Gaslands Refuelled - Mayhem to the Max (and some Gaslands scenery building tips)

 After the first testgame of Gaslands my entire miniature hobby made a 'bootlegger's turn' and screeched into a 'mod your own Hot Wheels overdrive'. Luckily it had the same effect on my brother. This Saturday we went for another match. He made some of his own cars, I updated my scenery and even my wife joined in on the fun. Explosive fun as it turned out. 

I made a billboard by glueing some bits of plasticard together and adding a print from the Futurama's  favorite drink Slurm.

As you can see from the picture I solved my wooden tabletop problem by getting a 'poor man's battle mat'. I used (part of) this stock photo of desert like terrain and had it printed on a 90cm x 120cm (3'x4') PVC (510gr/m2). The kind you normally use to make marketingbanners for a trade show stand. Staying under 20 euro shipped this cost about half a regular battle mat and works out splendidly. I also made a bit more Gaslands specific terrain. More about that later as I want to describe a few key moments in the game.

There are rules for jumping ramps in Gaslands: Refuelled (add heavy metal guitar riff here).

After the previous game I replaced my first edition Gaslands rulebook with the far prettier second edition Gaslands: Refuelled. We picked a wasteland skirmish mission (the game background itself also has a lot of focus on arena-style games). Our three gangs where out there to grab scrap and get the hell out. On the picture above you see my brother's new gang including pretty 3D printed bikers and parts on his cars. Also in most variants of scenery I build over the last two weeks.

The first jump over a ramp did not go well, unfortunately (for the other players) the performance car missed the large fuel tank directly behind the ramp.

The Gaslands site promises 'fast cinematic rules'. We can vouch for that. My brother's gang and mine closed in on each other exchanging shots (as I silently planned to use my monster truck to drive over his vehicles). Off to our right my wife seemed to stand off as she angled one of her performance cars towards one of the two ramps on the table. She rolled the dice and missed. Making an awfully bad jump.Despite the bad jump her flame thrower equipped performance car barreled into my Monster truck, damaging it and (freely translating how the rules work here) pushed past, flattening my (not fully painted (sorry)) biker. 

I always wondered how bikers in the Mad Max movies managed to survive. For instance my biker got squashed beneath an out of control performance car. 

The car, driving way too fast, then flew around the corner took a successful pot shot with a handgun from the window at the pickup truck (hiding behind the chimneys in the picture here). The driver (we assume it was caused by recoil) then lost control of the speeding performance car. It flipped over after which the flamethrower fuel in the wrecked  car exploded. This caused a chain reaction it caused a bike loaded with grenades (also hiding behind the chimney in the picture above) to explode as well. The exploding bike caused a nearby fuel tank to explode. This explosion wrecked the pick-up truck behind the chimney and set off the rockets in the monster truck. This in turn destroyed the red car with the skull banners. It was still turn one and one mad driver jumping a ramp took out four cars (including her own) and two bikers. Somewhere (we assume) Michael Bay is allready framing this for his next light on story blockbuster...

Building a ramp (with toxic pools and random assorted bits in the background). 

Enough bla bla about the game, let's talk terrain. On seeing the Refueled edition of Gaslands had rules for ramps I had to make a couple. I used plasticard for the basic shape and (after some deliberation) for the bases. My regular 4 mm MDF is way too thick for this game. I cut a slightly off scale truck cockpit in two and stuck the halves to a base. Then I used some rocks and bits on the cutting mat to give the base a bit of body and make it look slightly interesting.

The fuel tank in the background has been in my bits box for at least thirty years. I'm happy to have finally found a use for it. 

I followed up by sticking the ramp part onto the base using plastic glue. Plasticard is so easy to work with if you know what you're doing. I'm still grateful for Adam Savage's one day builds where I learned to snap it off instead of cutting through. I used some PVA to add bits of toothpick and cocktail stick to give the impression the ramp was actually braced on something substantial. I also added bits of cardboard and screen mesh to the top of the ramp (to make it look interesting). After the glue had mostly dried I used aviary bird sand to cover the base. I wanted to use crackle paint for a desert effect but in my experience crackle paint only truly crackles when it has a rough surface to crack on (what a sentence...). Aviary bird sand on PVA works well for this (and scales reasonably well with the cars).

Some cars ready for the slaughter. 

Next up I bought a box with eight cheap Hot Wheel knockoffs. Took the cars apart and stripped the metal bits of paint. These I took to my new 'garage workbench'. After a fire destroyed my old shed I've  finally gotten around to getting a new corner in the house for power tools (so to speak). 

Safety first hobbyists!

Safety first! I got a pair of safety goggles and a hammer to smack up the car frames. Two lessons: 

1. You can take this too far. Hot Wheels flatten under a hammer and that does not look realistic. 
2. Make sure your five year old does not walk in as you smash toy cars with a hammer. I'm not entirely sure if the ice cream bribe truly alleviated the mental scars ;) 

Rust, more rust and way too many projects on my painting station. 

Here's the easy part. Stick the cars onto their frames. The dents make the fit hard to impossible, that only makes it look better. Put them on bases, add leftover bits and aviary sand. I then primed them black and went on with my standard rust patterns (lots of red-browns and orange tones). I let them dry and then sponged colors on a couple of cars (had to practice that technique). I also salt-weathered a couple of others (this looks way better). All in all making two ramps and some destroyed cars takes about an evening of smacking things with a hammer and gluing and an evening's worth of rough painting. Oh yeah, for the interior of wrecked cars: Typhus Corrosion is your friend. Never overdo scenery painting. 

Making pools of filth from clay and wood.

I felt like adding a few disgusting looking toxic pools to the collection. I had a few bits of MDF cut to size and beveled (bases I planned to use to add shrubs to my Townscape). I added air dry clay to make a pool and painted the inside with a few tones of green. 

No swimming! Also useful for Adeptus Titanicus I guess (if I ever get around to playing it).

Then I poured epoxy onto the base, dripping some Vallejo Fluo Yellow into the epoxy after adding it to the base. I think it looks as disgusting as it should.

I think I'll be painting more crazy cars soon.

Last but not least I couldn't resist adding more cars to my fleet. I'm already off adding paint to some of these. Next up I'll have to make some gates for races and maybe get creative to get 20mm ruined buildings and hills. What a hobby. Finally a reason to take scratch building up a notch again.

Quick group shot as the crackle paint was drying.