GASLIGHT at Origins 2012

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.

The German Aircraft Carrier 'Valkyrie' launches two fighter groups in an attempt to fight off a pair of attacking British patrol ships.

A player moves his ships.

A view of the battle, as ships from both sides swarm around the Valkyrie.

Two players check the range for ship to ship firing

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.

A view of the table near the start of the game.

The French form what the players dubbed the "French Question Mark" formation

The Lizardmen's pet dinosaur moves to attack a French Walker

A view of the French defensive perimeter.

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.

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.

Another view of the table as a player measures their rifle range.

A brave Foreign Legion officer, his company destroyed, fights off two lizardmen and the Lizardman King.

The French defenders are slowly overwhelmed.

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.

The Lost Legion of Venus by GASLIGHT at Cold Wars

Friday night at Cold Wars in Lancaster, PA, I ran my GASLIGHT game called, "The Lost Legion of Venus:

F-265 - The Lost Legion of Venus by GASLIGHT
Fri. 7:00 PM, 4 hrs, 6 players
GM: Chris Palmer and HAWKS
Victorian Science Fiction 28mm, Rules: GASLIGHT
A French column on Venus in 1889 takes a wrong turn and finds
themselves hopelessly lost in the steamy Venusian jungle. Can
they find their way back to camp, or will they fall prey to the tribes
of wild Parrotmen who haunt the tangled shadows.
Children under 14 only with a playing adult.

As the game write-up indicates, this game started with a column of French Foreign Legion and regular line troops, supported by two steam-walkers and a machine gun, lost in the Venusian jungles, and surrounded by Parrotmen and Lizardmen.

The goal of the French was to survive and continue off the table. The objective of the Parrotmen/Lizardmen alliance was to eliminate these pink-skinned strangers. The Parrotmen and Lizardmen were supported by a dinosaur which surprisingly became an early casualty of the French firepower. You can see him lying dead on the right hand side of the photo above.

I limited the sight distance to 18 inches due to the thick jungle and gave the Parrotmen an extra +2 modifier when shot at to reflect their natural ability to move quickly and hide in the undergrowth. the Lizardmen all got Saves, even the rank and file (the 'Extras,' in game terms) to reflect their tough scaly skin.

The Venusians quickly moved, from three starting positions spread around the table's edge, to engage the strange trespassers .

The Parrotmen were also equipped with large caliber guns mounted on beasts. These guns were capable of doing damage to the iron-plated French steam-walkers.

The game was a close fought one, with the advantage see-sawing back and forth between the two sides.

The Parrotmen charged the French lines again and again. Victoria Hawkes and her friend DuLivre, were there to lend their superior marksmanship to the aid of the French

The game ended with a duel between the Lizardman King and Victoria. They traded blows for a few turns as the battle swirled around them.
Finally the Lizardman Kind got the upper hand, and Victoria fell motionless to the ground. The Lizardman King grabbed her limp body and dragged it away into the jungle. Was she dead ? Alive by unconscious? Do I sense a follow-up rescue scenario?

In the end both sides had taken a beating, but the French were declared the marginal victors since they still had both their steam-walkers functioning and capable for firing their weapons.

All the players had a great time, and the game was a blast for me to GM. I'm looking forward to the next installment!