Gaslands - A Few Thoughts On City Streets

 My Gaslands set up is a little unusual in that all my fights take place on the streets of Midville, USA.

This leads to two big differences between the games shown on The Joy of Wargaming and most other videos - two differences that largely balance each other out.  For one thing, driving on city-streets means that your car has a lot more opportunity to push its luck and re-roll skid dice.  Not always, but often enough that my games feature a lot more driving between Wipe Out checks than most other games.

Notice, however, that the existence of parking lots, sidewalks, and grassy areas means that enough areas remain "rough going" that players have to consider their routes a few moves head lest they lost that advantage of the free Luck Push.  Sometimes it makes sense to eat the roll to get a better line of attack, and that leads to significantly more interesting tactical choices than a dirt lot with a few obstacles.

On the other hand, this is balanced out by the necessarily narrow city streets.  The tight confines and limited drivable space makes all the Luck Pushing not just a luxury but a necessity.  If you want to get the right line at the right time, you're going to need both Spin and Slide results at the right time, and you're going to need to keep a tight lid on the number of hazard tokens on your car to keep those options available.

It's not exactly a different game, but it's a whole different way of playing the game.  And it's one rich with possibilites that I high recommend to any aficionado of the sweet science of vehicular mayhem.

 

Drivers and pedestrians alike!

Small Droppings

The littlest Gaslands project is just about ready to hit the road.  I traced the N-scale templates out onto heavy cardstock and cut out the appropriate sizes.  The thick cardstock can be bought at the local craft store cheap - the offcuts from the framing shop go for a dollar for an 8x10 piece.  They take paint like a champ, and a bit of brushed on varnish keep the edges from fraying during light use.  Probably not suitable for everyday use, but we're dilettantes here.  If Gaslands gets more than a dozen plays, that will put it in my top five games played of 2020.

Tiny Turns

 These N-scale turn templates from Litko should work fine for my 6mm Gaslands game.

It is a little bit, but we can make it work.

The Littlest Gaslands

Picked up a batch of the "Mad Ron" road warrior vehicles from Irregular Miniatures on a whim.  Just look at these tiny little knights of the road:

Still have to paint those motorcycles, and the big dang semi-trailer slash war-rig.  The good news is that terrain is already done.  I've got the little city all laid out and ready for some vehicular mayhem.  These are perfectly scaled to the terrain set-up that I've got for Riot!

The only issue that gives me pause is that the gauges I ordered are N-scale which maps to 18mm figures, and these little rugged adventurers are in 6mm scale.  Normally I'd be fine with this.  I use smaller scale figures all the time.  Most wargames use a very reduced ground-scale compared to the figure scale.  This should solve my biggest complaint with Gaslands - that even in sixth gear the cars only move about four carlengths per turn.  The speeds just don't feel right when you watch live plays, and don't get me started on the weapon ranges.

I'm also glad to make it harder to ram.  Tagging a vehicle that is actively dodging you at full speed isn't as easy as most rule-sets make it out to be.  This should reduce the numbers of collisions and make the game more about the racing and shooting and less about trying to notch that one big RAM attack.

But there are other considerations here, for sure.  I just don't know what they are, and won't until I get some lead on the table.

Stay tuned!  

In the meantime, enjoy some additional eye candy:

My cars are painted in considerably more day-glo colors than most of what you see on the YouTube reports.  Everyone favors a black matte coat, a bit of gray and metal and rust drybrushing, and then they call it done.  With vehicles this size, I don't have the luxury of a monochrome schema.    You need those colors to help identify the cars at a distance.

Also, it's just a lot more fun to play with colors.

Not sure you can see it, but that bike on the right is carrying three guys and a big-ol' cannon.

Leaping Lizards!

This post is the big reveal post.  Here's where we see exactly what the highway of death will look on the table, complete in all its miniature wargaming splendor.  Cars, terrain, the whole shebang.  This is the culmination of weeks of effort.  It's gonna be so satisfying.  It's gonna be great!  It's gonna be...

In the wrong scale.

These car lanes are half as big as they should be.  Way back at the start of this project, I decided to stick with the Division 5 cars.  The problem is that Division 5 cars are rated subcompact, and the 1" wide bases are too small to hold a m1:64 scale How Wheels or Matchbox car.  So I upsized the scale by fifty percent to make it work.  When I started the highways I used the old 1" = 1 lane rule.  

Like an idiot I didn't check the terrain against a reference figure.  I just plowed ahead with base measurements.  When your miniatures don't meet the terrain until two months into the project, you know what you get?  A lot of useless terrain.

The trees and billboards can be salvaged, but the boards themselves?  All that time and effort and paint and static grass (which ain't cheap)?  Wasted.

Maybe I can pawn them off on some sucker at a swap meet.  Anybody know any suckers?

Eight Feet of Duelling Ground

Finished!  Using the wrong kind of dip meant this project took twice as long as it should have.  But now, at long last, here's a full eight feet of Hawai'ian roadway just waiting for some auto-duelling mayhem.  Look upon my works ye mighty wargamers and despair:

It's still a bit glossy - I couldn't wait for the dullcoat to dry before showing it off.  Tomorrow I'll put the cars and terrain down on it and see how well it all hangs together.

Catch Up Time

It's been a busy weekend what with the stuffing of the face and the last desperate gasp of football before the long dark off-season that doesn't end until last August.  And yet, somehow, I still found time to start fixing last week's horrible mishap with "The Dip".  Nothing a little spray paint and drybrushing and re-lining can't fix.  These probably look familiar, but this is now the second 'base coat' on the off-road sections.

Here's a bonus warning showing spray paint on the
washer and dryer.  My wife would be really annoyed that I
didn't cover my work area better; if she ever used this thing.
HOO-ah!

Interestingly, the pavement actually looks better with the black stain on it.  More like asphalt blacktop and less like concrete.  Guess this mistake can be played off as all part of the plan, after all.

Road Construction Ahead

Just two quick shots of the roads in progress.  Looks like the markout crews in the 2050s are as accurate as they are today.  That red dirt looks really, really red, but these are Hawai'i roads; red is the color of most of the rich flatland soil.  So it works.  I'll throw some bone tan on top for one more layer of color before staining the boards black.  That'll tone down the color a notch, too.

Two For The Road(side)

Slapped together some stands for the billboards.  The ads were designed and printed on a standard printer then glued to each side of a...whatever you call that thick cardstock they use for mounting artwork.  It's roughly 2mm thick and makes a great backing and decent stands for the billboards.  You can get 8x10 sheets for a buck at the local framing shop.

Those are 20mm figs for scale.

For the boards themselves, I hot glued bamboo skewers cut to size around the cardstock.  I drilled four small holes in the base to give them a little more stability.  These will look better once I paint the wood frames and gussy up the stands a bit.  Think I'll wait until I'm done with the roads first, though - I want to try and match the stands to my terrain boards to make the transition as seamless as possible.

More Billboards

A couple of billboards ought to help break up the monotony of the autoduel patch of highway.  Keeping this a local affair I whipped up a handful of local kine ads.

Things get a little complicated at this point.  Here in Hawaii, the home of your humble blogger, there's an outfit called Outdoor Circle.  These cats are dedicated to, among other things, keeping any and all billboards off the highways.  That means we're gonna have to assume that the Outdoor Circle lost some influence during the food and fuel riots.  Oh, they'll still be around, but in my little 'verse they've changed their goals to be more in line with the autoduel zeigeist:

Gotta be honest on this one, not sure what "Defend Hawaii" means.  It's a really popular local t-shirt logo, but normally you see it with an M-16 rather than a tricked out Div 5 car with front mounted machine gun and spike plates on the front.  I did a simple swap to update the defend Hawaii meme for the 2030s.

Eddie Aikau is a local hero who sacrificed his life to save others by attempting to paddle 12 miles across the open ocean on a surfboard.  They named the Quicksilver Big Wave Invitational surf contest in Waimea Bay after him.  That's the one that they only hold when waves are banging at 20-plus feet.  Nowadays, "Eddie Would Go" is a common slogan you see on bumper stickers, shirts, and whatevas - mainly to indicate that you're not afraid of a little big surf.  No surprise so see that Eddie's spirit lives on in the days of autoduelling.

Every highway needs at least one billboard advertising foodstuffs for the hungry autoduellist.  I already used Soylent Green on an arena billboard once, so I had to come up with a different future food.  What could be better than Futurama's Slurm?  The local kine Slurm - Plate Lunch style!  Plate Lunch is the local vernacular for a six dollar styrofoam box filled with a little meat, a little cole slaw, and a heckuva lotta carbs.

You can click on and use these boards on your own terrain if you want.  They are so local in flavor, that they probably won't do you a whole lot of good.  But trust me, these things are gonna crack people up at the game days in Honolulu.

Mystery Revealed!

Hope the suspense didn't kill you.  If it did, then the fact that you're reading this post is very troubling.    So here are my latest terrain tiles.  Those of you who have been following this blog won't be surprised to learn that these tiles are destined to become terrain for Car Wars.  All told, we're going to wind up with 4 straightaways, two 90-degree turns, and two intersections.  

For road battles that gives us 6-feet of straightaways that we can swap in and out as the autoduellists roar down whatever is left of H-1.  Or we can line the road sections up to create an oval-track for more prestigious arena battles, like so:

Small tracks limit the speeds, and forces players to carefully consider their
mine dropping lest the kill themselves.

 Pay close attention to the intersection pieces.  They were designed to be used both to cap off one end of the oval track, and to create shallow S-curves for highway battles.  That means that these tiles provide 6-feet of straight highway before you have to re-use tiles.

The edges should join a little smoother on a flat table.

As of these pictures, the tiles have been primed gray for the road and tan for the off-road.  A little sand sprinkled all over gives different textures for the road and off-road.  Fine grained sand keeps the road from being ice-rink smooth, and a mix of fine and coarse sand helps delineate the off-rad areas.

These roads should wind up four lane roads - two in each direction.  The challenge here is keeping each lane a consistent width.  In the last set of photos, you can just make out the guide marks on the edges of each board.  The solid lines delineate a 1" wide sandy shoulder, with each lane 1" wide, and a 1/4"-edge to the asphalt.  All told, that gives us 4.5" of safe surface, 1" of shoulder hazard, and the rest of the board the far more dangerous off-road.  That's a total of 6.5-inches of playable surface for each stretch of highway, even if a couple of those should only be used in emergencies.

Normally, you wouldn't want to cut your playable surface in half like that, but for running road battles it works just fine.  It also give me room to plunk down some interesting terrain like billboards, trees, rocks, and Road-Runner-esque stone columns.  From a practical standpoint, those can block line of site in the arena.  Outside of the arena, they'll give the boards more variety and keep it from looking like the same six feet of road.

Smoke 'Em if You Got 'Em

More dropped weapons today.  This time it's the smokescreens first previewed here.  First up, a distant shot to show what they look like from a distance, and then a close up view of the texture.

As always, click images for more details.

These are scraps of soft, but stiff, packing foam used to cushion computer accessories.  I simply shaved them into the desired shape, hot glued them onto the appropriately sized counters, and then drybrushed the tops with  black paint.  My little cotton ball experiment failed in that cotton balls are too soft and fibrous - they start to peel away from the base before you even get them on the table.  These puffy nuisances hold their shape much better than cotton, and they don't blow around in gentle breezes.  

On the down side, they take up the most space of all the accessories in the One Box To Rule Them All.  So that means any additional cars I squeeze into the box won't have smokescreens or discharges.

Next Up:  Game On!

Up For Use

If anyone out there in internet land wants to use a few of my billboard designs...here you go.  I can't imagine anyone really wants to use the Hawaii or Kailua one, but heck, Uncle Albert is a classic, and who couldn't use Gold Cross?  All I ask in return is a shout out or link back to this here blog. Click on each one for a hi-res (600x300) copy.

Next Up: In the Boys' Room

The Box Within A Box

Not a lot of time today, so here's a quick shot of my space saving solution.  In order to keep it all in one box, I tuck my pedestrians into the bunker.  Appropriately enough, the safest place for them in transit is also the safest place for them in the arena.  The extra space gets filled with smoke screens/more foam to keep the little mans from rattling around.

Next Up:  Some High Quality Stuff

Ready to Paint the Arena Red

Here they are, the ten pedestrians ready to bail out of their cars and run for safety.  These were painted in a rush - 1 hour total for the lot of them.  I used The Dip method of painting, so they look a lot more grubby than I had hoped.  Live and learn.

 First a big group shot.

Some of my favorite little details.  My local arena is on the outskirts of Honolulu, so it only makes sense for somebody to sport a Hawaiian Flag.  The guy on the right is obviously sponsored by Coke.  You know that if any corporation can survive the apocalypse, it'll be them.

Another detail shot.  The guy on the right is the one that looks most like a terrorist, but I love the fact that he's sprinting and not just standing there like the world's most badass target.  Rambo in the center there is just asking for a few rounds in his chest.

Next Up: The Safest Place

More Shameless Commerce

Keeping with the local Hawaii flavor, 808 Armor is Hawaii's largest independent armor importer and installation service provider.  They also sponsor the weekly amateur night.  But their community support doesn't end with the Hawaii Autoduel scene. They also founded and run the Adopt a Mutant Foundation.  Remember, folks, for just the cost of one cup of coffee a day, you can provide enough irradiated fauxmeat and saltwater to feed a mutant child for a week.

Gold Cross needs no introduction.

When your six year old daughter spots you painting up your little mans and asks, "Ooooh, can I make one?"  This is the result.  "Lenore's Manatee Store" - pets, feed, aquarium supplies, you name it.  For all your manatee needs, think Lenore's Manatee Store.  It's also my favorite ad in the entire arena.






Next Up:  All Dressed Up

Revenue Streams

You're probably going to have to click on those pictures to get a better look at the billboards.  I realized this past week that something was missing from my arena - something to give it the look of a true sports facility and not just a random parking lot.  Advertisements.  Lots and lots of advertisements.

Following in the grand Steve Jackson games tradition, I've decided to keep things local.  The Hawaii Autoduel Arena (Drive with Aloha - Drive Well Armed) is the largest AADA sanctioned facility in the state.  With only four portable jersey barriers, it's not the most technically sophisticated arena around, but it is flexible.  And let's face it - autoduel fans aren't known for their high level of sophistication anyway.

Next Up:  My Fave

Pedestrians Double Crossing

On those rare special occasions when your driver actually walks away from a wreck, you need a figure for the other cars' aim.  Caesar Miniatures sells a box of Modern Militia (Asian and Somali Militia) that should serve just fine.  A lot of these guys are obviously Arab terrorist types with AK-47s and turbans and whatnot.  They'll look fine on the table top when painted up right.  I'm thinking flashy logo apparel.  One guy has a balacalava that looks exactly like the ones NASCAR drivers wear under their helmets, so he's good to go.

These little guys are 1/72 scale, so the scale is a little bit off.  But Matchbox cars have a pretty fluid scale themselves.  If you don't think about it too hard, they fit in just fine.  Thinking about using The Dip technique.  I actually prefer to drybrush white, then block in colors and dry brush one or two layers of lighter color for highlights, but that would mean buying three times as many colors, and I just don't have room for that.  So it's The Dip for me.  Stay tuned and I'll try and post a walk-through of the technique.

I had to special order this box from my new favorite hobby shop, Weller's Hobbycraft.  Right now I'm painting up 10 of the 36.  While writing this post, I realized that some of my 10 cars have gunners, so I may have to prime up a few more extras.  I'd paint up the whole box for pedestrian on vehicle mayhem, but they won't all fit inside the One Box to Rule Them All.



Next Up: Gunfight on Madison Avenue

Slick New Drop Weapons

Two quick picks today of the latest drop weapons.  Oil slicks in both the standard and the high temperature variety.  One shot shows of the flame coloring, and the other shows how glossy the slicks look in decent lighting. The oil is a 50/50 mix of black paint and glue.  The flames are white construction papered colored with crayon and cut to fit.  They'd look better with more wavy flames, as opposed to the regular tooth-like pattern, but I wanted something that would pack up well and last through heavy play.  

Next up:  Cheese it!