Dumbarton Arena: APFSDS Ammo vs. Flaming Oil!

Time for some more Car Wars!

My opponent’s character “Borf” had achieved Gunner-1. My character Egon had one kill and a couple of expensive cars he could salvage. Winning this game would be huge. “Borf” would probably shift to Driver-1 and Gunner-1. “Egon” would maybe jump to Gunner-1.

Now… technically it’s “not fair” for my guy to be going up against a more skilled driver. Some people would object to this. In our games, it takes maybe two or three games to level up a character. If you make it that far, you’re probably lucky… and your luck is liable to have run out. We figure it’s more fun to be able to enjoy being awesome while you can. The glory of beating a superior character more than makes up for the lack of “fairness.” The fun of having continuing characters more than makes up for any potential game balance issues– it’s all just part of the game.

We made some changes to the previous game’s car to make for a more fun event. Gone are the heavy duty anti-lock brakes, PFE, IBA, AVR, flaming oil dischargers, wheel guards, and armored wheel hubs. In their place we got stuff that would make everything more awesome: a HRSWC and HD shocks!

Gothmog II — Luxury, x-hvy chassis, hvy suspension, sport power plant with superconductors, 4 solid tires, driver,  2 linked ATGs with APFSDS ammo front, HFOJ back, spoiler, airdam, heavy duty shocks, HRSWC. Armor: F 55, R 25, L 25, B 25, T 0, U 0, 10-points CA on plant, 10-points CA on driver. Accel 10, top speed 120 mph, HC 3, 6,570 lbs, $29,900.

In the opening moves my opponent let me accelerate out in front of him in the hopes that I would turn away out of the gate so that he could shoot me up at his leisure. Instead I cut towards him, fired my guns, and t-boned him. I did enough damage to injure his driver but not take him out. So close! This dropped my handling status way low but I managed to maintain control. Taking a fire modifier from the flaming oil was dangerous. A second hit of from the HFOJ could very well take me out of the game. A nail-biting parity ensued that would continue through the rest of the game!

Getting that second flaming oil hit was not trivial, though. Having to maneuver while on the unlit oil proved to be about as dangerous, though!

Both of us took steadied on a bit to try to get back in control. My opponent then cut left to force me onto one more flaming oil slick. He lost control and went into a spin-out. This should have been my game! He made a right angle turn as he spun around. I fired my ATGs, killing his driver… a spun around again laying flaming oil in his own path of travel… and then slammed into the wall, coming to rest on his own flaming oil slick!

All I had to do was stay in control and not catch on fire and I would win the game! Sitting on top of a flaming oil slick, it would be crazy to maneuver. I opted to hit the obstacle counter that had dropped when I took out my opponent. I lost control, fish-tailed, and then spun out… coming to rest on the same flaming oil slick that was burning up my opponent’s car!

My driver jumped out of the car to try to get away before the vehicles exploded. I wasn’t fast enough and my awesome continuing character died a horrible death in an explosion.

So after a nail-biting game that lasted an hour and a half, our continuing campaign fell prey to a de facto total party kill– an outcome made more hilarious by the fact that I would have won the game outright had I not fired my weapons producing an obstacle directly on my path of travel…!

What do you do when your entire campaign goes up in smoke…? Come up with something even more awesome, natch!