This was the big one.
We started this one innocently enough: our usual random starting positions (improved now with a handy 1d8 roll…), our usual move of the top and underbody armor to protect the sides better, and our usual opening maneuver of facing off into four independent passes. This would be our longest game, yet… with an unbelievable amount of action.
The opening pass in the upper right went horribly for me. I was starting out in the “tube” so I think I had to turn a little more than my opponent. He came right down my throat and took me out with a few ATG shots followed by a head-on collision. I’d done little damage in return… and I didn’t think I could possibly recover from this setback.
In the upper left corner, we made our pass at each other and I managed to make the 20 or 30 mph D6 turns to turn back on my opponent. In the lower right corner, I did the opposite: I gunned it as I went past and headed for the madness in the opposite drum. I inserted a little role playing into the mix by putting my paint sprayer on automatic after that car got hit on the right side for a massive 15 points of damage. The paint sprayer did not actually cause a penalty to the car that was tailing me: at first it just messed up my continuous fire bonus against the car I was targeting in the opposite drum.
The fourth mini-duel in the lower right corner also went poorly for me. This one ended up being a low speed pivot and counter pivot battle as we both went in forwards and reverse trying to second guess each other. I seemed to take a lot more damage here and even got blurped with a single paint cloud, though I did manage to work off the three second -2 penalty that resulted from that….
With the opening complete, all seven remaining cars converged into the upper right portion of the left drum. I appeared to be losing badly, but my luck finally changed. One of my cars hit the guy that had killed my first car: the damage went through the ATG and damaged the power plant. I rolled 3d6 for the 5th edition fire rules and rolled less than the damage: this resulted in a fire marker. Yee-haw! At the end of the turn I rolled to see how that fire marker would do. I rolled a six: add an extra fire marker! Woo-wee! The pedestrian bailed out and started pestering everyone with his useless SMG. (Note: my opponent reminded me of the chance for fire even though we’d started the first phases of the following turn. We reapplied this rule retroactively only because of his honesty.)
On the following turn, I made a similar shot against my opponent’s second car. I rolled high damage, scored a fire marker after the plant took hits, and rolled another 6 to get a bonus fire marker at the end of the turn. This was insanely fun, though I still felt miserably behind my opponent: he had one car that was completely undamaged…. Mine were all falling apart! (Note: my opponent had allowed me to change the move of the car that fired this lucky shot. I was originally going to stay still and continue to fire at the damaged car I was targeting. Because of his honesty and graciousness, he let be pivot to make this game-changing second shot.)
My car with the paint sprayer turned into the left drum and cut up towards the pedestrian that was shooting from cover from behind his flaming car. (Note: we forgot to check for explosion in this game—that could have really changed things in my favor if we had…!) I rolled to a stop and covered my teammate from the SMG fire with my paint for a few turns. I then fired my SMG at the pedestrian taking cover and completely nailed him. Totally put him into the hospital. (His DP went negative and I allowed him to make a “saving throw” against death considering the arena’s state of the art medical equipment. He rolled an 8 or a 9 on 3d6, so he did survive. But the subsequent hospitalization would prevent him from competing in the final Hotshot round….) The tactic of rolling to a stop and using an SMG seemed to be a pretty good tactic. If I had remembered to apply the burst effect rules, I probably could have done as good or even better!
So I had three cars to his two. My car that had scored the awesome fire marker kills met his end fair and square—the undamaged car that had been chasing my paint streaming car rolled up and cut him down. I just couldn’t pivot away in time. Perhaps I was too greedy to attempt to fire that one last ATG shot….
My car that had gotten blurped by a paint cloud slowly rolled up toward the mess. He’d lost his side armor and was firing furiously at the car that had dueled with him since the opening of the game. I pivoted to protect my missing right-side armor and set myself up to ram that annoying pedestrian with his stupid SMG on the following turn. But that crazy ped used his 4 squares of movement for the rest of the turn to get into position for a final shot at my car! After the turn break, I could only get up to 10 mph. That ped was going 12.5, so he went first! He shot my car and killed my driver! ARGH! There’s no reason that this insane ped couldn’t have drug my driver out of that car and then start driving around again. Instead he just fired the rest of his SMG clip at my last car…. Grrrr….
That left my paint cloud trailing car against two enemies. I slammed it into reverse and went right at the car that had faced him in the opening. I went straight back, slowly picking up speed for several turns, and then curved around the left drum obstacle. My opponent finally accelerated faster than I could, but I still managed to get off every single RL round my car carried. My opponent did a few well executed maneuvers to keep his nearly destroyed side armor out of my arc. The other enemy car was not in the action for some reason, though my paint cloud trail probably protected me from him and the evil pedestrian both…!
I then stopped and put my last car back into first gear and accelerated for the final clash. My opponent’s two cars were just about out of ammo or had their weapons destroyed. Even the pedestrian fired his last shot. The car that I had been targeting swung back around toward me. I think he was going faster than me. I stayed going towards him so I could get two shots off at him. My massive luck on die rolls was not enough to stop him completely. Though I did kill him, in the following phase, his car plowed right into me with a game ending head-on collision. If I had just avoided him for a few more seconds, I could have left the arena in my fully drivable car and kept it…. Ah well, I was completely exhausted at this point and not thinking straight anymore….
I think I could have won this one if I had remembered the explosion and the burst effect rules. I also (for the tenth time) needed to remember that getting in close against my opponent is suicide: he seems to have a knack for putting himself in exactly the most inconvenient spot! I’m not sure I could ever learn to be as evil as him, but I can minimize the number of chances he has to pull off his wickedness. (If I had just turned away one phase sooner….) Still, I wouldn’t have had a chance in this game at all if he hadn’t reminded me of the fire rules, so I don’t have anything to complain about. (Besides, I’d gotten really lucky in the last game….)
All and all, it was an incredible game. Everything seems to work as it should… and the game affects feel realistic for what they are. We still learn new tactics and new rules nuances with almost every game. (I don’t think this game could have lasted near as long as it did if we had left the top and underbody armor in place. That one change would have yielded a lot more salvage value for the winners….)
Yahoo
Driver: +2
Gunner +2
Handgunner: +2 (Extra +1 for ped kill.)
Prestige: +1
Kills: +1
1/17/08 Team Amateur Night Game 11: Stock Joseph Specials at the Double Drum—Crossed the Drum with Cornelius on his tail. Put paint sprayer on automatic. Ducked into the hideaway and stopped to take out a pedestrian shooting his SMG. Fired all RL ammo into Cornelius. Got out of reverse and slowly accelerated… finally killing Cornelius with an ATG shot. Cornelius car still got the head-on collision to take Yahoo down to zero DP.
Joseph Special salvage: No weapons or armor left. (A good power plant, though!) Tire damage: 3, 4, 5, 5.
Tanaka
Driver: +3
Gunner: +3
Kills: +2
Prestige: +3
Hospitalized
1/17/08 Team Amateur Night Game 11: Stock Joseph Specials at the Double Drum— Dueled with Hyena at a speed 5 dogfight. Killed by a pedestrian (Corky Mcswain?) that managed to run into a defenseless side’s arc and fire his SMG through the breach: knocking Tanaka unconscious!
Marla
Driver: +3
Gunner: +3
Kills: +2
Prestige: +3
Hospitalized
1/17/08 Team Amateur Night Game 11: Stock Joseph Specials at the Double Drum— Took out two cars with ATG fire to their power plants—setting them both on fire with the 5th edition fire rules. Killed by Cornelius because she could not pivot her car around in time—she was just a little too greedy for kills….
Fernando
Gunner: +1
Prestige: -1
1/17/08 Team Amateur Night Game 11: Stock Joseph Specials at the Double Drum— Knocked out in an early one-on-one duel with Nesbitt. (Massive ATG fire through the front armor and a ram….) Knocked unconscious.
This game ran from about 8PM to 2AM with a break in the middle for pizza. It showed the Stinger to be a fun car for Amateur Night duels—its weapon to armor ratio is just right. The unusual topology of the Rubberway turns out to be just right for a good match: even on a small map board, you have large obstacles, but lots of space to fight as well. The ramps make for interesting terrain, the overpass makes for a fun shortcut, and the possibility for shots through the top armor are pretty neat as well.
After so many cars being killed because they allowed themselves to be tailed, my opponent and I play a little differently now. We always turn towards our opponents and dogfight now—there’s just nowhere to run in these arenas! My opponent demonstrated the danger of doing a D6 immediately after making a pass: I was on the outside, so I was able to turn onto him from just slightly behind. Because he was going up the ramp, I had the opportunity to kill him and T-bone him into a 12.5 foot drop and a 40 mph ram into the central platform!
A similar pass went well for me on the opposite side of the board. I took out an enemy’s power plant in the opening pass. He opted to coast under the central overpasses—this effectively removed him from the game for several seconds, though he was able to make an appearance at the final show down at just the worst time for me!
One of the opening passes went horribly for me, though…. I traded shots and went past… and kept my speed up to 30 mph, I think. I attempted a pair of D6’s, maybe on separate seconds… but I had to make a control roll to make it work. I needed either 3 or 4 or better on D6 to pull it off and failed it. The awful +3 penalty on the Crash Table turned what could have been a skid into a dangerous spinout. My car rammed the wall and took the driver down to zero DP. That put my opponent back in the game! If he could just get a little more luck, he could eliminate my early lead!
In our previous Stinger match back at Armadillo, we learned that it was in fact not optimal to have your cars in a tight formation. They just seem to get in each others’ way and you don’t maximize your fire the way you’d think you could. My opponent theorized that perhaps a slightly more naval tactic of keeping your ships in a line could be more effective.
In this game, I did have my cars following each other about 6 inches apart. My lead car still seemed to get in the way, though…. As the lead car hurtled toward the ramp and an oncoming opponent, I lost another critical control roll and was killed by my opponent’s ram. He just always seems to pick the most aggravating possible place to move to whenever he gets in close…. My killed car coasted to a stop right in front of the ramp—very inconvenient!!!
My opponent took two of his remaining cars and paired them up at pivot speeds. One of them had the power plant gone, so he was stuck. I took my last two cars in for the final pass—slowed down as I came in and took out both drivers within a couple of seconds. I think the odds were in my favor for this, but you know how this game can be….
That left my opponent with his last car. I think it was the one that had rammed one of my guys. My opponent wanted to keep that driver, but I wanted his salvage. So we played out the final seconds of the end game. Much of it was without phased movement and it appeared that my opponent was going to have the better of the cat and mouse game. Somehow, I got a car up on the top level and managed to come down a ramp right on his tail. He was going much faster than me, but I still got enough shots through his rear armor to end the game. There was only four seconds left on the clock….
Yahoo
Kills: +2
Driver: +3
Gunner: +2 (+3?)
Pestige: +8 – bonus for t-boning Benjamin Kohen off the ramp.
Background: 1/16/08 Stingers @ Rubberway—After a pass, his first opponent turned to go up a ramp, but because we came at each other from the left side of the map, we were both set up for such a turn. Because he rolled really poorly for his reflex roll, he went second… and was Yahoo able to turn with him—but on the outside! He turned slightly to close the distance—at first just to try to get his target in arc for hits without return fire. But then Yahoo rammed his opponent—knocking him off the ramp for a 12.5 foot drop and a 40 mph ram against the central platform! It took him forever to cross the arena. Pastor Halfix had lost his power plant in an early pass and had coasted back into the action by cutting underneath the overpasses. Yahoo sped in, slowed down, and took him down with a final coup de gras.
Stnger salvage #1: No front armor, one MG destroyed, 3 power plant hits, and 11 shots left in his MG.
Stinger salvage #2: 6 hits front, 10 hits left, one hit to power plant, tire damage: (5, 3, 2), and 36 shots left.
Stinger salvage #3: One MG destroyed, 1 DP damage to remaining MG with 13 shots left, power plant destroyed, front armor destroyed, 1 hit to right armor.
Anita
Gunner: +1
Prestige: +2
Background: 1/16/08 Stingers @ Rubberway—Attempted to make 2 consecutive D6 maneuvers, but failed the second one. Spun out and hit the wall and took exactly 3 hits to the driver. Hospitalized.
Stinger salvage: No front armor, no right armor, 2 hits to plant, and tire hits: (3, 2, 4, 4).
Wayne
Driver: +1
Gunner: +1
Prestige: +1
Background: 1/16/08 Stingers @ Rubberway—Forced to maneuver between ramp and oncoming enemy. Executed a major Skid into the worst possible position. Killed by Ho Ho Gingwain.
Tanaka
Kills: +2
Driver: +3
Gunner: +3
Prestige: +7
Background: 1/16/08 Stingers @ Rubberway—Rolled into the final showdown of speed zero Pastor Halifax and the pivoting Chantreuse Smitton. Killed Chantreuse, then maneuvered to tail Ho Ho while he was attempting to run up the clock. Blew through his rear armor with 4 seconds left before the gate would open.
