This past weekend, Buck Surdu, Dave Wood, Greg Priebe, and I, traveled out to Columbus, Ohio for the Origins convention. Out goal was to showcase our "G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T." and "Look,Sarge, No Charts" rules systems to a different set of gamers other than the regular folks we see at the local HMGS East conventions.
Buck and I each ran two GASLIGHT games and two LSNC games, and Dave Wood ran three additional LSNC games. The two GASLIGHT games I ran were a Fleet Battles by GASLIGHT scenario and a regular Basic GASLIGHT scenario.
We arrived Thursday evening, and Friday morning I set up my first game which was my Fleet Battles by GASLIGHT scenario called "Hunt for the Valkyrie on Mars." The back story for this scenario was that a large German aircraft carrier on Mars had been caught in a Martian storm and blown off course and badly damaged. It was now lost in the middle of nowhere and crippled. The German and British fleets were searching for her, the Brits wanting to destroy her, and the Germans wanting to save her.
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| The German Aircraft Carrier 'Valkyrie' launches two fighter groups in an attempt to fight off a pair of attacking British patrol ships. |
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| A player moves his ships. |
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| A view of the battle, as ships from both sides swarm around the Valkyrie. |
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| Two players check the range for ship to ship firing |
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| The fighter groups attack again. |
In the end, the Valkyrie's engines failed her as she suffered a series of failed Sustain rolls, leaving her susceptible to torpedo attacks from the British. She eventually took a critical hit, and broke apart and fell to the Martian surface. All the players seemed to have good time, and i really enjoyed GM-ing the game.
That evening I ran my "Lost Legion of Venus" GASLIGHT game. This game has a French force consisting of Foreign Legion and regulars which is lost somewhere on Venus and has become surrounded by hordes of local Parrotmen and Lizardmen. The French must survive the battle and beat off the attackers to win.
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| A view of the table near the start of the game. |
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| The French form what the players dubbed the "French Question Mark" formation |
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| The Lizardmen's pet dinosaur moves to attack a French Walker |
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| A view of the French defensive perimeter. |
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| The dinosaur attack on the walker damages it's gun barrel and the player controlling the walker coincidentally rolls to Shoot and jams the gun (a roll of 20). The dinosaur, however falls down (roll of 20 on a melee attack) and our heroine, Victoria Hawkes seizes the opportunity and rushes forward to attack the beast while he's down. |
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| Meanwhile, at the other end of the French line, the second walker has succumb to a shot from one of the Parrotmen's big guns, and is destroyed. It's crew however survive and bail out of the wreck. |
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| Another view of the table as a player measures their rifle range. |
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| A brave Foreign Legion officer, his company destroyed, fights off two lizardmen and the Lizardman King. |
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The French defenders are slowly overwhelmed.
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The game was declared a marginal Venusian victory at the end. The French forces were shattered, and their walkers destroyed or disabled. Though surprisingly, Victoria Hawkes, usually a bullet magnet, survived!
All the players seemed to have a good time, and really got into the spirit of the game. For me, the great players and the way the battle unfolded, made it one of the best runnings of a GASLIGHT game I have had the pleasure to run.
