It was fun, playing more like a dog-fight game, as we wheeled and turned to get our weapons lined up (except the few with turrets). But, and maybe its just me, the core mechanics of Gaslands are starting to bug me a bit. One, you build up so many hazards early on, going up the gears, that its hard to do much manoeuvring when you get to speed, without just wiping out and having to start all over again. The more dice for handling you roll, the greater the risks of something going wrong, and that means the performance cars are handy-capped over the trucks, because the trucks are stable, 2 handling means you'll never gain many Hazard counters, and thus, never wipe out. This means that trucks, being slow, with lots of hits, can afford the luxury of pulling more, harder, turns than the faster cars. So, you performance sports car is good at going straight, but can't out manoeuvre a truck? This has been growing on me in the last few games... our gun-trucks always do well... they are in the fight, lots of guns, lots of hits dished out and taken, ramming things, and never above 3rd gear... whilst the performance cars, and even normal cars for that matter struggle, gain loads of Hazards, and whilst in higher gears, just end up wiping out and going back to the start. It's a bit frustrating and a repetitive cycle... I'm not enjoying it that much.
The core mechanics, the handling dice roll, is good, but I feel need tweaks... I might give performance cars all a free 'Shift' for each manoeuvre... see how that works. The balance doesn't seem right, I'd rather use a slow, low handling heavy truck, which is tough to kill, won't wipe out and has lots of shots per turn from its many crew, than faster cars... the game rules lack for a feeling of speed... that speed and manoeuvre matter more than firepower (as in any good dog-fight game), its about getting into position... that's the fun of the game... not trundling around as stable gun platform. Its like a bomber being the best aircraft in a WWI dog-fight game... that would be odd. Surely its the fighters... speed, agility, that is at the heart of the game.
I'm pondering a few others fixes too... like banning trucks from hair-pin turns... so they don't out turn smaller vehicles.
Also, what are the rules for lasers?? Can't find them, and the special rule for weapons that are 'Electrical', did they get missed out? Plus, harpoons, they seem insanely accurate, never seen one miss. Its a sure fire hot ecah time.
Anyway, beyond these niggles... and maybe it is just my rule pedantry, our game ended in a draw. After a first pass and lots of skid turning, with all vehicles taking lots of damage, including his flamethrower dishing out extreme punishment - being 'on fire' is well, just terminal... a double ram, tail-gated, then head-to-head, resulted in my targeted gun-truck exploding, taking both rammers with it... end of game, 2 lost vehicle each, a draw then! Next time, I'm fixing my rules issues, to see if it helps the games overall feel.
A close pass at speed. Enemy gun-truck rounding the central mesa.
The cars after the first head-to-head pass.
Trying to get those MGs to bare.
In slow pursuit.
Crash - Bang! The final collision, destroying all three vehicles. Incoming is my performance car, a bit of let down, just can't really ever get going fast for long.
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ReplyDeleteCombat Lasers have the Splash special rule, which means you target every vehicle, friend or foe, that's under the template (Gaslands Refuelled, p82). Also, the Errata document says to ignore the "See special rule" bit, as it doesn't have any beyond Splash.
ReplyDeleteElectrical is more a keyword than actual special rule. Only Mishkin sponsored vehicles can take Electrical weapons and upgrades, and has a perk (Dynamo) allows you to add one Ammo token to one Electrical weapon/upgrade when the vehicle activates in gear 4, 5, or 6.
As for the Harpoon, I hadn't looked into it before, but might have to do a build with one (making sure to have a Ram on the same facing as its fire arc).
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ReplyDeleteNot sure about the original ruleset, but in Gaslands Reloaded you don't have to roll all of your skid dice (you don't have to roll any if you don't want to).
ReplyDeleteYou roll any number of dice (up to your max handling score). You also want to use easy maneuvers (like a medium straight), and shift results to get rid of hazard tokens.
You can also "push it" to reroll any skid dice you don't like. You can also use audience votes to bleed off hazards.
Having more skid dice is a benefit, not a hindrance. A performance car can roll 2 dice if it wants to, but a truck cannot roll 4 dice like a performance car. It is capped at 2 dice.
Cars and other fast vehicles are good for race-type events, where they can get more activations than trucks and heavy vehicles because they get more activations (higher gear limit). As long as you can maintain a higher average gear than the trucks, you can outpace them turn after turn and eventually leave them in your dust.