Gaslands Refuelled - Mini-Sherman

 

Ok, so the mini-Sherman was always a CarWars thing, but it was my favourite vehicle from that game, and so I wanted to make one for Gaslands.

My mini-Sherman was a panel van with a rocket launcher under the front bumper and enough armour to weigh the vehicle down during a cyclone. That's pretty topical right now over here (I'm looking at you Cyclone Alfred!).

Oz Wheels makes a series of excellent Matchbox scale vehicles of iconic Australian brands. Brands that were quintessentially Ozzy (yes, even the Ford Falcon. Just watch Mad Max) before we destroyed our car manufacturing industry over here by selling out to globalism.

Oz Wheels has a series called 'Barn Finds' and these vehicles come pre-grubby with worn paint work that just screams Gaslands. So, I purchased a number of panel vans and set about looking for the appropriate rocket launchers to put under the front bumper.

Vanguard Miniatures make some nice Sentinel style walker units in Epic scale, the weapons on which work well also for Matchbox scale vehicles. So, I nicked two rocket pods and put them to use on my new (old) mini-Sherman.

I remember one excellent game of Car Wars where our town was invaded by a band of rev-heads eager to kick us out of the place. We took out their vehicles one by one until eventually just their leader was left. We ended up pinning the guy between our vehicles, with me in the lead. Given I only had a forward-facing rocket launcher, but a tone of armour, I just slowed the guy down as we hemmed him in. In the end, we crawled to a stop, and he was out of ammo. He quietly surrendered at that point. But my mini-Shermon was a rock, an almost immovable one at that, with an acceleration of only 5mph. Once I got up to speed, I wouldn't break as it took too long to get going again.

The business end of the mini-Sherman

I'm still considering if I should put a bull-bar on the front of the vehicle just above the rocket launchers. But for now, my mini-Sherman is ready for the table. All I need to do now is make the Gaslands vehicle profile for this thing.

Lesser Fort Rust-n-Nails - part 3 - tabletop ready

 

Well fan, here she is. Lesser Fort Rust-n-Nails is finally tabletop ready.

I am awaiting on (small scale) barbed wire to arrive from eBay. Once I have that, I shall add some to the crenulations. I should also add some small clumps of vegetation to the base. But here she is, finally. Tabletop ready for Gaslands.

But wait! There's no gate, I hear you say. Well, fear not dear fan. Indeed, there is a gate. Two in fact. The first is a chain gate that is constructed, but not yet painted. You can see that below. The chain fits into a gap between the shipping containers that form the wall and an upright container that forms the tower that leads to the viewing platform directly above the gate entrance.

The second is under construction and is a busgate. What's a busgate, I hear you say? It's a bus that has been armoured on one side and is use as a gate. You just drive the bus backwards to open the gap, and forwards to close the gap again. The bus itself is the gate. Think Mad Max 2 with Mel Gibson where the refinery had a bus that was the gate (if I remember correctly, as it's been a few years since I've watched that movie).

So, still a few more cosmetic things to do. But Lesser Fort Rust-n-Nails is ready to go onto the tabletop for a game of Gaslands.

Still Under Construction - Lesser Fort Rust-n-Nails - part 2

 

So dear fan, Lesser Fort Rust-n-Nails nears completion (the first part in this saga can be found here). It would take decades to construct a medieval castle. They should have just used PVA glue, cardboard, coffee stirrer sticks and some small shipping containers that you can get off Amazon. Yes, the final stages of fabrication of Lesser Fort Rust-n-Nails draws neigh. So, here's a quick visual update.

The corrugated iron is just carboard that's been smothered in PVA. Once dry, it's as hard as nails and ready for the gaming table. I did do a couple of layers of PVA just to make sure though.

The ladders are made from matchsticks and MDF offcuts I had laying round. These were just PVA glued together insitu and left to dry. If I wasn't being lazy with this one, I would have constructed the ladders separately and then added them later. I did kind of smother the ladders in PVA glue as well just to make sure they were properly stuck together and sealed.

Over the base, I have used some gap filler, and the rest is sand spread over PVA. The gap filler had a matchbox car run over it several times whilst still wet in order to make tyre tracks at the entrance and up the back escape ramp.

I think it's ready for painting. I do still want to add some barbed wire along the crenulations. Let's see how I go there.

Mr Whippy for Gaslands

 

The Goblins have been having fun. Having found an old, abandoned Mr Whippy ice cream truck, they duly set about outfitting it for both combat and refreshment of those hot summer afternoons when all you want is an ice cream.

This little beauty arrived the other day from eBay, and I set about painting it in the colour scheme the Mr Whippy ice cream trucks have in my country. I think Mr Whippy originated in England actually, but I have fond memories of the overpriced ice-cream these mobile vendors used to disperse out to the masses of children who dutifully waited by the side of the road for the van to pull up to dispense their treats. It was a stalwart of my youth. On a hot summer's afternoon, the dulcet tones of a speaker distorted Greensleeves tune could be heard over the buzzing of flies and children would run to the side of the road to await the arrival of Mr Whippy.

Well, now thanks to the Gobo's, Mr Whippy is back to kick ass. In fact, we could call him Mr Whip-ass.

Sporting a ram, two side mounted machine guns, a 15mm scale Flames of War German anti-aircraft gun as well as an assortment of soft serve and ice cream, this old rust bucket may not be fast, but it can pack a punch all whilst serving up a refreshing treat.

The anti-aircraft gun can be removed and rotated to face its target (nice effect there) and there is even a little gobo at the wheel of the truck.

The vehicle was in much bad repair, from a paintwork perspective, but that was exactly what I was after. Now, she has been lovingly restored and ready for combat.

Soft serve anyone?

Under Construction - Lesser Fort Rust-n-Nails

 

I was watching a Mad Max style Gaslands Refuelled game played out on the Games Night YouTube channel a few weeks back and it inspired me to build a set piece fort for my own Gaslands games. Something in the style of the Mad Max Fury Road Xbox game where forts were built with lots of shipping containers. This would be a place to fight over or use as a haven objective to reach during a Gaslands road chase.

The name of the objective fort that the Big Rig had to reach in the Games Night video was called Fort Rust-n-Nails. I liked that. So, in the vein of imitation being the highest form of flattery, I've decided to nick the name. Behold, still under construction, Fort Rust-n-Nails (the Lesser, as the Games Night one was much bigger). So, behold, Lesser Fort Rust-n-Nails.

The fort already has a wire gate built for it. But I may attach it to a vehicle so the gate can be opened or closed by tacking control of the gate vehicle. Think Mad Max 2 with Mel Gibson where a bus was used as a gate. Could make an interesting objective in any siege game. Get over the wall and into the bus and the gate can be opened.

So, there is much to do still on this build. But as I don't have anything better to show off right now, I thought I would do a work-in-progress built post. By the way, I am just using PVA White Glue on this build and it's all been good so far. For the carboard 'corrugated iron' sheeting, I smother both sides of the cardboard in PVA glue to make it tough and rigid. That simple trick works wonders in making the cardboard tough as nails (so to speak).

Very early-stage construction

More under construction images: this time of the Gaslands Ramp (see post here) I built and posted about previously. I realised that showing the under-construction photos might help show how I put the ramp together in the first place. Something I omitted to show in that previous post.

Lesser Fort Rust-n-Nails should take a while to finish. But I shall show off the end result when it's done.

Gaslands Refueller Gyrocopter - part 2

So, how's that Gyrocopter working out for Gaslands, I hear you ask? Pretty good as far as I'm concerned. Part one of this build is back here.

I turned the buggy into a trike and put missiles on the forward wheel spokes. There's a mine dropper on the side and a machine gun mounted forward. Given the gyro is a converted buggy, this would need to drive a long straight template first to give it enough forward momentum and lift to get airborne. That makes it vulnerable in scenarios where the vehicle is on the ground initially.

I only had a clear flat base that I could use for the rotors being in motion. From a distance, the writing on the base doesn't hinder the aesthetic of the vehicle and it looks like it's in flight. If I find a better clear base somewhere, I may replace this one.

The flight stand itself is made from a few Star Trek Attack Wing base segments and can be added to or reduced depending upon what takes my fancy at the time. But the flight stand has a magnetic top to hold the gyro in place.

Looks nasty enough. Now to get a game of Gaslands Refuelled going so I can give it a try out.

Ghostbusters roleplaying game - a Halloween three-shot (PART 3)

 

Where are we?

Happy Australia Day for yesterday everyone. I celebrated the national day capping it off with the lads coming around for our monthly role-playing session. We finally managed to finish off my Ghostbusters adventure.

My "one-shot" Halloween Ghostbusters scenario that became a three shot mini campaign finally came to a conclusion last night. You can find part one and part two here.

This part of the adventure saw the players arrive in a strange place, having jumped through the portal back in the cavern as Vigo the Carpathian brought the roof on the cave down upon them. With no other choice, they all dived through the open portal and ended up here.

Where was here? Good question. They found themselves in some other worldly realm where the sky looked purple and studded with stars that didn't quite look like stars. Moreover, they found themselves on islands of floating rock that were suspended in the void.

I decided to let the players stew for a few minutes as they tried to figure out how they could move over the islands to the portal they could see in the distance. Some testing revealed that if they tried to jump, and didn't make it to another floating rock, they would plummet for all eternity. Not surprisingly, none of the players wanted to test that out in reality.

Fiddling around, they caught the attention of three spooks who proceeded to slime two of the PC's, knocking one out. The pesky spooks were finally captured and one of the PC's go it into their head to shoot the portal gate they came through just to see what happens. They destroyed it!

Fortunately, at this time, Lewis Tully and Slimer (aka "Spud") turned up making their way from rocky island to rocky island to ascend to where the players were. Apparently, Egon had been getting Lewis to test out some modifications to the proton pack and there was a bright flash. Next thing Lewis knew, he and Spud where here. The players recognised that this must have been over a month ago, but to Lewis, it seemed like only yesterday. Lewis showed the players the slime injector modification that they had on their proton packs but never knew about. Together, they proceeded to slime tether one island after another to make their way across to the gate they could see in the distance, the method Tully had used get to the PC's. Problem solved.

Given one of the PC's was out cold, they had to drag his sorry backside across the rocks and weren't too gracious about it. Whether or not it was the gravel rash, or providential timing, the PC awoke as they arrived at the far gate.

Stepping through they were transported to another located and presented with a puzzle. Ahead of them were three portals, only one of which they could pass through safely. Deciphering the clews got them the correct portal and they went through. Only to find themselves plummeting to a distant rock island far below.

Just prior to impact, they slowed in mid-air and floated to the ground safely. Once again however, they were confronted by the same type of puzzle, but this time it contained different statements to decipher.

Once again, after much hair pulling, they correctly deciphered the clews and passed on safely. Now they found themselves in an area with multiple portals. The one they passed through, and the exit portal at the far end, did not change, but the four others would rotate clockwise to face the next portal in the chain.

Again, after much trial and error, one of the players correctly deduced that the portal had to face the one it was linked to for them to pass on to the next island. I had numbered the portals one to six so that they could quickly identify each portal.

Portal one, the portal they arrived at, always pointed to portal six, and the PC's could pass back and forth between these portals each round except when portal six was facing portal three. When it faced portal three, the players would arrive on the rock island where portal three was located. If they passed through any portal when it wasn't facing its linked portal, they would always appear back at the first portal.

The link sequence was portal one always lined to portal six, six to three, three to five, five to two, and two to four where the exit arch portal was located. This kept the players amused for a while (and very frustrated).

That finally solved, they moved onwards.

The final challenge was not immediately evident. They arrived at a group of linked rock islands where they could see the exit portal in the distance.

Two of the PC's moved on cautiously whilst Lewis, Spud and two of the other players remained behind. As the first two PC's approached the exit portal, the Guardian jumped from a floating rock island above them and crashed onto the island with the exit portal. This rocked the island, knocking the two PC's to the ground.

The Guardian them attempted to squish them (hey, it was a one-off adventure so if any of the PC's died now, back luck). The lumbering Guardian was crap at its job however and rolled a 5. Miss! They players got to their feet and bolted through the exit portal.

This just left Tully, Spud and the other two players. The Guardian rounded on them but rolled terribly with each attach roll (5 was its highest score!). One of the PC's on the other hand scored a critical with their proton stream attack and, rolling on the Critical Tables we use, literally melted its face off! Stunned for eight rounds, the rest of the team bolted for the exit portal.

Diving through the exit portal, the team were reunited with Ecto1b in the material realm. Job done; they took off to hospital to get one of the PC's check in to Casualty. With one hit point left, the PC had survived multiple attacks and escaped with his life.

So much for the one-shot Halloween special. But we had fun and tried out a setting that we normally wouldn't have played. So, a win all round.