles, causing damage and adding hazard tokens. But the biggest danger was just from crewmembers' hand weapons--fire enough shots and some of them are bound to do some damage.

So both the escort performance car and the tractor-trailer rig itself ended up wrecked. And the war rig ended up making a nice obstacle as well, demolishing several other vehicles in the process.

The motorcycle gang also found out that flamethrowers can be deadly for two-wheelers. In the end, half the players were at zero points, and the other players were at negative two for lost vehicles (after gaining points for running their vehicles into the hare vehicles).

This was a good scenario for a large group of players. I will have to run it again sometime.