The Game: Arena of Death scenario, with sponsors live. 40-can teams. No automated turrets - just deliberate, malicious mayhem!

Our Game: Arena of Death car-nage this week. Four players with a 40-can limit each. Sponsors live. No team - four way battle-royale (with cheese). Zappa was a new player this week, another good friend of ours that we have been wanting to show Gaslands to. Everyone built their own vehicles, including Zappa. The arena was set up so that teams entered from each corner of the rectangular arena, with scatter terrain set up to encourage maneuvering and chasing. For the scenario the terrain was a bit heavy, but we also didnt have the usual indiscriminate gun turret menace so I figured it would be good to have some duck and chase. The game didn't last long enough for any real pursuit or evade, however. Everyone collided in the middle, and no one came out the same.

The Contestants:

Maximus was representing Slime this time around with the truck named Brandon. Sporting reinforced armor, a front ram, a turreted flamethrower, and a rowdy crew packing steel nets and one angry lunatic waiving around a magnum pistol.

Bingo was also back again, rolling the unsponsored heavy truck Candygram. Sitting heavy on a 125mm cannon and twin heavy MGs all facing forward, and a box of grenades bouncing around in the cab with the crew. The port-a-potty truck also had "oil" droppers.

Zappa was new to the game, and tried his hand with a Rutherford sponsored car that had a turreted heavy MG and a forward facing mortar loaded up with that extra Rutherford ammo, molotovs for warm and fuzzy fun, and of course standard military smoke droppers.

Dadthulhu (me) was repping Idris this time around... very poorly. The Bedazzler (named posthumously) was a car chassis with twin nitrous shots, a turreted combat laser, and (comically enough) a driver with the perk Restraint! (Which was a waste of points and I misused - more on that later).

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The weather in the real word was pretty crappy that night, and with car builds and introductions we started a little behind schedule. We sort of skipped the going over our builds step which allowed Maximus to get in way too close with his short range build before we realized how dangerous it was. By the time that came to light (pun intended) his steel nets, flame thrower and magnum were destroying opponents.

Everyone came out of the gates aggressive and met in the middle quickly. Well, everyone except me. I had some... 'issues' early on.

Brandon, The Burninator, lulled most of us by taking a safe and slow run into the middle. Zappa and Candygram exchanged some shots quickly. Zappy t-boned Candygram and got to the far side of the big truck.

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Hostilities started, Zappa realized he did not want to let Candygram line up those heavy MGs and 125mm. With Zappa and Candygram focused mostly on each other, and my Idris car just barely getting back into the game, the horror of Brandon became apparent. Seeing all the damage potential in the vehicles around him, the new guy Zappa realized he didn't want to be in the middle of all that, and risked lots of rolling and shifting to GTFO! 😛

The sudden understanding of the Brandon loadout had everyone trying to get distance. Even The Bedazzler, who had pulled into a good flank and pursuit position on the truck. Brandon cleared the obstacles on his turn and hit the rear end of Candygram with a magnum for one damage and one hazard, which put the big truck at 6 hazards out of his own turn. Failed flip check and a roll was enough to wreck Candygram out of the event.

The Bedazzler broke off pursuit and tried to bide some time hiding in the containers, but poor decisions and dice caused a wipe out but no flip costing a few precious gear phases. Brandon doubled back, and after having come around the long way Zappa was throttling back into the fight too. I tried to skirt around the fight on the fence line, but was not having a good night with the templates.

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Zappa and I shot past each other as he went after Brandon while I tried to get distance. At this point the laser turret on Bedazzler had shot four people for a total of three damage. It was terrible... and CLEARLY impacting the handling of the car in an awful way! That's the story I'm sticking to.

Zappa lined up shots on Brandon, but unfortunately wound up close enough that Brandon also got to line up shots.

Realizing he had to keep more distance than he was allowing for, Zappa romped the throttle again, but this time the dice goblins weren't with him. Zappa wound up going full throttle out of control and flipping into the fence just in time for those molotovs to make a hot mess of what was left of the car and crew.

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It was down to just Brandon and Bedazzler, and Brandon was circling my way. So I shifted down and hairpinned back around. I used the Restraint perk to manage hazards on some of these maneuvers, but I was using it wrong. The whole game was on pavement, with no hazards for shifting, so the perk technically shouldn't have been benefitting me. Not RAW anyway. I didn't realize that until sitting to write this. Not only did I pick and pay for the perk but I am also the one that laid out the arena, so I have no excuses and have to own that goof up. :/

Anyway, it was the all-in moment, so I came back at Brandon hoping my laser would FINALLY perform for me!

Ok, well if the laser wont get there, I know what will...

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Winner: Brandon, driven by the mighty Maximus!
A good friend of mine that I had been wanting to introduce the game to was able to play for the first time. Lots of laughs, surprises, good-natured name calling, and even more laughs were had by all. Everyone had a good time again, and that's the real victory in a gaming night. 🙂
More fun to follow, and some possible new terrain showcasing if I can get the things I've been working on finished up and ready.

Until next time, Wastelanders: throttle open, safeties off. Have fun, play games, grind gears, collect hazards, and dont bring lasers to a fire-fight! (closing pun!)