Wacky Races - Gaslands Style!

 

Our second March meeting saw me get the chance to drop the "Wacky Races" vehicles I had acquired into the "Gaslands" setting.

As a reminder, "Wacky Races" was a late 60s cartoon, set round an improbable, but amusing, set of races between a cast of characters from humans to horror/fantasy creatures. The characters, including anthropomorphic individuals, crewed a variety of vehicles ranging from cars to tanks and planes.

Luckily I managed to find six players who were willing to give this homage to a children's cartoon a go. In fact some of them were quite keen.

The characters and vehicles were represented as close to the cartoon equivalents as I could manage within "Gaslands" rules. Each vehicle had a couple of special weapons, upgrades or perks that were selected in an attempt at matching their "flavour" in the cartoon. As it was Gaslands, I gave everyone guns. I doubt Hanna and Barbera would have approved.

Only one player had a strong preference for a character, so Jason played the "Ant Hill Mob" in the Bulletproof Bomb. A random selection for the remaining five players, led to the Convert-a-Car (Colin), Arkansas Chuggabug (Lawrence), Army Surplus Special (Bob), Turbo Terrific (Chas) and Mean Machine (Paul), lining up on the grid.

The standard warnings that, "If you touch a template, you are using it and if it isn't legal, the player to your left picks a legal template for you instead" and "no shooting before passing the first race gate. If you do, two machine gun turrets on the gate fire on you" were issued. As usual, virtually no one was listening.

With the Pole Position token going to Lawrence, it was a case of "and they are off." That didn't go so well, with a collision in the first Gear Phase, with Lawrence's Arkansas Chuggabug. A further crash at the back of the grid, left Chas's Turbo Terrific actually behind the starting grid. In the straight approaching the first Gate there were two more collisions, including Lawrence ramming the tank! The Convert-a-Car was left facing backwards and the Turbo Terrific was still not over the Start Line. All was fine and dandy for the Bulletproof Bomb though, as Jason cleared the Gate, leaving the others in his wake.

The Mean Machine crossed the first Gate and promptly used his "Oil Dropper" to ruin everyone else's day. This resulted in the Arkansas Chuggabug and the Convert-a-Car wiping out, whilst the Turbo Terrific arrived just in time to be shot up, get wiped out and then wrecked. Good to see a professional racing driver in action.

Taking the first corner proved tricky, with the Arkansas Chuggabug and Mean Machine ramming each other, before the Chuggabug collected a piece of scenery. I was beginning to wonder if Lazy Luke was legally blind.

Bob obviously thought the track was for plebs and made good use of the Army Surplus Special's off road abilities, by taking the direct route to the next gate. This allowed Bob's tank to be laying in wait and give the several competitors the good news with his cannon as they passed by. In trying to avoid this, Colin's Convert-a-Car left the track and headed into the rough.

Having "re-spawned" at the last gate passed, Peter Perfect was racing past the wreck and back markers (it must have been a little strange passing his previous self burning in version one of his car, but Chas looked unphased). He then failed to take the second corner and made friends with a concrete barrier. Meanwhile Bob opened fire on the Bulletproof Bomb and a combination of handling issues and lack of hull points wrecked it.

The Turbo Terrific now rammed the Army Surplus Special (er, it's a tank Chas), losing half his bodywork in the process. Bob seemed to think the scratches on his tank would polish out.

With the Ant Hill Mob re-spawning at the 3rd gate they had just passed, they shot into the distance.

With a clear road ahead for the Bulletproof Bomb we called it a day.

Results:

First Place - The Bulletproof Bomb

Second - The Army Surplus Special

Third - The Turbo Terrific

To be fair, it could all have changed had we had more time, not least as the track was set up in a loop and the Bulletproof Bomb would have to cross all the other players again on the way to the chequered flag !

Many thanks to Paul, Lawrence, Colin, Bob, Chas and Jason for taking it all in the spirit which it was intended.

Vince