Turning 50 this year, I decided to run a little event with some of my gamer buddies from over the years. In a nod to the Oldhammer movement and the “Bring Out Your Lead!” event, I went with a Dark Future inspired logo and similar call-back to oldschool lead models…. Better Off Lead!!!
Better Off Lead (BOL) wasn’t an open event like Bring Out Your Lead in the UK, but a much, much smaller deal with old friends. I rented out an AirBnB in Lockhart, Texas… home of Texas BBQ, so participants could also partake in restaurants from the Big 3 families in Texas BBQ. As part of the pre-event festivities, I sent out each participant a 1:64 scale Greenlight Ford Falcon car to be modeled and displayed for a contest at BOL.
Putting the gaming schedule together over the course of a three-day weekend, I went with a full-day of Gaslands on Friday, a Gutter Bowl Tournament and Dungeon Crawl Classic adventure on Saturday. Sunday was a large Talisman game followed by light cardgames and general hang time. Additionally, I cobbled together a set of about 12 doorprizes to be given out over the weekend. To hold these doorprizes, and any other game books folks would need, I made a gaming swag bag that included a bag stickers, a sprue of Gaslands Implements of Carnage, and a DCC RPG starter book.
The first event on Friday, was the Gaslands Ford Falcon Car Show Rally. The winner used the services of “Savage” Sam Bolinsky (and Max). Basically, just a Bike and Sidecar to use in the Gaslands games that day. I also tossed in some BOL colored dice for the winner.
Let’s take a look at the results of the six Ford Falcons that showed up that weekend in Lockhart. Again, no one was to reveal their Falcon to others online prior to the event so we saw them all here for the first time.
Looking closer at these from left to right, we have The Red Devil and Master Blaster
Next up are Jerry Cans and Sky Rizzard
A twin-gunned Pursuit Special
And a hovering (Rule of Cool only) Unity-1 car
You’ll notice all the drivers next to the vehicles. These are from the excellent Citadel Dark Future line, Northstar’s Gaslands warriors, or Dark Alliance 1/72 Stalkers. I use foot models in my Gaslands games. If a car is wrecked, but doesn’t explode, the player can set a foot model on the wreck with the driver able to move a Short and shoot in the lower gear phases. Drivers have a hull point of 1 and are hit on a 5 or 6 (a 6 if in cover). Very simple rules.
The winner as decided by popular vote… The Red Devil.
We followed this up with three, six-player games of Gaslands. I made a few house rules to fit my Roswell ’98 setting, but the scenarios as listed in the rulebook were: Scavenger Party, Big Game Hunt, and Express Delivery. A few photos from the games:
The owner of the Sky Rizzard car was the big winner on the day. Their car was also the only one that didn’t get wrecked in any of the three scenarios…despite being a favorite snack of Graboids…
The Gutter Bowl event had an Oldhammer theme to it with all the teams being comprised of old lead and plastic Blood Bowl models. These are the ~28mm models Citadel released prior to the 2016 version of the game and the upscale to ~32mm. Some of these teams were originally painted over 20, almost 30 years ago. I last saw some of these models on the table in the very early 2000s. We themed the event around haggard players coming out of retirement for one final shot at glory. A coach could give one player on their team the Pro skill. This is the old star putting the team back together.
Like the Gaslands event, I made a little trophy set using old school models and event colored dice. The BOL Cup (Good for a once-per-game team re-roll) and Isabola Darkfang (cheerleader that allows one player to automatically make their Knock Out roll once per game).
The teams that showed up for another run on the Streets of Nuln:
The coach of the lizardman team, The Instagators, was the winner of the last time we all got together for a little BB-type event, so his team started with the BOL Cup and Isabola kit. Over the course of four games, my skaven team, the Wyrdstone Slashers, brought the BOL Cup home with a record of 3-0-1. One note on this team… That rat ogre was part of the the very first BB team I painted. This was maybe…1993? 1994? I don’t recall what happened to the rest of the models, they were the 2nd ed skaven metals, but the owner of the Chaos Dwarf team refused to let that converted rat ogre pass out of our hands and has held onto it for two decades. He sent it back to me in the mail, so I could make a new team around it using the 3rd edition metals. I bought a team on ebay and tried to match his colors. Being the only model I had left from that original team… I made him the old Pro.
Over the course of three days, we basically lived on BBQ and contents of a fridge well stocked with various alcoholic libations. This doesn’t include the Mystery Cooler, stocked with drinks, good and bad, where one had to consume whichever they pulled out from a blind grab. So… as the weekend went on…the photos decreased. Ha! Not many were taken during the Dungeon Crawl Classic rpg session, where our group of 15 plucky villagers saw only three survivors make it through the Sailors on the Starless Sea. I did get a photo of this greedy dwarf winning Talisman…making it rain cold crowns as he ascended to the Crown of Lead (Power).
Post Talisman were many games of Skull, a round of the Elector Counts cardgame, and general unwinding with discussions on the state of life and the world. I feel pretty lucky to have some good dudes willing to travel across the country for a weekend of hanging and gaming. I’m already looking forward to another round in the next year or two. A weekend away from responsibilities. A weekend to be….Better Off Lead.
13 March 2008, 02:33:11 AM