Gaslands: Introducing a newcomer

 

When we were living in the US, daughter Jasmin and her partner Neil had visited for Thanksgiving, we decided to celebrate a UK version now we are back here so they stayed wit us for a few days.

While they were with us I introduced Neil to Gaslands and helped him convert his first two Hotwheels, a Nissan Silva that I had in my bits box with a broken spoiler and a Camaro that we picked up from B&M.

The broken spoiler was replaced with a piece of corrugated iron and the hood was cut off with a Dremel cutting disk and a massive engine installed. A wing mounted machine gun and new rear wheels completed the job. For the Camaro it had a roof mounted pintle machine gun, a dropper added to the boot and a steel mesh windscreen. Front and rear fenders were upgraded with an Iron beam and additional corrugated steel armour was added to the doors.

After he had painted and weathered them, Neil was ready for his first game.

Following Thanksgiving dinner we loaded the dishwasher cleared the table and set up a small circuit for the introductory one buggy, one car introductory game.

Neil's Camaro won the first game, so we set up again, this time with a performance car and a car each. 

Much drifting ensued with everybody throwing them into the corners.

My Pontiac GTO clinched this one in front of the Silva and Neils Camaro, in the above shot my Camaro can be seen straying off course.

Black Friday we lined up again, this time picking a 50-can team each (no sponsors or perks).

Neil took a performance car, car and bike team while I had a truck, car and buggy team.

Lined up on the grid

The Nissan Silva is first out

The pack catches up

Into the first corner

Camaro spins out

A truck/bike collision is only going to go one way

Silva and Chevelle drift into the corner and hope to avoid the wiped out Camaro

Dead Mans Corner just before the finish line is littered with wrecks

Five of the six vehicles were wrecked before the finish line so the slow and steady truck took the honours.

Neil has already picked up some more Hotwheels and took some Implements of Carnage home with him, this will hopefully become a tradition.

Gaslands: More trackessories

Back from my city break with Victoria I've been working on some more trackessories that I ordered from Sarissa Precision. 

I picked up three packs of the traffic barriers, that I soon got assembled and painted in PVA before priming with a grey spray. I gave them a light coat of VMC Stone Grey and then added some arrows and chevrons in  white, yellow and red. 

After a coat of AP Dark Tone I reapplied the base-coats, added some detailing and some tyre scuffs at the bottom.

I also painted up a set of the jump ramps for extra hazard in our games, we may even be brave enough to give them a try in a future race.

You can also see in all the pictures the new Gaslands mat that Geek Villain did for me, after the last game I had "mat envy" for Martins mat so contacted Mack who did one for me in an alternate colour scheme.

Bundeswehr Heavies

These have been painted a couple of weeks, but today I finally got around to taking some photos.

In my past few games of Seven Days to the River Rhine the Bundeswehr have been rather roughly handled, particularly due to the survivability of the Leopard 1A1s. I bit the bullet and added a platoon of Leopards 2's to give them a try out.

The models this time are from Red3, I rather liked the option of being able to add the tank commander and gunner sticking out of the turret.

As these are likely to be regular Bundeswehr rather than reservists I decided these should be in the more modern three colour scheme.

One thing to note is that they are probably too small, slightly, but noticeably smaller than the Timecast Leopard 1s  where they should be a little bit bigger in all dimensions.

I also added a pair of Fuchs AFVs to add to what I have to make up the mounts for a platoon.

Lets see how the Bundeswehr do in our next adventure.

Gaslands: Not so beat up!

I wanted to have a try at a couple of cars that were not so battle damaged for this pair, so went for a fairly pristine, but still dirty, paint job on them.

2020 Ram 1500 Rebel

The first one is a 2020 Dodge Ram 1500 Rebel, using twin machine guns, ram, launchers and some armour from the Implements of Carnage One frame plus a couple of barrels from the Implements of Carnage Two frame. The additional armour was trimmed with some right angle styrene sections.

I wanted this to look like the vehicle used by a police department, but kitted out for the job in apocalyptic times. 

 

None of my usual rust effects were used in the creation of this beast ;) 

AMC Rebel Machine

Another almost factory fresh one, in a shocking orange colour scheme. This one was kitted out entirely from the Implements of Carnage One frame, with driver, ram, spare tyre and rockets added.

Even though the original Rebel Machines were underpowered I wanted to kit this out to look fast, so the ram acts as a splitter and the rockets seem more aerodynamic than a machine gun. The driver is kitted out in Nomex and a racing helmet although it does not show well in the photos.

When taking the photos I noticed that I had a fail sticking it back together and it looks like the trunk is open, maybe that is what that tyre is for!

Plenty of hazard warning on this pair, other racers are not so considerate.

Thanks to Martin for lending his mat and backdrop for the photos.

Gaslands: The Death Race

 

Good morning race fans and welcome to the first Death Race to be held at the Ruddington Raceway.

The cars are lined up on the grid, neither team has yet secured a sponsor, will any of the majors pick these guys up after the race?

Ruddington Raceway

With a roar of engines they are off. Martins Ice Cream Truck was first of the grid, completely fluffing his start the truck skids across the track at 90 degrees and carnage ensues as all the drivers try to avoid the mess before them.

Martins car slams into the back of the VW almost totalling it while my car slams into the back of Martins car.

As the Ice cream tries to recover it fails again siding sideways on into storage containers and wipes out!

What a position to be in, the start line is at the bottom of this shot!

My VW just edges past the carnage only to get rammed again and slammed into the storage container, third gear phase of the first turn and we have a wreck. My minigun armed buggy attempts to dodge the mess and wipes out itself. one wreck and two wipe-outs in short order.

Martins green car crosses the first gate unscathed and drops smoke into the racing line, I pick up hazard tokens a plenty and soon my harpoon buggy has wiped out, crashes into Martins steady green machine and is wrecked.

Carnage!

Red one still in the race, just!

I'm now down to one buggy and a car while Martin is pretty much unscathed and cruising ahead.

My Gatling armed buggy is on the tail of the Ice cream van for four phases and something must be wrong with the gun as when I pull out from behind it, the truck has taken on three hits in that time.

Martins two cars are now well out in the lead but Gatling buggy gets on with the job in hand, pedal to the metal he's now in fifth gear and catching up with the leaders who are making steady progress in fourth gear.

Buggy gets his pedal to the metal!

The ice cream truck cuts the corner, but Buggy is really going for it, power sliding around corners and swinging the tail out. He's all over the place at times, but in other back in complete control 

Feeling the roar of the buggies engine the leader accelerated into fifth gear himself, but spins out and is left facing back up the track in first gear.

Buggy gets behind the second placed car and all those failed minigun rounds of earlier come good and it explodes in a fireball. 

Boom!

But green machine reverses onto the track directly in front of the buggy, a burst of fire from the passengers hand weapons wrecks the buggy and it slams into the truck destroyed.

Reversing onto the track, is that fair.

Very resilient ice cream truck filled with bullet holes

While my red car and the Ice cream truck duel it out, Green machine takes a stead drive over the line.

Winner!

That carnage with the truck messing up the first two gear phases really changed the nature of the game, rather than accelerating away the buggies had to cautiously negotiate the wreckage while suffering damage from ram attacks.

 

What a great race, both teams have attracted the attention of major sponsors, more tricks next time.

Muskets and Tomahawks: The Big Cheese

 

Thursday evening at the Rose and Crown I joined James and Paul for a game of Muskets and Tomahawks using James's lovely French and Indian Wars collection.

James and Paul would take the French while I was the British.

My initial deployment

My force was three units of British regulars led by Captain Wensleydale, supported by two units of Rangers led by Captain Strathdon and a local militia led by Captain Applewood. There was a cheesy miasma around my officers, likewise the French, would good hard English cheese triumph against the pungent, soft Gallic cheeses?

French regulars

The French had two officers each leading a unit of regulars, some irregular French Canadians and three units of Huron led by a war chief.

Huron!

The French were the advance party for an attack on Fort  Necessity, I would need to drive them away before they could occupy the best ground for siting their artillery.

Captain Strathdon had to meet with an Indian informant, while Captain Wensleydale had to let his men know how proud of them he was. Applewood had no intrigue although I suspect keeping the militia in the game would be task enough!

View from the French

While my troops moved towards the creek that ran across the centre of the table, the French and their allies advanced their regulars up the road while their Canadians with Indian allies took to the woods.

British and militia ready themselves at the creek.

Canadians in the woods

Soon the militia were coming under ineffectual musket fire from the woods on their right and I started to move some rangers over to that side to counter that threat.

The French pushed up the road on my left, but highly effective musketry from the regulars and rangers saw the entire unit cut down, things were looking up, but the Huron in the woods were soon proving effective and redcoats started to fall.

Huron in the woods

I needed to stop this, so while the militia refused the right flank, the redcoats crossed the stream and unleashed a volley into the woods scattering one of the Huron war parties who fled to the rear and did not stop again.

Redcoats prepare to cross the creek.

Volley fire!

The remaining Huron kept up a steady fire though and more redcoats fell. then a disaster happened, a random event meant that the French could take a unit of reinforcements build from any figures in their dead pile, so a unit of regulars was on its way to avenge that one I had seen off so convincingly earlier, bugger!

My rangers on my right had advanced to try to see off the Huron in the wood before me and were about to strike when a volley from the newly arrived Frenchmen felled one of their number and the rest broke and ran back to the safety of Fort Necessity.

Doomed rangers move on the Huron

But things were going much better on my right, Captain Strathdon had led his rangers to that flank, and firstly their effective fire drove of the Canadian militia who scarpered to rally in cover, and then engaged the Huron on that flank at close range, driving them off in disarray, last seen scarpering for the high ground and not seen again.

The French Canadians did eventually recover their nerve and return to the fight, but they were much reduced.

French Canadians back in the woods

In the centre the arrival of the French reserves saw them start an advance against the now drastically thinned out redcoats. Preceded by a volley of tomahawks the French regulars charged catching the depleted redcoats in the open. Wensleydale deftly dispatched his French opposite number but was then set upon by the Frenchmen and fell.

The French advance was stopped by by musketry and lo, Wensleydale was not dead, just trapped under the body of a gigantic garlic muncher. Dusting himself off Wensleydale led the rest of the redcoats back over the creek and awaited the French.

Recoats form a new line back on their side of the creek.

Although the British numbers were much reduced the French, with their second in command now in charge felt that there was no way to take the ground and broke off their advance.

I have only played one game of Muskets and Tomahawks before and that was a long time ago, but it's a great game and I really would like to play some more, although do I need a new project, almost certainly not, but would like to play again.