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Gaslands: Getting Started in the Wastelands


Ish

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Gaslands: Refuelled is a tabletop miniature wargame of post-apocalyptic vehicular mayhem, played with die-cast toy cars, competing in a deadly televised game show to win fame, glory, and a ticket to the off-world colonies. But what does a budding road warrior need to get started with Gaslands? Well, you really don't need much beyond the rulebook, toy cars, and some dice.

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#1 - The Rules (Must Have)
Gaslands: Refuelled is the most recent version of the rules, having been released in late September 2019. It contains everything a road warrior needs to build and customize their vehicles, rules for how to race them, campaigns, sponsors, and so forth. The original Gaslands rulebook, which I call the "blue book," came out in November 2017. The rules haven't changed all that much between the two, with Refueled serving more of a "v 1.1" update than a whole new edition of the game. If you already have the "blue book" and only plan to play once in a great while, you don't really need to buy the new book. On the other hand, it has a greatly expanded page count, clarifies some ambiguous rules, and is much prettier... It's also only $30.00 MSRP. 

Where to Get It: You can buy it directly from Osprey Games or from a third-party like North Star Figures. You can also ask your Friendly Local Game Store to special order a copy for you.

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#2 - The Cars (Must Have)
Gaslands is intended to be played with die-cast toy cars, the rule book never specifically names any particular brand, but basically they mean Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars from Mattel. Keep in mind that keep Hot Wheels and other die-cast toy cars are not precisely scaled models. They're usually about 1:64 scale, although individual cars can be anywhere between 1:54 to 1:87 scale (and a fair few are completely made up fantasy designs that don't really have any scale). This means you can use darn near anything you want as long as it is the approximate size of a Hot Wheels car. Brands like Green Light, Johnny Lightning, and Jada Toys are usually more true to scale (they also cost more) and some of the "licensed" Hot Wheels specialty lines like Star Wars or Pixar's Cars will also cost more and have funny scales.
Where to Get `Em: You can buy Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars damn near everywhere: Wal-Mart, Target, Fred Meyer, 7-11, Safeway... Typical cost is about a buck. Special mention must also be made of thrift stores (like Goodwill) or garage sales which can often yield buckets of these cars for pennies a piece. 

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#3 - The Dice (Really Ought to Have)
Gaslands is played with garden variety six-sided dice (that most of us will already have bushels of) as well as special Skid Dice. The Skid Dice are a key part of game-play as you'll roll them every time you maneuver your vehicles -- which happens a lot in a racing game! It is possible to use normal six-sided dice in lieu of specialty Skid Dice, either converting them via a chart in the rulebook or even just printing out some stickers that you attach to regular dice. However, given that Skid Dice are so essential to game play and the fairly low cost of buying them, I'd call them a must have.

Where to Get `Em: You can buy Skid Dice from North Star Figures (five pack for £8.50) or from any one of dozens of sellers on Etsy (varies between $5.00 to $10.00 depending on quantity, color, et.)

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#3 - Maneuver Templates (Nice to Have)
Along with the Skid Dice, Gaslands' other main gameplay element is the Maneuver Template. Similar to games like X-Wing or Wings of Glory, movement of your cars in controlled by a series of templates. You can find a set of them in the back of the rule book for photocopying or download them and print them yourself. I played the game for over a year with just a set of paper templates glued to some thin card stock and cut out. But for the best durability and aesthetics, you can't go wrong with a proper set of "real" templates.

Where to Get `Em: You can buy Templates dozens of sellers on Etsy (average price seems to be $10.00) or from third-party sellers like Litko

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#4 - Da Bitz (Nice to Have)
Modifying toy cars into terrifying post-apocalyptic murder machines is as seriously fun part of the hobby. Although Gaslands does not have any WYSIWYG rules, it's generally good sportsman ship to have weapons on the model that somewhat resemble the weapons on it's sheet... Machine guns should look like machine guns, missiles should look like missiles, and so forth. 

Where to Get `Em: I don't think I need to explain to any of you the glorious things that can be done with a full bitz box, super glue, and a deranged imagination. That's probably the first stop you should make when looking for bitz. You can also get a lot of mileage from bitz of scrap packaging, old broken electronics, and other "trash" found around the house. But having said that, if you want to get some bitz specifically made for Gaslands models take a look at North Star Figures, Ramshackle Games, Ground Zero Games, Dice Mechanic Games, and of course: Etsy
 

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@Inquisitor66 is running a Shadowrun RPG campaign every other Tuesday, which I plan to play in. My plan is to play Gaslands on the opposite weeks... Although I'll probably still bring my cars and other kit on Shadowrun weeks, just in case. I've got the rule book, skid dice, regular dice, templates, and a crate load of cars... all of which I am more than happy to share, so there is not excuse not to come give it a try. 

The Gaslands Refueled rulebook is $30 hard copy and a mere $21 for the ePub or PDF if you buy directly from Osprey... Add a set of Skid Dice and some Hot Wheels, you're looking at $40. You can barely get a single squad of WH40k models for less than $50 these days!  

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  • 3 weeks later...

REUSABLE Dashboards

I found some nice color Gaslands dashboards (The PDF is missing some dashboards). You can print them as normal and throw them out, OR, you can use the method I used with dry erase and reuse them cheap. See my finished product below (I made mine double sided).

CDgYKsRBEOhCAZtxFI0NGA8fy6VcOb3VMcgq9iudUB1GrdV5JNWIKm4pK1_1jhP15E1QjFajjRNWit8EUldpTCsXe7NCD3MLu3Pxyz13UUsBgQpWJSaIZhQ0YnfvdVgnly6vJs-vzJxvtTX2NE23YZhWUjRGyyb2uoYgrjUXLKO5eQZdjGflmlS8Msh0HdHz47l0okwV6TQUkpAT9ns0--Il2rDygJxVS_4k54BzirWfT-kfZGHkGjZ0A-8jWDFWDc502aGnB2g0BERYzrUnKCZcTsJ3uRelRUOAlBzyOVQKRNypx84sU1uHXzz1mA9B4dcSwrr246UPJ8ReJRZbOx8ZesQK-d1ADV6lNTazaXLkkyudOKHTZylwHl7ZocSx1x-Xm3j9Pf9cAi7urcBAXfBQv5XJvubiNzoG_Dp7NKMrYjDFZx71mSHPsc6-QFq9dISTtKHqw_Una6JDoWJAmjhHEa0ugG9XhSMzIZ0bAn_D1Hoj2piaGGfwAJFDocPNyXGNjGCQ5xMJN2WTEgnSZMqf4kxMAV9Ow2wjozCTqVjKM8XT_IOZZYkYVOMl7mm6yDvSBi6lpKs6rAF70WHVDrcgNBQtPGc0ECGe3kYwNJbcnnFq9QNOlL8UyzKkK-hcOF7u9f4aSKwrJfKdOOpk9MuqyoflixBzTc9Eq7uVVKRKAPSeuVNa5zc=w1680-h840-no

 

I simply used that PDF linked above and made a word doc that allowed me to screen capture the dashboard image and copy it into either a 3x4 or 3.5x5 plastic toploader sleeves made by Ultra Pro.

Like these:

I used the 3.5"x5" because I already owned a bunch. If I was buying new sleeves, i'd probably go 3"x4" next time as they are still slightly larger than the standard template.

Here's the docs I created for the 3.5x5 sleeves: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pEJYek3-vkACrBNKv84FXAwKZ6Yd9REG

  • There's 4 per page on my edited docs. Download all the docs and simply delete the images you don't want to print to save ink.
  • You could also print them as is and trim the yellow off if you wanted to use in smaller sleeves (or simply make the images smaller in word by double clicking the image and change the height/width setting on the top right of Word)

Print and cut them out. If you want to save space, I slipped 2 per sleeve (front and back).

  • For example, I might have Helicopter on one side and Gyrocopter on the other. Allows me to use less sleeves.

That said, then you just need some fine point dry erase markers and you're all set (highly recommend Expo brand and low odor).


That's it.

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  • 7 months later...
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  • 1 year later...

Please excuse my jumping onto this thread, but I’m extremely interested in finding a Gaslands session to join. Not a lot of practical experience with it, but I have the rules (Reloaded) and about three dozen vehicles in various states of paint & modding. Hoping to find similarly-minded nomads in the wasteland…

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4 hours ago, Nation said:

Please excuse my jumping onto this thread, but I’m extremely interested in finding a Gaslands session to join. Not a lot of practical experience with it, but I have the rules (Reloaded) and about three dozen vehicles in various states of paint & modding. Hoping to find similarly-minded nomads in the wasteland…

Welcome!  Hope you're staying Shiny and Chrome!

 

Where are you based at @Nation - if you're in the Portland area (which I'm guessing since you found us), we had some pretty fierce racing going on back in the before times, at the Ordo Clubhouse.  We've still got plenty of terrain, etc, and I'm sure we could lure some drivers out of hiding.

I'd be happy to get a refresher game in sometime - I'm typically at the Tuesday Game Nights at WOW, but can make other times and places work as well.  Gaslands has been on my list to get back into the rotation, so thanks for posting up!

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3 hours ago, Nation said:

I live on the near side of Happy Valley, so downtown and the east side are pretty convenient. I haven’t had the pleasure of playing Gaslands with a live opponent yet, so I’d be keen on giving it a shot. 

I haven't played in a long time (since @Ish) ran a league for us.

However, I agree would love to get a game in again. We played a 4 player gate race that ended in some awesome carnage (although slower to play), but still an awesome experience. a 1:1 two car race seems like a good first time player starting point. However a 3 car (I think it was like 45 points or something was also good to start with. I don't remember our exact starting points for intro games though). Heck, i don't recall enough of the rules to play a game yet...would definitely need to re-read...lol.

 

Pics of that 4 player race (2 cars a piece):

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My Toys:

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I will say, if you haven't tried them, there are beta rule updates the on the gaslands site for wipeouts and evading.  https://gaslands.com/blog/ .  They basically make wipeouts a little less punishing in lower gears and evades are easier the faster you are going.  I think they are pretty good changes and they worked pretty well when we tried them out.

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On 3/11/2022 at 4:25 PM, Dreg said:

I will say, if you haven't tried them, there are beta rule updates the on the gaslands site for wipeouts and evading.  https://gaslands.com/blog/ .  They basically make wipeouts a little less punishing in lower gears and evades are easier the faster you are going.  I think they are pretty good changes and they worked pretty well when we tried them out.

Thanks for that, I’ll take a look!

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On 3/12/2022 at 2:37 AM, Aaron W said:

Ooh - I've been itching to finally get back to the clubhouse again, and I would LOVE to play some Gaslands before long!

I’m not a Member (yet) but I’d like to do this at the Clubhouse, and take advantage of the terrain stock. Are there any frequent attendees who can suggest a date & time for a drop-in Gaslands game?

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8 hours ago, Nation said:

I’m not a Member (yet) but I’d like to do this at the Clubhouse, and take advantage of the terrain stock. Are there any frequent attendees who can suggest a date & time for a drop-in Gaslands game?

Well, I haven't actually been to the Clubhouse in about two years since, y'know, the world unpleasantness started, but I'm ready to get back into the mix! I can't make tomorrow, but I'd love to show up next Tuesday (3/22) to push some cars around the wasteland if there's interest. 

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