Deathrace 40,000! Boyl15 - Sunday

The Track is assembled for the first time

The highlight of Sunday was a marvellous example of why a bunch of grown men spent the weekend acting like 5 year olds in a sweet shop. The legend that is Captain Crooks flew all the way from the Antipodes to join in the Oldhammer fun. He had sent the Killdozer over last year to take part in the gorkamorka gambit this time he out did himself. The good Captain wrote the rules and printed out (and laminated!) game sheets and cards as well as organising a crew of folks to put the game together. 

As he was flying the amount he could bring was obviously limited but we all rallied around to make sure his vision was fulfilled. The track itself was the result of the efforts of the Fabulous Erny, the Gentlemanly Fimm McCool (who didn't even play in the game! Bless his bearded soul!) and myself. You can see the mat I made for the bottom half of the track above to which has been added some of the Ferrograd buildings.

Erny made the lava jump section and the starting grid/pits section and Fimm built the desert section and sculpted and painted the Gnomads that were sitting taking pot shots at anybody who cleared the Lava jump (he even gave every contestant a bag of the little weirdos to celebrate the game! What a true hero!)

The good captains wife had made the start line signage and the ramps and they'd survived the trip across the world!

Their were twelve contestants in all, the Bel air special (check out the covers of old dark future novels), The Mork 5 (speed racer crossed with a resin gobsmasha), The chaos Flyer (JB's postmodern take on the daddy of all Rogue Trader scratch builds), My own Ork Battlewagon, Ramshackle Curtis raider, The orky flyboys in a AT43 flyer, A couple of Imperial guard driving two mustangs - On top of each other!, The tombstone express in all it's wacky races-esque glory, the return of the Killdozer, Blorko's Bullit with working remote control and the Redback being drive by the Captain on behalf of Bluey. A twelfth contestant entered at the last minute and added more works to the party!

The Contestants revved their engines!

and the carnage started immediately!

The turns were random by using cards. Each car had a maximum speed and most of the cars attempted to travel at the speed from the start. We used the old red bendy measuring sticks and basically if the stick can bend that way then your car can. If you encounter another vehicle a dice roll decides what the outcome is. The emphasis is on fun and that's certainly what we got!

The flyboys were the first to crashing one of the buildings

And a conga line of revving maniacs followed

Gunfire, explosions, skids and curses flew round the first corner

I decide to cheat. I cut the first corner and was the first over the Lava jump only to have my wheels damaged by the fire of the Gnomads.

The Lavajump wasn't a foregone conclusion however, as JB found out. In the background you can see Blorko's bullet who has also been cheating by reversing from the starting grid to pick up activatiosn for his weapons.

My plan of speeding round the track and making up time by avoiding the others was going well until I was diverted by some sneaky gobbos (painted by the talented Cheetor, owner of Mork 5)

And I crashed into a rock pillar stopping me dead.

Meanwhile, the Flyboys had finished a full lap and were on their second when they were finally put out of the race.

The Bell air special made sure they stayed out. Ramshackle curtis can be seen photobombing in the background, he raider was the first to be disabled and spent the rest of the game being pushed towards the pits.

I managed another Lap before the Tombstone express destroyed my wheels with some well placed caltrops, leaving the Battlewagon stranded in the middle of the track.

However the crew bailed out and pegged it down the track to pick up a plasma pistol and started taking shots at the passing racers.

And I put JB out of the race while he was on his final Lap with no one in front of him! Sorry JB!

The last couple of racers were not far behind and while the Redback concentrated on winning, the Killdozer had other ideas.

And my poor driver got splatted against the building when he failed to jump out of the way.

This is one of those games that is going to be hard to top. The fact that the track hadn't been put together before the day, that we hadn't met the Captain before the weekend, that we had no idea if the game was going to work are testament to the fact that all of us were there to have fun and that we were going make it work no matter what. The whole weekend felt like a couple of days with your old mates and the next opportunity to get together and do mad things with toy soldiers all over again can't come soon enough.