Gaslands at Cape Con 2019

2019 has been a something of a rebuilding year for the South Jersey Gamers Association. The club has a proper logo now, as well as a discussion forum where members can talk about what they're doing (preferably I'd like more activity on there, but you can only do so much).

Visibility has been another big part of the plan to get new members into the club. It's one thing to spread information about the club via word of mouth to existing wargamers, and quite another to introduce the concept of miniature wargaming to an entirely new audience.

The local library system has been a big part of that effort (not least because I'm a librarian in it which offers some advantages). The club currently has a display in one of the libraries with miniatures from half a dozen games, and informational flyers in others.

But a personal touch is always best, which is why I volunteered to be a club representative at Cape Con, a mini comic and pop culture convention hosted at the library system's main branch.

As I mentioned in last weeks post, I chose Gaslands since it fit in pretty well with the pop culture theme of the event. Everyone I talked to instantly understood when I described it as "Mad Max on the tabletop."

There were plenty of questions, and I had about 10-12 flyers go out, and a few more people took pictures of the flyer to save the info.

I explained that the club's focus was on historic tabletop wargaming, with some fantasy and scifi as well. Next month's game of Blood & Plunder also caught some attention - people like pirates and big ships! Other interests were Saga (both Dark Ages and Fantasy) as well as the American Civil War and the American War of Independence.

Next year the event is going to be in February, since September is just too crowded for the library to compete for space. After some discussion with a few members of the SJGA, we're looking at putting on a game of Rebels and Patriots with some AWI figures.

Hopefully this means we'll have at least one or two new people checking out the club in October, but at least we're getting the word out!

Painting Update - Gaslands

With no games played since my last post, my painting progress continues. 

I've got a participation game of Gaslands coming up this weekend at a local comic convention. I'm going as a representative of the SJGA with the hope that we can entice some of the attendees - either the kids, teens, or their parents - to check the club out.

Each team consists of two cars. One has a machine gun, while the other has a "special weapon" (a rocket launcher without the extra rules) with three ammo. This helps to keep the game moving so players won't need to reference different weapons or a lot of equipment.

I had thought about adding some nitrous or oil and glue droppers, but like I said, simple is probably best.

I'll have to review the rules and perhaps run through a solo game since I haven't played in a while. But hopefully this does draw some attention, especially with the fantastic 3d printed terrain Kevyn made.

Also, Gaslands: Refueled was just released, so I may pick that up soon.

Pedal to the Metal - Gaslands AAR

Gaslands has been causing something of a craze recently, and it's pretty easy to see why. Post-apocalyptic, high-octane car racing is always fun, and the abundance of cheap cars means that anyone can stop by their local dollar store and walk out with enough models for a variety of options.

Bill's been excited to try out a game, and so Gaslands was featured for the first Friday Night Fights event at Half Day Studio. 

There were four players controlling two cars each. Bill had two pickup trucks, Kai went with a pickup truck and a car, and Keith and I chose a car and performance car combo.

We chose to use the Death Race scenario, where players have to race through a series of gates in order.

After a few missteps, we managed to get through the first turn. The game has an odd turn structure where there are six "Gear Phases" in each turn, ascending from 1 to 6. A car can activate in any gear phase that matches their gear or higher (so a car in gear 3 can activate in Gear Phase 3, 4, 5, and, but not 1 or 2). This means that a car can activate multiple times in a turn.

With most cars jockeying for position, I decided to have my performance car use one of its nitro-boosters to shoot through the gate. However, this (plus some collisions that my other car was involved in) caused both my cars to wipeout, reducing them back to first gear.

It became painfully clear just how problematic being stuck in first gear can be in this game when most of the other cars are in higher gears. I was stuck unable to do anything as the rest of the cars were able to make 2-4 additional moves.

Keith, Kai and Bill were mostly focused on each other, with Bill's and Keith's lead cars playing catch with Molotov cocktails.

It took us about two hours to get through one and half turns, which was mostly due to the four of us trying to work our way through the rules. That should speed up in the future.

However, it looked as though Keith was likely to stay in the lead, since Bill's pickup (the only vehicle with enough distance and speed to keep up) wrecked and then was destroyed.

I'm hoping to play more in the future, since the game should speed up once we have a firmer grasp on the rules.